If the PS3 remained hardware backward compatible

[inlimbo]

If the PS3 remained hardware backward compatible through its lifecycle

would we have seen devs using the PS2 chips as coprocessors? Or let me rephrase that: would that have been possible or did Sony discretely make that an impossibility? And if it's possible, would it have been viable or a dead end?

I think of Andy Gavin admitting Naughty Dog used the PS1's CPU as a coprocessor for the Jak and Daxters, against Sony's standards, and wonder about this.

 

[archie4oz]

Not really. It wasn't architected into the system to be a critical component, so even if you enabled access it'd be of little use.

On the PS2 the Playstation ASIC was a part of normal functionality of the PS2 runtime as an audio controller/IO processor.

 

[inlimbo]

Makes sense. Wonder how Naughty Dog got anything out of the PS1's chip, then.

edit: or anything extra out of it, if it was a dedicated part of the PS2's pipeline

 

[Grall]

Interesting aside, I recall reading that the PS1 chipset changed in later versions of PS2 hardware (probably in one of the slim revisions) to no longer being binary compatible with the original PS1 CPU. Presumably, the new CPU ran some kind of code emulator to still remain compatible with existing software titles... *shrug* No idea why they'd do something like that; maybe to avoid having to spend money shrinking the old chips down to a new fabrication node...