Newbie with 1,000 questions ( not really 1,000, but close enough)

[surtees]

to be honest with you i don't know how sony work their models out,but whats confusing me is,you say yours is 30001,my console is a 3500* (*=something)sorry i'm not at home at the moment to check.mine is a vers 4. i thought the 3000-30001 were the very first models to be bought out(launch date) i may well be wrong, i'm sure i'm bound to find out eh.