10 Days of Hacking, Day 4: The PSP, Part 1

Acid_Snake

I like beer.

35 Responses

  1. Arthanis says:

    I don’t care about being the first, but I do care to be the first one to salute almighty Dark Alex. DaX, you rocked hard and will always be remembered.

  2. Mike says:

    I totally remember the good old days of memory stick swapping just to get doom to run on my psp… It’s amazing to see how far all these hacks have gone for the psp.

  3. PSPcfwDUDE says:

    Can’t wait for Part 2, it’s so awesome!

  4. shapeshifter says:

    you forgot about devhook and pandora they were amazing in every hack ever made

  5. shapeshifter says:

    ohh and great posts btw keep it up!! 🙂

  6. Jun DeJane says:

    Reading this makes me want an PSP-1000 again, just to run M33 CFW and using Time Machine to go back to 1.50 and back again to CFW. Those were some fun times! Brings back a lot of memories! Thanks for a nice true story here, good reading and looking forward to part two.

  7. ivo says:

    is ther a psp software downloader thats vita prepared ?
    preferred iso and torrented ?
    cheers

    • Acid_Snake says:

      we have a zero tolerance policy against piracy

      • Faiz says:

        Isn’t hacking to get free psp iso’s from an exploit piracy?

        • tinostar91 says:

          Is installing (legal) Windows which allows you to download and install pirated games also considered as piracy?
          Some people use their exploit to play backups of games which they already have for PSP in form of UMDs and don’t want to buy it again not to mention a huge amount of homebrews which they enjoy.
          He clearly asked for a tool capable of downloading isos so it’s definitely NOT his backup of a legally bought copy, that’s piracy.

  8. Frezzno says:

    All these 10 days of hacking is fun reading. I just shut everything off to be able concentrate on the reading. I tell my boss at work that I’m ill need to go home, then I tell my wife I’ll work late don’t wait for me. Then I go to some small cafeteria an just read. Pop up the old PSP and dream away. When the battery is out I continue on PS vita. Reading these articles makes you think about old time and it take hours, and a lot of coffee. These articles are amazing. Keep up the good work.

  9. VitaIsPSP2 says:

    So much nostalgia. This is the device that got me into console hacking in the first place. 2005, when I was only in my first year as a teenager. Can’t believe it’s already been 9 years! When PSP came out 9 years ago was 1996, 1996-2005 feels like it went by longer than 2005-2014.

  10. Nazar_Ops says:

    Ah, the good old PSP days. Unfortunately, I never got my hands on a PSP 1000 or PSP 2000 with the hackable motherboard. I was late to the party. I got my PSP back in February 2009, I thought I could hack it the same way as the previous versions. But nope, I couldn’t. And that was a total let down.

    But then eventually they found the Chickhen exploit and the PSP 3000 got hacked, but still. It wasn’t the same as hacking the PSP with a pandora battery.

  11. VitaIsPSP2 says:

    There is a mistake in the article. The 2.00 to 1.50 downgrader didn’t use GTA, it was a TIFF exploit. Perhaps Acid_Snake got mixed up with GTALCS being the first game to require 2.00.

    The GTALCS exploit was for the 2.60/2.50 to 1.50 downgrader and the exploit was found thanks to Edison_Carter’s cheatdevice (he also was famous for finding unreleased cheats in San Andreas).

  12. Nazar_Ops says:

    I hope we can make some memorable memories with the VITA 🙂

  13. ivo says:

    releasing 5.00 M33-6,

    what about re-releasing it for tnv ?
    or any other custom firmware in tnv on vita ?
    cheers

  14. Hutchy says:

    I guess dark alex got the final laugh because m33 could connect to psn even today.

  15. Hudavendigar says:

    Just to clear up one mistake in the article, the 2.00 downgrader used a .TIFF exploit, whereas the 2.60/2.50 downgrader was the one that used GTALCS and Lumines was used for a 3.XX (I forget which) downgrader.

  16. NeonAera says:

    Ah, the original PSP. The portable gaming system that got me hooked onto homebrew, backing up my own ISO’s, hacks. q:

    Nice article, Acid_Snake.

  17. Wrozen says:

    Dark Alex’s first custom firmware wasn’t “Open Edition” as stated in the article above. It was actually “SE” (Special Edition) for 2.71. And actually even before that he released the POC firmware for 1.50 “technically” his first cfw but it couldn’t do much.

  18. xPreatorianx says:

    K, I have to make one “negative” comment about this article. The part about the GTA UMD’s and their pricing on ebay. How on earth is that cheating, or ripping off the scene’s work? Unless of course they not only sold the UMD, but the required files to get a PSP setup as well. But still that’s a bit of grey area to me. Because in all honesty the UMD pricing can all be chalked up to “supply and demand.” There was a highly limited supply and thus the demand for it was that much greater. So people had to pay more for it.

    This same principle holds true for collector’s items of all sorts. As the item in question has become a collector’s item due to it’s availability. So people have to pay a high price depending on that rarity.

    So you can’t blame people for selling the game for extremely high prices because of a simple economic principle or law. Unless of course they packaged the files up and called them their own. Then yes, I agree, they are ***.

    • ed says:

      na i agree with acid_snake they are ***holes. much the same as ticket touts selling tickets at extortionate prices to desperate fans! touts are scum of the earth

  19. xPreatorianx says:

    But nice article overall! I enjoyed it. I loved the PSP scene and hope one day after the PS Vita has saturated the market enough, and enough games exist that it doesn’t destroy the market and the handheld. We can have the same level of access to our PS Vita’s that we did on the PSP with full custom firmware on the PS Vita side.

    Also I have to send my thanks and appreciation towards Dark_Alex as well! The man is a *** genius! He definitely knew how to make the PSP sing and sing all day long.

  20. qwikrazor87 says:

    The great pillar of the hacking community, the cornerstone of it’s foundation. Props to him for leaving such a legacy.

  21. G0l3m says:

    For those who want a really deep look into the history I recommend https://github.com/bibanon/android-development-codex/wiki/PSP-Custom-Firmware-History and of course TyRaNiD’s talk at 24c3 https://media.ccc.de/v/24c3-2209-en-playstation_portable_cracking

    Quote from the page “.Using a dumped PSP system ROM image, and the knowledge discovered from the Wipeout disc, the layout of the executable format was successfully reverse-engineered by a hacker named “NEM” and the “Saturn Expedition Committee” group. ”
    Thats where it all started somehow. I still remember the days idling on IRC, testing the new recovery flasher versions and cracking the E-1000 at gamescom month before beeing released. Shout outs to Mathieulh, Hellcat, some1, davee, Dark Alex, Silverspring , team noobz , Red Squirrel, npt (R.I.P) and all those who contributed or who are still contributing to the scene. And of course, you wololo for giving us cheap game exploits, HBL and a forum.