Hacking the PSP Blog

The objective of Abombniball is to defuse all the explosives on each level. As a ball, this would normally be a simple task, however each level is filled with traps and devious puzzles placed there by...oh...lets say "Dr. Y-Front", your arch-nemesis (he's very evil). These traps take the form of special tiles which disappear or do other nasty things.

Grey Tile - A solid tile. He never falls away and abandons you like all those other tiles. He's always be there for you.

Blue Tile
Green Tile
Red Tile - These all vanish after you leave them. Leaving a gapping
hole in the grid and an empty space in your heart.

2 Tile - More caring and forgiving than those selfish color tiles. You can bounce on these submissive fellas twice before they vanish.

Blue Arrow - Rude fellows. Shove you in whatever direction the arrow is pointing.

Red Arrow - Even ruder still. They make you jump in whatever direction the arrow is pointing.

You defuse bombs by landing on the bombs square, however you can only defuse the bomb thats currently counting down. Trying to defuse any other bomb will cause it to explode.

Each level provides you with a certain amount of jumps, they are limit so use them with care.

Controls (Analogue stick)
--------
Left - Move left
Right - Move right
Up - Move up
Down - Move down
(hold) X button - Jump

Danzel has put forth his newest version of his PSP Telnet application, Peldet v0.8.  After working around some computer problems, he has hammered out his latest release with tons of great additions and functionalities.

Whats new in this version?
I wrote an (almost) complete vt100 emulator and added in some telnet protocol negotiations.
What does this mean to you? Well it means that PSP is now a very powerful and featureful machine.
You can now browse the web, check email, stream movies, get on MSN/AOL/ICQ/GTalk/IRC, play text adventures and play nethack!!!

Heres a cutdown version of the changelog:

• fixed some p_sprint bugs, the keyboard image is correct now.
• Much better telnet support, I've implemented a vt100 emulator, currently it lacks a few features and seems to have some bugs, but it is good for most programs.
• There is a known crash bug in telnet, read the README, I want your stack trace if it happens!

Programs List (If you have ran some programs, please post feedback and I'll add statuses here)

nethack
Works fine with default term, make sure you have colors turned on in your .nethackrc so you can enjoy them
Hard to control though, will get its own keyboard layout in a future version.

elinks
Works fine with default term, the control keys keyset is very good here .

nano
Doesn't work with default term, runs with TERM=vt100. You can't do anything as ctrl-keys dont work. (I <3 this app so I'll definately get It fixed)

mplayer - Stream movies to your psp! (sorta, lol)
I run mplayer with - mplayer -quiet -vo caca /myvideofile.avi
It runs fine render wise. However on high framerate clips it likely runs too slow, infact you'll probally find that peldet 0.8 runs too slow to watch stuff, overclock your psp to 333mhz and it should run better (this will get improved in the future)

BitchX
Works great use it with bitlbee (www.bitlbee.org) to get on all the messenger networks.

Danzel has also put out a “special” version for those wanting to play videos with Peldet. Basically this version overclocks the CPU to 333mhz to help render the videos better.

You can download both versions here.

Pox and Ragable have just released their 10th PSPHacking101 video episode. This episode covers the 2.50 web browser on a 1.5 PSP, PSP firmware by Box and a stunning preview of Quake 2 port by McZonk.

The changes include:

- New PSP engine for better visual experience
- Integrity-check routines for error-free software compilation
- Added support for animations (animated GIF's)
- Added support for timers to go to other places after a given time
- Added semi-transparent background for the text messages
- Improved installer for loading the produced software on the PSP

Adventure Maker is the ONLY toolkit available for creating point-and-click software for legal 2.x PSP's. No scripting or programming is required, and the program is totally free!

The produced software is compatible with any legal firmware 2.x, and does not require any system modification or hacking of any kind! (it is safe HTML-based software that runs through the PSP built-in Browser)

What you can create for the PSP is:
- First-person point-and-click adventure games
- Interactive magazines
- Myst/Riven-like games
- Educational software
- Quiz games
- Interactive visits
- Tour guides (museums, sites...)
- Interactive presentations and brochures
- Interactive comic books...

..and any other pre-rendered point-and-click software!

The concept is very simple: you import your pictures (photos, drawings, renderings...), you add hotspots to link them to one another, and you are done! You can even create complex puzzles without any scripting: just create some variables, and then make the hotspots or pictures appear or disappear depending on the value of the variables!

To see a few examples of what you can achieve without any programming, make sure to try out the free PSP games available at the following URL:
http://www.adventuremaker.com/games_for_portable.htm

GameBank has posted about a tripod speaker for the PSP.

The tripod speaker can server not only as a amplifier, but also a tripod stand for the PSP. Other details:

• Made in Korea
• In package:
  – Tripod stand * 1
  – Bracket to use with the speaker * 1
  – Audio cable * 1
  – AAA battery * 1 (for testing purpose only)
• Color: silver
• Package and instructions is in English
• Please remember no to block the audio jack on the speaker when installing the bracket
• Please turn off the speaker when not in use for saving power
• The PSP itself is not included in the package

The price of this product is 5,980JPY (around $51 USD).

You can buy it [here].

Gamespot has announced their favorite PSP game of the year. The candidates are:

• Burnout Legends
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
• Lumines
• SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo
• Wipeout Pure

And the winner is:

“Lumines, the launch game from legendary developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, has a noteworthy pedigree and the gameplay to back it up. The simple genius behind this puzzle game can best be compared to Tetris, and yet it doesn't just derive from what made the most classic of all puzzle games great, but brings its own brand of ingenuity to the table. Not only does it play well, but it looks and sounds sensational too. A strong soundtrack and beautifully rendered graphics only help to enhance this stylish and personable game. Though the PSP certainly has the strength to become the powerhouse of all the portable consoles, its greatest achievement this year was one of its simplest, proving that you don't need a lot of muscle to make a great game.”

I must admit that Lumines is a cool game, but it always gets too hard after some level-ups ;-P

Graffiti-style advertisements by Sony Corp. to promote its PlayStation Portable gaming system at three sites in North and South Philadelphia have been painted over by irate neighbors, city officials said yesterday.

The ads, featuring bug-eyed youngsters with PlayStation Portables, were stenciled onto walls with spray paint this week. The locations were Girard Avenue near 15th and Eighth Streets and Passyunk Avenue in the Queen Village section of South Philadelphia. Two of the ads were painted over Thursday night or early yesterday, and one was painted over earlier this week, officials said.

Pedro Ramos, city managing director, said: "The ads were illegal because they lacked proper zoning and licenses. They were phony, in that they were commercial advertising masquerading as something else. And they are disrespectful of the neighborhoods where Sony thought it could get away with this conduct."

1) You must first install a webserver on your PC. k7m has written one specifically for iTunesRemote which you can download [here]. To install it, simpley unzip the file and start iTunesRemote.exe. The webserver is listening on port 81, so you only have to browse to

http://[Local Address Here]:81/iTunesRemote.php.

2) Open iTunesRemote.php in Notepad. change the variable $pathToHTTPDir to the directory that iTunesRemote.php is in (my file has a different location in it, so be wary). Remember that in PHP, all symbols must be preceded by a \, which is why one should separate directories with "\\" in this instance (you'll get an error otherwise).

3) Make sure iTunes is open and has a song in the ticker bar (you shouldn't see the apple)

4) Navigate your PSP or Wipeout Browser to http://[LocalHost Here]/psp/iTunesRemote.php (or whatever file structure you placed inside of the htdocs folder)

5) Enjoy your iTunes Remote Control. it makes you a lot less dorky searching through your music library with a sleek PSP than with your computer, so be sure to use this to your advantage.

The design is fully customizable, just edit the psp/template.html file. the %variablenames% variables will be replaced by their current value at runtime. More features will be added soon ...