Hacking the PSP Blog

PSP vs. DS - One Year Later

As E3 2006 draws near and the great next-gen console war begins to take shape, it's easy to forget, in all the hype surrounding the Nintendo Revolution and the Sony PS3, that there's already a major knock-down, drag-out brawl in progress.

That fight is, of course, between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. And it's been a bloody affair. In fact, the portable-format wars have already seen their share of casualties. Nintendo and Sony, for all their competition, can take heart in the fact that the time and money invested into their handheld battle has at least had the effect of destroying all the other competition in record time, from the Zodiac to the Gizmondo to the N-Gage.

And then there were two. The DS is cleaning up in Japan -- the sheer demand for the console there has siphoned every single unit from the marketplace, while PSPs sit unloved on store shelves. But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race. And, since the PSP launched one year ago on March 24th, 2005, we thought it'd be an excellent time to revisit the past year and gauge the situation as it stands today.

Read the entire article on 1Up.com here...

Sony working to stop UMD loaders?

Personally, I think UMD loaders are only really used for piracy. I've heard excuses that it extends battery life, but that's BS - if you're running UMD images, you probably don't own the games :) Let's not pirate, folks! It hurts us all! -Auri

Reports are now starting to come in that Sony is starting to get a little tricky for those of you who run UMD backups via Memory Stick.  In their latest release, Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast, there appears to be absolutely NO PRX files or folders located on the UMD.  Basically, it's going to be more difficult to decrypt the PRX files with the currently available homebrew application, and UMD Loaders such as Run UMD 2.0+ Game Loader and MPH 2.0 Game Loader may run into issues as well.

Source: PSPUpdates

"But the PSP IS your life" say new ads...

More or less anyway. Sony has released some new ads for the PSP in Japan, where their product probably needs all the help it can get. Two of the ads in particular, the "Good morning" and "Good night" ones, depict a Japanese gal beginning and ending her day with the handheld, using it for everything from listening to music while she vacuums to looking up recipes for dinner and nail care tips (seen on the left there) via the WiFi, and even (Gasp!) some gaming.

Recipes for dinner? Really? Maybe I'm just not devoted enough, but wouldn't it have been easier to do that with a real computer? With..you know..a keyboard? The commercials are catchy, but it's interesting that even this late in the game Sony continues to try to sell the PSP as an "It can do anything!" Swiss-army knife when it's clear many (if not most) gamers just want a solid gaming platform.

Source: PSPUpdates

EA FIFA World Cup 2006 Site Now Online

EA has opened their website for this year's take on the FIFA World Cup!

At least, contrary to current trends, it doesn't bombard you with startling music and 10 MB Flash animations, opting for a clean, text-reliant layout instead. On the main page, you'll find real-life football headlines linked from the ESPN network, while the navigation bar provides a quick overview of the game's features, the stadiums included, and so on.

As with almost all game sites, expect no wonders content-wise, but it's designed like they're actually going to add a few useful things to it after the launch.

Source: PSPUpdates

Digg Viewing Site Formatted for PSP

Lucas Steigmeyer has made a cool modification which allows you to view Digg [www.digg.com], a very popular technology news site, on your PSP's web browser. It allows you to read snippets of the latest front page stories. Although once you click on an individual news link, it opens the original Digg page; the website is very useful if you just want to check out the latest news snippets on the go. Although this is quite old, and has been featured on Digg, I get the feeling that only a few people know about it.

Since the modified page uses Digg's own RSS feed, you get the news hot off the front page.

Check it out here.

Source: PSPUpdates

New Stuck Pixel Fixer Released

Califrag has released his version of color flasher (so-called stuck pixel fixer), LUA ColorPlay v16,777,216. In this program written in Lua, it is possible to flash 16-Million color on your screen. You can have the program looping the whole 16M colors on its own, or adjust the range you want it to flash. There is also a battery life display and a world clock setting in the program.

You can download it here.

Here is a detailed lecture about the dead pixel issue and how it can be fixed written by Califrag. Pretty good for reading:

Many wonder what causes stuck or dead pixels? Well it's pretty simple... the psp's screen is made up of tiny transistors and each one controls one pixel on the screen. (480*272=130,560 transistors!!) So it's very possible that one or two transistors might be bad. This causes a DEAD pixel which simply you cannot do anything with... The transistor is dead and you must replace the TFT screen.

Stuck pixels on the other hand, and pixels which have suffered from a voltage spike or drop, and are set a permanent color on the screen. As the screen refreshes, each transistor receives a certain voltage which displays to corresponding color in the pixel. It's possible to unstick these pixels by giving the transistor the right amount of voltage to trigger that color again and get the pixel refreshing correctly. However with so many possible colors it's hard to get the correct voltage to that transistor to trigger that pixel again.

For more information visit [here]. (I would recommend reading the whole article but that goes right to TFT color LCD screens)

The script I coded will cycle through all 16 million + colors in attempt to catch that stuck pixel. The user can choose to cycle through the colors going Forwards, Reverse or even Randomly. You also have the option to manually increment the R G B values +/- 1, flash the screen full black, full white, full red, full green, full blue and take screenshots. There is a built-in clock and battery level indicator as this does suck up the battery juice pretty well.

Source: PSPUpdates

Homebrew: New PSP Homebrew Releases for March 27, 2006

One from every category today, except games. Good stuff!

Applications
SimpleAmp Beta 1 - Homebrew MP3 player with cool graphics.

Utilities
LUA ColorPlay v16,777,216 Stuck Pixel Fixer - Attempts to unstick the stuck (not quite dead yet) pixels on your PSP's display. Also a cool flashy color demo.

Emulators
HP48 Calculator Emulator 1.0.3

Software Development
Jas Game Engine (JGE) v0.2 - Platform to build JGE games with the PSP SDK.

Shells and Operating Systems
PSP-OSS Theme Pack Update

Not PSP, but cool: Play NES Games on XBox 360 with this Hack

Xexter on XBox Scene has figured out a way to run the NESCafe emulator on the XBox 360. From his entry:

I've attached a link to a version of NESCafe that works through Media Center on the Xbox 360. This is currently setup to run at 480p (Widescreen). You can edit the nes.htm file if it does not fit correctly on your screen. I haven't found a way to add a menu for the roms list so you will have to edit the nes.htm and change <param name="ROMFILE" value="/roms/whateverrom.zip" /> to whatever Nes rom you want to play. I've included a Public Domain rom for testing but have verified Zelda1-2, Excitebike, and TecmoBowl and all worked.
Please do not ask for ROMs as they are quite easy to find (Google - "Nes Roms").

DOWNLOAD RAR: http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=58730

INSTALL:
You will need to extract the rar into C:Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Media Center\Media Center Programs\ on your media center box. It took a bit for the icon to show up under More Programs but it finally will.

NOTES: Sound is not functioning, Media Center 2005 is required. If it locks up you will need to run something that warns you that it is a web page and check the box that says "Don’t show this again". Once you do that it should run fine. I created an MCL that just went to Google and then checked that box. I've also attached an image with the mapping of the XBox Controller to the corresponding keyboard keys.

-X


Read the entire thread here.