On April 19th I’ll be flying to Thailand with Maggie for our honeymoon. I generally travel well and after tackling the Perth → San Francisco flight a few years back without any problems, the 6 or so hours it takes to get to Phuket should pass relatively quickly. I’ve got a bunch of magazines to read already and some of my book to finish, but I also have a Sony PSP that I only ever use when traveling. It came in really handy when I was stuck next to the crazy bum for a few hours on the bus from Banff.

The problem is that I only have a few games and there quite old and not very interesting anymore. I do however have some technical know-how, so hacking these gadgets isn’t beyond my capability. 

There’s a pretty big homebrew scene behind PSP development, so finding information wasn’t hard. I found PSP Hacks to be a really good site, especially their forums. I keep typing php-hacks.com by mistake :)

It seems as though Sony is in a constant state of “catch up” with the hacker community, and this has always been the case since the original PlayStation days. Sony will release a new firmware (that’s the small bit of software that runs on the system when it turns on) which adds a few features, like a web browser, RSS capabilities or increased PS3 interaction every few months. They also modify the hardware once in a while when manufacturing processes change (like chips get smaller or alternative parts become cheaper). When they do, they close any holes found in the last release of the software. The hackers then look for new holes and try to exploit them. This process continues until the system is retired and nobody cares about it anymore.

A few months back I upgraded to v3.90 of the firmware which was the latest at the time. I was toying with the idea of writing a very basic monitoring application and using the PSP as an output device. It answered some questions (can the PSP browser respond to a meta refresh request?) but I didn’t go any further with it.

The problem with upgrading is that you can no longer use your homebrew software because Sony fixed the problems that allowed it in the past. But things have changed a lot in the last few years and especially in the last few months.

About 6 months ago a bunch of hackers learnt that Sony programmed the PSP in such a way that it was possible to recover a a bricked system (that is, a system that had its flash memory borged with a dodgy upgrade) if you had the right tools. If you jammed the right battery in the PSP then it would know to boot form the memory stick instead of from the flash memory inside the device. Consequently, if you could get the PSP to run unsigned (that is not approved by Sony) code then you could do all sorts of things with it.

… and low and behold, the dots were connected and we now have Pandora’s Battery available to PSP enthusiasts around the world. You can make your own by cracking open a standard battery and lifting a pin off the board but that ruins the battery and there’s potential for tears, so I bought one for $50 from Mod Supplier. It included free overnight shipping. I ordered it at half-past midnight on Wednesday morning and it was in my hand Thursday. Very swift.

I checked around on YouTube and there’s stacks of videos showing you how to use your Pandora’s Battery. It’s really simple.

 

1. Turn the PSP on.
2. Plug the PSP into the AC or USB charger.
3. Pull out the standard battery and insert Pandora’s Battery, leaving the power plugged in.
4. Leave the battery charging for at least an hour (I left mine for a few hours and it was 100% charged).

 

I then used some software called PSP Grader to make my memory stick. Interestingly, it looks like v0.2 has been released in the last few days. This new version takes you directly to firmware v3.90 M33-3 whereas the version I used took me to firmware v3.80 M33-2.

You need the the two eBoot images shown above because the Lite version doesn’t ship with this. They’re easy to learn about and download via Dark Alex. It’s worth noting that PSP Grader worked flawlessly inside Parallels (which booted my Boot Camp partition).

Using the software creates a magic memory stick. Jam that into the slot, hold down the right bumper and insert Pandora’s Battery into the PSP and it will boot for you. Follow the instructions to install the new firmware.

I easily upgraded to v3.90 M33-3 through the integrated system updater. Since firmware v3.80 M33-2 you can automatically upgrade your firmware directly from Dark Alex’s site using the same update process that the original firmware uses. You access this via Settings → Network Update.

The whole process really was quite simple and I’m now enjoying homebrew applications on my PSP. To top it all off I bought a 4GB Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo (say that 5-times-fast) from David Jones for $65. They retail for $115 but I had a $50 voucher from Christmas so it was effectively half price for me ;) I already had a 2GB card so now the PSP is jammed full of storage.

If you’re in the Perth area and want access to a Pandora’s Battery, drop me a line or leave a comment. I’d love to see someone else get some use out of this great little tool.