Preparing your PSP to run Home Brew applications

[Xalthorn]

If, like I was, you are really keen to get into the PSP Home Brew scene but haven't got a clue what to do, this topic should help. I'll try to keep it non technical.

First of all, I feel it is important to point out why you need to modify your PSP.

All official games and demos are digitally signed by Sony in a way that we can't reproduce. This means that all unofficial software, including the modified firmwares, simply will not load or run on an unmodified PSP.

We have to convince our PSP that it really doesn't need to worry about such a signature and run the software anyway. There are a number of methods of doing this on old firmwares, but nowadays you need a magic thing called a 'Pandora Battery'. This is a specially prepared battery that puts the PSP into a service mode that ignores the digital signatures.

You can make a Pandora battery yourself following the instructions here:

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=21280

However, if that completely freaks you out, Datel sell batteries and devices through their codejunkies store:

http://www.codejunkies.com/

If you just want a magic battery, you want either the 'PSP MAX Power Tool' or the 'PSP MAX Power Tool Slim', depending on which version of the PSP you own.

Once you have your magic battery, you are ready to load a custom firmware that will let you run Home Brew stuff. The link below has everything you need, just read everything twice, carefully, and for heavens sake make sure you make a dump of your existing firmware just in case you ever want to put things back to normal.

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=94439

The hardest thing I encountered was working out what I needed to do and what resources I needed to do it with. Knowing you need a magic battery and the custom firware installer, you should get things going nice and quickly.

[Pirata Nervo]

this is a development board

[Xalthorn]

Yes, I appreciate that. However, I get the impression that the board is filled with questions that would be answered by my post and if this post helps to reduce the number of 'off topic' questions surely that's a good thing?

[Pirata Nervo]

no, this board is for development and by creating threads like this.
People will start linking noobs to your thread and then more noobs will start posting off-topic questions

[J.F.]

No, your post won't answer anything as noobs never read threads before asking their inane questions. So you aren't cutting down the number of stupid posts at all, merely making one more post that devs have to wade through to get to the real stuff. :)

[jean]

<< Don't feed the noobs >>

[angelo]

People come to http://forums.noobz.eu site for noby questions. I'm the one that normaly answers them!

Nobody in their right mind would post a downgrading question here, but a question about LUA or C/C++.

Enough said!