I’ve been getting some help with How-To’s over at engadget. One of our favorite hardware hackers Ben Heckendorn put up part two of his analog joystick PSP mod. When he showed me the original I was surprised at just how simple this mod is. Part one showed off the wiring, while part two puts it in a clip on enclosure. Who else would strap a jerky tin to his PSP?
Playstation Hacks197 Articles
PSP Firmware Downgrader
[wraggster] was first to send in the latest news on PSP hacking. Yesterday a firmware downgrader was released to take PSPs running v2.71 down to the homebrew friendly v1.5 firmware. The authors took advantage of a tiff expolit to get it working and apparently bricked four PSPs in the process. Looks like it’s working, but there are plenty of caveats to read up on before giving it a shot.
Simple GPS Setup For PSP
[deniska] is working on a real-time GPS map viewing application. The application will determine the location using this simple PSP GPS setup. Deniska modified the connector on a $100 Holux GPS unit so that it could be read through the PSP remote port. A test program that works in kernel mode is provided. Deniska notes that this will probably work with older (read: cheaper) Holux units as well.
[thanks Will]
PSP Remote Serial Interface
This PSP remote interface article gets submitted from time to time, but keeps falling through the cracks for some reason. [XyTec] submitted it most recently and I finally remembered to post it. It’s a guide from last July on interfacing with the PSP’s remote port. The port is a serial interface at 2.5V so you need to do some level shifting. Once the cable is complete you can use it get a serial console, add GPS or dump debug info along with many other possibilities. A remote emulator program is provided.
DDR Whack-a-mole
Drew and Calvin built this DDR whack-a-mole game for their EECS 373 class. It’s powered by a Freescale MPC823. The processor controls eight servos with pictures of their friend Malav. The game runs for 20 seconds and then reports how many Malavs you’ve stepped on. They say that the hardest part of this project was figuring out how to properly read the Playstation DDR pad.
[thanks Ano nym ous]
Playstation Controller PC Card
[timmeh] already had a parallel port PCMCIA card when he started on this Playstation controller port card. He cracked the case to discover that the circuit board only took up about two-thirds of the case. After that it was pretty easy to fit the port onto the card and wire it up. The second slot in his laptop was non functioning from factory, so using the space wasn’t an actual loss.
Building IR Peripherals For The PSP
C.K. has always been the goto guy around here when it comes to testing out new PSP hacks. Firstly because he was writing a PSP Hacks book and had plenty of hardware laying around; Secondly because it kept me from having to field questions in the excessively long firmware threads. The book has been published and O’Reilly has posted some sample chapters. Thomas Novotny wrote this chapter on interfacing the PSP with peripherals over IR (PDF). It’s similar to our previous entry, but has better documentation and doesn’t assume that you are experienced with microcontrollers.
