[Chuck Cage] and friends have been building a variety of arcade racing platforms. The third version, pictured above, has a real racing seat and can support a 32″ television. They’ve got advice for navigating the local “you-pull-it” when buying seats. There are material and paint selection tips on the site as well along with pictures of their three different versions.
[Paul Skinner] sent in an interesting project that he has been working on. The goal is to use biofeedback (heart rate, skin temperature) for sound control. The Playstation controller offers multiple analog inputs so Paul decided to modify one to use as an analog to digital converter. Before tearing the controller down he connected the controller to Max/MSP to make sure he could read the inputs. The majority of the project was spent building amplifiers for the skin temperature and other sensors. Once the amplifier circuit was constructed Paul built several Max/MSP patches to use the data.
If [Fluke]’s comment is correct, then the Sony PSP 2.01 firmware is already in the wild. Here is a handy Hack-A-Day guide so you can tell at a glance whether you should upgrade your firmware. All you have to do is compare the firmware version number to the previous release:
If the first digit has changed (1.5 -> 2.0) then Sony has gotten around to adding a major feature that should have been available since the product’s initial release (web browser). Thanks to the magic of firmware upgrades manufacturers can leave lots of features out of product launches.
If the second digit has changed (1.0 -> 1.5) then Sony has released the hardware in your country. The games aren’t region-locked so there is really no reason for the launch delay.
If the third digit has changed (2.00 -> 2.01) then Sony has decided that you’ve been having entirely too much fun with your hardware without their help and are determined to re-break it.
UPDATE: Since this how-to was first written things have changed. Sony has released firmware 2.01 which makes this downgrade impossible. A PSP bricker trojan was released because of this antivirus software will classify both the good and bad downgrade files as harmful. You should do more research into the current state of the downgrade before attempting. As far as we know our firmware links are still good, we are not hosting them so we can not vouch for their safety.
C.K. Sample, III, TUAW / WIN Blogger and author of the forthcoming book, PSP Hacks, got his hands on the version 2.0 downgrader and wrote up a thorough how- to complete with pics for us. He even takes the extra steps to upgrade and downgrade yet again, just to make sure such a thing is possible.
I usually don’t get to run PSP hacks as features because everyone else snatches them up so quick (Is anybody actually buying games?). XyTec found this hack to connect multiple controllers to the PSP. The project uses an ATMega8 microcontroller to monitor the controller’s state and then transmits that to the PSP’s IrDA port. There is a nice discussion of how the communication works. There’s a video demo of the controller being used to play Doom also. The project isn’t quite finished, but it does include source. Time for some two-player emulation.
finally someone worked out a nifty little system for the MSN for use on PSP.
And it looks good too. MSN isn’t as popular as AIM or anything else, but it’s great for talking with people who arent in america or just dont use aim. so this is obviously another step in psp advancing technology. there is literally maybe a little more than 2 or 3 graphics and the rest is nice and text based
you wanted it, we’re giving it to you
