Other PSP hackers such as Davee and neur0n joined in to help the development of this port. wololo also created a new public SVN repository for HBL at Google Code. The AdvancedPSP forums, which hosted the project, were shut down by the hosting and the project moved to wololo/talk forums. When the Patapon 2 demo exploit was found and leaked, wololo joined the project and proposed to port HBL to this new exploit. An alpha version was released as open source by m0skit0 and ab5000 in November 2009, which ran very simple homebrews. HBL was created initially for the Medal of Honor Heroes exploit. The project was created and started by m0skit0 and ab5000. HBL was built from scratch to be easily portable to any user-mode exploit. It does not provide any mechanism for loading official games or ISO images. Half Byte Loader (also known as HBL) is an open source software project that aims at loading homebrew for PlayStation Portable handheld console through user-mode exploits. Ĭustom Firmware allows the running of unsigned code such as homebrew applications and UMD backups, emulators for other consoles, as well as PlayStation games when the disc images are converted into PSP format. Some people even suggested that Dark_AleX was paid by Sony not to release any more custom firmware, but Sony denied this. In July 2007 Dark_AleX officially stopped his work on the PSP, citing perceived problems with Sony as one of the reasons for his departure. In 2006, Sony released six updates to the system firmware and in 2007 they released another six updates. Sony quickly patched the firmware again, continuing the cat-and-mouse game with the hackers and users. Dark_Alex had released a Custom Firmware called "Dark Alex's Open Edition firmware" or "Custom Firmware (CFW)" which opens the firmware and allows users to use the existing feature set of the current edition. One of the drawbacks of downgrading the PSP is that new official media may require the presence of a new firmware edition. Dark AleX, as well as other variations of the name, is a pseudonym under which he works. Dark_AleX ĭark AleX (aka Dark_AleX, Dax, Darkethe) is a Spanish programmer who writes homebrew applications for the PlayStation Portable. This reportedly caused more buzz in the community than any recent official offerings for the device. In mid-2006, after several months of problems in defeating the PSP's firmware a file was posted online which allowed new PSPs running firmware version 2.6 to downgrade to 1.5 so they could then be hacked using older methods. Over the course of 2005 Sony released six different versions of the firmware and hackers typically responded to it by downgrading to avoid the new security updates. Users attempting to downgrade their PSP using this software instead found that it was rendered inoperable as this software deleted mandatory/important system files. Symantec called this trojan "Trojan.PSPBrick". Hackers and other homebrew enthusiasts then encountered the first trojan for the PSP. In August 2005 Sony released version 2.0 of the firmware which included the web browser, file compatibility updates and other features. BusinessWeek dubbed this the "carrot-and-stick" approach. Hackers refused to apply updates which would render their hacks unusable so Sony attempted to convince users that there was a benefit to upgrading by including new features in the firmware updates, such as a web browser, and not just security patches to plug the vulnerabilities. On 15 June 2005 the hackers distributed the cracked code of the PSP on the internet. Sony released version 1.51 of the PSP firmware in May 2005 to plug the holes that hackers were using to gain access to the device. Soon after the PSP was released, hackers began to discover exploits in the PSP that could be used to run unsigned code on the device. Several demoscene non-interactive creations were released targeting PSP such as Suicide Barbie, purely to demonstrate optimisation skills of the developers and the power of the handheld.
This effort led to development of Toolchain and SDK by enthusiasts and paved the way to utilise vector floating point co-processor, GPU and audio capabilities of the device without asking Sony for permission.
The reverse engineering process to understand the PSP hardware started shortly after the advent of homebrew unsigned code execution. PlayStation 1 emulation was native, made by Sony. Numerous different emulators were created for the most popular consoles. Homebrew emulators were created for NES, SNES, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis and N64 console systems among others.
Additional features added including the ability to emulate and play the ROMs of other consoles, play homebrew games, share music, print photos, watch videos from streaming sites such as YouTube, and run additional video formats originally unsupported by the device.
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