All news from 2006

IBM developer works are starting a series of articles based around "Programming high-performance applications on the Cell BE processor". Their first article is an introduction to linux on the PS3. Looks like it will be a good series to follow. Article available http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-linuxps3-1/index.html

mtb has written a nice article how to install Gentoo on the Playstation 3 and provided a Gentoo stage 4 tarball for it. I've simplified the installation with two installation scripts, for lazy programmers like me, who don't want to type lots of command line commands, and written a short guide for the full installation process.

Open Platform for Playstation 3

"PLAYSTATION®3 allows any desired third-party system software to be installed on it besides its system software provided by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Details will be posted on this site soon."

We Wait...

Considering the lack of new recently thought I would release a version of PRXTool. I've put up a win32 build (link) as some people always seem to have trouble on that platform ;)

So what is new? Well I've added a reasonably comprehensive and tweakable disassembly engine, party cause I felt pspdasm just didn't seem to do the job properly for various reasons. When used with PRXes it will resolve almost every reference in the code, printing strings inline if they point to that and obviously with libdoc it will resolve function imports and export etc. Oh and I also added preliminary variable import support :)

Have fun.

Okay a new psplink release, only a few changes and bug fixes in this one.

Few disasm bugs fixed
Added a sysstat command to print things like number of clock cycles spent in the idle thread
Added a psplink.ini option for a startup script, by specifying this a script will be run every time psplink is reset. Superceeds the old modload command and allows you to do anything including patching up ram
Added a uidinfo command to print some more info about a specific UID
Added a daemon mode to remotejoy
Added a few more instructions to the disasm
Added a specific hardware breakpoint command, before you had to know how the hardware debugger worked to set a hardware breakpoint
And probably some other stuff I forgot

Anyway this is my last public release of psplink I am ever going to make, I am getting sick of the association with my stuff to certain other unmentionable aspects of the PSP community and not even the name is sacred (hence v2). I might keep updating svn but dont expect a binary release again. Now time to concentrate on more important PSP matters, have fun.

Okay so I am bored, really bored.

I've uploaded my minifire demo, 671 bytes of firey crapness. How low can you go? :)
http://ps2dev.org/psp/Demos/Minifire_(Small_ASM_demo)

I've uploaded the slides I used for my Assembly 2006 presentation to the tutorials section. Might be useful for some :) http://ps2dev.org/psp/Tutorials

As some of you may have noticed, the site has been experiencing some technical difficulties. The primary casualty has been the web svn browser (the svn service still works however). The main site and forums have not been without their problems, but should be stable for the most part.

Rest assured that we know about the issues and are working to resolve them, so if you encounter any problems please be patient.

Well I said I was finished with the current track of PSPLINK but having found little time to work on the v2 branch here is an update to the v1 branch.
So what's new? Ability to reboot psplink into a differnet operating mode (i.e. game, vsh or updater) and have it persist. Useful I would expect for developing vshmain.prx replacements. Ability to run usbhostfs_pc as a daemon, when in this mode the shell is lost but you can send commands to it by passing commands from pcterm prefixed with '@'. Ability to use multiple PSPs on the same PC over USB by setting the product ID on the PSP and on usbhostfs_pc instance. Added a new tool to dump kprintf output via the normal printf channels. Readded tab completion to pcterm, only tab completes local filenames and directories but can be useful if pcterm is running in the same directory as the mounted host.

Well that's it. Oh and if you are in the Helsinki/Finland area turn up to Assembly (3rd to 6th August) where i'll be doing a seminar on PSP development etc. I don't promise it will be interesting however :)

As we're getting closer to the release of the PS3, Sony are starting to release a little bit more information about their E-Distribution Initiative. It still looks very vague, but it looks like the small fish like you and me might have an opportunity to get involved. Some more details at Gamasutra.

If you're a developer with an idea for a small game or other content that might work via the E-Distribution Initiative, register at www.playstation.com/beyond.

I'm not sure about you, but I have a lot more ideas than I have time to actually implement. I also have days where I have trouble trying to remember which of my project ideas should be done next. In an attempt to fix this I've created a new "Ideas and Project Concepts" area in the forums.

The idea of this forum is to capture and share ideas so that you can find people interested in working on your idea. The idea might be a homebrew game, a new tool, or even just fixing a long standing bug. I've started the ball rolling by throwing in some ideas. But just my ideas arn't good enough, we need lots of ideas so that we can pick the best ones to work on next. So if you've got some ideas lying around and don't have time to work on them.. throw them in the pot and maybe something great will come out! Check out the new forum here.

If you missed the deadline for the ps2dev "the fourth creation game competition", then have no fear, there's plenty of other competitions offering some nice prizes. Check the rules and you may even find that you can enter some competitions with the same entries. So check these out..

psp-programming.com
Submit your own homebrew application. There's no theme, be creative. Can be submitted as an EBOOT or a Lua Application. PSP-Formatted Flash games will also be accepted. Restrictions: Must be original (no using commercial sprites, trademarks, etc.), Must be the first release, Must be Open Source. First prize, one Year of Free UMDs from Silver Platter and one set of Logitech PlayGearAmp Speakers. Deadline: July 31st 2006 11:59:59 CST.

pspupdates.qj.net
qj.net have got lik-sang to sponsor their competition. If you can fight your way through the advertising you'll find a page which details the "Summer PSP homebrew competition". From the site, "You are allowed to enter multiple entries but only one may be considered for a prize. Your game or application needs to display this Splash Screen [ JPG or PNG ] prior or during loading. Must be new submissions. Any new version of a previously released application or game will be excluded from the final judging.". Entries close on August 20th.

www.neoflash.com
Neoflash have got a NDS(GBA) and PSP coding competition going on. The prizes look pretty good too, with a Nintendo Revolution up for grabs. From the site, "The rule of NEO summer coding contest 2006 is very simple, just same with NEO spring coding contest 2006, 1. You can enter the GAME contest and APP contest both. 2. You must put the splash screen of "NEO summer coding contest 2006" to your production." Entries close on August 20th.

If you've been working on a fun little game, why not enter it in a competition and see if you can get a prize. Having so many prizes and competitions can only be good for the community as a whole. If you enter a competition, goodluck!

If you know of any other competitions, please let me know via email to oobles at hotmail dot com.

Before we get to the results I'd like to thank everyone for entering. It was a big risk to put on such a competition that requires such a lot of hard work from the entrants. I'm really happy with the turn out and the quality of work. Hopefully it will mean that we can do more competitions in the future. I'd also like to thank Gamefreax for putting up the prizes. I don't think it's possible to give away prizes that compensate for the amount of hard work that goes into these games. However, having some prizes is a great way to atleast say thanks for the hard work. Hopefully we can get other competition sponsorships in the future.

Now to the results. All scores are out of a possible 50 points. Scores listed are an average of the results between all judges.

PS2 Competition
We had two judges in the end for the ps2 competition. With only two entries the winner was clear. Well done to Jbit for his PS2 Racer entry.

• PS2 Racer: 28.0
• PS2 Space Invaders: 21.5

PSP Competition
We had three judges in the end for the psp competition. With five entries it was a close competition between everyone. I want to mention that both Break-In and Jump Gunnar, Jump had no sound. Having any sound at all would have brought up their result considerably. In the end Droplets nudged out PSPTris with some extra points for originality. Well done to Drakonite for winning this entry.

• Droplets for PSP: 34.6
• PSPTris: 31.5
• Meeku's Quest: 25.6
• Break-In: 23.5
• Jump Gunnar, Jump!: 19.6

Once again, thanks to everyone involved, and congratulations to Jbit and Drakonite on their entries. If you haven't tried the games yet, please check them out here, and please be sure to thank the entrants in the forums here.

Okay so it finally reached version 1.0, mainly cause I can't be bothered anymore to keep remembering to tweak a letter.

So what is new then, well the main thing is the introduction of the USB Asynchronous Provider Framework, with this you can write your own tools to communicate between the PC and PSP all while PSPLINK is running normally. The USB shell and GDB already use it and ive added two samples, a simple echo server and a tool to allow you to use a PC joystick connected to a linux PC and use it to control the PSPs joypad (useful for presentational work I guess). It doesn't work on Windows because I haven't written a tool to do it (and probably never will).

Of course that isn't all, usbhostfs_pc now listens by default on localhost only for abit of extra security, I added more vfpu disassembly, I made usbhostfs_pc default to 64bit file io on linux (and others such as Solaris in theory). And I have added support for the memory stick get free space command so you can now run up the VSH with a remapped host0:->ms0: and confuse your friends with your 250GB memorystick :)

This is most likely the last release of PSPLINK in it's current form, I might start working on a new version we will have to see.

Download it from here

Hitchhikr has released version 1.01 of PSPTex. PSPTex is a plugin for GIMP 2.2.x allowing you to create textures for the PlayStation Portable.

It can save raw RGBA (5650, 5551, 4444 or 8888) & indexed (T4, T8) textures (with 5650, 5551, 4444 or 8888 palette modes support) as well as DXTC (DXT1, DXT3, DXT5) compresssed ones, it supports the PSP textures swizzle mode and can generate mipmaps, it also have a color key feature to handle transparency and can convert grayscale pictures into alpha channel only textures.

You can download it from here and discuss the plugin in forums here.

After spending years in realtive obscurity it seems that the downloads of the PS2 and PSP toolchain scripts have finally reached a point where I can no longer host them myself. So welcome them to their new homes:

PS2 - http://ps2dev.org/ps2/Tools/Toolchain
PSP - http://ps2dev.org/psp/Tools/Toolchain

Enjoy!

This is honestly a new version of PSPLINK :)
What's new? Added a command to change a thread's priority, updated the cp command so you no longer need to retype the filename when copying, usbhostfs should now return correct error codes (wrapped errno) on failure. usbhostfs should no longer allow you to open directories as files, added some initial VFPU instruction disassembly, added a power off command, added a new feature into usbhostfs to auto convert backslashes to forward slashes and finally various fixs and tweaks too numerous to note.
Get it from the usual place, PSP/TOOLS.

The Fourth Creation Game Competition is now finished! Thanks everyone who entered. The competition has spurred some creativity and got people moving on projects. This has been the real aim, and it's great to see what people are doing. Judging will now start, and winning entries will be up for either a PS2 or PSP, kindly donated by gamefreax. We especially appreciate their help in supporting and helping make the competition more interesting.

All entries are available online here at ps2dev.org/The_Fourth_Creation. Please download and enjoy their games; and please thank the authors for their hard work!

If you'd like to comment on the entries or would like to discuss the competition, please check the forums here.

Once again thankyou to all the participants and gamefreax. Maybe we'll do it again soon!

ShUr1k3n has released the latest beta of his Bomberman Arena. The latest version adds 4 players, Multiple AI, Score Board, Random Map Generator, New SFX, Changed some sprites.

Get the latest information and download the game from the forums here.

Just a reminder that it is the final week before entries to The Fourth Creation Game Competition will come to a close. Winning entries will be up for either a PS2 or PSP, kindly donated by the good people at gamefreax.

If you need information regarding the competition, please check the forums here.

There's nothing I like more than a good tutorial. Jbit has done a good job on describing the "How to draw pixel perfect sprites on the PS2". If you're doing graphics you should check out the tutorial at his site, http://www.jbit.net/ps2/gs-linear-sprite.html. If you've got feedback or would like to discuss the article, post a message to the forums here.

New binary release of PSPLINK. Numerous fixes to the application, host lseek bug fixed, gdb bug on Mac's fixed, rename bug fixed. Added a readline shell to usbhostfs_pc, added all register types to the vfpu exception display, apihook now display the return code as well, added free stack and current working directory to the thread info command (where applicable). Oh and abit of size reduction was done to offset new features.

Just a reminder to everyone that there is just 2 weeks left until the June 19th deadline of PS2DEV's The Fourth Creation ps2/psp game programming competition. The competition prizes are being very kindly sponsored by Gamefreax.

Whether you're just getting started on a simple puzzle game, kicking it up a notch to get that racing game finished on time, or entering the home stretch on your shooter, good luck to you!

Whether you are trying to win or just want to get your game out there for everyone to see, The Fourth Creation Game Competition is waiting for your entry!

For full details check out the forums here

The latest version of fraglab's space shooter has been released and is available for download. Details can be found here.

 

See this forum article for the detailed changelog of the new version of Lua Player. Highlights: updated to Lua 5.1, some bugfixes and a new function for loading images from memory.

New binary release of PSPLINK (no thanks to certain quarters). What's new: Hardware debugger support in the shell (on 1.5 firmware only). Support for storing and restoring VFPU registers on exception, can be printed (only in single values atm) in the shell. Hardware debugging support in GDB (hbreak and watch), some improvements to the thread management will only return threads in our app and also returns the name of the thread to GDB on the PC. General overhaul to the exception handling model, can debug up to 8 individual threads in the shell. Made current directory persitent over resets so no more re-cding to the right place. A few bug fixes as well. Have fun and stay legal :)

Precompiled win32 vesions of the latest PS2 and PSP toolchains and homebrew sdks (as was available on 20/05/06) are available for download from http://xorloser.com

Also present is a cd image of the latest ps2link v1.46 and ps2client v3.0

We've been holding off openning a Playstation 3 forum for a while. However, now that we have a launch date and a few more details we have started a forum. Please keep topics related to developing on the PS3. There's plenty of other places you can go to talk about games and other general uses.

Adaptation of the Danzeff OSK created by Danzel for the PSP LUA Player Please check the forum http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=40652#40652

This looks very promising!

E3: Kawanishi Talks Homebrew Linux PS3 Development

The nice people at gamefreax has very kindly offered to put up prizes for the The Fourth Creation Game Competition. This is fantastic news to all the people developing homebrew games for the competion. For the PSP contest, Gamefreax will be supplying a PS2 fitted with a crystal chip. For the PS2 contest, gamefreax will be supplying a PSP (new firmware).

As the prizes are a recent addition I've decided to extend the deadline for competition to 19th of June. Once again, thanks to gamefreax for sponsoring the event. Please go buy their stuff. :)

For all the details about the competition, check out the forums here.

The Fourth Creation Game Competition is already at the half way point to the June 5th deadline. If you haven't gotten started yet don't worry, there is still a month left so now is the time to get working!

Whether you are trying to win or just want to get your game out there for everyone to see, The Fourth Creation Game Competition is waiting for your entry!

For full details check out the forums here

We still need people to enter, judges, and prizes. If you're interested in supplying prize(s) in return for endless gratitude and a bit of advertising email me oobles at hotmail dot com.

An update to the pre-built win32 binary of PSP Packer. This tool allows you to pack (i.e. compress) a PSP executable for use on v1.0 and v1.5 only. This saves filesize of course but it does more. For one it is a simple way of getting your PRX based application to run from the Sony menu (you cannot put a PRX inside an EBOOT) and it now patches the kernel so even user mode modules can use the LoadModule function to load things like atrac3plus or network libraries from flash direct with no extra cludges in your application. For other platforms get the source from subversion and compile it up as normal.

Triple Triad Team (Sakya, Peoplechamp, Nedra, Leviadragon and Sephzero) is pleased to present: Triple Triad PSP Vers.0.1.0! :D

This is the first public release, it's possible only to play againts the PSP with random cards. It's possible to select which rules to use (except "Random"). The project is released under GPL (visit http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details).

Grab it at http://sakya.altervista.org/ttpsp/ttpsp_latest.html.

PSPTris version 0.5 has been released. This is a stand alone Tetris clone for the PSP. The plan is to have it running as a plugin for PSPRadio. But it will also be released as a stand alone version, for those having 2.x firmware, which can't use the dynamic version of PSPRadio.

This version has all the basic gameplay in place. It still needs a bit polishing, but I wanted to release this preview to get some feedback.

Download it from here.

Relatively minor update to PSPLINK. Added hopefully mostly working support for building the HOSTFS on macs, few minor command additions including a thread monitor so you can see when threads are created and destroyed as well as fixing a bug in the wifi libraries which prevented you using anything but the first wifi configuration.

Vexed is a puzzle game in which your goal is to move similar blocks together, which causes them to disappear.
Block can be moved to the left or to the right. When no block in under the current block, the block falls down.
Vexed was created by James McCombe (Vexed at SourceForge.net) for the Palm OS. Any kind of feedback is welcome, send an email to this address: cancangm (at) gmail.com

Downloads
Vexed.zip for luaplayer
Vexed15.zip for standalone 1.50 version
Vexed10.zip for standalone 1.00 version

All are containing the application, three themes and all (19) level packs
Commands
Start: Exit the program in LuaPlayer version Home: Exit the application in standalone application
You can see in each screen the available commands and their function
Upgrade from previous version
Overwite the directories with the new ones.
Changelogs in v1.1

When a block is selected the cursor changed from black to red

Added music and sounds (press Select to activate/deactivate it)

Added difficulty level (press Select to select between easy and hard)
When selecting difficulty easy; you can browse through all the available levels of a level pack without having complete the previous ones.
when selecting difficulty hard; you can only access the next level when the current one is complete

When changing level pack, the program will jump directly to the first level not solved

Improved the graphics on all the themes

Long time ps2dev'rs Emoon and Chip have won the Console/Real wild competition at this years Breakpoint competition. You can check out their PS2 entry The Black Lotus - 4 edges by downloading the iso here.

Congratulations from everyone involved with ps2dev.org. You can get the other breakpoint results from here.

On www.luaplayer.org you can get the new version LuaPlayer version 0.19. The latest version improves on the module loading function added in the last version. The module interface now works the same as the Lua "loadlib" function; for details see here.

Shine has implemented a small demo showing how to manipulate images with a module, which can be used as a base for your own modules. (e.g. for fast fade-in/fade-out of images, FFT transformation or other things, which needs a fast C implementation).

To celebrate five years of ps2dev we're running our first ever competition. That's right, it's time to put all the hard work that people have put into ps2sdk and pspsdk to use. The task is reasonably simple; write an original game for either the PS2 or PSP. The best entry from each wins a prize! For full details check out the forums here.

We need people to enter, judges, and prizes. If you're interested in supplying prize(s) in return for endless gratitude and a bit of advertising email me oobles at hotmail dot com.

Wow, who would have thought we'd still be here after five years doing the same old stuff. Who thought we'd still be here doing cool stuff with PSP after all these years. Who thinks we'll still be here next year doing cool stuff with Playstation 3? Anyway.. still glad to be here and part of such a great community of smart people. If you're glad to be here.. clap your hands.. and write a post to the forums here.

PS Hope you enjoyed the April 1st news post. We can only hope it might be for real. :)

There has been a flurry of activity so far this year, and a few PS2 releases you may have missed...

Jum released VecX PS2, an "enhanced" port of the Vectrex game console emulator "VecX".

Evilo released ports of Super Mario War, a Super Mario Brothers themed Jump'n'Bump style deathmatch game, and Pang, a remake of the old arcade ball game Pang!

I (Drakonite) have released ports of Psilocybin Development's Xump, an addictive puzzle game, and new tonight, DaveGnukem, a 2D scrolling platform shooter, inspired by and similar to Duke Nukem 1. The PS2 ports of which are both available at my Makeshift Development website.

I'm sure there is a lot more in store for PS2 homebrew this year, and I for one can't wait.

New binary release of psplink. Primarily a bugfix release but does come with support for a simple shell for usbhostfs_pc and pre-prepared Windows driver and usb libraries. Download it from the psp->tools section.

There's been a lot of media about the features of the up coming Playstation 3 and the Playstation Network. If you've been hiding under a rock, some of the more important news is that the Playstation 3 is being released world wide in November. It will be supporting the Blu-Ray standard, provide high definition 1080p television output and contain the revolutionary Cell processor.

Some of the more interesting news is centred around the newly announced Playstation Network. A complete online network to support the Playstation family of devices, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable and Playstation 2. Sony Computer Entertainment President Phil Harrison outlined some of the features during the Game Developers Conference recently. Features disclosed included Instant Messaging, voice and video chat, aswell as movie and music downloads. However, none of these features directly affect the homebrew PSDEV community.

Of interest to our community is that the Playstation 3 will come with Linux pre-installed on the hard disk. As some of you will be aware, the most recent published Linux release comes with Cell support built in. Up until now, it hasn't been clear what support for homebrew PSDEV users the Playstation 3 will provide. Thanks to an anonymous employee of Sony Japan, I can now confirm that Playstation Network will support the homebrew community! This is an excerpt of what I received a few days ago.

As you probably know, the PS3 will ship with the latest linux kernel
installed on the HDD.  There has been a lot of debate in here to decide
if linux will be open to users.  But thankfully Ken has really been
pushing to open up the platform.  They plan on releasing this info
during E3, but I knew how important it was to you guys.  I can only
give you the basics. You can find out the rest of the details
in may.

Phil released a lot of details about the Playstation Network at GDC,
but left some details out.  In addition to the
social-networking stuff like IM, voice and video chat, Playstation 
Network will let users upload their own content to sell to the 
community.  But what is really great is that the platform will be 
open, so that you can develop games on linux, then upload and
even sell them.  We're going to open up the full micopayment system
to everyone.  Guys like you will be able to develop mini games
and sell them for 10c each.

I did some checks with a couple of people before posting this, and I can 100% confirm that it is legit! There was also the following slide displayed at GDC showing the open internet business philosophy.

From what people tell me, it seems they can offer these features because linux allows them to lock down some parts of the Playstation 3. All I can say is, thanks Sony for finally realising the importance of homebrew. Playstation l33t, here we come.

Seems I can't pull a fast one over anyone around here. Yes, this was a April fools day prank. But, really.. wouldn't it be cool. :)

Kameku in the forums is looking for UFA's. As he describes..

You know you've made them... random text creator, pixel mover... it's just fun! Well, if you're proud of any of your UFA's, go ahead and link us to them, and if you can, provide a screenshot so we're not downloading the same thing we just made! XD

Get involved in the forums here.

dr_watson has released JGE++ (Jas Game Engine++), a hardware accelerated 2D game engine for PSP and Windows. It's inspired by the popular game engine HGE on MS Windows.

You can find more information about JGE++ as well as example codeand introductions in the forums here.

Groepaz has update his great PSP Technical Documentation. The latest version includes details on PRX sections, system registry, talkman information, flash pinouts, and various other goodies. If you want to know about the internals of the PSP, this is the place to look. Grab it from hitman's web site here, and discuss it in the forums here.

Cancan has released Vexed v1.0. Vexed is a puzzle game in which your goal is to move similar blocks together, which causes them to disappear. Block can be moved to the left or to the right. When no block in under the current block, the block falls down. Once all the blocks are gone, you've solved the level and you're presented with a new level to solve.

You can only access the next level when the current one is solved. Vexed was originally created by James McCombe (Vexed at SourceForge.net) for the Palm OS.

Cancan let us know via the forums here, and released it on the psplua web page here.

I've just done another upgrade to the site software. The most noteable feature is the RSS icon in the left menu. You can now keep up to date with changes to the site using your favourite RSS reader.

The only other noteable feature is the ability to order topics. This now completes the features that were missing from the original software. It will probably be the last upgrade in a while too. As usual, if you find any problems email me at oobles at gmail dot com.

Radad has release a new version of Rad Host Client. It is a GUI tool to provide the pc side of the ps2 host filesystem protocol. It has been written to make it easier to use than the ps2client for people who simply want to use it with ps2 software such as uLaunchELF and SMS. Find out more and download it here.

Major changes since last release:

• Builtin IRXs is now default build behavior
• Some cleanup of the build process / makefiles
• PS2Link 1.41 now has Cached Config support; config information is cached and is no longer loaded on each reset (requires builtin irxs to be enabled as well)
• Extra Config support is currently disabled

The reason extra config support is currently disabled is that it is not compatible with Cached config support. So far it seems few people are using extra config support, so assuming no major complaints arise (trolls ignored) this will probably be how future official releases will be setup. Keep in mind, extra config support is not removed from ps2link, it is just disabled if config caching is enabled. If you need extra conf support you just have to checkout from SVN and change the build options in the makefile.

So what is this Cached Config? well, here are some of the new features of a cached config enabled PS2Link:

• No longer needs to access boot device after initial boot
• Can (theoretically, as it hasn't been tested yet) boot from anywhere (including loading ipconfig data) a loader can launch it from, including one of the menu loaders launching it from hdd or usb!
• Consistent environment no matter what boot method used (no longer loads extra modules when booting from MC)
• No longer spins up cdrom to read on reset, which means faster resets from cdrom, less wear and tear, and no need to keep ps2link cdrom inserted
• Can now debug programs that require XSIO2MAN (such as mtap enabled programs) even if booting from memcard

  You can download it Here.

TyRaNiD has released a new version of PspLink. If you haven't heard of PspLink and are doing Psp coding, then you should read this:

PSPLINK is an attempt at producing a loader/development application to eliminate the need to go back to the VSH every time. It provides a shell over the SIO, USB or WIFI connection from which you can load new applications, dump useful system information and then reset the PSP to start another application. You can also access some of the features of PSPLINK using a simple on screen console shell, which maps commands to button presses. The program mounts the USB device so you can copy new executables onto the memory stick for execution or you can choose to use the USB host filing system which allows you to access programs directly from your PC. It also eliminates some of the boilerplate code necessary for executables by installing stdio and kprintf handlers for TTY output as well as a built in exception handler, rudimentary debugger and GDB server.

The latest version allows developers to get all the features of PspLink using just a USB cable. This includes creating a Host file system, and GDB debugging! Grab the latest version here.

The site might look the same, but there's been a few changes in the latest upgrade today. The most obvious will be the new NEWS topic and the ability for registered users to easily add new news items. This should make sure the site news doesn't get quite so stale.

Other changes include the ability to Delete topics, Lock/Unlock topics, counting topics visited and changing the way topics work. The people hoping to get Dreamtime's tutorials will also be happy that the links once again work.

If you find any problems, please let me know by emailing oobles at gmail dot com. Thanks!

2005 has come to an end, and though a bit cliche, it's a great time to take a look back at some of the important events and accomplishments we've seen throughout the past year.

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of individuals core projects such as PS2SDK, PS2Link, and the PS2DEV toolchain saw a lot of improvements this year. One of the most noticeable changes being some great additions by ooPo, including dma, math3d, packet and graphics libraries being directly added to PS2SDK. Speaking of graphics libraries, lukasz's great libito was added to PS2DEV's svn, Neofar released his 3d library libPlanar, Neovanglist continued making great improvements to gsKit, and Gawd brought us SDL! We all owe them and everyone else who has been contributing to the great libraries and tools available a debt of gratitude.

While I wish we'd see even more projects using these great libs, we did see numerous great projects this year, including EEUG's Simple Media System (SMS), ntba2's myPS2, Gawd's port of the classic Flashback, and Drakonite's (me) start at a port of the classic Duck Hunt (shameless plug, sorry). I know there are numerous more, but these are some that stood out against all the other news.

2005 was definitely the year of the PSP. In just one year there have been ways found to run homebrew code on all versions of the PSP firmware up to and including version 2.0, we've created the PSPDEV toolchain, the very nice PSPSDK, an SDL port, PSPGL, LuaPlayer, rRootage, PSPMediaCenter, REminiscence, snes9x, vectoriods, Doom-PSP, and so many other libraries, games, and applications it's hard to believe it's only been one year.

Shine and Nevyn's LuaPlayer stands out as one of the greatest PSP projects this year. It makes it easy to create PSP applications with the Lua scripting language even if you don't have a strong programming background. If you have a PSP you should definitely check it out.

The internet isn't big enough to express the gratitude I and so many others have to all of the many people who have contributed to making PS2DEV/PSPDEV, and all of the tools, ports, games, and applications what they are today. Keep up the great work everyone!

With the coming of the PSP this year the forums have swelled to over 4000 members! The amount of interest people have shown in the PSP and PSP homebrew specifically is enormous. As always we hope Sony will see this interest and consider working with us to create a method to allow running of homebrew as a mutually beneficial arrangement; allowing us to develop homebrew for this wonderful hardware while increasing Sony's PSP sales and providing a means for professional developers to acquaint themselves with the PSP, thus increasing the skilled developer pool available. I believe it's possible for us to find a balance that would allow this access while still helping to prevent copyright violations and other more nefarious acts.

In order to help everyone keep track of all the project releases going on, and to provide a way for developers to show off their creations, I'd like to encourage developers to post an announcement in the new 'Release Announcements' forum for major releases of your projects. If all works out, I will be trying to use these announcements to create regular wrap up news posts of recent releases on the ps2dev.org front page.

Looking back at all the excitement of 2005 and all the activity the past few months it's hard to imagine how 2006 could top it, but 2006 is bound to be an even better year with lots of surprises and many many great projects. I can't wait to see what the imaginations of the developers here come up with in 2006.

-- Drakonite