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You mean, the way that Sony did? cough

I can't think of a swap being much more easy than that.

So I really do like the PSP's hackability-factor, actually. Early on, Sony seemed like they'd lock it up tight--what with their DRM-heavy UMD format and encrypted Memory Sticks--, but maybe their early failure in the portable digital audio market (seems like their Walkman line didn't last two months before The Great MP3 Capitulation) made them rethink things a bit.

Anyways, yeah--I'll be a lot more interested in the PSP if someone comes up with some good emulator ports or even (gasp!) good homebrew software.

Forgot to make it a link, sorry.

In this picture, there is an empty IC socket next to what looks a little like a card slot. Anyone have an idea what this might be for?

I don't think the PSP is fundamentally a bad system, but I think that at the current state of technology, the DS is better.

Here's why:
1. The obvious one, autonomy. Sure, it's easy to look like you've got better tech just because you pack more, greater, bigger features, just because you decided to not care about battery life, thus dramatically lowering the overall quality of the system.

2. The overall manufacturing quality of the device. Sony are well known for making hyped, shiny, classy products with lots of bells and whistles - but the quality (at least regarding gaming consoles) has always been lacking, in particular regarding the cd rom/dvd drives.

It was no biggie to have to put the early models of playstation upside down for the cd drive to work, it might be problematic for a portable console.

3. If you compare the inside shots of the DS and those of the PSP, you'll notice that the PSP looks much more complex, with several PCBs (some of them plugged together), various metallic shieldings, a lot of ribbon cables and connectors.
So, it's probably more complex to assemble, and thus, IMHO, it's more likely that the assembly work is somewhat sloppy.

However, maybe in one year or two, battery and/or electronic components technologies may have evolved enough, and sony may do a new revision of the psp with improved (and hopefully decent) autonomy (as I've read somewhere, don't remember where), and the potential defects that may show up in the earlier models will have been fixed.

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=246&prod ucts_id=3983&PHPSESSID=9a4e1f7ecf0885753660122f2de 0bc4f

Pick up one of these for for your gba or DS. Can play video files, music, pictures. Turns it into a media player. Only catch is you have to buy your own flash memory card.

Look at this picture. The DS looks way more bulky than the PSP.

The DS is about 30% larger overall in volume. That is significant. The biggest problem with the DS is that extra 30% is in the height and depth. I own both an iPod and and a Rio Karma, and they differ in volume by the same amount as the DS and PSP (ie: the Karma is 30% larger). However, while the iPod is more than an inch longer, it is *far* more pocketable because it's 1/3 of an inch narrower and 1/3 of an inch thinner. Form factor is enormously important, and for portables, long and narrow is better than short and wide.

That taken in to consideration, this is where I really start to get worried about heat. If we take the 4-6hour battery life at face value, we'll say that the PSP runs about half as long as the GBA SP. But when we also take in to consideration the battery differences, we're talking about the PSP effectively burning though power at (2x3=6) times the rate of the GBA SP. Obviously there's a huge difference between the two with that large LCD(so not all energy leaving the system will be heat energy), but still, doesn't all this energy it's burning through have to go somewhere? I doubt Sony has created a hand-held laptop in terms of heat, but after an extended play session, are we going to have to worry about the PSP being warm to the touch(i.e. will it be warm enough to discourage long play sessions)?

As someone interested in buying a unit later on, this has me seriously concerned that the PSP is going to be the first mass-market portable game device where heat is a concern.

That taken in to consideration, this is where I really start to get worried about heat. If we take the 4-6hour battery life at face value, we'll say that the PSP runs about half as long as the GBA SP. But when we also take in to consideration the battery differences, we're talking about the PSP effectively burning though power at (2x3=6) times the rate of the GBA SP. Obviously there's a huge difference between the two with that large LCD(so not all energy leaving the system will be heat energy), but still, doesn't all this energy it's burning through have to go somewhere? I doubt Sony has created a hand-held laptop in terms of heat, but after an extended play session, are we going to have to worry about the PSP being warm to the touch(i.e. will it be warm enough to discourage long play sessions)?

As someone interested in buying a unit later on, this has me seriously concerned that the PSP is going to be the first mass-market portable game device where heat is a concern.

That taken in to consideration, this is where I really start to get worried about heat. If we take the 4-6hour battery life at face value, we'll say that the PSP runs about half as long as the GBA SP. But when we also take in to consideration the battery differences, we're talking about the PSP effectively burning though power at (2x3=6) times the rate of the GBA SP. Obviously there's a huge difference between the two with that large LCD(so not all energy leaving the system will be heat energy), but still, doesn't all this energy it's burning through have to go somewhere? I doubt Sony has created a hand-held laptop in terms of heat, but after an extended play session, are we going to have to worry about the PSP being warm to the touch(i.e. will it be warm enough to discourage long play sessions)?

As someone interested in buying a unit later on, this has me seriously concerned that the PSP is going to be the first mass-market portable game device where heat is a concern.

Does anyone know if the covers for the screens and buttons in the following pictures (1 2 3 4) need to be put on manually?

ie: To protect the screen and buttons do I need to carry those items along all the time?

I haven't found any information on them yet.

Does anyone know if the covers for the screens and buttons in the following pictures (1 2 3 4) need to be put on manually?

ie: To protect the screen and buttons do I need to carry those items along all the time?

I haven't found any information on them yet.

Does anyone know if the covers for the screens and buttons in the following pictures (1 2 3 4) need to be put on manually?

ie: To protect the screen and buttons do I need to carry those items along all the time?

I haven't found any information on them yet.

Does anyone know if the covers for the screens and buttons in the following pictures (1 2 3 4) need to be put on manually?

ie: To protect the screen and buttons do I need to carry those items along all the time?

I haven't found any information on them yet.

You're obviously in need of one of theese, maybe several ;).

For those of you without the equipment to make your own, you can buy them quite cheaply from a Hong Kong importer called Lik Sang. http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=278&prod ucts_id=2994&

let's buy it !

I'm glad that this has happened, but not so I can play copied games.

I'm looking forward to being able to play my imports without using a boot disc (I currently use freeloader). And being able to patch and update it against bugs in such handling (Japanese Namco games are quite well known for having serious problems with freeloader and save cards).

Homebrew software development also appeals to me, but not as much as the ability to handle those imports.

And why am I so interested in imports? Well, our local Nintendo office has seen it fit to destroy the gamecube by keeping the prices high, failing to promote the cube sufficently, being slow on the uptake of titles and withholding new accessories for the gamecube from market.

In Australia, you can't even buy the Official Nintendo 1019 block memory card, whereas I bought one during a visit to the US for the same price that a 251 block memory card costs us here. The broadband adapter was announced at one point, but you certainly can't buy them here.

Not only that, imported gamecube games cost LESS than their local counterparts, even after shipping in most cases. I bought R: Racing (US) for a whole US$20, whereas it was still priced at AU$90 back home. Given express shipping from Lik-Sang costs around AU$25, we still keep just below the $90-100 line for most games here.

Now, given the choice, would you give money to that division when you could just buy from overseas, with one of the foreign divisions of that company earning the profits instead?

As far as I'm concerned, it means I get my games, and I get them cheaper than buying locally, and Nintendo still gets the money they deserve for producing such a good (underrated) platform.

And, with some luck, I hope that the local branch will get their act together and start giving us prices that are even vaugely competative against their neighbouring branches.

Sony is marketing this new PS2 as portable... their engineers should be ashamed!

As well, Sony does have a true portable PS2 coming out next year (I heard mid 2005... it keeps getting pushed back). Here are some pictures.

I never realised the Nintendo DS ran windows

You can go home now.

Hey Pascal, why did you write the post like you were someone who has nothing to do with Lik Sang when it's your own site?

How about being honest and using the words I / my / our, my review or our review when linking to your own site?

Making your affiliation absolutely clear won't hurt. By writing in a deceptive way it makes it seem like you have something to hide, are trying to trick people into visiting your site, or makes you just another crass, deceptive, obnoxious, self-promoter like Roland Piquepaille spam-king of blogspam.

Here's how it is written:

Pascal writes "Lik Sang received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems and went ahead with their own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and their own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, they also had one of their traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Here's how it should be written:

Pascal writes: I/we received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems at Lik Sang and went ahead with my/our own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and my/our own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, I/we also had one of my/our traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Be up front about it.

Hey Pascal, why did you write the post like you were someone who has nothing to do with Lik Sang when it's your own site?

How about being honest and using the words I / my / our, my review or our review when linking to your own site?

Making your affiliation absolutely clear won't hurt. By writing in a deceptive way it makes it seem like you have something to hide, are trying to trick people into visiting your site, or makes you just another crass, deceptive, obnoxious, self-promoter like Roland Piquepaille spam-king of blogspam.

Here's how it is written:

Pascal writes "Lik Sang received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems and went ahead with their own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and their own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, they also had one of their traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Here's how it should be written:

Pascal writes: I/we received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems at Lik Sang and went ahead with my/our own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and my/our own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, I/we also had one of my/our traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Be up front about it.

Hey Pascal, why did you write the post like you were someone who has nothing to do with Lik Sang when it's your own site?

How about being honest and using the words I / my / our, my review or our review when linking to your own site?

Making your affiliation absolutely clear won't hurt. By writing in a deceptive way it makes it seem like you have something to hide, are trying to trick people into visiting your site, or makes you just another crass, deceptive, obnoxious, self-promoter like Roland Piquepaille spam-king of blogspam.

Here's how it is written:

Pascal writes "Lik Sang received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems and went ahead with their own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and their own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, they also had one of their traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Here's how it should be written:

Pascal writes: I/we received an initial batch of Nintendo DS systems at Lik Sang and went ahead with my/our own hands-on reviews. Apart from some interesting GBA SP accessories cross-testing and my/our own impressions about the new Nintendo baby, I/we also had one of my/our traditional open-up sessions, exposing the guts of the new handheld to the public."

Be up front about it.

I mean, they're half the size of the GBA cart, you could swallow one of those things without much trouble!

I mean, they're half the size of the GBA cart, you could swallow one of those things without much trouble!

Check out this video, i have no idea what they're saying, but man it looks pretty, and region free YAY! I thought I was gonna buy one of those opensource HHGS like the GP32, but screw i want this, just preordered from lik-sang :).

I have a PC that I decided to employ as an all-out entertainment hub:

Games: GameCube, X-box, & PS2 are connected to it via a VGA box. In addition to this I've got arcade and console emulators.

TV:Yesterday I bought a Hauppauge PVR-150 $99 - $20 MIR)at MicroCenter. I tried out SageTV which downloads my local cable company's TV guide and gives me PVR capabilities.

Music:I use iTunes to organize my music. I have some decent PC speakers, but if I want to listen to some music in the living room, I connect an RCA cable from the line-out jack on my laptop to my stereo system. I share the music wirelessly using iTunes on my PCs with my wireless router.

Of course my PC organizes photos and video files, e-books, etc. In short, my PC handles home media to my satisfaction, saves space, and allows me to modify it to my taste.

whats with everyone wanting to use televisions? especially those running homebrew dvr's - i dont get it. Tv quality is total crap, why not use a computer monitor? Either run it through a decent hauppage card or pick up one of the excellent micromsoft boxes like the xrgb2 or x-select d4 for you hdtv buffs. 320x240 is dead..

whats with everyone wanting to use televisions? especially those running homebrew dvr's - i dont get it. Tv quality is total crap, why not use a computer monitor? Either run it through a decent hauppage card or pick up one of the excellent micromsoft boxes like the xrgb2 or x-select d4 for you hdtv buffs. 320x240 is dead..

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=51&produ cts_id=1415& Lik-sang has something that can do that. But it's only for small apps (256 KB or less). http://www.linker4u.com/pp/linker4u.asp This site though has some Flash based cartridges you could probably use to upload homebrew ROMs onto it.

• LikSang Smart Joy Frag
• Cherry Compact Keyboard
• An optical mouse
• Wrist rest & mouse mat

Huh, its $6.00 more there than at lik-sang, and its still sold-out.


What I want to know, from the hard-core xbox players who think the analog pads are ok, is, would you consider it cheating if people brought a Smart Joy + keyboard + mouse to a halo party? I definately would be tempted to do so if I owned it, since I think it would only be fair to play an FPS the way FPSs are meant to be played.

True.

I'm really tempted to buy this, and then an xbox, and then halo, just to see how well it actually works.

Or like this...

Install a switch, which selects Japanese or US region. The article is about playing US games on your Japan region cube, but I suspect it would work both ways.

Seen any ways to copy, download and play GameCube games lately? :)

Yup. Not too hard. It's just a DVD drive under the hood, after all.

But you don't even have to go that far.

This
plus
This

And some freeware software on your PC that I'm not going to even link, because then people will put two and two together and try it.

Seen any ways to copy, download and play GameCube games lately? :)

Yup. Not too hard. It's just a DVD drive under the hood, after all.

But you don't even have to go that far.

This
plus
This

And some freeware software on your PC that I'm not going to even link, because then people will put two and two together and try it.

You can use a mouse and keyboard on your PS2 or Xbox with the SmartJoy Frag. A video of it in action

You can use a mouse and keyboard on your PS2 or Xbox with the SmartJoy Frag. A video of it in action

Just give me a keyboard for the X-Box and I would be all set.

I hear ya! I am actually waiting for this. I don't know if it supports Halo2, so I am going to wait around until Halo2 is released.

I also don't know how much lag there will be for the controller mapping. I can't really tell that much from the video.

Just give me a keyboard for the X-Box and I would be all set.

I hear ya! I am actually waiting for this. I don't know if it supports Halo2, so I am going to wait around until Halo2 is released.

I also don't know how much lag there will be for the controller mapping. I can't really tell that much from the video.

Welcome to the wonderful world of VGA cables, which were introduced to consoles a few years ago.

The Dreamcast had quite a few games that looked much better on a computer monitor than on a television. A few of my friends do the use them at LAN parties for Halo.

Use the internet much? On the very website in this news story, there are many USB converters to allow you use console peripherals on your PC. I have this and it works perfectly with this. In fact, there's one linked from the SmartJoy page itself.

Use the internet much? On the very website in this news story, there are many USB converters to allow you use console peripherals on your PC. I have this and it works perfectly with this. In fact, there's one linked from the SmartJoy page itself.

controls can be the same on console and pc ... here

What happenend is that the poor bastards got swamped with requests for support from lik sang customers...

:: March 21, 2003

So it seems we have been seriously impacted by LikSang. Since March 7th, we have had about 10 support requests to every 1 cable order. Some of these requests have been from users claiming to have bought a cable, but they did not buy one from us. As LikSang is the only retailer selling them, we assume they are LikSang customers. LikSang did not develop their own technology; they simply provide a link to grooveyardfunk's driver on their site. However, they don't credit his project with development. Instead, they claim to have developed new adapter technology. LikSang can not and will not support software they didn't develop, which means that if users have problems, grooveyardfunk or codeUnderground get stuck with the support costs. This is a great situation for LikSang, as they have no support overhead.

We provide outstanding software support, with the average support request being answered within 10 minutes. Having someone always available to answer requests costs money and we may no longer be able to afford it. Furthermore, we can not match the economy of scale LikSang has. Their cables are made in China, presumably in a factory. All of our cables are made by hand, here in America, by members of our team. Always having someone around to make cables is expensive, in terms of both time and money.

We are currently in the process of deciding how best to continue, but for now, the driver and user support will remain free. We will also continue to sell cable adapters, so please, buy a cable. Please be considerate when requesting support. Rude, demanding, or insulting requests will not receive a response. Those of you who have purchased cables will continue to be supported regardless of what we decide. You can also expect to receive discounts on future products or services. We thank you for your support.

--science

There are good Playstation 2 to USB adaptors on the market. They map to direct X inputs, which can be reconfigured in-game. My company uses the Lik-Sang version for our PS2 titles in development, though I keep a different one for home use (with dance mat support).

Yes, there are great controllers that are pretty much fully supported on the PC, but ironically not from the XBox.

Get a Gamecube (if you don't already) and a Gameboy Player. It will only cost you around $150USD and you can play pretty much any GC, GB, GBC, and GBA game out there. Also you might want to try importing the SNES style GC controller which was designed for the player.

The customer reviews for the product at Lik Sang, as well as the review over at ShackNews both talk about scratchy sound quality and low frame-rates. Neither talk about the emulators (since they are reviewing the earlier model, I assume) - but for the price you can't really go wrong can you ? I think this is the actual product homepage, but it isn't much more informative.

Adapter Here.