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PSP Programming Tutorials
A Reader writes "Since its inception, the PSP Homebrew Community has been hacking away at their little jem of a portable console. Its valiant efforts in the fight for open hardware have not been well received by Sony. Regardless, Yeldarb, a homebrew programmer, has released a PSP Programming Tutorial Series. It covers everything from setting up the development environment to writing your first program to sprucing up your programs with a little graphics programming. The tutorial series is a must read for anyone interested in joining the PSP hacking community."
It's interesting how we get all those stories about PSP hacking, PSP homebrew, etc, etc yet I don't recall a single story about the DS homebrew scene (which is a bit larger as the device has weaker DRM systems and accepts readily available homebrew material like flash cartridges without complaining) and not nearly as much about GBA homebrew. Are people more interested in the PSP because it's harder to use for homebrew, because there's something important about the PSP that the DS doesn't provide or are they just more interested because the PSP is getting few games lately?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The DS has only 4MB of RAM, hardly enough for complex homebrew applications, compared to the 32MB found in the PSP. You could also have 1GB+ of storage space in your PSP with readily available parts. Basically you just need to keep throwing money at it and it doesn't require hardware mods. Can't say the same for the DS, most of the time you need to mod it or buy hard-to-get equipment to hack it.
Furthermore, most of the libraries needed to run the PSP are already included in the firmware stored in that big NVRAM, so they're readily available to applications, even homebrew. The DS has a very simple firmware and all the libraries need to be extracted or reverse-engineered from the cartridges that contain them, and so far there aren't many games that use Wi-Fi, for example.
That's not to say the DS doesn't have its own advantages, though. The cartridges' memory is directly addressable from the CPU, so it has a very good potential for expansion. The touchscreen, mic and Wi-Fi/Ni-Fi features make it better than the PSP in things like Internet browsing, VoIP and chatting.
It's just that the DS architecture doesn't lend itself to hacking that easily. I hope the Play-Yan gets released in the US and someone hacks it so to make the SD Card accessible to homebrew applications. A non-mod firmware hack would help, too.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
I just got my GP2X a couple weeks ago, and the machine is beautiful. For just under $200, you have a very powerful console (sans hardware 3D, sadly...but the 2D hardware is great ;) running on a fully open platform--linux kernel, GNU operating system, SDL libs, and everything. The development scene is vibrant, and some homebrew projects were completed before the device was even released to the public. It's the best development toy I've ever owned, and it's basically grab-and-go.
Sure, you can waste time hacking away at the PSP, but think of all that energy you could otherwise be spending on software development. Now, if what you like best is circumventing DRM, then I salute you, but I for one don't want the hassle.
Have doubts? Take a look at the wiki.