No.2539
Recently, I dug up my old PSP Go I used as a kid and turned it into a retro game emulator. I used it for years when my parents bought it for me back in 2009 and I remember dropping it, getting water on it, and just the general abuse I put it through being a kid and all. Let me tell you, these things are resilient, and I feel like there should be something said about the strength and quality of older electronics, but that's for another day.
When I found it, there was dust all over and the screen was hanging off from the ribbon display cable. I found the original charger and it charged like normal and started right up with all my save data still there from well over a decade ago.
I originally found it just to play Dissidia Final Fantasy again, which was more an impulse decision than anything. In the process of doing that, however, I found that there's an entire community of modders that make plug ins and emulators for the PSP, so after getting Final Fantasy going I decided to download any and every game my heart desired. This included classics from the PSP like Dissidia, SOCOM, Syphon Filter, MGS Peace Walker etc, but also included Gameboy, DS, Atari, and even PS1 games that looked and played incredibly well.
The memory on these things is a measly 16gb which was a big deal, at the time, but kind've a joke in today's 2 tb hard drive world. Sony had a remedy for this, as did most handhelds back then, with the addition of an SD port.
So just buy a 128 gig SD card, no biggie, right? Well, no, Sony had something to say about that too. They wanted their products to be completely proprietary, which is so strange looking back, but I guess most companies did that back then. You could only use the Sony branded M2 memory cards, which would net you an extra 16 gigs at most, which was still not much more.
Well guess what? Today, people make nonproprietary converters for the PSP SD port specifically, that let your use any SD card from any brand and almost any size.
Now, after tightening the loose screws back up, cleaning out the internals, adding way more storage capacity and loading a bunch of new software onto this neat little device, it's better and has more potential than it ever did back in 09. The sound only works if I have headphones in, but I think that adds a little character to it haha
It's fascinating to see just how much we've progressed in the software world after having reacquainted myself with something that's only 14 years old. These came out when WEP keys were still a major security protocol for routers and modems (remember when those were two different things?), so the PSP can't connect to any new networks that have WPA2 or higher security protocols, however, it can join wireless hotspots, so PSPs can still cling to wireless networks if not just barely. That was the only way I could update mine.
The PSP Go was also the only PSP that was strictly a download only device, which was way ahead of it's time in 2009 and ultimately doomed it to fail because physical media was still top of the food chain. Contrasting from today where there are now consoles that have a download only option and they sell well. No one goes anywhere to get physical media anymore. It can all be had in the comfort of your home and whether you see that as a good or bad thing depends on the person you are.
Another slightly neat thing is that PSPs can't recognize M4A files at all, which, besides opus, is the standard music file of our age. The only music files that work on the PSP are MP3 files, but even those act a little funny sometimes.
It's been a journey. A lot of ranting, sorry haha. Old tech fascinates me, especially tech I grew up with. The PSP is a window into the past, yet the quality of the games, build and modding community behind it is something you never see reached with anything made today. Replacement hardware parts are still made by Chinese electronic parts companies today and poking around the internals is simple. I'll probably be tinkering and playing games on this for years, maybe even decades as the PSP community will likely continue growing, at least for a while longer
No.2615
>>2498I got myself nice pc with intel antom and 4GB of ram, works like a dream