73w ago - A few weeks back PS3 Firmware 4.0 was released, and recently French PlayStation 3 developer UpSilon has made available a dump of the dev_flash contents for others who wish to examine it alongside a previous version below.

Download: PlayStation 3 Firmware 4.00 Dev_Flash Dump / PlayStation 3 Firmware 3.73 Dev_Flash Dump

To quote, roughly translated: UpSilon, French developer already known to have deciphered some files on the console of Nintendo 3DS, ext today through his blog, the dump dev_flash firmware 4.00.

For information, dev_flash is a very sensitive part of the PS3 NAND which contains many key information such as firmware, the numbers of encryption running games and other programs, or other important files firmware. The dump of this part could therefore, if a developer managed to unpack, to facilitate the establishment of a CFW 4.00.

Upsilon also announced it has started working on the reactivation of the Service Mode (Jailbreak) on 3.56 + firmware.

From UpSilon's page: Here is a dump of the version...

82w ago - Following up on the initial PS3 JailBreak 2 news comes various PS3 CFW JailBreak 2 and JB2 Updater details today including the examination of an EBOOT.BIN from the Driver: San Francisco Blu-ray Disc in comparison to one from an official PS3 Game (BLES00891) Disc with developments on reverse-engineering the PS3 JB2 file dumps and more below.

To begin, whyudie states the following on the PS3 CFW JailBreak 2 and JB2 Updater for PlayStation 3: I just wanted to share this CFW. This CFW is intended more specifically for Jailbreak 2 dongle only. Most likely will not run well without that dongle. Perhaps some developers out there could investigate this CFW, and develop it even better.

If anyone out there want to install this CFW on your PS3. Do it at your own risk!!

JailBreak 2 Dongle Features

• Can play backup games that require firmware 3.60 + (Direct boot just like the original games)
  
• Only burned BD Disc format with some patches will work. For now, there's no info how to make a backup iso to work with this CFW.
  
• Can play backup games from the HDD. PS3 games with FW 3.55 or lower (via internal or external hdd)
  
• Only works...

131w ago - A few days ago we reported on graf_chokolo's progress in decrypting PS3 Firmware 3.50, and today he has made available to the PlayStation 3 Wiki (linked above) his PS3 hypervisor reverse-engineering work to date, as follows:

HSPRG
The hypervisor stores a pointer to some structure per LPAR in HSPRG0 register. There are actually 2 HSPRG0 values: one for each thread of Cell CPU !!! There is a HSPRG0 array at 0x8(-0x69A0(HSPRG0)) + 0x20.

LPAR
LPAR = Logical Partition

lpar1 starts at 0x(unknown), and its believed to be the memory space wherre lv1 stores its variables, flags and other data.
lpar2 starts at 0x80000000000 and it's believed to be the memory space where lv2 stores its variables, flags and other data.

The pointer to active LPAR is stored at -0x67E8(HSPRG0).

vtable
0x0033CA40 (3.15)

Member variables
offset 0x38 - some pointer
offset 0x50 - LPAR id (8 bytes)
offset 0x70 - pointer to VAS id bitmap
offset 0x78 - power of 2 of word size from VAS id bitmap (4 bytes), equal to 6
offset 0x7C - number of 64-bit words in VAS id bitmap(4 bytes)

136w ago - Update #2: NZHawk has now made available PSPoke v1.0, PSPoke v1.1 and PSL1GHT Logger. Details on each PS3 homebrew application are posted below.

Update: NZHawk has also released PS3 Awesome Update Finder v0.10, PS3 Awesome Update Finder v0.2 and PS3 Awesome Update Finder v0.3 for finding PS3 game updates and QuickDumpR v0.1 for PS3 which is a tiny application that will dump the PS3 RAM to the HDD in 15 seconds from launch to XMB. It uses the same code as the Awesome Peek Poker, but takes up less space in the ram, thus a less messy dump!

NZHawk has released Awesome PeekPoke today which dumps live ram using peek/poke commands and posted a video of it in action along with a Patch App that will patch the offset 57410 with the data 48000098- launch...

143w ago - Update: PS3 Jailbreak Info Centre has confirmed reports from Manzzon that all games do work with PS Jailbreak when using an internal PS3 hard drive, as was suspected.

According to users on IRC, PS JailBreak PS3 game dumps are now hitting the Internet, however, according to PS3JailBreak.com a Sweedish Web site reports that not all PS3 game backups are working currently.

To quote: "Its been well known that games that feature files over 4gb will not work on external hard drive (due to fat32 limitations). So it's quite possible thats why these games don't work. We'll keep you posted."

PS JailBreak PS3 Game Compatibility List:

PS3 Games Reported as Working with PS JailBreak:

• Race Driver Grid
• Fight Night Round 3
• Skate 2
• FIFA 08
• FIFA 09
• Resistance Fall Of Man
• Mirrors Edge
• Motorstorm
• MX vs ATV Reflex
•...