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It looks like the first Jasper motherboards (which should have the new 65nm GPU) are now out in the wild! To quote: Moddage posted pictures of his new Jasper 360 on our forums and we also received some pictures from The Dude Z. Both are Arcade SKUs made 10-23-2008 Lot #0843X by Team FDOU.

The new power supply (pictured below) is now 150W (25W less than those used with Falcon boards), and the plug has of course been changed so u can't plugin this PSU into an older motherboard.

Other unannounced change... the onboard flash chip has grown from 16MB to 256MB. Microsoft included internal memory storage, so the Arcade SKU now ships without (external) Memory Unit and the new NXE dash will install fully on the flashchip (rather than requiring a HDD or external MU).

But the internal memory can also be used to store gamesave data, XBLA games, videos or whatever ... u can use it asif it was an external MU. As the flash chip is also used for th... More »  


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The new version of YDL was released. I think the most important new feature is that you can now use the memory of the RSX-GPU as a swap partition.

You should notice a great increase of speed while using linux.

The free version can be downloaded in four weeks. For now only owners of YDL.net Enhanced Accounts can access YDL 6.1.

Press Release: AUSTIN, Texas - 19 November 2008 - From the show floor of SuperComputing 2008, booth #1915, Fixstars today released Yellow Dog Linux v6.1 for Apple G4/G5, Sony PLAYSTATION3, PowerStation, and IBM Power Systems. Built upon the CentOS foundation, a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, YDL v6.1 offers several end-user and development tool improvements over the previous v6.0.

"This marks the final release of Yellow Dog Linux by Terra Soft and the first by Fixstars," states Owen Stampflee, Fixstars Solutions' Director of Engineering, "In my five years with Terra Soft we have made incremental impro... More »  


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Here's a new one... rumor has it Datel, longtime developer and manufacturer of videogame enhancement products, has beat conventional PSP hackers in unlocking the PSP 3000 console.

To quote: The breakthrough was made by Datel, thanks to their newest tool battery that will put the PSP 3K into service mode. Okay, what does this exactly do? According to their post, service mode allows you to downgrade your PSP for you to do whatever you may want to do with it, basically.

So. Here's the deal. In order for you to enable the service mode on your PSP 2K and 3K models, you'll need Datel's new crypto processor based battery called the Lite Blue Tool battery.

It comes with toggle options between a service mode and normal mode, as well as a built in LED power gauge feature! Datel's Lite Blue Tool comes to your nearest store on November 28th for a mere US$ 19.99 (UK) and US$ 29.99 (NA).


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Many people have been wondering exactly what the differences are between Development and Retail PlayStation 3 Systems, and we figured now would be a great time to clarify these along with reporting some new findings.

Aside from the different hardware revisions of the PS3's motherboard, the systems are virtually the same as mentioned in previous posts. We have examined multiple PS3 TEST's, Retail PS3's, Demo Unit PS3's, and even Factory Mode PS3's, and found that there are no hardware differences between them at all.

Mind you, there are differences, but they are due to the hardware revision, not due to the systems themselves. To make that more clear, the units are identical to their counterparts of the same hardware revision.

So, the question is- what's the difference? Software!

We all know the difference is in the software, and after examining countless dumps from these systems, on top of flash dumps given to us by you, our loyal re... More »  


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Over the months there has been a lot of inaccurate information circulating in regards to how exactly the PlayStation 3's Service Mode works, and as promised in our previous Dev updates here are some of the facts to help separate the rumors and speculation.

It is a fairly simple process as follows.. For starters, the PS3 is powered off, and a special USB dongle, known as the Jig, is connected. The PS3 is then turned on, and then off, once it has detected the Jig.

After this occurs, the PS3 is then turned back on, into "Service" Mode. From here, the PS3 is re-flashed using a Firmware Update on a USB stick, specifically designed to only install from the Service Mode. Once the PS3 is re-flashed with the software, it is then used in conjunction with a PC running customized software, specifically the DEX.exe and CEX.exe's.

There are a multitude of special PS3 firmwares, basically three major ones. The first is a Core System, followed by the Service Sys... More »  


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Many users live with boot problems or re-install Windows and start again, but there is a better way. If you learn what happens during the boot process then you'll be able to diagnose and fix any issues that might arise.

The BIOS

The boot starts with your PC's BIOS, which grabs its settings from CMOS RAM before initialising your video adaptor and any expansion cards. A Power On Self Test does basic hardware checks, tests your RAM if required and usually delivers a single beep to indicate that everything is working.

If there's a problem at this point then the BIOS will display an error message or issue a number of beeps; check your motherboard manual to figure out what they might mean. If it's accessible, launch your BIOS setup program to confirm that no settings have been changed. If they have, this could mean that your motherboard's CMOS battery has failed, in which case you'll need a replacement.

If you've installed an exp... More »  


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The more complex consoles become, the more weirdy-beardy secret functions are squirreled away inside of them, and Nintendo's latest is no exception.

While most of the Wii's Easter Eggs are specific to certain games - there's a whole trove of 'em in Wii Sports alone - here's seven of the best for the console itself.

1. Email a chum's Wii

You'll need to have a record of those damnably unmemorable friend codes for anyone you want to mail, but once you do it's simple: just drop a message to w[friendcode]@wii.com. For instance, w1234567891011@wii.com.

2. Add a smooth, constant blue glow to your Wii

The blue lighting around the disc slot normally only glows when the Wii's got some sort of announcement for you, and disappears once you've read it. However, you can lend your lounge a sci-fi feel by making that tastefull glow permanent. Just email your own Wii - using the system in the tip above - but never read the ... More »  


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Today Dark_AleX has released a PlayStation Portable 1.50 kernel add-on for 5.00 (phat) consoles with M33 Custom Firmware.

Download: PSP 1.50 Kernel Add-On for 5.00 M33 CFW / PSP 1.50 Kernel Add-On for 5.00 M33 CFW [Mirror]

Instructions: Copy to /PSP/GAME5XX and run.

Note: because even deleting LFTV and korean font there was not enough space this time, this version will delete also flash0:/dic/apotp.dic

I'm unsure about what this file is for (maybe for Japanese text predicition?) but system works fine with it.

IF you want to keep some of the things deleted by the 150k_installer do following things.

- Install DC7. Use the Format flash options in nand operations menu. Make flash1 size like around 1 MB smaller, make flash3 the smallest possible, and make flash2 a bit smaller (not too much, or... More »  


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