
Just as Sony
keeps releasing little tweaks to the PlayStation Portable's firmware to
add even more security and, sometimes, new features, those keen on
keeping the PSP as open a platform as possible also keep on churning
out regular custom firmware updates.
One of the best and most trusted of these steadfast developers is Dark AleX,
who first burst onto the PSP homebrew scene with a UMD dumper and
solidified his reputation with his Special and Open Edition custom
firmware. He has since moved on to developing M33 CFW, the latest
release of which is CFW 5.00 M33. That's the firmware we'll be shining
the spotlight on in this issue of QuickJump QuickGuide.
First, some history.
In
the latter part of 2008 Sony released a new PSP firmware dubbed 5.00.
It was the first "universal" update for all three PSP models. As such,
OFW 5.00 was a pretty substantial update that added direct PSN access
and a PSN category to the XMB, among other things.

Within 24 hours, Dark Alex had already released a PSARDUMPER for OFW 5.00. A couple of days later, 5.00 M33 was out.
What can I say? The man works really fast. The first release of 5.00
M33 included the features found in the official Sony firmware as well
as a bugfix:
- When changing speed in XMB, and the PSP turned the brightness to 0 automatically the speed was reseted to 222 again.
DAX
also released a PSX bugfix for 5.00 M33 a short while later after users
started reporting error 0xFFFFFFFF messages appearing while launching
PSX games on the new CFW. A 1.50 kernel add-on for 5.00 M33 also followed a short while later.

5.00 M33-2
was the first major update for the new CFW. It fixed a lot of the
problems users encountered while trying out the new PSN feature as well
as further issues concerning PSX games. The release of the update was
also accompanied by a new Popsloader version which, according to DAX,
was to be "the Popsloader for 5.00 M33-2 and up (until Sony screws it
again)."
The next update followed a mere day later. 5.00 M33-3
was a smaller update compared to the first, but it did add a very
important new feature: it let users bypass the PSN's version check
automatically without having to fiddle around with anything. This was
to be the last update we would get for a while.
Almost two months after 5.00 M33-3, update 4 was released.
Along with the bugfixes, this update also made UMD/ISO speed settings
apply to PSN games. Another noteworthy feature was a new shutdown
option added to the VSH menu, which turned out to be a boon to those
whose PSP power switches were already in bad shape.
If you know
your math, you're well aware that the next update was 5.00 M33-5. This
update was another stab at increasing memory stick speeds on the PSP,
something that was being tried as far back as 3.. It eventually got
rolled into one release with 5.00 M33-6, which arrived just moments
later.
Aside from coming out right after update 5, 5.00 M33-6
also arrived right on the heels of the release of Sony's official
firmware 5.03. It only had one item in the changelog, but it was the
one thing that finally convinced me to update:
- Fixed a bug that made unbootable psp without memory stick or with a bad one.

As
you may have gathered from some of the problems and fixes described
above, every new custom firmware update can cause compatibility
problems with homebrew apps and plugins released for earlier firmware
versions. 5.00 M33 has been out for quite a while now, though, so a lot
of devs have already released compatible versions of their apps. Here
are just a few that work with 5.00 M33:
- iR Shell
- Despertar del Cementerio v8
- PSP Pandora Deluxe v2.9
- FuSa SD
- CXMB v3.3
Well,
there you have it folks, the lowdown on Dark AleX's 5.00 M33 custom
firmware as well as its associated updates. If you're more inclined to
look at the complete changelogs for all the updates, just give the
links above a click. Stay tuned for a new QuickGuide coming next
Tuesday.