Slim PS3 = No More Otheros

[ps2devman]

PS3-Slim's innards :
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/PlayStat ... lim/1121/1

Also, don't forget to grab available dev stuff still online, like this one :
http://nocturnal.insomniacgames.com/index.php/Main_Page

Who knows... PS3 Linux related blogs may shutdown one after another from now...

[rapso]

I think they frown upon most reversing talk here.

Actually, this is untrue. The intent behind the reversing is important to consider.
If you're not actively working on a method to pirate games you're pretty much free to talk about whatever you want.

having the signature algorithm/keys is also rather not aiming to piracy, cause you dont need to sign a game again. signing own files would rather be for homebrew, that's why i'd like to now it to estimate how uber-impossible it is to break the key.

[lotharx]

The PS3 design is so refined that anything outside the otherOS address space is pretty much attack vectors for piracy. Finding anything for 'homebrew' outside otherOS environment and publishing it will be a certain prelude to piracy because of the way the PS3 is designed.

Most of the regulars here have already mapped the entire address spaces for both the XDR and DDR2 from otherOS mode. All the HV calls are known from the kernel, and ones not in the kernel source would take a huge framework to probe for.

[speedxl]

As most guessed OtherOs is not being removed on PS3 models before the slim, with firmware 3.0, here´s confirmation directly from developers of the firmware at SCE JAPAN, it includes details of other upgrades etc.. however its in japanese.

Google translated link

http://translate.google.com.mx/translat ... s&ie=UTF-8

and here a translated synopsis by other site

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/0 ... 0_secrets/

If someone is fluent in japanese maybe could translate for us the original full sentence about the OtherOs, because the google translation sucks..

[rapso]

The PS3 design is so refined that anything outside the otherOS address space is pretty much attack vectors for piracy. Finding anything for 'homebrew' outside otherOS environment and publishing it will be a certain prelude to piracy because of the way the PS3 is designed.

that is and was always they case, that's why it's smart to allow linux to run.
here is a nice statistic bout this, pretty much at the beginning of the talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtDTNnEvlf8

[kengreen]

Today Sony's Satoshi Hashimoto, in an interview with http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/seri ... 11039.html, confirmed that Sony will not be removing the OtherOS and Linux functionality in old (non-Slim) PlayStation 3 consoles. As reported in PS3ews

[ooPo]

Finding anything for 'homebrew' outside otherOS environment and publishing it will be a certain prelude to piracy because of the way the PS3 is designed.

That is the point of this discussion.

Do we accept it as a possible, yet unfortunate, outcome of exploring our interests? Or do we continue with 'sanctioned' homebrew on older PS3 models?

My personal opinion is that anything is fair game as long as it is legally conducted.

I'm not obligated to prop up a potentially insecure platform - that's Sony's job. That said, I have no reason to break it wide open either. Publishing just enough information to get homebrew code running would be ideal. Unfortunately, without otheros any homebrew loading method is potentially also a method for piracy.

So what do we do? Stay in otheros and hope we never have to buy a replacement PS3? Start poking around and see if we can load some code another way? Or just forget it all and go do something else?

I'd like to hear what other people think.

[someone]

the other possible outcome is somebody else breaks it, only for piracy, and doesn't release any information since they want to keep the hack to themselves this will cause the ps3 to have piracy and no homebrew
but looking at the past this is unlikely

of course the ideal solution is still sony allowing proper homebrew so everybody keeps control of what they want

[bootsector_]

May the PS3 hacking begin!

[Herben]

I've never been one to consider the potential for piracy as a reason limit my own hacking. PC games continue to sell regardless of the fact that the PC is not a "secure" platform. You can download pre-cracked games for PC from any number of places on the net and run them without a hitch yet these games continue to sell. Both Wii and xbox have been pirate-friendly for a long time now yet they keep making money. You don't see developers jumping ship due to lost sales from piracy on those platforms.

I honestly believe that Sony fears unlicensed software more than piracy. They supported "homebrew" as long as it required you to boot into a separate OS by changing a setting in a buried menu, rebooting the system and waiting for the other OS to boot. Not exactly convenient and not within grasp of the average Joe Gamer. But if you can play ooPo's homebrew game "Fantastic Faecal Flinger" directly from the game menu of XMB, people might not be so quick to pay $10 for some rehashed shit on PSN. That could hurt them in a way that piracy doesn't. People can't be made to feel bad about using free software simply because it doesn't benefit SCE.

Sony has plenty of ways to combat piracy without fucking over unlicensed software makers. I simply can't shake the feeling that Sony feels as threatened by us for providing alternatives to their software as they do pirates. After all, it's pretty easy to get $70 for a crappy game when you have a monopoly, isn't it?

I think the speed at which Sony patched the RSX hack and the lack of support for OtherOS in the PS3 Slim speaks for itself.

[TyRaNiD]

I think now Sony have abandoned "homebrew" they are fair game, alas normally once you can get unlicensed code running it tends to end up with piracy as well is not really our fault.

Oh and rapso I call bullshit on the CCC presentation, the 360 was hacked for piracy, without that the initial stuff couldn't have even been booted. Sure they might have more cunning hacks these days but it is amazing what access to devkits can do for your blackbox hacking :P

[ps2devman]

For me, all happened when Sony feared to be third in the consoles market contest. Higher ranks got jealous of Nintendo getting better success with lower plastic tech.

So a switch occured. True devs, who really had power of command, lost it. Kutaragi got dropped. Above that, some game devs said they were confused that ps3 could be seen as computer and not a game console.

Now higher ranks want to overtake nintendo, counting on their low tech to be outdated soon.

Also, be warned, any announcement made by a Sony dev may just be betrayed in future if higher ranks decide so, without further notice.
Because it's all about money and market shares now. The 'dev' era is finished. And higher ranks panic easily.

Even if older models are still supported, the harm is done. Just look at how motivation just vanished for the groups of devs who wanted to invest time in OtherOS.

For those with low hacker skills, it may be time to bring support to Linux on 360, since it's now possible to boot directly linux on 360 thru a small 3 resistors hardware hack. Native sound is missing, temperature detection and automatic control of fan speed is missing, etc... And doing so they will give time to PS3 Slim hackers to find something.

For those with high hacker skills, they now have 2 great challenges :
- run homebrew code on PS3 Slim
- extend fast memory (really a painful problem)
I doubt it can be done only by Software, so it will take time.

One fantastic thing about 360's and PS3's is that they are made in large numbers and so the components inside them are cheap, even if they can be re-used to make a very powerful computer (I talk only about CPU, since GPU's are now already outdated : RSX=NV47 and Xenos=pre-R600)

Another way would be to consider a way to recreate the best homebrew platform using one of them (or both), by imagining very audacious and innovative ways to re-use their components. If the result is too far away from the platform required to play backups, then you avoid piracy too, but you open new pleasant ways to create free homebrew code.

[LionX]

i think this slim version is just for people who just wants to play COD4/COD5 and dont want to pay bug bucks. its not for us devers and people who wants flexibility

[Ameen]

That's really sad, considering the time PS3 hackers were willing to spend on this platform.

Cell is a very interesting platform to play with, but instead of unlocking the RSX, Sony yet surprises us with the abandon of OtherOS support.

I hope they can fix this in the near future somehow!

What a shame..

[whig]

Coding drivers too expensive?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28 ... tall_loss/

[J.F.]

Coding drivers too expensive?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28 ... tall_loss/

Considering that most Sony engineers are on salary and probably spend most of their time playing minesweeper, the "cost" of drivers is just another excuse. Particularly when you realize they had to write GameOS drivers, meaning they know how the parts work, and they already have existing drivers for older, similar parts to base new drivers off of. Something like this for the PC wouldn't run more than a few thousand dollar for CONTRACT work, and would be expected to be done without need for orders for salaried workers.

[lotharx]

Coding drivers too expensive?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28 ... tall_loss/

Considering that most Sony engineers are on salary and probably spend most of their time playing minesweeper, the "cost" of drivers is just another excuse. Particularly when you realize they had to write GameOS drivers, meaning they know how the parts work, and they already have existing drivers for older, similar parts to base new drivers off of. Something like this for the PC wouldn't run more than a few thousand dollar for CONTRACT work, and would be expected to be done without need for orders for salaried workers.

That doesn't mean anything. When you work for a company that big you've already bee spoiled a while. IBM and other hardware vendors did all the real work, and they all have physicists and engineers from Russia, Germany, Asia, and Portuguese for the most part because they are the most productive. Americans are mostly just lazy consumers or barely scratch by on physics and mathematics in school.

Most malware and software solutions that comes from the states is really sloppy. Go look in any skilled developer community to see what I'm talking about...

[rapso]

Oh and rapso I call bullshit on the CCC presentation, the 360 was hacked for piracy, without that the initial stuff couldn't have even been booted.

I'm not sure I understand you right, but if, then I have to disagree, because the x360, even after firmware updates, was always hacked for piracy, by flashing the drive. (but correct me if i'm wrong, I dont have an x360).

So, there is no real reason to go further in hacking for piracy, that's why I think that the piracy on 360 is not that much relying on linux.
But on the other side, if there was no piracy (yet) on x360, all the things they had to do to get linux runnig would be what you need to get piracy.

Sure they might have more cunning hacks these days but it is amazing what access to devkits can do for your blackbox hacking :P

Do you want to imply, that they just did not hack the PS3 yet, cause they don't have access to ps3 devkits?


I just hope someone will find a way to get homebrew running without making warez possible.

nowadays a lot of games are using lua and sony might not sign the whole disc, just binaries, maybe that would be an entry point.

[rapso]

Coding drivers too expensive?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28 ... tall_loss/

Considering that most Sony engineers are on salary and probably spend most of their time playing minesweeper, the "cost" of drivers is just another excuse. Particularly when you realize they had to write GameOS drivers, meaning they know how the parts work, and they already have existing drivers for older, similar parts to base new drivers off of. Something like this for the PC wouldn't run more than a few thousand dollar for CONTRACT work, and would be expected to be done without need for orders for salaried workers.

I wonder if there is really that much to do.
Isn't most of the stuff anyway behind the hypervisor? and because of the older PS3 with otheros, they probably have to support the old hypervisor interface, so they'll use it for the new slim. I didn't look into the drivers on the linux side, but is there really that much driver work?

And another thing i wonder is, if they think its too expensive, why dont they just release whatever info is needed and let the community do the work?

I think ps2devman pretty much hits the point. Money is ruling sony's decisions now. completely concentrate on game business. but it's sad they miss the opportunities for their business by supporting linux, they shall glimps at IBM, google and even apple (OSX) to see that it might be a win, and even microsoft is supporting homebrew to some degree.

Sony seems to be always far behind when it comes to innovative decisions, but far ahead if it comes to annoy customers :(

[J.F.]

Sony seems to be always far behind when it comes to innovative decisions, but far ahead if it comes to annoy customers :(

I think they're ahead on both. :)

They make innovative decisions, like making OTHEROS available, then piss everyone off by removing it later. They did the same thing with regards to the IR port on the PSP - make the innovative decision to have IRDA on the Phat, then piss people off by removing it from the Slim. It's my one complaint about my Slim... I miss the IR port. :(

[ouasse]

They did the same thing with regards to the IR port on the PSP - make the innovative decision to have IRDA on the Phat, then piss people off by removing it from the Slim. It's my one complaint about my Slim... I miss the IR port. :(

not to mention the removal of the UMD drive on future PSP Go...

I guess next step in PS3 evolution will be to remove the BD drive. That would not be too difficult to make all the current BD PS3 games available on the PS store. Woot.

[ps2devman]

PS3 Slim has fw 2.75 onboard (out of the box)

[ps2devman]

Spanish hackers have confirmed that fw 2.80 allows BD-J homebrew if it's read from BD Drive. So... for people satisfied by BD-J performance, another way of research is to emulate the BD Drive so BD-J can be read.
(without the need to burn a BD-R of course... at least not more than once)

Since the goal is not to read madly encrypted PS3 specific BD's but regular BD's working in any BD player able to execute BD-J, it shouldn't be as hard as a true PS3 specific hack.

I guess it can take the shape of some intermediate connector between PS3 and the BD drive (like the recent modchips we see for the Wii).

If you burn one BD-R with specific pattern and just have the modchip replace that pattern, on the fly, with data coming from another easier media, maybe something can be done...