PSP v3.90 M33 Firmware

I saw a post on Engadget that there is a custom (read as 'hacked') 3.90 firmware out for the PSP that supports Skype.  It sounded pretty easy, so I thought I would update my v3.40 up to v3.90 and see what it does.  Note: 3.90 on the fat (read as 'old') PSPs does no support Skype; apparently the new slim PSPs have more memory in them...

Just to be safe I went ahead and made my original PSP battery into a Pandora's battery (more on that in another post). 

To do this upgrade, your PSP must be able to run 'homebrew' software by having its firmware already modified.  There are numerous exploits to do this, but they are all specific to a certain version of firmware.  The alternative to this is to find someone with a Pandora's Battery that can but the PSP into a mode where the 'golden' (i.e. 'very hackable') v1.50 firmware can be installed.

Trying to directly upgrade to 3.90 M33 firmware is no good- my PSP's firmware must be v3.52 M33 r2 or higher.  To do this, download the 3.52 M33 firmware creator and follow the instructions for downloading and renaming the official v1.50 and v3.52 firmwares. A quick run of the 3.52 firmware creator and there is now a custom installer on the memory stick that needs to be run (after reboot); this brings my PSP up to 3.52 M33. 

I also need to bring the PSP up to v3.52 M33 patch 2 or higher for the update to work; this is pretty painless and requires a reboot to work.

Finally- the 3.90 M33 upgrade!  This update is very well done- it downloads the official 3.90 (if not already present), creates the update, installs and all is done (be sure to follow the directions and press the 'X' when finished!).  Since I have a fat PSP I also need to install the 1.50 kernel patch, and this also requires a copy of the official v1.50 firmware.

So now I am running 3.90 firmware- and I really cannot tell the difference save for I needed to reset all settings when I tried to edit my background image...

One tool that I did run across during this endeavor was the PSP ISO Compressor; it allows me to take ISO images of the games I already own and play from my Memory Stick Pro Duo and compress them into CSO files (compressed ISOs)- this gives me 10%-15% more space on my memory stick for additional homebrew games...