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Q&A with the man behind the SE: Dark Alex

Posted Nov 17, 2006 at 08:21PM by Chris L. Listed in: Homebrew Development, Interviews Tags: Sony, DevHook, Booster, Dark AleX, Custom Firmware

226

Time to talk to the man behind the ScEne, sort of. This is the latest from Dark Alex: not an app, or the sequel to that wonderful 2.71 SE, but this interview with Playstation Now Underground! Well, the interview was written en Español, but lucky for us, dcjoedog of the Homebrewcast Forums, who emailed this tip to us, was also kind enough to translate the interview for us.

Back to topic. When PNU asked Dark Alex of his opinion of the scene, this is what he had to say:

It's good, many interesting things have happened these last few months with the discovery of exploits in 2.5-2.71 and the dawn of custom firmware. I suppose that the direction the scene must take is to keep this momentum, to continue discovering exploits that allow to load unsigned code, to continue decrypting firmwares, etc.

Cool. Of course, beyond 2.75 and 2.8+ is Da Big F-W 3-Oh, and on that Alex had this to say: "No matter how difficult (to crack) they (Sony) make it, it's just code that can be decompiled. They cannot make magic, their archives must decrypt somehow, and that way is somewhere in their code."

And from one dev to another, when asked, Alex dropped a couple of news bits on what Booster is up to. First is that there's a DevHook beta running on 2.80, that also works for 2.81 (2.82 not tested yet), but it doesn't have ISO support, and it kinda hangs the PSP a lot. And that Booster was also "keeping himself occupied" with a Nintendo DS.

Okay, on to other fronts. Alex's working on improvements for 2.71 SE-C, which should include DAX format support, usbhost, and an option to change the CPU speed. And if Alex could squeeze more time from the hours of the day, he could also work on HEN-C for TA-082 motherboards.

Finally, if you don't know yet, wanna know Alex's background? He tells PNU that he's 23, currently a student of technical engineering in computer science, and his interests are computer science and cats. And the guy seems to gravitate to portables: he's done Java for mobile phones (but that had too many problems, he said) and for the PocketPC.

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77 Comments

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by first (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» first

first

Re: Jake (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Shut up, retard no1 likes u

Shut up, retard no1 likes u

Re: Shivy - 2006-11-18

» hm

i do

Re: nilzxx (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» i like those retards

i like retards who post "uh yeah, 1st post, beat this biatch!!"

Re: Wesker (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» darkalex

do you plan on doing downgrader for 2.81?

Re: 5th reply (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» 5th reply

number 5 haha i beat you to it

by Cheater912 (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» Wow

I can't wait until DAX and the usbhost!

by eddy (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» D_A

he seem like a cool person i and its great to know more of a great person to many he is a hero and i just want to say thanks for all the great thing you have come up with thanks to D_A i downgrade

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by d (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» 2.81

And from one dev to another, when asked, Alex dropped a couple of news bits on what Booster is up to. First is that there's a DevHook beta running on 2.80, that also works for 2.81

does this mean they found a 2.81 exploit but they are keeping it quiet till 3.00 comes out

Re: Chrisman (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» No...

No.

by DCJoeDog (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» wow, that's my forum

I'm the one who translated this, pretty cool for it to end up here

Re: Kristine C. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2006-11-17

» :)

Thanks for the tip! :)

Re: DCJoeDog - 2006-11-17

» no prob, bob

no problem, I just felt like doing it

Re: myself (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» español

wao, yo no sabia que Dark_AleX hablaba español.

Él de dónde es, ¿de España o latinoamérica?

PD: Dark_AleX eres el heroe! ¡¡Larga vida a el Rey!!

Re: Colt - Jefe de PSNow! Undeground (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Gracias tío! :D

Bueno, pues gracias por traducir la entrevista. Una sola pregunta... Cómo te enteraste de la notícia? En Espal? PSPain? Jejeje

Re: Macrike (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» .

Yeah, very nice job DCJoeDog, but you could've at least mention the site of PSNow! Underground, since you got the nterview from there. Don't you think so?

Re: DCJoeDog - 2006-11-18

» answers

I mention BOTH a direct link to the interview AND a link to the main site page at the end of the interview

I found the news at ESPALPSP

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by dievndiernoqdfn (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» hey

how do you:

a.) get fastloader working on 2.71 se-b3
b.) downgrade to 1.5 from 2.71 se-b3

you see, my umd copy of gtavcs crashes when i try to load this one mission. i lost my receipt, so eb games wouldnt exchange it... so im stuck with getting an iso copy

i first tried bittorrent, but the download sticks at 89.97%. then i thought id use fastloader, but it doesnt even show up in the xmb...

so,yes, help would be apreciated

Re: PotFarmer (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» hahaha

i hit the same problem with one torrent it was this USA one which i would prefer cause i live in the USA but both of the USA torrents wouldnt work. Finally i decided to get the psypsp-eur cause i couldnt finish the dl with the USA torrents. Still plays exactly the same so i dont see a problem. Also the game wont work if the download isnt completed.

Re: Cheater912 (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» ISO's are legal...

...if you own the game.

Re: someone (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» try this

to load fastloader on 2.71 se-b3 just use devhook to load fw 1.5 and put fastloader in your normal game folder then load it from the 1.5 xmb k.
hope that helps!!

by nights777 - 2006-11-17

» See guys?

The top people of all the scene are just normal people. They do their jobs or hobbies and if they become popular they dont see themselves as anything more than just their normal selves. I've talked to Luke Smith from 1up. (big fan of his) And hes like yeah im just a normal guy.

by i (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» hi

i play socom

by axelixc - 2006-11-17

» hmm

i wonder what kind of cats dark alex likes. a ***** cat or auto-cad? is dis suppose a joke? f*ck !

by BenT (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» Dark Alex...

Dark Alex is THE MAN!

by antonyfl (QJ. NET Staff) - 2006-11-17

» -D-A-R-K-A-L-E-X-

Dark_AleX = da pwn (shout out to Mathilleuh: you were right about him and Devhook :D )

On another note it is sad that the new devhook wont have iso emulation because as an above post said, Isos ARE legal as long as you own the game.

Re: ... (Unregistered) - 2006-11-19

» ...

ISOS are NOT legal even if you own the game. UMD is a proprietary format thus making any kind of rip illegal...

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by unknown (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» good

good good good good news cant stop coming yyou know cuz i just got 2.71 LOL devhook 0.46 before 0.43 anyway this is the best news for me as i like playing demos and all the demos might come out now thats awesome and i would like to say that Dark_AleX should keep it up cuz hes real good real good i shouldnt forget to say thankx to Boosters

by Theaceoffire (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» GOD BLESS DARK_ALEX!

Dude, I think you have PERSONALLY been responsible for about 30,000 psp sales, at LEAST! My brother and I have converted an army from the gameboys and the "games are stupid" crowed with your stuff. THANK YOU THANK YOU! I hope you have fifty kids whom all become genius scientist/billionaire/cowboy/astronaut/secret agents with cool accents!

by Benighted (Unregistered) - 2006-11-17

» Nice...

And again good news keep coming.....This will be an interesting christmas....

by augiedog34 - 2006-11-18

» Dark_Alex is the man

I am so grateful to everything he has done for the PSP community. He has made the PSP the coolest little peice of harware I have. I can use all sorts of homebrew and play all of the newest games thanks to him. I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to guys like Dark_Alex who do everything they can to make the PSP more enjoyable for all of us!

by chummy_C (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» HEN_C

Did he say HEN-C running on TA-082?? But HEN-C does run on TA-082!! Been using HEN-C on my TA-082 for months now!!

Re: sorry (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» but i dont

get you point i knew tht a bit of time ago why dont you make it SE-C when it is released?

Re: phattyB (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Read the interview,

they ask if he is going to improve Hen for those ta-082 users. QJ either doesn't know what they are talking about or just worded the story in a confusing way.

by spansih (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» wow

woah he speaks spanish i wonder if he is mexican that would be cool

Re: slit (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» spanish from spain

he's from the very south of spain, so european ;)

by baklova (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Thanks DAX

Yo this cat is awesome. Thanks for all your hard work DAX! Youve made many PSP owners very happy, and beleive me we appreciate ya.

I know this might be a litte OT, but you guys any way to hide that pesky corrupt data from the recovery folder? (im hesitant to get rid of it altogether)

by Mentality - 2006-11-18

» Shweeeet

This guy is my idle man, sweet to get a bit of background on him, thanks guys.

by axelixc - 2006-11-18

» hmm

he is 23 n he likes to eat carrot. he cycles to school.

by belmontthefirst (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» *****ing awesome!!!

dark-alex still rules the homebrew scene, it can only get worse from here, but like dark alex said with the 3.00 firmware, its just code, and there is always a way to crack it, no matter how long it takes, but darkalex simply stated he will crack 3.00, maybe there is a possibility, to combine 3.00 with 1.50, then with full homebrew support, iso loading, prx installer, and recovery menu, as you know 3.00-1.50=1.50:P:P:P

by werty (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» werty

thx Dark-Alex ı love you :D

kiss you sony

f**k you psp ver 2.82 :p

by Fifo (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» my ghost

I study computer engineering
I like cats
and i used to program for mobile phones....
weeeeeeeeeeeeird

by Dark Alex... (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» ...is a bad guy!

He is providing others with the opportunity to play games for free.
He is preventing game publishers to get money for the games they programmed and so...fu Dark Alex!
If everyone were like you and those stupid *****ers who use your *****ty programs there would be no point in developing new games and it would be the end of the game industry and of course the biggest losers in this history would be those who buy there games!!
SO and i wil repeat myself ***** you Dark Alex

Re: JudgeMagister (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Retard

F.u.c.k you *****. You know NOTHING but *****.

Re: axelixc - 2006-11-18

» oh JudgeMagister

dun be angry. he is just pissed off coz his gay partner bricked his psp. lol !

Re: idiot (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» imbiscil

shut up already if you have problem then go to the doctor ps. my father is 1 he will give you 20% discounted which will make 1000£ so shut the ** up before you talk next time

Re: ... (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» wtf

uhh... you're a retard. there are still people buying the games. not everybody in the psp community does this, and even so, its not a bad thing if you dont have money to buy every new psp game. so stfu before you open your mouth next time.

Re: Dark alex is a great guy (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» Dark alex is a great guy

What kind of ***** says that he prodes peole with free games

by isti - 2006-11-18

» :D

I want a Dark_Alex poster on my wall ^^

about ISO loading:

PSP has hundreds of games now,
and on the official site you can find 5-6 demos..
thanks to ISO loading many games turned out to be cr@p..
now.. if I had to buy them, I would tear those UMDs up to pieces..

PS1, and PS2 has demo discs in mags..
so why not the PSP??

ISO loading is just an opportunity to try out the games..
it goes into piracy when you like a game, and you play it a lot, but you don't buy it..

so please consider..

by Jack (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» you suck

whoever the hell wrote that comment above this comment, is a bit of a *****. ISO's are illegal the moment you download them, not if you play them frequently.

and dark alex gave me the gift of 1.5 :D

by pspfreedomfighter - 2006-11-18

» da devhook 4 2.8+

does dark alex ave devhook for 2.80 and 2.81 i hope so coz b4 iknew about the swich umd hack to allow u to use any firmware on gta vcs i downloaded the 2.81 cuz i had to plz plz plz just release it

if u wanna email me about it fell free need4speed92@hotmail.co.uk

psp fw 2.81 user im a D>I>C>K H>E>A>D upgradin like and idoit

Re: ... (Unregistered) - 2006-11-19

» ...

Yes I can see you are a moron. Devhook works only to emulate 2.8 and 2.81 NOT on them...

by Sleinous (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» i cant

i cant coz iv had 2 upgrade for gta vcs

by spardaofdemons (QJ. NET Staff) - 2006-11-18

» QJ shortened it this is all of it=

Playstation Now Underground : Hello, Alex, first things first, a very big THANKS in the name of all the users in the Scene of PSP for the impressive work that you are doing.

Dark_Alex: Thanks

PSNU: Tell us something about yourself. Age, occupation, interests, etc.

DA: I am 23 years old, I am currently a student in technical engineering in computer science, and as for interests, computer science and cats.

PSNU: What made you interested in programming for the PSP?

DA: Not really sure, I've been programming for devices like it for a while. I remembered that I already programmed in java for mobile phones but that had too many problems, and also for pocket PC, so the following one, for me, was the PSP.

PSNU: In your opinion, what is the present state of the Scene and what is the direction that it must take?

DA: It's good, many interesting things have happened these last few months with the discovery of exploits in 2.5-2.71 and the dawn of custom firmware. I suppose that the direction the scene must take is to keep this momentum, to continue discovering exploits that allow to load unsigned code, to continue decrypting firmwares, etc.

PSNU: Is there something that you wish to do for the PSP but you see that it is not possible at the moment?

DA: I would have liked to do custom firmware without the necessity of bootstrapping it to 1.5, but at the moment it is impossible

PSNU: You can explain to us what is bootstrapping?

DA: Bootstrapping is the starting of the PSP. It begins with the boot-up program that is loading the first modules of firmware, which in turn load the rest of modules as well.

PSNU: Do you think that SONY will make it difficult to decrypt 3.0?

DA: No matter how difficult they make it, it's just code that can be decompiled. They cannot make magic, their archives must decrypt somehow, and that way is somewhere in their code

PSNU: We would like to know if you have thought about continuing with the HEN-C for the unfortunate users of the TA-082 motherboards, or is it already finalized.

DA: I might work on it more if I can find some more time.

PSNU: Will you include some great improvements for version C of the 2.71SE?

DA: Aside from support for the .DAX format and usbhost not that much more to put. The ability to change the speed of the CPU is also something to add.

PSNU: Don't you think that it's already time for Booster to release the source code of Devhook? What improvements could you/would you wish to make to it?

DA: Booster was thinking about releasing them, but first he wants to eliminate the code that disassembles the firmware to avoid any problems, although I doubt that it is illegal.

PSNU: Any news on what he's been up to?

DA: A beta of a DevHook running on 2.80 exists, that also works for 2.81 (2.82 not tested yet). ISO support is missing, and it has many problems which causes your PSP to hang. Last I heard was that he was keeping himself occupied with the Nintendo DS (I do not have any idea of what he is doing for that scene)

PSNU: Any idea why this beta is having so many problems? The rest of firmwares were easily emulated once they were decrypted.

DA: I don't know, it can that the problems have to do with the fact that the firmware is loaded from the Memory Stick and that Sony may have had in hand in that. Maybe if it was loaded from the flash memory there wouldn't be any of those problems…

PSNU: You seem to know the limits of the PSP well enough, do you think that someday we will get a decent emulator for the PSX or N64 working?

DA: One for the Playstation could be made if somebody dedicates a long time to it(months). And for N64…well, I do not believe that it can go full speed unless it is made for a specific game.

PSNU: Did the idea to make 2.71SE come to you when you saw the DualBoot or something like that?

DA: Well I had the knowledge and I knew it was something that could be done because there was enough space in flash to do it, but I never seemed to be able to g

Re: DCJoeDog - 2006-11-18

» huh?

Why did you do that, now people have no reason to go to my forum to get the interview, that's just plain low. I spent the trouble translating it and all you did was copy and paste it

Re: The man that smell like roses and cheap wine (Unregistered) - 2006-11-19

» DCJoeDog...

Dude, chill the f*** up. Either way anybody could translate it. No te creas que eres el unico que hablas español asi que no seas pendejo y lloron jodida nena. People want to know about DA not about your forum. This is not low. Is convenient. Smoke some and chill.... *roll eyes*

by Joel (Unregistered) - 2006-11-18

» awesome

you all read it, devhook on 2.80 and 2.81 would be awesome, i mean i'm sticking with SE-B, hopefully in the future with SE-C, but i like how Dark_Alex said what he said about 3.0 and the coding and all that stuff, 3.0 will be cracked and who knows maybe a 3.0 SE-(pick a letter) might arrive.

this piece of news is looking quite promising.

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Q&A with the man behind the SE: Dark Alex

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