Release: Half Byte Loader R113 for OFW 6.37 (and below)
January 23, 2011 in HBL, release | 14 comments
If you’re on a Firmware 6.36 or less, there’s a high chance you already know about the Homebrew enablers available for you, which are as close as you can get to a Custom Firmware nowadays. Homebrews, plugins, Kernel mode, everything you want to do with your PSP is now doable (Sony still hasn’t added youtube support in the official firwmare, while we’ve been enjoying it on CFW for almost 3 years now… but if you’re running one of those Homebrew enablers, you already know that.)
Of course, Official Firmware 6.37 patches the Kernel exploit used by the HEN, as well as the exploit in the Game “minna no sukkiri”.
But this is no news anymore, we can now sign user-mode homebrews for the PSP, and 6.37 doesn’t patch that. This means that if you’re on 6.37, you still have a possibility to run user-mode homebrews (which represent the majority of homebrew games and utils)… as long as they are signed.
Of course, you can look for signed homebrews (there’s a good list here), and run them directly on your machine. Often though, you will run into a homebrew that is not yet signed. Yes, you can sign homebrews yourself on your PSP. But maybe you won’t want to bother. Or maybe the homebrew you want to play has limitations that prevent it to be signed (*cough* scummVM *cough*). Such as homebrews that are too big, or homebrews compiled as static elf. Unless you’re very tech-savvy, don’t try too hard figuring out which ones will work or won’t, the best way is to try…which is frustrating.
What I’m saying is: don’t trash your perfectly fine collection of unsigned homebrews, HBL is still here for you, in a shiny new version that you can run from the XMB. (Thanks to JJS for this new version!)
This new release of Half Byte Loader runs directly from the XMB on any 6.xx firmware, and will allow you to:
Run your homebrews on 6.37 (or any other 6.XX firmware) without the need to sign them
Run homebrews that cannot be signed (such as ScummVM), on firmware 6.37 or below
Put your homebrews in any folder you want, to avoid turning your “Game” XMB into a huge mess
I expect this release to be interesting mostly for 6.37 owners, but this new HBL release is compatible with all 6.XX firmwares for people who are not into the “Hen” stuff .
I must say that I’m perfectly happy that for this one time, Sony patches the Kernel exploit (we expect them to) but still lets us enjoy User mode homebrew. I’m sure this is not intentional, but thanks anyways.
Download here and enjoy
