Re: [ps2hacking-devel] Who is running this show?

[M. R. B. <mr...@0x...>]

* John Thornton <jth...@ha...> on Sun, Jan 06, 2002:

>=20
> Please do. I would like to know what you think. That us if you have the
> time.
>=20

I'm not much of a political person in that respect.  I don't think
politicians make good hackers, emotions get too muddled up, and it seems
like your "issues" with Sony are more politically motivated rather than hac=
ker
motivated.  That's not really my thing :P.  Too bad you aren't in this for
the fun of hacking the PS2.

>=20
> This is great news. Do you have a kit? Has anyone gotten it to work witho=
ut
> a kit?
>=20

Nope, I don't have a kit.  I'm still heavily active in Dreamcast
homebrew/Linux stuff, so I haven't dedicated myself to PS2/Linux projects
yet.  I do believe it's possible (using the homebrew boot methods and/or
USB loaders available) to get a PS2/Linux kernel booting on a US PS2.

The main problem I see is that a huge chunk of PS2 kernel code is binary
only, Sony uses a bootloader mechanism called "SBIOS" from their kernel
source, and this provides functionality for sound, CD/DVD, joypads,
memcards, etc.  I've started reversing this (mostly just RPC calls back to
the IOP), but I haven't made a whole lot of progress.

My main goal is to get a fully open-sourced version of Linux that's
compatible with all PS2's.

M. R.