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Not a phone but my PlayStation vita got a whole new life after jail breaking it. I actually regret not doing it earlier. I can backup and play my games from a n

Not a phone but my PlayStation vita got a whole new life after jail breaking it. I actually regret not doing it earlier. I can backup and play my games from a normal sd card attached to a cheap adaptor. I can play home brew and community patches and fan translations (I have some Japanese games that never made it to the west). I can emulate anything from the 16 bit era plus perfect emulation from ps1 and psp. I can even use moonlight to play my pc. The poor vita rejected by Sony is so good I’ve decided to skip on a switch for now because it is that good.

eldaisfish 4y ago
the PS Vita and the community behind it are a real marvel. The hardware is fantastic and has held up really well. I have one and i upgraded the battery, jailbroke the software… and i now have a fantastic emulation device in addition to full access to the PS Vita and PSX catalogues. Both are immense and the games are enjoyable. I hope the steam deck goes down the same path and am eagerly waiting for prices to drop on the used market.
- arglebargle123 4y ago
  Don't forget the entire PSP catalog as well. The Vita really was an underappreciated gem when it was actively selling new units.
officeplant 4y ago
As soon as Nintendo announced they were shutting down the E-Shop I finally homebrewed my 2DS XL. Best thing I ever did to it.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The 3DS series was probably the peak of console hacking. There was a surprisingly long period where you could install freeshop and it would download any game direct from Nintendo’s servers without paying. Along with easy persistent soft mods. I expect in the coming gens, console hacking will reach borderline impossible levels when things get replaced with memory safe languages. Probably all that’s left is cpu glitching with power and clock attacks.
  - skeaker 4y ago
    The Switch is already said to be unhackable with purely software-side methods by the big names in the scene. I guess we'll find out with time if that's really true, but the current homebrew scene for it really only exists thanks to that hardware error in the first revision of the console which afaik isn't even Nintendo's fault. I think the 3DS scene may have been a real wake up call for them.
    - hosh 4y ago
      There was a recent article framing the Steam Deck as a handheld PC gaming platform, which got me thinking about using it as a base for a handheld dev environment.
      - bityard 4y ago
        It's just a pretty ordinary Linux computer with a touchscreen and joysticks attached. I wouldn't do much serious dev on it myself because of the smallish screen but I've seen Real Hackers do more with less. Could be worth a shot!
        hosh 4y ago
        Hundred Rabbits were talking about using a hacked Nintendo handheld with a custom OS; it’s for when they run out of power while sailing. These are the folks who made UXN, and even going as far as designing gestures and glyphs for each opscode so that computation can still be worked out without electronic devices. I got interested in this from CollapseOS and Collapse Informatics, imagining a day when we lose our ability to make advanced microchips, but still have salvagable ones laying around.
      - komali2 4y ago
        I went a bit down this path cause I thought it would be fun to not bring my laptop and only bring the steam deck on trips. It's just unfortunately not very convenient, the laptop clamshell with the keyboard right there and stably attached to the monitor is just so much more handy of a design. In terms of actual power, once you get the steam deck hooked to an external monitor with whatever peripherals you need like keyboard, it's just fine as a dev device, or for editing photos in dark table or running music production software. And, obviously, for gaming, works well, all in Linux. In terms of using the onscreen keyboard as a "handheld dev device" I think one of those competitors with a miniature sized physical keyboard built in would probably be better, or there's a whole scene I glimpsed once of people making mini clamshell designs of machines with mini keyboards. The touchpads work ok but it's just infuriatingly slow compared to a keyboard, especially once you start needing brackets, parentheses, etc.
- agentultra 4y ago
  Same. The developer tooling for it is rad too. I’m blown away by it. It’s a really fun platform to hack on. If you try it out drop the devs a donation! They’re super talented and deserve all the respect.

eldaisfish 4y ago

the PS Vita and the community behind it are a real marvel. The hardware is fantastic and has held up really well. I have one and i upgraded the battery, jailbroke the software… and i now have a fantastic emulation device in addition to full access to the PS Vita and PSX catalogues. Both are immense and the games are enjoyable. I hope the steam deck goes down the same path and am eagerly waiting for prices to drop on the used market.

arglebargle123 4y ago
Don't forget the entire PSP catalog as well. The Vita really was an underappreciated gem when it was actively selling new units.

officeplant 4y ago

As soon as Nintendo announced they were shutting down the E-Shop I finally homebrewed my 2DS XL. Best thing I ever did to it.

Gigachad 4y ago
The 3DS series was probably the peak of console hacking. There was a surprisingly long period where you could install freeshop and it would download any game direct from Nintendo’s servers without paying. Along with easy persistent soft mods. I expect in the coming gens, console hacking will reach borderline impossible levels when things get replaced with memory safe languages. Probably all that’s left is cpu glitching with power and clock attacks.
- skeaker 4y ago
  The Switch is already said to be unhackable with purely software-side methods by the big names in the scene. I guess we'll find out with time if that's really true, but the current homebrew scene for it really only exists thanks to that hardware error in the first revision of the console which afaik isn't even Nintendo's fault. I think the 3DS scene may have been a real wake up call for them.
  - hosh 4y ago
    There was a recent article framing the Steam Deck as a handheld PC gaming platform, which got me thinking about using it as a base for a handheld dev environment.
    - bityard 4y ago
      It's just a pretty ordinary Linux computer with a touchscreen and joysticks attached. I wouldn't do much serious dev on it myself because of the smallish screen but I've seen Real Hackers do more with less. Could be worth a shot!
      - hosh 4y ago
        Hundred Rabbits were talking about using a hacked Nintendo handheld with a custom OS; it’s for when they run out of power while sailing. These are the folks who made UXN, and even going as far as designing gestures and glyphs for each opscode so that computation can still be worked out without electronic devices. I got interested in this from CollapseOS and Collapse Informatics, imagining a day when we lose our ability to make advanced microchips, but still have salvagable ones laying around.
    - komali2 4y ago
      I went a bit down this path cause I thought it would be fun to not bring my laptop and only bring the steam deck on trips. It's just unfortunately not very convenient, the laptop clamshell with the keyboard right there and stably attached to the monitor is just so much more handy of a design. In terms of actual power, once you get the steam deck hooked to an external monitor with whatever peripherals you need like keyboard, it's just fine as a dev device, or for editing photos in dark table or running music production software. And, obviously, for gaming, works well, all in Linux. In terms of using the onscreen keyboard as a "handheld dev device" I think one of those competitors with a miniature sized physical keyboard built in would probably be better, or there's a whole scene I glimpsed once of people making mini clamshell designs of machines with mini keyboards. The touchpads work ok but it's just infuriatingly slow compared to a keyboard, especially once you start needing brackets, parentheses, etc.
agentultra 4y ago
Same. The developer tooling for it is rad too. I’m blown away by it. It’s a really fun platform to hack on. If you try it out drop the devs a donation! They’re super talented and deserve all the respect.