Here's a great progress report on the newly discovered savegame exploit that we're sure will thrill all you PSP 3000 owners out there.

MaTiAz has updated his thread on LAN.ST with the release of a "Hello World" example program which runs using the GripShift savegame exploit. Our friend FreePlay also provides a basic developer kit so we might see some homebrew soon enough! Stay tuned for future news; In the mean time we have the download links and more details below.

Download Hello World [MaTiAz]
Download Sparta SDK [FreePlay]
Via lan.st

Discussion thread

Hello World on PSP FW 1.52-5.02
The Spartaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Exploit

by MaTiAz & FreePlay

Instructions
------------

1. Copy the contents of MS_ROOT into the root of your memory stick.
   (This will overwrite the first GripShift savegame slot).
2. Launch the US version of GripShift.
3. Load up the game (if it doesn't autoload).
4. See your PSP run unsigned code.

It'll autoexit after some time. You can use the home button to exit too if you've seen enough.

FAQ
---
Q: Will this allow downgrading?
A: No, because this is an usermode exploit and functions required to downgrade are
only available in kernel mode.

Q: Why the name?
A: Because the original exploit was found by overwriting the player name with "this is spartaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa".

Q: Can/Will Sony block this?
A: Yes.

Q: I wanna make homebrew using the exploit. How?
A: Get FreePlay's GS SDK: http://f6y.ath.cx/pspdev/sparta_sdk.zip
It has some constraints though, check the readme.
The Hello World was written with it.

Credits
-------
Exploit and binary loader: MaTiAz
SDK: FreePlay
Greets go to Dark_AleX, Mathieulh, jas0nuk, Hellcat, etc. etc. etc, you know.