Okay, well I bought a PSP two days ago and updated the Official Sony Firmware to 5.02. I tinkered around with that for a day and I downloaded a few demos from the Playstation Store, then I got to wondering if I could download whole games and put them on my PSP. So I googled it.

I found out all this about needing CFW and needing a Pandora battery and needing a magic memory stick. So I went to youtube and found a bunch of videos made by 10 year old kids with accents that I can't understand explaining all this in a lingo that I can't understand either.

So here is what I'm wondering:
(1) What is Custom Firmware? (I'm looking for a typed explanation in a simple down-to-earth language that I can comprehend.)
(2) What is a pandora battery and what is a magic memory stick, and how do I make or get these?
(3) and is all of this free if I do the work myself? or do I have to buy a bunch of programs?
(4) Since I have Official Sony Firmware 5.02, do I need to downgrade it to an older firmware first? And how do I do that?

As of right now I currently have these items:
(1) A PSP Slim 2000
(2) A wall charger
(3) A usb cable
(4) A 4gb Memory Stick Pro Duo
(5) A battery pack that is 3.6V and 1200mAh (Its made in China by the way, I heard the Chink and Jap batteries were different and only the Chinese could be used to make a pandora battery.)

Now I would like to apologize because I'm sure all of these questions have been asked and answered a million different times. If you want to direct me to another post where all of this has been answered, that great and I appreciate it, and if everything can answered right here thats great too. I am noob and If i posted this in the wrong place I'm sorry, I'm just a bit confused about all of this. After reading through countless other treads, I've seen that this is a very friendly community and I'm sure most of you will understand. THANK YOU!!!!

[ƒR()§†H@X]

1.custom firmware is basically the same as official firmware but with unlocked addons/abilities,so its more advanced than the ofw counterpart

2.pandora is a hacked battery(hardmod or softmod via a cfw enabled psp or a device tool) that turns the psp to service mode so that you can install custom firmware for the first time and recover bricked psps.a magic memory stick is special files on your stick to work with the pandora in order to get the custom firmware flashed onto your system

3.this can be free if you follow my guide(1st link of my signature) but be careful when hardmodding your own battery into a pandora,no programs really required but whats in the link i mentioned on my signature.

4.if you follow all ive already said,you can easily use this and only this to get custom firmware.if you have any questions ask

[TechWarrior]

It's great that people give you direct, plain answers, but it's also a good habit to read-up on these forums, especialy this one. You'll get a better understanding on modding.

Happy modding!

YES!!! I finally understand! WooT! Alrighty, so with the batteries then...do need to have two batteries, or after I use the pandora battery can I put it back to normal again, or can I just continue to use the pandora battery as is to power my psp?

[ƒR()§†H@X]

if you use my mms maker guide and keep the files that are requested you put on your psp thru the mms maker you can use a pandora as a normal battery,or as pandora by holding L at startup.be warned however that it could stop working if you decide to get a stick higher than 4 gigs,so you may still need a second battery in the future

great! thanks for all your help. I now have 3.80 M33-5, awesome! This is definitely the best forum I've ever come across