HDAdvance - PS2 Heaven

So I have a PS2, well now it's two PS2's but let's start at the beginning. Got a PS2 for the younger member of the household, and consequently all the discs end up in some toxic waste region of space known as, Kid-Space. The discs were lost for many a long month, until I decided on a plan to get them back into society and feel good about themselves once more.

To get to a stage where the disks were safe, and the games were able to be played requires three pieces of equipment.

1)A standard hard drive. Any size from 40GB up to 120GB, nothing smaller or larger will be recognized by the PS2.
2)A Playstation 2 Network Adaptor.
3)A copy of HDAdvance.

You do NOT need to install a mod-chip, or unscrew your PS2 in any way at all.

HDAdvance is a disk which when you put it into your PS2 and switch on, allows you to see the hard drive installed INSIDE your PS2. Ok so now we have to install the hard drive. It takes moments!

Use a screwdriver to lever off the back panel of the PS2, you are left with a gaping hole. This is where the hard drive eventually goes. Plug your hard drive onto the back of the network adaptor and then slide the whole thing into the PS2. That is it! It secures by two screws, which are on the back of the network adaptor. It takes longer to read this than actually do it! When I did it, I left off the jumper, and did nothing more than take the hard drive out of it's packaging, with no formatting and no other voodoo. The first time it was powered up, was when it was inside the PS2.

Put the HDAdvance disk into your PS2, wait for the really simple screen to appear. Use the joypad to select CONVERT, and it will tell you to insert the game disk. Type in a file name for the game, using the onscreen keyboard, and then let it copy over to the hard drive. Some games can take around 20 mins for this to happen. When it's done, you see the game listed on the front screen of HDAdvance. To play it simply select it with the joypad and press X. The game then runs as if the disk is in there. So after you have done it with all your games, you only need to leave the HDAdvance disk in to get to that menu. If you don't the PS2 acts like normal and will play any game you put in it.

No configoring, no soldering, no cracking the case open etc, the whole thing takes moments to install and get going.

The only drawback I had was that the 120GB Western Digital hard drive I used, seemed to have a little extra spacer between the power socket and the jumper pins (see image below). So I just got a sharp knife and cut some of the plastic away until I could JUST about force the drive onto the back of the PS2 network adaptor. If you don't have that little spacer there, the thing slips on with no problems. The network adaptor plugs move a little to take this into account, but with my drive it wasn't quite enough. We are talking real small here, maybe a couple of millimeters, so digging at that piece of plastic is just to allow the power plug to slip into place. At first I thought I was doing something wrong, but trying another couple of dead hard drives soon showed me how easy it could be. It was just bad luck to have gotten a drive with this little spacer in it.

Click here to see the back of the PS2 Network Adaptor.

If on the rare occasion you find a game does not work, then at the main screen go to the game in question, press SELECT on the joypad, and you can change modes. I have no idea what "modes" are? But for instance, a copy of Burnout 3 Takedown, does not work straight away. If you switch modes 1, 2, and 3, to "on" then it does. Don't ask, I don't know, but it works. So fiddle with the only setting I am aware of, if things don't work properly.

Benefits are that you can leave all the disks in the boxes and the loading times of the games is supposed to be faster. The only downside is that if you play any games online, then you cannot run them from the hard drive, you MUST use the disk. But if you need to you can, no problem at all!



Just dig out some of that plastic and then after a few moments of Hulk type noises you will be ready for heaven.

Intellivision Lives

Intellivision Lives, is a collection of over 60 Intellivision games. What is that you are not asking yourself. It's an old gaming console from a zillion years ago. It was one thing as a kid I dreamed of owning for what seemed like years. Then I got one, and had a blast on a few of the games. They came on a cartridge so were not cheap, but were fun all the same. My all time favourite being Auto Racing. A top down car racing game, for one or two people. Great fun skidding about, and even managed to perfect a full 360 on certain corners (as I spent way too much time on this game). The other one I really remember was Hockey. Lots of slidey goal scoring action here, but a bonus consisting of being able to madly swing the stick and knock opponents over! Lots of laughs.

The Intellivision Lives collection is great, and seems to play just like the original. Space Hawk, and Astrosmash were my other games I liked. I seem to remember one called Frog Bog, but don't think I purchased that one myself, as it consisted entirely of pressing ONE button to launch a frog from one lily pad to another, to catch flies. Not my thing.

Space Hawk was an Asteroids rip off, and Astrosmash was similar. Good games, endless levels. Of course there was Soccer which came with it, and I remember playing Lock and Chase, which is like Pac Man. I never did get as far as getting the speech unit for it, or the promised keyboard, to turn it into a full computer.

This Playstation 2 collection is great, apart from one bit of buggery with it. There are some games which for no reason REQUIRE two players. So my trip down memory lane was cut off when I tried to play Auto Racing and found you need TWO PEOPLE! The logic seems flawed;
People that purchase this collection are bound to be adults looking to replay some of their youth. It would be highly unlikely that they would share a household with anyone that actually owned an Intellivision and/or would like to play them in this day and age. So come on chaps, get a patch out for it or something so you can play single player versions of all the games! PLEASE?

In the meantime, go here for some free Intellivsion downloads. A few of the games to be playing in a mo, but for ever and ever and ever.



The Intellivision, anyone remember it? Oh ok, I thought not :(

AOL Users ignorant of online threat - shocker!

An article in Computer Weekly, reveals that a large percentage of AOL users in a recent study appeared to be under the false impression that they were safe from online threats such as viruses and spyware.

Ok, it looks like we can safely assume that the AOL marketing and public relations departments are doing their jobs perfectly. Well done chaps!

If you are an AOL member, it is NOT good enough that your 'internet' works, and it is NOT good enough that AOL say they are looking after you. Wake up and take some responsibility for yours and your kids online safety ok?!!

I see a million people a month who all think the same thing, and have no idea at all even what a virus is in a lot of cases... serious stuff.



This is your computer with AOL

Bush and Kerry in Philadelphia

I came this close to seeing the chaps in the park in Philly yesterday. I have no idea and absolutely no interest in politics what so ever. The DMCA is about as political as I get. I don't even have a vote at the moment, so that's probably the best excuse yet!


Look at the big building in the center, and right at the bottom you can not at all make out Clinton and Kerry doing their er... thing.

Click here to see how political it gets at Krysss.Com towers.

Second Life

I have been spending a LOT of time in Second Life. Hello S and L. Have managed to get a great team of people in there to do almost anything we want to in the place. Which so far has come to be mass parties all night long. So when I have something of substance to report, I will...er.. until then it's back to the dance floor!

Second Life is like all those high end 3D demos you see from companies when their next state of the art graphics card is coming out (for about a week, and then it's old hat). Except this one really does look good, and move good ALL the time.

Last big bash (birthday party actually) I had at my land in Second Life, we managed to get a Linden to it, so hopefully it pushed up (or is that down) the 'we are shallow' rating considerably.

For anyone who actually has a Second Life account, click here to visit my nightclub. It's free for a whole week, and then only $10 for a lifetime membership. If you want to own land there, then it's about $6 a month for the smallest plot. You can buy more but you don't have to buy any!



Second Life really does look like this, and everything moves real time.

Random Links

Every now and again, I clear off my desktop. Today was one of those types of days, and I came across a few links I had meant to blog here, but never got round to it. So here they are, without much comment or suitable picture.

The first one was to be part of a new thing where I would simply lie. Click here to see me and someone else. If you wondered what I looked like now is your chance.

The second one was a movie I saw and quite liked it for no apparent reason. Now I should tediously go on about how 'into' movies I am and my specialized knowledge, was how I found this gem. The only true part of all that, is that it wasn't a bad movie! So if you want to know what Bubba-Ho-Tep is all about, clicketty click.

Also my Moblog, which I forgot to place back into the sidebar over there, which REALLY needs updating.

Another lie, see if you can spot me (yes me, I was actually in this video) in George Micheals "Flawless".



Thankyou in being part of my desk cleaning experience.