People did not just realize this; this has been discussed for weeks back in its respective days. One of the problems lied in a language barrier between French and English (SXT French; myself English). The other, attention-craving testers.

The plan was to acquire a few testers for their NAND flasher, people who would willingly risk their PSP to attempt to downgrade. The method was going to be utilized to downgrade straight from 2.0 to 1.0 as well, once it was tested. SXT believed the flasher was error-free; I happened to be the first one to risk my PSP for the research, and mine was also the first to be bricked.

Hard work was in fact put into the NAND flasher, I checked the code and all the *sce's looked legit, as well as the syntax. After sending out the flasher to a few other 'loyal' members, they gave us a 50% success rate.

Sitting around for a bit, we realized that the 50% which supposedly downgraded were never upgraded to 2.0 before; the other 50% were. Mine was also upgraded to 2.0 previously. This led us to, falsely, believe that there was a 1% missing file, which was lost during the downgrade from 2.0 to 1.5 (ever notice that it goes to 99% then shuts down?). Since the NAND flasher worked in a fashion which overwrote the old blocks of code for the downgrade, what we ended up having was an extra 1% which remained in the NAND.

Consider the following:

Firmware 2.0 update:
Blocks = A B C D

Firmware 1.5 update:
Blocks = A B C

Firmware 1.0 update:
Blocks = A B

For the 2.0 to 1.5 downgrade, you have A and B files of the 1.5 EBOOT overwriting the A and B files of the 2.0 firmware PSP, and erasing the chunk C. Say the leftover 1% in the downgrade from 2.0 to 1.5 is an extra chunk of code which doesn't really make a difference to the 1.5 update, so as like to a driver added without an application to utilize it.

The firmware 1.0 NAND flasher was to overwrite the A and B blocks of the 1.5 firmware, and deletes the C, but left a 1% (D) left. This causes a gap in between B and D, as C is erased. Not knowing what chunk D is, and where it's located in the code, it is not possible to erase it in the firmware flasher, as there. Chunk D, unlike A, B, and C, is some kind of virtual system file that we still do not recognize. Anyways, the gap in between the code led us to believe that the 1.5 to 1.0 NAND flasher only worked on 'virgin' (or PSPs that had never been upgraded to 2.0) PSPs.

As we passed the file around more and more, with more confidence in mind, it appears the testers we gave it to were apparently lying about its functionality, deeming myself the one of the people who's PSP was bricked, along with the other few testers which agreed and said they didn't mind if it bricked. The ones who said it worked were all attetion seeking individuals with a goal in mind to look cool in front of friends; have the actual files but never use them, just leak them and flash 'em around in front of friends for online reputation.

Eventually, the files somehow got all over, and reports were churning the release of the first-ever 1.5 to 1.0 downgrader on the net. Publicity was getting intense, and time was non-existant.

Before I was given the files by SXT, I was told to release it on the homepage when it's proven to work, at least once, and inform them ASAP. This is what I understood. Apparently, the language barrier between myself and SXT posed a problem; they claimed that I was supposed to first report to them before releasing it, although I had the idea that after sacrificing my PSP as well as helping them test it, I had the right to post it as soon as it was confirmed to work; this is what I understood from our conversation. Anyways, in the end, we are friends again now, now that the hard times have passed and our language barriers are understood.

Let me reiterate that the NAND flasher developed by SXT was not a fake; it was simply an incomplete piece of work, which would be quite hard to complete.

Maybe some day. For now, there is no firmware downgrader for 1.5 to 1.0. Sorry!

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