Are you fed up of paying crazy prices for PSP Memory Sticks?
Then let us show you how to use your old memory sticks in your PSP!

Introduction

The first thing you will need is an item called "The ARM memory stick jacket". This was originially designed to be used for the Sony Ericsson T800 mobile phone.
I have found one for sale from the following website priced at £18.95, if you look around you may be able to find one cheaper - http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=P800_MSEXP

The A.R.M. Memory Stick Jacket is admittedly a little pricey at £18.95. It consists of a small interface for the Memory Stick Duo slot, and you plug the other end of the interface into the circuit board of the Memory Stick slot interface. In other words, the A.R.M. Memory Stick Jacket provides a sort of "bridge" between the two formats. It appears to be very simple in construction, but I don't know the first thing about electrical engineering, so don't hold me to it. Since the Memory Stick Jacket is intended to be used with a Sony Ericsson P800, the Memory Stick slot circuit board is mounted in plastic casing. Consequently, this casing supposedly acts as a replacement for the conventional P800 battery cover. I guess it has a streamlined look on the P800, but since I don't own this phone, I don't really care! I'll be using it with the PSP. The product works as advertised, however, so I can't complain too much.

Before we continue, I'd just like to clarify the difference between Memory Stick and Memory Stick Duo for those that don't know. As far as I can tell, there is technically no difference between the two formats (unless you count data density as technical). The difference lies in their form factors, and their form factor alones. In the following picture, I am pointing to a Memory Stick. For comparison purposes, I have placed a Memory Stick Duo immediately below it.

As I mentioned earlier, the A.R.M. Memory Stick Jacket consists of two parts. Let's take a look at the Memory Stick slot portion first.

And here is a Memory Stick being inserted into its Memory Stick slot:

The Memory Stick slot portion is simple. You have a slot for your normal Memory Stick, then a place to plug in the cable that runs from the Memory Stick Duo adapter. We'll get into how to plug in the adapter in a few minutes here. But first, let's take a look at the A.R.M. Memory Stick Jacket's other component, the Memory Stick Duo adapter.

One one end of the cable is an adapter the exact same size as any other Memory Stick Duo. Or at least that's what I thought at first -- getting the thing to fit inside of my PSP was a battle. It turns out there is a small layer of plastic that needed to be removed (the Memory Stick Jacket does not include an instruction manual). I even had to steal my girlfriend's nail file and file down a couple ends that stuck out.
On the other end of the cable is a connector that runs to the Memory Stick slot portion of the Memory Stick Jaket.

So let's go ahead and insert the Memory Stick Duo adapter into the PSP (or try to). It doesn't fit very well, but playing with it for a few minutes should get it in there. Once you've filed down the sharper edges and removed the layer of plastic, you should be good to go.

I think it is important to note that the Memory Stick Duo door can still close while the adapter is inserted. Not too big a deal seeing as how this is definitely not a permanent solution, but this does make things slightly more acceptable.

Now that you have your Memory Stick Duo adapter inserted in your PSP, it's time to connect the adapter to the Memory Stick slot portion of the A.R.M. Jacket. It took me a minute to figure this out, but the connector uses one of those "locking" mechanisms to hold itself in place. You'll need to push outwards on the black plastic, insert the connector in the orifice, then push the black plastic back in to lock it in place. I guess I like this more, as it makes things slightly more sturdy.

That's all there is to connecting the A.R.M. Jacket. I inserted a Memory Stick into the slot of the A.R.M. Jacket, and look what I saw (note the Memory Stick LED):

And there you have it sure enough, I was immediately able to browse some digital camera pictures I had stored on that Memory Stick from the PSP!

Please Note: This will make your PSP warranty void. We accept no responsibility for you damaging your PSP!