What should I make sure of when buying a PSP?

Hello. My name's Ciro, and I'm a retro gamer. Probably I should have stopped at the introduction section first, but just to say my name. I didn't see the point.

It turns out that I found out the meaning of life, and it's to find out, how someone else found out how to emulate NES roms on every other single system. I've played NES games on my pc, on the ps2 and on my sony ericsson cellphone. Now, it's the turn for the psp. For that reason I gotta buy one. And here's where comes my question to you guys: is there a way I could make a really serious mistake when buying a PSP if all I want it for is just emulating nes roms? Is there something that might go really wrong? I've heard you all talking about downgrading your PSP by hacking them with something called Pandora s**t, which I haven't determined if this thing is something physical, like hardware, software or has some other ethereal form. Yes, I'm a noob. But I assure you I'm the kind of noob that likes doing research. I just need this little question answered. I don't wanna start experimenting without knowing for sure that what I wanna achieve is possible on my console.
I'm planning to buy a PSP, but my only interest is playing NES games on it. What should I check and make sure of before buying it? And, to downgrade it, or whatever, is there any extra hardware that I might need, or a couple downloads will do?

thank you all...

[BKFraiders7]

U will need a psp with custom firmware. www.dark-alex.org is a great site. HEs the maker of the best CFW (not biased...its honesty). I would buy a fat psp because those are easier in my opinion to downgrade and probably mod.

*Cough Cough* A potential Subscriber

Hey, thanks for answering and so fast. I'll drop by that site then, and see what I can find out there.
One more silly question, if I may: I've stopped by at the store and they only had the psp slim and light, or something like that. I read around that a serial number somewhere would be adviceable to check, cause it would correspond with the version of the software, and some late version could be more difficult, or even impossible -until now, at least-, to downgrade. Is that true?
And shouldn't the psp enclose a cable to connect it to the usb port? it might be a silly question, but that cable wasn't included, and no-one seems too disturbed about that fact, so I guess that's a cable that I should buy separately, perhaps? what are the specifications of such a cable? What is it called?

sorry again for my infinite ignorance, and thanks for your understanding and patience,
CiRO.

Nope, thats old news. Pandora works flawlessly on any Motherboard, and any PSP.

Looks like you came to the right site.

in the midst of retro gaming on current gaming platforms, most companies don't really like you to run emulators on their beloved , chip by chip, claiming thier own, thinking it would sell best, console. basically you need to run unofficial programs on your psp.

and before modding your psp, you would need a usb mini b cable... looks like this...
and you need a memory stick, i suggest you to get one the size of 128 mb to 4 gb. your choice. looks like this.

if you need help for running a nes emulator on your going to be bought psp, looks like a slim, you need to do this step of "modding' your slim to run unofficial code here.

you can get the nes emulator here.

then put the "1.0" folder into the psp in the by putting it in the folder 'PSP" first, the move the "1.0' folder to the folder "GAME". then put the roms in the folder of "1.0'.

whoa! that was great. complete. I think I can do by myself from here. thanks a lot!