#30267 - hearhear - Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:09 am
I hear a lot of talk about the firmware being updateable, but is this a 100%-confirmed ability? Is the firmware definitely rewriteable?
Just making sure before I get excited over the possibility over PictoChat and OS updates. :)
#30271 - penndragon - Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:36 am
I beleve firmware is rewiteable we flash rom bios and we
upgrade linksys firmware so yes.
#30275 - ravuya - Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:00 am
If not, we can always remove the ROM chip containing the BIOS from the motherboard, dump it, and try to find a flash replacement.
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#30278 - penndragon - Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:04 am
??? Im not sure if that was a joke or not?
#30289 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:04 am
Anyone feel like pulling apart their DS and checking the product number of the BIOS chip? Or is it a custom chip?
#30307 - tepples - Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:01 am
The GBA BIOS is mask ROM on the same die as the CPU. [pessimist]What makes anybody think the DS is different?[/pessimist]
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#30315 - ampz - Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:15 am
| tepples wrote: |
| The GBA BIOS is mask ROM on the same die as the CPU. [pessimist]What makes anybody think the DS is different?[/pessimist] |
Indeed.
However, there is one reason why it _might_ be external: It is significantly larger than the GBA bios.
#30376 - Joat - Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:33 pm
It *might* be, but it probably isn't. The current firmware reeks of either bad programming or extremely space limited programming, with stupid issues like being unable to return to the main menu from anything at all.
All of the graphics in the bios are simplistic, most could be stored as 1 bpp and compressed or otherwise generated (like the gradient on the main menu tiles), and there is no need to store an IP stack or anything else we had expected in the BIOS. Whether or not the existing GBA swi's were preserved is unknown, but if they got rid of them (and why not, most were coded so poorly as to be pointless), that would free up quite a bit of arm9 bios space (the gba mode (probably arm7) bios is fully intact). The only thing taking up any considerable amount of space is the decent ascii+hiragana+katakana+symbol font, but it is not anti-aliased, so again 1bpp+compression. I'd be extremely suprised if the DS bios is any larger than 64 KB.
Anyways, enough conjecture and speculation, has anyone actually found the ASIC yet? It's not visible in the lik-sang pictures, and I don't really think it would be under the cart slots, since we're talking about a decently large ASIC and at least one SDRAM chip, so that leaves the top pcb, but someone mentioned that the top LCD is glued to the board or something.
Anyone brave enough to attemt to remove the LCD or indirectly verify its location (by looking for an assload of decoupling capacitors on the opposite side of the board)?
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#30379 - ampz - Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:42 pm
I saw a picture of it somewhere...
It was a BGA package marked only "Nintendo" "ARM" and "NITRO" pretty much.
Next to it was a small BGA package with the text "SRAM" in silkscreen next to it.
That one surprised me... SRAM?!?
Also, the SRAM package seemed too small to have a 32bit bus, and the markings on it ended with -70 indicating 70ns acess time.
Of course, SRAM would consume considerably less power than SDRAM.
But all in all, very strange.
#30386 - Joat - Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:15 pm
One possibility is that the BIOS is stored encrypted in a serial chip ala gamecube (along with an RTC and the NV options such as unit language), and there is a very small ROM bios on die that just reads in the main bios into RAM. This would explain the reboot after changing any options aspect quite well: the sub-applications overwrite the copy of the BIOS in RAM, and are not allowed to access the BIOS decrypter hardware after bootup for security reasons.
On the plus side, this would make it replacable if the decrpytion is cracked, on the downside, the only reason the gamecube bios was compromised was a stupid-ass mistake on the part of nintendo in designing the system.
Should be easy enough to notice, look for a ~8-14 pin MX chip somewhere near the main asic.
Other problems with this hypothesis: most serial EEPROM isn't exactly spacious, if it's small enough to fit in a reasonably priced device, then its probably small enough to get stuck on die, unless it's code was still in flux when the hardware was finalized).
Ampz, do you think you could find a link to that picture?
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#30387 - jgkspsx - Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:24 pm
| Joat wrote: |
| if it's small enough to fit in a reasonably priced device, then its probably small enough to get stuck on die, unless it's code was still in flux when the hardware was finalized. |
Given the DS's dev time and how many of the publicised specs ended up being final, this actually seems more likely than not.
#30395 - ravuya - Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:40 pm
| jgkspsx wrote: |
| Joat wrote: | | if it's small enough to fit in a reasonably priced device, then its probably small enough to get stuck on die, unless it's code was still in flux when the hardware was finalized. |
Given the DS's dev time and how many of the publicised specs ended up being final, this actually seems more likely than not. |
So it's not just me that gets the impression that most of this was rushed?
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#30401 - jgkspsx - Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:12 pm
| ravuya wrote: |
| So it's not just me that gets the impression that most of this was rushed? |
Rushed, yes. However, they seem to have put more thought into quality of gameplay than into internal hardware elegance. That's fine with me.
... especially if it gives us more leverage to take it apart =)
#30402 - ravuya - Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:15 pm
Aye. :) 'Tis better to be nicer to your developers than nicer to your consumers (example: Microsoft).
...and it's still even better to pander to the homebrewers. :)
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#30549 - willgonz - Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:42 am
Detailed pics of the inside of the DS can be found at:
http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=3530
#30575 - Boeboe - Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:07 am
you haven't been reading this thread, have you?