#47982 - Tidegear - Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:53 pm
First off, Loopy, thanks for the great work on the firmware hack. It's worked perfectly for me in running demos and homebrews
And getting rid of the health warning is great.
Now here's my request... I'd like to be able to customize the firmware hack slightly. When turning on a DS with hacked firmware the backlight fades on and for a brief moment theres a white screen. Then the main system menu shows.
I'd like to be able to have a cool splash screen or quick message in place of the white screen on bootup. It wouldn't be troublesome like the health warning because it'd go away just as fast as the white screen.
...I'd just love to have some cool splashscreen that says "Hacked by Tidegear!" or something fun like that.
#47997 - dovoto - Fri Jul 15, 2005 6:47 pm
I second that...although I have no interest in a splash screen or such...what I would like is built in ndsloader so we can flash nds files strait to the cart. Direct support of the movie player / homebrew CF cart would be sweet also (if not too complex).
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#48016 - TJ - Sat Jul 16, 2005 5:13 am
Good question.
Problem is that they probably can't release the source to FlashMe because I would imagine 98% of it is the original Nintendo code. To release it would likely be a copyright violation.
Though, I wonder the legality of distributing the firmware even in it's modified state, since you can't legally redistribute the BIOS for a system (which is why many emulators don't come with a BIOS file, and you have to pull it off your own hardware).
At any rate, once there is a 100% "clean" (I.E. doesn't contain any of Nintendo's code) firmware replacement then I would imagine the source could be released and modifications could be built upon it.
#48041 - Tidegear - Sat Jul 16, 2005 12:17 pm
Well, TJ I don't think that's an issue really. It's a patch one applies to the firmware, not a patched firmware being distributed. There's a difference, clearly. So, I see your point but fortunately I don't think it's a problem.
#48059 - josath - Sat Jul 16, 2005 7:45 pm
actually the flashme binary you download DOES contain the entire firmware with the patch applied to it.
#48067 - abigsmurf - Sat Jul 16, 2005 10:45 pm
this would be a very bad idea
why?
because it opens the opertunity for people to intentionally damage the firmware by inserting corrupt elements into a themed package.
Not to mention the fact that any bug in the way the firmware is compiled or any errors in the image files you use to customise could result in a nice useless lump of plastic...
#48068 - [FireFly] - Sat Jul 16, 2005 10:46 pm
| abigsmurf wrote: |
| this would be a very bad idea |
I agree.
#48071 - dovoto - Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:12 pm
it would be nice if there was a protected firmware loader that sits in locked memory and would recover if the rest of firmware were completely corrupted...that way we could play in relative saftey. Does your firmware allready have a failsafe recovery (failsafe within reason of course) for the unlocked portion of the firmware?
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#48095 - josath - Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:34 am
Didn't we have this discussion at length before? If you release info on how to program the unlocked parts of firmware, and leave the failsafe in the protected region alone, even if you do corrupt the firmware, you can always use the failsafe to recover it. There is no good reason not to release this info that i can think of, besides possibly copyright/legal issues.
#48101 - TJ - Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:28 am
| Quote: |
| it would be nice if there was a protected firmware loader that sits in locked memory and would recover if the rest of firmware were completely corrupted...that way we could play in relative saftey. |
I thought that was why the FlashMe installer needed the pads jumped, so it could install an emergency bootloader into the protected area of the EEPROM in case of some flashing failure. Maybe I am wrong though.
#48193 - The 9th Sage - Mon Jul 18, 2005 3:29 am
| TJ wrote: |
| Quote: | | it would be nice if there was a protected firmware loader that sits in locked memory and would recover if the rest of firmware were completely corrupted...that way we could play in relative saftey. |
I thought that was why the FlashMe installer needed the pads jumped, so it could install an emergency bootloader into the protected area of the EEPROM in case of some flashing failure. Maybe I am wrong though. |
No, I think you're right...that's what I thought holding the ABXY during boot was for...as far as I know, there is that failsafe code in the protected area of the firmware, holding these will force a boot from the GBA cart allowing you to recover your firmware (using whichever FlashMe you wanted) so long as you succesfully flashed that protected area before.
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