#71684 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:21 am
From codejunkies.com:
(Image)
It's a DS video/audio player. It includes a 4GB HDD that connects through the GBA slot. What's interesting is the following comment on their site:
| Quote: |
| You can even use the browser to activate executable programs! |
I doubt they could get Nintendo to agree to this. Are Datel's peripherals officially licensed?
#71688 - m2pt5 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:37 am
This looks awesome. I wonder how hackable it'll be.
| PhoenixSoft wrote: |
| Are Datel's peripherals officially licensed? |
Gameshark / Action Replay. Further questions?
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#71689 - Mithos - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:50 am
I wonder if it actually have some extra decoderchip in it.
Fullscreen/fullspeed movies would be very nice.
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#71690 - SPiercey - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:54 am
I don't see it having that good quality videos, I just don't think the DS could handle it. It seems to be an M3 or supercard without roms and way over priced.
#71691 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:54 am
| Mithos wrote: |
I wonder if it actually have some extra decoderchip in it.
Fullscreen/fullspeed movies would be very nice. |
I don't think much more than a microdrive and the adapter could fit into that attachment.
Does anyone know if there is any way to be able to access more than 4 GB via the GBA cart slot? I seem to remember someone saying that 4 GB is the limit. The PSP has a 4 GB limit on the Memory Stick slot, which is why the PSP version is only 4 GB as well. But the PSP's limit may be able to be overcome with a firmware update.
EDIT: SPiercey, the GBA Movie Player had 'alright' quality videos. This product has access to all of the DS' hardware, so decent quality videos should be possible.
#71696 - mntorankusu - Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:17 am
| SPiercey wrote: |
| I don't see it having that good quality videos, I just don't think the DS could handle it. It seems to be an M3 or supercard without roms and way over priced. |
If Datel made their own codec for this, there's no doubt they could make good quality video at 24 or 30 frames per second. Just look at what the Movieadvance people did with the GBAMP. But, I wonder if Datel would go through the trouble to do that?
#71697 - m2pt5 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:19 am
| mntorankusu wrote: |
| I wonder if Datel would go through the trouble to do that? |
I wonder if they're just repackaging Moonshell...?
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#71699 - mntorankusu - Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:22 am
| m2pt5 wrote: |
| mntorankusu wrote: | | I wonder if Datel would go through the trouble to do that? |
I wonder if they're just repackaging Moonshell...? |
That's sort of what I was thinking.
#71702 - tepples - Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:38 am
Getting hardware capable of running homebrew programs sold in stores would be a very nice thing for the DS homebrew community, except it might prompt Nintendo to make further changes in the firmware to block the specific boot method that this product uses.
But will it be available in capacities smaller than 4 GB? Froogle seems show 4 GB Microdrive media for $150, and adding the passthrough and GBA adapter might end up with a final price of $200. This seems to match the ?129 price listed in the article. For that price, Datel could almost import GP2X and sell it.
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#71710 - Joat - Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:09 am
The picture shows a regulation sized DS card, it is unlikely to be a passthru of any sort (i.e. it is a bootme / keyme / whatever the name of the week is).
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#71714 - HyperHacker - Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:16 am
How can it boot without a passthrough?
Really, this isn't worth the money, especially for a Datel product. (Datel sucks so hard at durability and overall quality.) And it'll kill your battery pretty quick too.
#71715 - Joat - Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:22 am
By fully supporting the DS card protocol.
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#71717 - Darkflame - Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:32 am
I bet it just use's a pass though of somekind.
And I am sure its video will be good, Moonshell's PDG is fantastic really already, and if you got the space..and a company that could possible liesence all sorts of codecs...anything is possible.
#71721 - HyperHacker - Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:50 am
| Joat wrote: |
| By fully supporting the DS card protocol. |
Wouldn't that require having encrypted/signed code?
#71725 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:06 am
Darkflame: It definitely doesn't look like a passthrough:
http://us.codejunkies.com/images/article_images/images/MMP4DS_cartridge_s.jpg
| tepples wrote: |
| But will it be available in capacities smaller than 4 GB? Froogle seems show 4 GB Microdrive media for $150, and adding the passthrough and GBA adapter might end up with a final price of $200. This seems to match the ?129 price listed in the article. For that price, Datel could almost import GP2X and sell it. |
The PSP package, including a 4GB Microdrive + a 3600 mAh battery pack costs US$179. They also sell the battery pack separately for $29. This means your $150 price was probably right :)
#71726 - Filb - Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:24 am
| PhoenixSoft wrote: |
Darkflame: It definitely doesn't look like a passthrough:
http://us.codejunkies.com/images/article_images/images/MMP4DS_cartridge_s.jpg
| tepples wrote: | | But will it be available in capacities smaller than 4 GB? Froogle seems show 4 GB Microdrive media for $150, and adding the passthrough and GBA adapter might end up with a final price of $200. This seems to match the ?129 price listed in the article. For that price, Datel could almost import GP2X and sell it. |
The PSP package, including a 4GB Microdrive + a 3600 mAh battery pack costs US$179. They also sell the battery pack separately for $29. This means your $150 price was probably right :) |
I've seen a PassMe like that. It's a PassMe2 with a commercial ROM included.
#71734 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:20 am
| Filb wrote: |
| I've seen a PassMe like that. It's a PassMe2 with a commercial ROM included. |
So this device is illegal, then? I know that, technically, the GameShark is illegal too (because it has the Nintendo logo in the header to allow it to boot), but this would be a more blatant copyright infringement.
#71739 - tepples - Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:43 am
| PhoenixSoft wrote: |
| So this device is illegal, then? I know that, technically, the GameShark is illegal too (because it has the Nintendo logo in the header to allow it to boot), but this would be a more blatant copyright infringement. |
Not necessarily, on either count. Read the appellate decisions in Sega v. Accolade and Lexmark v. Static Control Components.
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#71758 - caitsith2 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:51 am
No, the gameshark/action replay doesn't have the nintendo logo data. It simply just passes through accesses to the Nintendo Logo data from the game pak for a certain period of time.
In fact, if you try to flash the nintendo logo data onto the action replay for gba or action replay duo for gba/ds, Then the internal fpga or whatever it is in the action replay disallows read access to the first sector of the flash. (It still allows write access for unbricking purposes.) Essentially, trying to put the nintendo logo data onto the action replay to make it boot without a gba gamepak turns it into a brick.
Now, a completely unblockable passme would be a "game card" fully supporting the regulation ds card protocols, including the correct lfsrs, and secure area encryption. The header would not need to redirect the code execution points out of range. No need to, as the code put onto this game card would be Branch current location, for the arm 9 executable, and Ldr r0,=0x8000000, bx r0, for the arm 7 executable.
#71761 - PhoenixSoft - Tue Feb 14, 2006 9:16 am
| caitsith2 wrote: |
| No, the gameshark/action replay doesn't have the nintendo logo data. It simply just passes through accesses to the Nintendo Logo data from the game pak for a certain period of time. |
Oh, I forgot that they have the GBA cart slot on them.
#71771 - derula - Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:20 am
| Filb wrote: |
| I've seen a PassMe like that. It's a PassMe2 with a commercial ROM included. |
Yes, but that one is slightly smaller than just the game because it needs a little more hardware. And it isn't very likely to fit a passthrough device together with an original game into a regularly sized game card.
#71772 - Filb - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:04 pm
That store had it:
http://shop.01media.com/en/info.asp?ProductID=16519
And that "GBAtemp" site made a review: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=29641
Yeah, hmm, that "PassMe Upgrade" one is bigger than Datel's.
#71808 - The 9th Sage - Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:28 pm
| HyperHacker wrote: |
| Joat wrote: | | By fully supporting the DS card protocol. |
Wouldn't that require having encrypted/signed code? |
Well, it is possible to encrypt DS code now...
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#71813 - adrian783 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:41 pm
i wonder if this could be an alternative to those pass-through disabled ds (ds lite, ique ds, etc) tho expensive, this could be a one for all solution. i mean...i dont think they have the guts to do something on the fringe of a lawsuit and not compatible with all the DSes. datel should have done their homework...
think we should maybe pool up and see how this baby plays out?
#71846 - tssf - Tue Feb 14, 2006 9:44 pm
This probably means someone will have to write a driver for this device to support it in DS Home Brew. :) Not that that will be a big deal...
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#71849 - mastertop101 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 10:05 pm
I don't understand why you are talking about passtrough (passme..) It's probably just a "game" like all those you can buy in stores that contains the media player data. The hard drive is just like a gba cartridge used like the rumble pack is used..
#71880 - adrian783 - Wed Feb 15, 2006 1:52 am
how do they make a "game" without official licencing? i thought DS carts are more complex and stuff now...
#71883 - tepples - Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:00 am
Probably the same way they made "Max Memory" cards for the PS2 console: by reverse engineering the MagicGate system.
"Memory Card (8 MB) (12,756 KB free)" -- I love it.
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#71892 - adrian783 - Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:05 am
they reversed engineered DS carts...? i thought RSA is like...unbreakable.
#71895 - Normmatt - Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:30 am
maybe they payied the what $15,000 or so to nintendo for a development kit
#71897 - Joat - Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:43 am
Good job that the DS cards don't use RSA in any way then :D (WMB downloads are RSA signed, not the cards, which use command, secure block, and stream encryption) Had they signed the cards, including the header, DS homebrew wouldn't have been possible at all (without a leak of the private key, buffer overflow exploit in a game, or the key table for firmware encryption), so be grateful that nintendo botched the job.
Yes, DS cards are far more complicated to make than a GBA flash cartridge, but they're makable. Both types of encryption have been understood for quite some time, just not spread publically until recently (although it's likely the datel effort predates any of the recently publically released info).
BTW. those longer 'passme upgrade' cards are passme1, not passme2, and contain an original DS rom chip and the eeprom from them. There isn't room for the datel card to do this, and it wouldn't be all that cost effective for them to do it either.
Personally, I could care less about turning my DS into a very bulky music player for a total cost of more than a sleek standalone unit with the same or more storage, so I hope they sell the boot card seperately (and it's very likely to be just that, with minimal or no flash storage). If not sold seperately, they might include some checks to prevent using the card with anything other than the max drive, but it's probably at most the checks + read a boot sector from the drive (or passme* if they stick some flash in the max drive).
* By passme I mean actual code blocks containing an arm9 loop and an arm7 branch to GBA space (not the traditional header manipulation passme).
Anyone know if they've announced it in the US yet? The UK comments seem like pure gold: "Running executable programs? I smeel a homebrew gaming scene for the DS appearing..." I 'smeel' an idiot :D
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#71915 - PhoenixSoft - Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:57 am
| Normmatt wrote: |
| maybe they payied the what $15,000 or so to nintendo for a development kit |
But each project has to be approved by Nintendo. I can imagine how the interview for this project would go:
Datel: We want to make a media player for the DS...
Nintendo: Well, it would be competing with our Play-Yan, but at least we would get the licensing fees from it...
Datel: ...and it would be able to execute homebrew pr...
Nintendo: OH NO YOU DID NOT!
#71929 - Xtreme - Wed Feb 15, 2006 12:16 pm
| Joat wrote: |
| "Running executable programs? I smeel a homebrew gaming scene for the DS appearing..." |
Maybe it won't run just any files.. only their *own format files? <- If not true, then this product can not be licensed by Nintendo?
* Do you remember Play-Yan, it had those mini games. :)
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#71937 - Frz - Wed Feb 15, 2006 12:59 pm
| HyperHacker wrote: |
| Joat wrote: | | By fully supporting the DS card protocol. |
Wouldn't that require having encrypted/signed code? |
It would require encrypted code, not signed. The encryption is not impossible to reverse engineer, the private key for signing is ;)
#71946 - derula - Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:41 pm
| Frz wrote: |
| The encryption is not impossible to reverse engineer, the private key for signing is ;) |
You mean, nearly impossible. ;) If there were a few hundred super computers calculating a few months or years, they could make it.
#71951 - Joat - Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:12 pm
Xtreme, way to quote out of context :D
That was a quote of someone commenting on their website, and I was making fun of their spelling and lack of knowledge about homebrew.
Anyways, it's not a licensed product, and if they used an official debugger, they did so while it was on 'loan' over the weekend from someone else (i.e. pretty unlikely) :D It'll be interesting to dump it and look for codewarrior or GCC sigs, i.e. did they use a leaked SDK or homebrewed it properly.
None of datel's products are licensed by any of the console makers (well, at least not the big 3, dunno if they've made anything licensed for more permissive systems like gp32). Nintendo especially are against cheat devices, which is datel's largest market by far (or at least, against unlicensed products, with cheat devices being an easy target). Datel are wisely diversifying with other products now, because making cheat devices for next gen consoles gets harder and harder, and most likely, eventually effectively impossible (same for homebrew, but not for piracy sadly, those bastards just need to make a perfect copy to ignore signing).
On the private key, it's something more like hundreds of computers for many thousands of years (or maybe it was millions). Dig through the forum for a really old thread on WMB, someone dug up some numbers for factoring an arbitrary 1024 bit key.
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#71981 - Xtreme - Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:59 pm
| Joat wrote: |
Xtreme, way to quote out of context :D
That was a quote of someone commenting on their website, and I was making fun of their spelling and lack of knowledge about homebrew. |
Yes I know, sorry about that. :D
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#72013 - shen3 - Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:12 am
Hi;
Datel are the ones that bought the rights to 20 or so homebrew GBA games a few years ago, and then publihsed them as a gameboy advance emulator running on an un authorised gamecube or playstation 2 disk.
It was called maxplay instant classics vol 1 if you want to track it down on the net.
They have a long proud history of unauthorised products.
I imagine this will probably be able to play "backups" of commercial games, and as a side effect allow home brew stuff to run.
Shen
#72016 - ssj4android - Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:21 am
They have their Maxdrive Pro thing for the gamecube, which I believe allows running unauthorized code (.dol files) as well.
#72025 - HyperHacker - Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:05 am
Yeah, they convinced the company who made GCN discs for Nintendo to make them for them too, or some such. I don't think GCN was actually encrypted, or at least, the encryption was printed on the disc itself and so having officially-manufactured discs meant having them encrypted. I'd have thought they wouldn't be able to do such a thing for DS as breaking the encryption would violate DMCA, but then they're based in the UK, so I guess it doesn't affect them.
#72108 - Darkflame - Thu Feb 16, 2006 2:24 pm
The gamecube freeloader stole a code from a legitmate, yet unpublished game.
They didnt crack it, they merely got around it.
#72153 - The 9th Sage - Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:17 pm
| Darkflame wrote: |
The gamecube freeloader stole a code from a legitmate, yet unpublished game.
They didnt crack it, they merely got around it. |
I'm quite certain it's the same with the Max Drive Pro for the Gamecube (that yes, does load DOL files). I looked at this disc with a homebrew Gamecube viewer program and apparently the name of the disc is some hockey game. I'd have to check to get the exact one, but eh, I can't find the disc for it. :P
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#72702 - ssj4android - Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:24 am
I'd still think Datel would be in violationof the DMCA or something. Nintendo has never sued them since that law was enacted?
#72770 - MechaBouncer - Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:03 pm
| HyperHacker wrote: |
| Yeah, they convinced the company who made GCN discs for Nintendo to make them for them too, or some such. I don't think GCN was actually encrypted, or at least, the encryption was printed on the disc itself and so having officially-manufactured discs meant having them encrypted. I'd have thought they wouldn't be able to do such a thing for DS as breaking the encryption would violate DMCA, but then they're based in the UK, so I guess it doesn't affect them. |
Don't the GCN discs spin backwards or something like that?
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#72778 - pepsiman - Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:13 pm
| MechaBouncer wrote: |
| Don't the GCN discs spin backwards or something like that? |
No
#72806 - Darkflame - Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:05 pm
Even if they did you could just reverse the polarity of the voltage to the drive moter :p
#72820 - Sebbo - Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:35 pm
gamecube discs have a small value at the start hard written into the disc that contains the minimum level of precision that a second section needs to be read at. if it reads, the disc is authentic (i read this at the USPTO site)
i also read somewhere (on USPTO) that there is a small section of the disc that is rewritable :-S
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#73087 - HyperHacker - Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:13 am
I've never heard anything about them being rewriteable, but yes, that's about right. If you look close, there's a ring going most of the way around in the middle, which is actually a barcode cut into the disc's surface. (Not the black ink on the translucent part.) Apparently this barcode is an encryption key or some such... some DVD-ROMs can read it but most don't support it. To produce such a barcode requires very expensive equipment.
#74534 - sneef - Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:21 pm
| MechaBouncer wrote: |
Don't the GCN discs spin backwards or something like that? |
No, but the data is written from the outside edge going in, which can appear as "in reverse" i suppose. Standard DVD-ROM data starts on the inside, and travels towards the edge.
#74547 - tepples - Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:15 pm
| sneef wrote: |
| [on GameCube discs] the data is written from the outside edge going in, which can appear as "in reverse" i suppose. |
So does layer 2 of standard DVD.
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