#211 - sgeos - Sun Jan 05, 2003 4:48 am
Has there been any progress in making homebrew ereader games? I there any interest in the unit? I am quite interested. I dumped the ROM, but when I run it in Visualboy it gives the following message
"e-Reader Memory Error
Turn the power off.
Remove and reinsert the e-Reader,
then turn the power on."
I don't know enough to learn anything from taking it apart, but I would take it apart if I did know enough. As a side note, this e-Reader memory screen look a lot like the old famicom disk system loading screen.
-Brendan
#240 - Burre - Sun Jan 05, 2003 1:59 pm
Good question, sadly I don't have any good answears. The E-reader haven't even been released here in Sweden yet, probably will in conjunction with Animal Crossing. Does it use magnetic strips or barcodes?
_________________
"The best optimizer is between your ears..."
#245 - arrid - Sun Jan 05, 2003 2:42 pm
It uses a 'static' pattern (like on an untuned TV), but it's tiny, and a inkjet, bubblejet or laser printer probably can't print at the required DPI to create a strip it can read
It's also the same pattern repeated several times, so if a part of it is unreadable it still works ok.
#247 - Burre - Sun Jan 05, 2003 2:52 pm
| arrid wrote: |
It uses a 'static' pattern (like on an untuned TV), but it's tiny, and a inkjet, bubblejet or laser printer probably can't print at the required DPI to create a strip it can read
It's also the same pattern repeated several times, so if a part of it is unreadable it still works ok. |
Ok, so how big is the storage capacity? I've heard that all four sides of the card can be read, is that true?
_________________
"The best optimizer is between your ears..."
#280 - SSilver - Sun Jan 05, 2003 9:36 pm
Ok, Im currently working on something like this for the E-Reader. The e-reader uses a special Dot Code technology that it stores on 4 side of the card. The longer part of the card can hold 2.2k of data, so 4.4k data total by boith long sides, and the short side of the car can hold 1.1k each. Theoretically, each card can hold 6.6k of data. NOW, what im tihknog of doing is, in animcal crossing, you can upload a game to the ereader whcih allows animcal crossing to see the ereader and use it to get items...if we find out whats being loaded into rom, maybe we can upload something with a multiboot INTO the e-readers rom. this would be very cool.
#298 - sgeos - Mon Jan 06, 2003 2:30 am
| SSilver wrote: |
| Ok, Im currently working on something like this for the E-Reader. The e-reader uses a special Dot Code technology that it stores on 4 side of the card. The longer part of the card can hold 2.2k of data, so 4.4k data total by boith long sides, and the short side of the car can hold 1.1k each. Theoretically, each card can hold 6.6k of data. NOW, what im tihknog of doing is, in animcal crossing, you can upload a game to the ereader whcih allows animcal crossing to see the ereader and use it to get items...if we find out whats being loaded into rom, maybe we can upload something with a multiboot INTO the e-readers rom. this would be very cool. |
Why not just use a flash linker to write to it's sram or whatever it uses? Here is a little info on the US version of the unit: The ROM is 8MB (64 megabit), and the save data is 64KB (512 kilobit?) I read an article that stated that the US version has a built in NES emulator. I imagine that the save data I downloaded from my ereader is some type of modified (or not?!) NES ROM. Then again, I know nothing about NES ROMs as such.
I'll need to try scanning in another application, saving it with the ereader and then restoring it with the flash linker. I see no reason for this to fail.
So far as I can tell the unit is just a regular cart with a scanner attached to it. The link port on the ereader may or may not be a straight connection. If the intention was to have the ereader interface the N64 and/or other GBA units directly, then I doubt that it is. If not, then the connection is probably straight through and the unit communicates with other devices in a standard fashion.
The unit has regional lockout.
Stated above, the cards have a repeating dot pattern. I did not know that. Thanks for the info!
-Brendan
#321 - SSilver - Mon Jan 06, 2003 7:52 am
The E-Reader does not have GBA regional lockout, it has Japanease E-Card lock out. also the jap version doesnt have a link port. with the gba connected to an ereader which is then connected to a gamecube you can upload an ereader program directly to the ereaders ram, whivch then enables it to read animcal crossing cards. so im guessing that the ereader may need an internal program to reconize cards, otherwise it may not be able to understand anything.
#339 - sgeos - Mon Jan 06, 2003 5:48 pm
I meant a regional lock out for the cards. I should have been more specific. For clarity, in case anybody else is reading this, the ereader itself seems to be a regular cart with a scanner attached. GB/GBA carts do have regional lock out.
This particular implementation of dot code technology is made by a Japanese company, Olympus. Their website does not have info about the ereader as such. At least not that I found (did not look too hard), but here it is anyway:
http://www.olympus.com/
If you click on the Asia section, you'll see that they make imaging, medical, and industrial *stuff*. It's quite possible that for practical reasons or to protect their technology all of the scanning/decoding
is done by custom circuitry and is not in the ROM at all.
-Brendan
#2759 - Neouni - Wed Feb 12, 2003 10:52 am
i'm wondering how to read out the savegame memmory chip of the e-reader it normal aps don't dump out the whole memmory range
it seems it only gets a part of it or is communicating in a wrong way,
but i'm getting references to the e-reader in regular intervals in the file i dumped
maybe this scan of the PCB helps:
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