Hacking Coding vWii 3-core support - everything you need to know.

[the_randomizer]

I don't want to make any assumptions, so I'd like you to clarify something. Are you saying that, no matter what happens now, it's too late for you to release anything?

Sure as hell seems like that to me, no wonder people don't believe anything nor do they have hope in ever seeing a Wii U hack. With bullshit attitudes like that, we can't take them seriously. I'm just picking up on his cynicism.

 

[mcchase]

Sure as hell seems like that to me, no wonder people don't believe anything nor do they have hope in ever seeing a Wii U hack. With bullshit attitudes like that, we can't take them seriously. I'm just picking up on his cynicism.

I think you're right. I'm sill going to spread the word and continue to donate to Max if the funds stay low though, he's put a tonne of work in and I want him to keep at it regardless of Marcan's apathy. If this really goes the long-haul maybe I'll pick up a book on assembly coding and see if eventually I can help get something productive done too.

 

[Pogostick]

I think you're right. I'm sill going to spread the word and continue to donate to Max if the funds stay low though, he's put a tonne of work in and I want him to keep at it regardless of Marcan's apathy. If this really goes the long-haul maybe I'll pick up a book on assembly coding and see if eventually I can help get something productive done too.

Well I don't know about Assembly but what I DO know is that C is influenced BY Assembly.

Here's a Dummies book for C if you're interested:

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0764570684.html

 

[marcan_troll]

I don't want to make any assumptions, so I'd like you to clarify something. Are you saying that, no matter what happens now, it's too late for you to release anything?

If there ends up being significant interest and progress is made, we will reconsider working towards a Wii U-mode homebrew ecosystem (or perhaps just pass on what we have to those who are more motivated than we are).

Note how I never said:

If someone ports Linux to the Espresso with SMP support we will release the Wii U exploit.

Now, admittedly, I may not have been clear enough for you folks, who insist on interpreting things literally and filling in any available blanks as you see fit. What I meant is this:

If there end up being enough interested and capable people such that supporting a homebrew community might be possible (and using progress made and the time taken as a signal to ascertain that), we will reconsider working towards a Wii U-mode homebrew ecosystem (or perhaps just pass on what we have to those who are more motivated than we are).

The Linux port idea had two purposes: to attempt to motivate people towards a clear goal, and to use it as benchmark of how much interest there is.

Now, there is no deadline to my statements - but the deal never was that we'd deliver the exploit as soon as SMP Linux is working either. If 6 months from now SMP Linux finally works after a year of slow progress, then no, that doesn't demonstrate that a viable homebrew ecosystem is likely to be supportable. If a year from now, after basically no progress, a team of people decide to get together and get it done within a week*, and they communicate with us and show clear direction and interest and strong enough technical ability to actually pull it off, then yes, that would change our impression, regardless of the fact that it took a year to get started.

The goal was always to have a healthy homebrew ecosystem. If that's not going to happen, then there's no point in releasing the exploit. Stop trying to find a workaround so you can claim the exploit and use it for warez while homebrew ends up DOA. If you really want homebrew, then go find a team willing and able to make it happen, and we'll help them with what we have. If you can't find one - then homebrew isn't going to happen.

Edit: and, again, I want to clarify that none of this is to be taken as dismissing Maxternal's work. I'm sure he knows just as well as I do that he, alone, isn't going to be driving the Wii U homebrew scene. This is still a worthwile learning project for him (and anyone else who wants to join - hey, if enough people do that, that's how a homebrew scene is born!) and I hope that he doesn't give up just because of that. The more people interested in these topics and willing to learn and get better, the better, for everyone. Perhaps he'll be one of the main players in the homebrew scene for whatever the popular device is a few years from now (hey, one of my first hacks was a shitty port of Linux to a home DSL router many years ago - and even though that project died pretty quickly, it was a great learning experience).

* and, before you get any ideas, no, developing it in secret and releasing it all at once pretending to have developed it in a week doesn't count and won't fly.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Note how I never said:


Now, admittedly, I may not have been clear enough for you folks, who insist on interpreting things literally and filling in any available blanks as you see fit. What I meant is this.
*snip*

No offense was intended. Clearly I just misunderstood. As I said in my post, the whole reason I asked for clarification was so that I didn't get the wrong idea from your post. There is a lot of confusion out there on what is available, what may be available, and what is currently unknown. That's not your fault, it's just the kind of thing that happens when stuff is spread over the internet.

 

[the_randomizer]

If more people need to learn (notably in my case) what would be the best way for a programming noob to get started? My major in school is technically computer science and I haven't learned jack squat, but I want to change that. If many of us deciding to Linux/C/ASM is what it takes to get this rolling, then so be it. We all gotta start somewhere, besides, I'm taking a break from school so I might as well be productive with my extra time.

 

[Andy A]

Then if more people need to learn (notably in my case) what would be the best way for a programming noob to get started? My major in school is technically computer science and I haven't learned jack squat, but I want to change that. If many of us deciding to Linux/C/ASM is what it takes to get this rolling, then so be it. We all gotta start somewhere, besides, I'm taking a break from school so I might as well be productive with my extra time.

If you want to start learning programming you can either take a crash course and just go for C (maybe C++ if you want classes but it would probably not be super useful for this and is just more to learn) or you can take a 2 year approach which is more likely to get you good at it and go through another language like C#. From C you can learn ASM and integrate it into your C however it will probably take you at least a year of solid work before you are capable of doing complex ASM exploits like this thread is on about. Though C++ would be helpful after that when working with linux.

 

[grossaffe]

Then if more people need to learn (notably in my case) what would be the best way for a programming noob to get started? My major in school is technically computer science and I haven't learned jack squat, but I want to change that. If many of us deciding to Linux/C/ASM is what it takes to get this rolling, then so be it. We all gotta start somewhere, besides, I'm taking a break from school so I might as well be productive with my extra time.

I, too, should have some free time in the upcoming month, and I have experience with Linux, C, and various Assembly languages. If someone wants to show me where to start, maybe I can be of some use when I'm done with finals.

 

[the_randomizer]

If you want to start learning programming you can either take a crash course and just go for C (maybe C++ if you want classes but it would probably not be super useful for this and is just more to learn) or you can take a 2 year approach which is more likely to get you good at it and go through another language like C#. From C you can learn ASM and integrate it into your C however it will probably take you at least a year of solid work before you are capable of doing complex ASM exploits like this thread is on about. Though C++ would be helpful after that when working with linux.

The thing is, I'm not going to be able to go back to school for a while (long story) so I need something to get my feet wet, then go from there. What is it that I need to focus on? Guess that's what I'm trying to figure out Would it be PPC assembly after getting to know C/C#?

I, too, should have some free time in the upcoming month, and I have experience with Linux, C, and various Assembly languages. If someone wants to show me where to start, maybe I can be of some use when I'm done with finals.

So, where did you start off learning exactly? I have very limited knowledge of programming and won't be going back to school for a while.

 

[Pogostick]

Hey Maxternal, what machine do you have is the closest to a Wii U because until you can afford one you're gonna have to work with whatcha got.

 

[crono141]

I feel like this is a chicken and egg sort of situation. There's little interest in WiiU homebrew because there's no exploit, but the exploit won't be released until there's interest in WiiU homebrew.

I ask this question honestly, how difficult would it be to get libogc functional on the wiiu? I don't mean fully featured, I mean functional. Where it will build and compile an app that runs in Wii U mode? Because the best looking homebrew on Wii is made with libogc. I know its a mess, but it works. Don't you think there would be developer support if there was a set of tools for the common, non-hardware hacker developer to compile c++ code and get an app to run. The WiiU processor is architecturally identical to the Wii. Perhaps linux is not the best direction to get developer support in.

 

[the_randomizer]

I feel like this is a chicken and egg sort of situation. There's little interest in WiiU homebrew because there's no exploit, but the exploit won't be released until there's interest in WiiU homebrew.

I ask this question honestly, how difficult would it be to get libogc functional on the wiiu? I don't mean fully featured, I mean functional. Where it will build and compile an app that runs in Wii U mode? Because the best looking homebrew on Wii is made with libogc. I know its a mess, but it works. Don't you think there would be developer support if there was a set of tools for the common, non-hardware hacker developer to compile c++ code and get an app to run. The WiiU processor is architecturally identical to the Wii. Perhaps linux is not the best direction to get developer support in.

But Linux is easier to port, that's the thing, and pretty flexible and uses little resources.

 

[Andy A]

I feel like this is a chicken and egg sort of situation. There's little interest in WiiU homebrew because there's no exploit, but the exploit won't be released until there's interest in WiiU homebrew.

I ask this question honestly, how difficult would it be to get libogc functional on the wiiu? I don't mean fully featured, I mean functional. Where it will build and compile an app that runs in Wii U mode? Because the best looking homebrew on Wii is made with libogc. I know its a mess, but it works. Don't you think there would be developer support if there was a set of tools for the common, non-hardware hacker developer to compile c++ code and get an app to run. The WiiU processor is architecturally identical to the Wii. Perhaps linux is not the best direction to get developer support in.

As soon as you introduce homebrew to the system people just load backups so unless you did it sort of like a regulated exploit with 1 app store installed where you are only able to get approved apps then the wii u game development scene goes even more stale because piracy becomes huge. The app store idea sounds nice but would really be a pain in practice and basically lock development off to a few select developers.

 

[Vappy]

I feel like this is a chicken and egg sort of situation. There's little interest in WiiU homebrew because there's no exploit, but the exploit won't be released until there's interest in WiiU homebrew.

You say that, but there's been some significant work done towards homebrew on the 3DS, with no publicly usable exploit, and the entire catalog of documentation and software so far made by a single small team. It CAN happen, it just takes a small number of passionate people willing to spend the time working on it.

As soon as you introduce homebrew to the system people just load backups so unless you did it sort of like a regulated exploit with 1 app store installed where you are only able to get approved apps then the wii u game development scene goes even more stale because piracy becomes huge. The app store idea sounds nice but would really be a pain in practice and basically lock development off to a few select developers.

There's probably a way to have a release that enables custom code with access to everything but for a few functions needed for loading backups, like smealum is planning with his CFW...

 

[Maxternal]

Hey Maxternal, what machine do you have is the closest to a Wii U because until you can afford one you're gonna have to work with whatcha got.

A normal Wii

I ask this question honestly, how difficult would it be to get libogc functional on the wiiu? I don't mean fully featured, I mean functional. Where it will build and compile an app that runs in Wii U mode? Because the best looking homebrew on Wii is made with libogc. I know its a mess, but it works. Don't you think there would be developer support if there was a set of tools for the common, non-hardware hacker developer to compile c++ code and get an app to run. The WiiU processor is architecturally identical to the Wii. Perhaps linux is not the best direction to get developer support in.

Since, of course, I've never touched Wii U mode I'm no expert but what I expect is that since Wii U mode actually has an OS, that your apps would end up running in userland in a virtual machine. The GC and Wii had software running by itself with no OS (the IOS was more like a firmware than an OS) so while libogc is more written for "direct" hardware access, a new "liboWiiU" would probably have to be reverse engineered pretty much from scratch (kinda like trying to make a Nintendo SDK clone). I doubt there's much in common between the way Wii U software interacts with the OS and how Wii software interacted with the IOS and the hardware itself.

That said, at least running inside the CafeOS you wouldn't have to worry about the cores as much as that would be handled for you and (unless I'm mistaken) a lot of the hardware would be taken care of, too ONCE you figured out how to ask the OS nicely to let you use it.

He wants to avoid piracy, though, and even with the extra abstraction layer from the hardware (considering what they say about Wii U's security being so bad) giving people access to run software the same way the game does might not be that good of an idea.


That's my best guess, anyhow.

EDIT : and a lot of those benefits you'd also have with Linux PLUS having lots of "homebrew" already written for it (probably easier for Nintendo to kick you out, too, if you're running inside their OS)

 

[the_randomizer]

So how would we go about having the exploit to run non-piracy related apps without opening the doors for that potentiality? I for one, don't give a crap about backups at all, but I do want to learn or start somewhere and help in any way I can.

 

[Maxternal]

So how would we go about having the exploit to run non-piracy related apps without opening the doors for that potentiality? I for one, don't give a crap about backups at all, but I do want to learn or start somewhere and help in any way I can.

MAYBE if you have it do just SOME of what happens when you go into vWii mode and permanently shut down some of the key hardware needed for games
(I'm sure you'd still have people able to reverse engineer YOUR app, though, and take that part out so that they could use it for piracy.)

 

[the_randomizer]

MAYBE if you have it do just SOME of what happens when you go into vWii mode and permanently shut down some of the key hardware needed for games
(I'm sure you'd still have people able to reverse engineer YOUR app, though, and take that part out so that they could use it for piracy.)

Gotcha. With that said, what can I, a newbie, do to learn more about programming (i.e more specifically this crap about ASM, C, Linux)?

 

[mcchase]

Gotcha. With that said, what can I, a newbie, do to learn more about programming (i.e more specifically this crap about ASM, C, Linux)?

Weigh me in on this too please. I don't have a lot of free time due to work, and my only coding experience comes from some Matlab I studied during my engineering degree. I appreciate that means I'm essentially useless but I would really like to be some help, so I'm eager to start learning.

 

[the_randomizer]

Come hell or high water, I will learn. If I can become bilingual, I can sure as hell do this.