Hacking Help Identify Flashcard

[katsup]

Hi,

I found this flashcard in storage and I have no longer have a way of testing it. Does anyone know what brand this is? It does not have any labels.

I'll probably end up selling it to someone eventually.

 

[thaddius]

That's the original X-Rom cart. It'll be either 512 or 1024 MegaBits. It looks like it'll work with LittleWriter, but you'll probably have to have Windows XP or an XP VM to get it to work.

Let me know if you plan on selling. I just might be interested.

 

[katsup]

Thank you, I recognize LittleWritter. Pretty sure it is 512MB as I remember only being able to fit around 8 games.

 

[CubeGuy]

I just found my X-ROM in the garage, but I haven't been able to find a copy of littlewriter anywhere. Have you had any luck?

 

[FAST6191]

GBAtemp's downloads site should have most such programs, in this case http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-littlewriter-beta-rc-1-1-0-8-4-f564.html

 

[thaddius]

Why is everyone finding X-ROMs? I checked my garage like five times and no X-ROM.

 

[CubeGuy]

That's super convenient. Now to dig up the drivers. I forgot what a pain Windows XP was.

 

[katsup]

That's super convenient. Now to dig up the drivers. I forgot what a pain Windows XP was.

If it makes you feel better, I have an X-Rom but not GBA.

 

[CubeGuy]

Neither do I. I'm trying to get it going with a GBA Player. No idea if it's gonna work.

 

[DanTheManMS]

I remember when I was first shopping for a GBA flash cart. Sadly I got a lot of my first "advice" from the *shudders* gameboy-advance.net site, but upon further research and extensive Google searching, I was able to tell the quality carts from the junk. I ended up settling on a Flash2Advance Ultra, 1 Gbit, for a whopping $130 from linker4u. But the XROM was a close contender in my final decision, and the sole reason was because you could use the entire 512 Mbits for Pogoshell, as opposed to the normal 256 Mbit limit of every other cart. This was the "official" Pogoshell of course, before it kinda disappeared and Kuwanger forked off his own version from the older source code... I'm rambling.

Anyway, this Archive.org page might be interesting to you. It remains the only place I know of to download the very latest version of the METEO software that converts videos into GBA files.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070104061109/http://www.gbaflashguide.com/index.php

EDIT: Oh wow, by following the links through that site you can get to the archived version of the final "official" Pogoshell release with a still-working .zip file download.

 

[CubeGuy]

I'm stuck at the point where the second (final) drivers are supposed to install. Can't figure out why they won't. Oh well. Maybe I'll dig out an old laptop to try it on tomorrow.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Yeah, these GBA-era flash carts are so fiddly that it's near-impossible to get them to work on modern hardware. Heck, even back when they were current, the drivers were always a nightmare to install.

 

[katsup]

I don't think I will ever use mine again so I can't help with drivers. I feel bad throwing it away though.

 

[DanTheManMS]

I only have one final suggestion, and it's not likely to work if you can't get the original drivers installed, but FlashManager was always a good tool to play around with. I've used it to dump ROMs and save files from official GBA carts using my F2A USB cable.

 

[migles]

Anyway, this Archive.org page might be interesting to you. It remains the only place I know of to download the very latest version of the METEO software that converts videos into GBA files.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070104061109/http://www.gbaflashguide.com/index.php

EDIT: Oh wow, by following the links through that site you can get to the archived version of the final "official" Pogoshell release with a still-working .zip file download.

make sure to mirror the files and save them as a backup, so they dont get lost forever.