ROM Hack 100 Classic Book Collection

Sparticuz · May 1, 2009

I got this 'game' a few weeks ago and thought that it was way better than the current ereaders on the ds. So I took to disassembling the rom to see if I could find some way to replace the books with others. I used dsbuff on it to unpack the files, but now I'm kinda stuck. When I unpack it I get a folder book with over 100 books in it. book_001.bin etc... Using a hex editor I've opened one up and the text is there, but random nonsense is in between words, sometimes inside words. I guess I need help disassembling these bin files. Near the tops of the files is this (book_083.bin)

CODE.....................The Taming o
f the Shrew.William Shakespeare.T
HE TAMING
OF THE SHREW.William

Shakespeare.The Taming of

the Shrew.TAMINGOFTHESHREW.SHAKES
PEAREWILLIAM.BookData_.TamingOfTh
eShrew.........0...H...\...w.....

The first thing I noticed was the
's Maybe using some sort of html? Any help learning how to disassemble the bin files would be appreciated

DarthNemesis · May 1, 2009

Unfortunately, it appears to be a fairly complex format. The file starts out with a header containing pointers to various sections in the file, such as the title image and the font info. Many sections (including the text ones) are stored in LZ77-compressed NARC files.

Porkdish · May 1, 2009

QUOTE said:
I got this 'game' a few weeks ago and thought that it was way better than the current ereaders on the ds

What about it exactly do you prefer in relation to other ebook homebrew?

Kuschel-Drow · May 2, 2009

I think moonshell is quite allright for reading ebooks. I mean... you'll have to convert the files to a correct format in order for Moonshell to show all special letters, but I've managed to do it for German and I can read whatever I want in a decent way.

Exchanging the books of that rom won't probably be easy so... x)

theli · Jun 26, 2009

well, it is possible
for those interested in format of books_xxx.bin (001-100)
here is some information for start:

Code:

0x10 bytes - MD5 sum of rest of file
0x04 bytes - unknown (always 0x0f000000)
0x04 bytes * 0x17 - offsets
0x04 bytes * 0x17 - sizes

all subfiles(except first) are CARC files (lz compressed narc)
{offsets/sizes} (this is for book_001, I haven't really looked through all books)
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 0 :ÂÂpoints to first,uncompressed book's main data , offset always 0xCC , format unknown :)
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 1 :ÂÂcover of book 
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 2-4 : unknown
???ÂÂÂÂ5-7 :ÂÂparts of book's main text .. can be repeated (if repeated - size is zero for all but last entry)
???ÂÂÂÂ8-19 :ÂÂparts of book's "about book"
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 20 :ÂÂabout author
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 21 :ÂÂauthor's portret
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 22 :ÂÂchapters' data , format simple , contains chapters' titles and offsets in text
ÂÂÂÂÂÂ 23 :ÂÂpoints to end of file , size==0

books' titles and authors seen when browsing shelf are hardcoded in arm9.bin

Benandanti · Jun 26, 2009

Is it possible to make a patch to add the downloadable content books to the rom?

ShigeruTR · Jun 26, 2009

Sorry for this

Can moonshell support the turkish character?
Example;

Code:

Çç ?? Öö ?? Üü

If it supports anyone can send me?

bumjeans · Jun 27, 2009

Porkdish said:
QUOTE said:

I got this 'game' a few weeks ago and thought that it was way better than the current ereaders on the ds

Click to expand...

What about it exactly do you prefer in relation to other ebook homebrew?

Background and font makes it very readable. If the homebrew can emulate it, I would be happy.

ferofax · Aug 9, 2009

seems nobody's too keen on doing anything with this... i absolutely love the way this software presents all the ebooks. my only problem is, i'm not too keen on the titles included themselves, haha.

now, if the books were, let's say, the entire Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice, or the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, or the whole Harry Potter series, even the Twilight sagas, well that should make quite a point, haha.

it'd be one heck of an undertaking though. seems the text are all formatted, which means entire ebooks will probably have to be proof-read and formatted to fit the screen, much like how Alice in Wonderland (included in dsreader) have been sort of manually adjusted to fit without making the text look scattered with out of place linebreaks.

if someone could make a patcher that could insert or replace titles, man that'd be awesome.

Biblio · Dec 15, 2009

Hi,
First please forgive me for my bad English...

So this is what brings me here

I extracted the parts of a book, the format corresponds mainly to that indicated by theli. (Thx)

The interesting parts to recreate a book are

i.e for Book 1

part 00
Bookdata (book number, author name, tittle, genre, era, etc....)

part 02
LittleWomen.npix (pages offset for small font) (pages 0-1 2-3 etc)
LittleWomen.lpix (pages offset for large font) (idem)

part 06 to 17
LittleWomen_00.bd
LittleWomen_01.bd (Little Women is a small book, only 2 xxxxx.bd)

part 21
LittleWomen.cts (chapter's data)

With a little personal tool, i used a simple .rtf file to create a properly formatted bd file and the corresponding npix, lpix and cts files.

The book created is working in 100CBC, but i have a little problem.

I can not determine with precision how to cut the pages to have correct offsets in .npix or .lpix files

- if the difference between 2 offsets is too large, then missing words when the page is turned

- if the difference between 2 offsets is too small, then there are redundant words when the page is turned

So we must find the correct way pages are cut in 100CBC

What I know for small font :

line width 170 pixels
minimum space between 2 words 4 pixels
rows per page 12
no word cut on the last line of a page
if you cut a word you must take two letters to the minimum but you must leave at least two letters.

any idea ?
Thx

sfg · Dec 15, 2009

Great, somebody else thought of that! Unfortunately, I've only got as far as unpacking the rom so I won't be of any use but at least there's somebody working on it.

Asaki · Dec 18, 2009

bumjeans said:
Background and font makes it very readable. If the homebrew can emulate it, I would be happy.

I personally found DSLibris's white-on-black to be much easier on the eyes, and the font was more customizable.

sfg · Dec 19, 2009

Biblio, could you also have a look at 200 Klassische Buecher? I've unpacked that too and the books have the .xml extension, although they don't seem .xml as I know it... maybe they're coded, I don't know, but it may be worth a try.

Biblio · Dec 19, 2009

I've looked at 200 Klassische Buecher before working on 100 Classic Book Collection but it doesn't work on any PC emulator.
For the moment, I'm still working on 100CBC... Maybe later.

And yes those .xml files are encrypted or packed, I haven't looked further

Biblio · Dec 26, 2009

Biblio said:
I can not determine with precision how to cut the pages to have correct offsets in .npix or .lpix files

Eurêka ! Now it's time to code

sfg · Dec 26, 2009

Great job! Good luck!

ferofax · Dec 28, 2009

sweet! i know you guys are probably a long way from any huge progress with real outputs, but try to aim for something that can format texts for insertion into the roms. This way, people can convert what titles they want, and inject them as they see fit.

djshok · Dec 28, 2009

Excellent. This is relevant to my interests. I would love to see all the William Gibson cyberpunk stuff put into this. I hope you guys can get this thing working. I'd help, but I don't know much about coding. So the best I can do is cheer you guys on and hope you don't lose motivation.

Aganar · Dec 29, 2009

Best of luck to you guys! I'd love to get this working.

deathking · Dec 29, 2009

if its too hard how bout trying it with the flipz series of book on ds?

ROM Hack 100 Classic Book Collection

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