Hello users, especially hello to EZ-Flash2,
as you all are probably aware, the source code of the EZ-Flash Omega ROM is available on GitHub. The Omega is probably the most easily hackable flashcart available to market.
This sounds really great on paper, but in practice not much has happened with the EZ-Flash. Only a few translated versions where the chinese translation has been replaced with e.g. spanish, one reskinned ROM and there's a pull request with a very small addition (Press L while booting to load the first game on NOR memory).
I see two reasons for that:
1. Lack of documentation
We may be able to figure out over time what the code does anyway, but i think it is helpful if you (EZ-Flash2) would provide a documentation on how the Omega works, how to interact with the memory, etc. In my opinion, a good documentation is much more inviting and encouraging to modify the Omega.
2. Lack of a good test environment
As i mentioned before, there have been only small changes made. I think the biggest reason is because we do not have a good testing environment. We can only test on real hardware, which could be easily bricked. I personally doubt that the devs were exclusively testing on real hardware. What i kinda hope for is to get some tools or info on how you (EZ-Flash2) are working with the Omega. How do you develop and test the ROM? Ideally we could use a software emulating not only the GBA hardware, but also the EZ-Flash Omega hardware (especially the SD card reader and NOR memory). Something that allows us to test and debug our modified software before we put it on the real Omega. Or we could use info on how to reflash a bricked EZ-Flash if something went horribly wrong.
I hope we can get help and encourage more people to develop custom ROMs for the Omega. I for one have some ideas i wish to try out, but i am scared of bricking my own EZ-Flash Omega.
as you all are probably aware, the source code of the EZ-Flash Omega ROM is available on GitHub. The Omega is probably the most easily hackable flashcart available to market.
This sounds really great on paper, but in practice not much has happened with the EZ-Flash. Only a few translated versions where the chinese translation has been replaced with e.g. spanish, one reskinned ROM and there's a pull request with a very small addition (Press L while booting to load the first game on NOR memory).
I see two reasons for that:
1. Lack of documentation
We may be able to figure out over time what the code does anyway, but i think it is helpful if you (EZ-Flash2) would provide a documentation on how the Omega works, how to interact with the memory, etc. In my opinion, a good documentation is much more inviting and encouraging to modify the Omega.
2. Lack of a good test environment
As i mentioned before, there have been only small changes made. I think the biggest reason is because we do not have a good testing environment. We can only test on real hardware, which could be easily bricked. I personally doubt that the devs were exclusively testing on real hardware. What i kinda hope for is to get some tools or info on how you (EZ-Flash2) are working with the Omega. How do you develop and test the ROM? Ideally we could use a software emulating not only the GBA hardware, but also the EZ-Flash Omega hardware (especially the SD card reader and NOR memory). Something that allows us to test and debug our modified software before we put it on the real Omega. Or we could use info on how to reflash a bricked EZ-Flash if something went horribly wrong.
I hope we can get help and encourage more people to develop custom ROMs for the Omega. I for one have some ideas i wish to try out, but i am scared of bricking my own EZ-Flash Omega.