Hacking Expanding upon the GameCube to GameBoy cord.

[iDominic]

I was wondering if it would be possible to use the GBA-GCN Link adapter to rewrite a new ROM to a GBA Cartridge via WiiBrew?

The Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire games could receive a patch for the Berry Glitch, so I theorize that new data could be written to a Cartridge - In any case, the GBA-GCN Link provides a convenient method for writing the data.
Is there anyone who would know where to start or be willing to take a crack at it?

It would be a pretty useful thing to be able to use an average Cartridge as a typical Flash Cart.

 

[Heran Bago]

The chips that store the game data on GBA carts is Read Only Memory. A "ROM" file is a backup of this read only memory.

Basically you can rewrite the save data all you want, but not the game data on normal cartridges.

 

[iDominic]

I'm confused.
The Berry Patch would permanently patch the game, even after Save Data was erased, how's that work?

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

because it keeps the fix in save when you erase your data your not deleting the berry patch data which is actually tiny

 

[iDominic]

Ah, well thank you for clarifying.

 

[FAST6191]

Broadly speaking there are two classes of storage- read only memory and rewritable memory. It gets a lot more confusing if you want it to be but stick with that for now.

The former is typically cheaper, easier to manage in large batches, faster and less power hungry so it gets used for things that do not have to change like traditional computer games.

The latter is often more expensive for a given storage capacity, harder to manage if you have to write a lot of them, slower (especially when writing) and a lot more power hungry (to the point where a common type of memory known as SRAM needs power to hold the data for any length of time). However being writable it can hold data made once things leave the factory so it is included in cartridge games, consoles themselves (though they have it nowadays to allow dashboard updates) or memory cards.

As companies sought to lock down their devices the writable stuff holds no executable code and may even take steps to prevent it (not in the case of the GBA or even much on the DS). Hackers frequently still use it as such but that is a different matter though I might return to it later.

As you can not change the read only memory, which is where the game data is held, traditionally you can not change what goes. If you are thinking things like when you take your cart to nintendo and they fix something they are usually forcing the save to a position where it gets past the bug. Theoretically you might be able to exploit a glitch in save handling to do something that would bypass or fix the bug but in reality most ROM hackers would just tell you get a flash cart and patch the ROM normally.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

No worries mate

 

[iDominic]

Hmm, I know that small programs can be loaded into RAM during multiboot, but if I manually added a little more RAM to my SP, around 32-64MB, would it be possible to just load an entire game image into the RAM?

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Hmm, I know that small programs can be loaded into RAM during multiboot, but if I manually added a little more RAM to my SP, around 32-64MB, would it be possible to just load an entire game image into the RAM?

The GBA Bios wouldn't see the extra ram so it would not make use of it if it was there

 

[iDominic]

Hmm, well that's a little disappointing, but such is life.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Hmm, well that's a little disappointing, but such is life.

Just get a EZ-Flash 4 or a EZ 3in1 for DS mate, its the easiest way

 

[FAST6191]

If you are asking these sorts of questions you are so far from being able to add more RAM to a device in the manner you speak of it is not funny (though realistically many would have serious troubles doing it in a useful manner). However you could just buy a flash cart* and solve almost all your problems in one shot.

*of course flash carts are noted for using RAM, they are already memory mapped and even better they are already memory mapped in the exact same manner as all commercial and most homebrew games so depending upon your views about abstraction it might have already happened. I guess you could make it so you could use a link port, multiboot and fiddle around with that; it would be slow as hell and pretty pointless but you could do it.

 

[iDominic]

Well, I already have a Wii to use for emulation, not to mention the computer.
I was more interested in the unusual aspect of it, I may order a FlashCart at some point, but probably not soon.

I was wondering, do you know if it would be possible to use a GBA SP display with a Raspberry Pi through the use of some soldering?

@FAST6191
I'm a beginner when it comes to messing around with this sort of thing, if I were going to add hardware components to a console, I'd certainly seek help from someone who has experience with it.

After-all, one doesn't simply try something without any experience or research.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Doubt its possible in any easy manor since the PI likes to output in HDMI where as the SP Screen has a Direct pinout

 

[FAST6191]

As in desolder the display and power gear and use it as an external standalone on the rasp pi?
Ignoring that there are far better options for cheap and cheerful displays and your probably having to reverse engineer the GBA display protocol then possibly if you only want a simple serial monitor type affair. Full parallel redraws and full framerates and whatever else and I probably start looking at FPGA and CPLD class devices or an actual driver for the display which defeats the object really.

Cause the rasp pi to act as a multiboot host and then display from there. Far more easily than others though I would probably not use a rasp pi as a base for such a gig.

Cause the rasp pi to act as a flash cart of a form.... tough call. Though I should note full motion video is not really possible in the GBA hardware (before people point at meteo and the GBA video carts that is not quite the same thing) if you were planning to adapt the GBA as a display driver.

People have done things like the second and third before though
http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/GBA/gba.htm

 

[iDominic]

Mm, that's disappointing.
I figured that it wouldn't have a very high resolution and would probably be best to use for a purely Text-Based OS, but it's just such a perfect size.

 

[FAST6191]

For reference https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/147/

 

[WDae]

And what about extracting/writing save data? (Cheats or whatever else)

 

[gusmento01]

Is it possible to use the Nintendo GameCube–Game Boy Advance Link cable as a controller on the VBA GX?

 

[iDominic]

^
I was just thinking about that the other day, but it would likely need to have a small program written to send input to the Wii.