Hacking Slot-1 clones

[DSLite]

How it comes there are so many clones?
http://romnet.co.uk/node/81 (thanks to sinkhead)

Is it ordinary copied from each other (by disassembling) or is it conspiracy and coming from one and the same factory?

And if each team releases their own firmware, they're interchangeable per clone?
So if they are 100% identical to each other I can transform a R4 (which may be cheaper) into a M3 DS Simply, for example?

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Sinkhead]

My thoughts?
I think it's getting quite annoying that all the major brand cards are the same. I wouldn't mind it if some small company's cards were clones, but all the major brands are now seemingly one.
This really annoys me, because only the EZF5 seems to be different from the others. You can tell this because of the side loading MicroSD slot.

- Sam

 

[SynGamer]

My thoughts?
I think it's getting quite annoying that all the major brand cards are the same. I wouldn't mind it if some small company's cards were clones, but all the major brands are now seemingly one.
This really annoys me, because only the EZF5 seems to be different from the others. You can tell this because of the side loading MicroSD slot.

- Sam

But the side-loading slot means having to take out the slot 1 card every time you want to change whats on the microSD

 

[Sinkhead]

But it also means it can't get lost.
I lost a 1Gb MicroSD card because they're do darn tiny.
A side loading slot means harder to lose.

- Sam

 

[Mr.squeeks]

or is it conspiracy and coming from one and the same factory?


I don't know if it is a conspiracy, but they do all come from the same factory, and are really the exact same card hardware wise. I'd guess that the firmware would make a difference in performance, but since the companies are working together on the hardware, I'd be willing to bet the firmware is probably similar as well.

That is why I'm waiting for a review here before thinking about buying any of these carts. It might turn out that buying the expensive one (M3?) is a waste, when one of the others is pretty much identical but cheaper.

But it also means it can't get lost.
I lost a 1Gb MicroSD card because they're do darn tiny.
A side loading slot means harder to lose.

- Sam

I'd rather have side loading than the back loading like R4/M3, that is why I like my M3 lite. There is no way the card can fall out, and it would seem that less dust would get inside the cart as well. The small bit of extra effort to take out the cart to change what is on the SD card is meaningless.

 

[Monkey01]

@topic:
Yeah, it's annoying that every card seems to be the same, but when they started to take out the gba compatibility in the slot2 cartridges, what were really the differences between supercard rumble (okay, the rumbling, but other than that), M3 Pro, Ewin2 and EZ4Compact. Just another interface, and all having around the same compatibility.
But how should the cards differ? You can differ the location of the microsd slot, but what else?

I really have no idea what's with that media gamer, copying directly from microninja though, that's just freakin' weird shit.

@that list:
"Media Gamer From a well-known company"
The company Uwind... ... ... I've never heard of that company before?

"NinjaPass X9 MicroSD Based Not-so-nice Menu http://www.ninjapass.com
Not related to other 'Ninja' products"
Wow, it's MicroSD based... most of the products are in that list, why note it for some and for some not?
And can somebody explain me why the hell those people from NinjaPass X9 took the name NinjaPass then? Why would anyone want to take the same name as the name that has been fucked up already by another shitty product. And the X9 may suck less then the original NinjaPass but it still sucks, so if they weren't the NinjaPass guys they shouldn't name it like that, cause this shit is so damn confusing.

"N-CARD From the well-known SuperCard Team"
Hurray... no... it's from another well known team... the NDSGBA team... from Ultra FlashPass, NinjaPass, NDS 1:1, DSFlash 2, Ultra FlashPass EX, DS Flash and Ultra FlashPass TF...

"DSLinker Large capacity, cheap, 100% compatibility"
100% compatibility... everyone is claiming the 100% compatibility stuff, but you can be almost absolutely sure that they're not gonna make this true, it's still from the NDSGBA team...

 

[digital_sin]

So if they are 100% identical to each other I can transform a R4 (which may be cheaper) into a M3 DS Simply, for example?

What are your thoughts on this?

Theoratically, this could be possible if the firmware released by any of these flash cart makers is not protected. If you can actually force the cart to be flashed in something like a recovery mode or something, i'm guessing you might be able to convert your R4 to M3 to SC or any other cart with the same exact hardware. But i'm also guessing that each of these teams added code in their respective firmware/OS to protect it from being flashed on/by a different cart/firmware.

This sort of thing has been done before on stuff other than flash carts, i've done it before with my old Sony DVD burner (flashed it with lite-on's newer firmware because sony's dvd was basicly a rebagged liteon) and a couple of ADSL routers.

Then again, this protection might be broken, or might not even exist! imagine just buying a cart without worrying about which one is eventually gonna be better... if M3's firmware turned out to be the ultimate one and you bought a SC; download their firmware, flash it and now you have the ultimate cart.

 

[cory1492]

Then again, this protection might be broken, or might not even exist! imagine just buying a cart without worrying about which one is eventually gonna be better... if M3's firmware turned out to be the ultimate one and you bought a SC; download their firmware, flash it and now you have the ultimate cart.Â

As nice as that would be, ain't gonna happen. M3 won't even let you flash English to their JPN/Chinese etc cards. As I understand it, M3 and SC have been co-operating together on DS compatibility for quite a while now, as well as the passcard/superpass passme2/nopass stuff. It seems reasonable, that aside from the logo, the SC and M3 slot one solutions may very well be identical at the outset, and quite possibly even this R4. As to the EZ5... it doesn't take as much to change the design of a case to accomodate a side slot... and as far as I can tell all of them (ez/sc/m3/r4) are using a similarly modified version of moonshell as the initial kernel, but without looking inside the hardware of each (insert reviewers images here ^^) there is no way of being certain they are the same thing inside...

 

[phoood]

But wait, there's more!

The M3 team will later release another slot 1 solution. So most likely it's just a lot of people trying to get as much money as possible from a slot 1 design they bought off a guy until they perfect their own card.

 

[digital_sin]

i wonder why everyone thinks that the M3 team will release another slot1 card. I didn't see any official announcements, even if there was it would be stupid to do so! why announce a better product when you haven't even released your current one! from what i understand it's called "simply" because it's propably easy/simple to use, not because there's a "real" or "advanced" version comming out later. I'm not saying that they will never release another flash cart, i'm just saying that they didn't say they will.

if anybody knows anything more about this topic, please do tell.

 

[Sinkhead]

@that list:
"Media Gamer From a well-known company"
The company Uwind... ... ... I've never heard of that company before?

"NinjaPass X9 MicroSD Based Not-so-nice Menu http://www.ninjapass.com
Not related to other 'Ninja' products"
Wow, it's MicroSD based... most of the products are in that list, why note it for some and for some not?
And can somebody explain me why the hell those people from NinjaPass X9 took the name NinjaPass then? Why would anyone want to take the same name as the name that has been fucked up already by another shitty product. And the X9 may suck less then the original NinjaPass but it still sucks, so if they weren't the NinjaPass guys they shouldn't name it like that, cause this shit is so damn confusing.

"N-CARD From the well-known SuperCard Team"
Hurray... no... it's from another well known team... the NDSGBA team... from Ultra FlashPass, NinjaPass, NDS 1:1, DSFlash 2, Ultra FlashPass EX, DS Flash and Ultra FlashPass TF...

"DSLinker Large capacity, cheap, 100% compatibility"
100% compatibility... everyone is claiming the 100% compatibility stuff, but you can be almost absolutely sure that they're not gonna make this true, it's still from the NDSGBA team...

I've altered the list to affect your changes. Also, I feel the same say about all that Ninja stuff, but stuff like that happens...

- Sam

 

[BoneMonkey]

if all the new slot 1 carts are the same ( M3 simply , R4DS , and Super Card DS ) is it possiable to use the GUI of lets say the M3 simply and pop it on a R4 DS and get it to work ?

 

[Sinkhead]

Somebody with a SCDS1 should try it!
The R4 firmware is at http://r4ds.com

- Sam

 

[BoneMonkey]

since there all drag and drop it should work right ........ lol

imagine buying a cheaper r4ds and putting m3 software on it ROFL

if someone could test it out maybe put the R4DS gui on a supercard or vice versa

 

[-EX-]

You can't just drag and drop a firmware, silly boy.

 

[Sinkhead]

If they put no protection on you could, if it's the same device and everything then you probably could swap firmwares.

- Sam

 

[Mr.squeeks]

i wonder why everyone thinks that the M3 team will release another slot1 card. I didn't see any official announcements, even if there was it would be stupid to do so! why announce a better product when you haven't even released your current one! from what i understand it's called "simply" because it's propably easy/simple to use, not because there's a "real" or "advanced" version comming out later. I'm not saying that they will never release another flash cart, i'm just saying that they didn't say they will.

if anybody knows anything more about this topic, please do tell.

This is probably the source of the "Real" rumors:
http://bbs.yyjoy.com/thread-11401-1-1.html

Not sure how official that source is, I have nothing to verify it with.

I don't think it would necessarily be stupid to announce that they are working on another product to launch after the Simply. From that link it sounds like the Real (if it exists) will be a higher priced cart than the Simply. The price difference would be enough to prevent the products from stealing sales from each other. Just like the G6 and M3 co-exist today.

 

[Sinkhead]

If above time product issue can truly achieve the characteristic, truly also really suffices the cow.
At present must promote other section product Ewin3, estimated at the appointed time the two suffices as soon as to spell... ... ... ...

Oh I do love online translator

- Sam

 

[cory1492]

Nice, the R4 is looking entirely different from the others' initial menus... maybe there is hope yet that they are all still competing against each other wrather than taking the easy way out.

 

[BoneMonkey]

you can go to the R4DS website and you can download GUI themes :-) they even put up a new Christmas one :-)