Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project • Hacker News Board

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#21

Post by denkmoon » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 4:06 AM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #19

bogwog wrote: post #16

And to think Nintendo wants these to end up in a landfill. Imagine if jailbreaking video game consoles (that is, modifying hardware that you own however you want), were actually legal. Old consoles like these could continue to provide value to owners via competing app stores, free and open source apps/games, cool hardware features like the OP, etc. All of that could happen without infringing on Nintendo's rights, or…

> Imagine if jailbreaking video game consoles were actually legal Is it not?

Obviously depends where you are.

DMCA legislates against circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms.

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#22

Post by surround » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 4:09 AM UTC

denkmoon wrote: post #21

LeoPanthera wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if jailbreaking video game consoles were actually legal Is it not?

Obviously depends where you are. DMCA legislates against circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms.

So if I make a modification to add “competing app stores, free and open source apps/games, cool hardware features,” how does this violate DMCA?

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#23

Post by Wowfunhappy » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #16

And to think Nintendo wants these to end up in a landfill. Imagine if jailbreaking video game consoles (that is, modifying hardware that you own however you want), were actually legal. Old consoles like these could continue to provide value to owners via competing app stores, free and open source apps/games, cool hardware features like the OP, etc. All of that could happen without infringing on Nintendo's rights, or…

To that extent that Nintendo has any influence in this area, I'd say they're quite supportive of people using their old hardware. Many Nintendo games display discontinued devices prominently (WarioWare, Animal Crossing), and there are stories on Twitter of Nintendo phone reps helping troubleshoot NES and SNES hardware issues.

Nintendo won't support people pirating their games, but as much as I think copyright lasts too long, this isn't exactly a surprising position from a game manufacturer.

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#24

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 4:25 AM UTC

surround wrote: post #22

denkmoon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously depends where you are. DMCA legislates against circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms.

So if I make a modification to add “competing app stores, free and open source apps/games, cool hardware features,” how does this violate DMCA?

If you have to break DRM features to add your app store then you are in violation of the DMCA technically. But there is no reason you should care if you are outside of the US

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#25

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 4:26 AM UTC

It always blows me away when people work out this stuff so long after the product comes out. This hardware sold hundreds of millions of units and yet no one noticed it had a video output inside it? Just goes to show how complex this stuff is I guess.

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#26

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

cbanek wrote: post #17

I wish I could have decent output of a 3DS! I was looking into it and apparently it is really hard and one of the small setups modding them in Japan recently closed down!

I think most people just use an emulator when they want to record/stream 3ds games.

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#27

Post by jwitthuhn » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

Reminds me of an interesting feature(?) of the old DS Phat. If you held it close enough, analog tv antennas could pick up the video signal going to the top screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VlCpZkVss4

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#28

Post by accrual » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 5:24 AM UTC

SilverRed wrote: post #25

It always blows me away when people work out this stuff so long after the product comes out. This hardware sold hundreds of millions of units and yet no one noticed it had a video output inside it? Just goes to show how complex this stuff is I guess.

I'm sure the internals were photographed and dissected a long time ago but maybe someone is just now getting into the guts of the SoC. It's fun to imagine all the interesting things we might have laying around that are hidden by a $DEBUG=0 flag...

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#29

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:09 AM UTC

accrual wrote: post #28

SilverRed wrote: post #25

It always blows me away when people work out this stuff so long after the product comes out. This hardware sold hundreds of millions of units and yet no one noticed it had a video output inside it? Just goes to show how complex this stuff is I guess.

I'm sure the internals were photographed and dissected a long time ago but maybe someone is just now getting into the guts of the SoC. It's fun to imagine all the interesting things we might have laying around that are hidden by a $DEBUG=0 flag...

There was a blog post where someone reverse engineered the IR protocol of the pokewalker and found that it had a bunch of commands which were never used but are still active in the firmware (some likely were planned for events)

Re: Nintendo DS-TV-Out Restoration Project

#30

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC

chungy wrote: post #10

codetrotter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a couple of Nintendo DS Lite consoles at the beginning of the corona virus but found these to be too small to be enjoyable so I bought a Nintendo New 3DS XL instead. The New 3DS XL was pretty decent. I played quite a few games and finally sold the New 3DS XL as well as the DS Lite consoles that I had bought. Something worth keeping in mind is that if like me you don’t intend to keep them but only want to pla…

The 3DS line has a bit of an unfortunate side-effect that, by default, it stretches the display of original-DS games with some pretty unsightly artifacts from a non-integer scale. The workaround is to hold Start+Select on launching the games, displaying them at the original 1:1 pixels, but then there's a large black border and the size of the game's display is also unsatisfying small. For sure, if you can only pick u…

The dsi XL is the ideal system for playing ds games on. The lite is far too small and the 3ds like you said, leaves games blurry.

I'd also suggest picking up one of those flashcarts on ebay for a few dollars so you can load roms on to it. Or installing twilight menu so you can do it off the sd card slot.