Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU • Hacker News Board

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#21

Post by sippeangelo » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 2:35 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #17

nfoz wrote: post #14

That page has web buttons that overlap my scrollbar .... how is that even a thing? please make it stop.

Not sure you actually want to know, but it’s not the page that has the scrollbar here but an inner div with overflow-y:scroll;

With the added benefit that if you click a picture, you'll have to scroll all the way back down again!

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#22

Post by lawl » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 2:37 PM UTC

If you're interested in that kind of stuff I highly reccomend watching Karsten Nohl's "Reviving smart card analysis" talk from Chaos Communication Camp 2011 [0].

Basically he takes pictures of the circuits on the smart card and then reverses the logic from that. There's even software to assist with that [1].

As a pure software guy I was pretty baffeled when I saw this the first time.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFx6Rn57DrY

[1] http://www.degate.org/

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#23

Post by foldor » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

mattp123 wrote: post #16

Wait, so are they actually trying to take a picture of the boot ROM used by the 3DS?

It seems that way. This looks similar to what byuu did for SNES games. Some SNES games have special dedicated chips, and decapping them allows you to recreate the logic. It's an expensive and very difficult process though, which is why it's rare to actually see someone attempt it in the open.

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#24

Post by robin_reala » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

foldor wrote: post #23

mattp123 wrote: post #16

Wait, so are they actually trying to take a picture of the boot ROM used by the 3DS?

It seems that way. This looks similar to what byuu did for SNES games. Some SNES games have special dedicated chips, and decapping them allows you to recreate the logic. It's an expensive and very difficult process though, which is why it's rare to actually see someone attempt it in the open.

More info on Dr Decapitator’s SNES decapping escapades at Mameworld (archive.org link as the subsite is dead): http://web.archive.org/web/20111115180306/http://decap.mamew...

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#25

Post by frou_dh » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 3:37 PM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #14

That page has web buttons that overlap my scrollbar .... how is that even a thing? please make it stop.

For fuck sake, is it possible to have a HN comments page without complaints about the design of TFA? Speak to the author if you have a problem with their site! Don't mumble about it from a distance!

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#26

Post by slantyyz » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #7

It's impressive how Nintendo can continue selling heavily underpowered processors to gamers and nobody complains.

In the end, it's the experience of the games you care about that matters.

I bought my 3DS for basically 3 games, and while the graphics don't compare to my phone or tablet, the fact that I can even have them in a portable form factor prevents me from caring that it's underpowered.

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#27

Post by Two9A » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 3:51 PM UTC

I seem to recall that imaging the bootloader ROM straight off the silicon was how the original Gameboy's bootloader was finally pulled out.

I just forget who did it, which is unfortunate.

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#28

Post by dubfan » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #20

This is incredibly awesome work, and I envy students who can actually take a course in this stuff! However it makes me realize in what kind of weirdly antagonistic society we live. In an ideal universe, you could just ask the Nintendo engineers for the chip layouts, or for the boot ROM. It reminds me of a documentary I saw the other day where they tested the chicken content of chicken salad. Again, in an ideal univer…

In an ideal world, nobody would steal chip designs and boot ROMs to create counterfeit products.

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#29

Post by rockdiesel » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

As someone who knows nothing about this stuff, can someone explain to me how soaking the CPU in sulfuric acid removes the packaging material, but does no harm to the chip inside?

Re: Depackaging the Nintendo 3DS CPU

#30

Post by aspensmonster » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 5:21 PM UTC

dubfan wrote: post #28

captainmuon wrote: post #20

This is incredibly awesome work, and I envy students who can actually take a course in this stuff! However it makes me realize in what kind of weirdly antagonistic society we live. In an ideal universe, you could just ask the Nintendo engineers for the chip layouts, or for the boot ROM. It reminds me of a documentary I saw the other day where they tested the chicken content of chicken salad. Again, in an ideal univer…

In an ideal world, nobody would steal chip designs and boot ROMs to create counterfeit products.

In an ideal world, we'd all be living in a post-scarcity economy with Basic Income and no IP laws and no "currency" to speak of.

In an ideal world. An ideal world sounds really cool! The implementation details might get a little crazy though.