Official Gamecube IDE/USB interface thread (PROJECT BEGUN!)

Post by **gannon** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:14 am

SMD = Surface Mount Device
SMT = Surface Mount Technology

For the most part people use them interchangeably

r3ap3r · Post by **r3ap3r** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:33 pm

Thanks i just read up on them. And what about the NNN?

TheOnlyOneHeFears · Post by **TheOnlyOneHeFears** » Tue May 22, 2007 12:17 am

NNN = Nintendo Nazi Ninjas

Everyone who has worked on this before seemd to have disappeared off the face of the planet. So Rain and I thought that Nintendo had them assassinated, as they don't like hardware modification/alterations to their intelligent property. We think that the Nintendo Nazi Ninjas are their assassins, silent as the night, deadly as a fox.

We're also deadly serious

r3ap3r · Post by **r3ap3r** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:56 am

Really, well come to think bout it a saw a really seedy guy following me today down town, maybe its an Australian Nintendo Nazi Ninja. lol. Well i think its back to the topic i'll read up on it more and find out what i can do. Cheers^_^

R3ason · Post by **R3ason** » Tue May 22, 2007 5:50 pm

Uggh, I think I finally shook the NNN. Had to cover most of Europe and Asia to lose them. It was close. There are SOOO many of them. I actually heard that the shortage of Nintendo Wii's was due to Nintendo spending so much money to hire so many NNN to hunt us down for working on this project. Crazy....

(not to mention that I somehow haven't been getting updates on posts to this thread). I've been way busy lately, and unfortunately it hasn't been on this project

Hopefully after next week (finals) I'll be able to start back on this before summer classes start (week after).... In the mean time, I've gotten all of my stuffs from eBay and such, so I should be good to go. Might have to grab another soldering iron from Radio Shack as mine has, well, seen better days

I'll be around more from now on....

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Tue May 22, 2007 9:54 pm

Ah, finals... yeah, I hear they can be a real pain. Nobody fun is ever around to talk to during them.

I'm just glad you shook the NNN! Sounds like it really could have been a close call.

I'm working on my GC now... I don't really know what I'm doing though (why I'm working on it, that is)... guess I was just putting it all back together to make sure it still works. A few weeks ago, I (purposely) broke off the metal covering on the bottom of the laser unit, trying to get inside of it to see if I could slim it down a bit... but right underneath the metal was a chip that was glued to the metal... and it looks like I ripped the top right off it it, exposing the die.

Not to mention the fact that I've been fumbling with the mobo quite a bit... and ESD can be a real female dog.

So, today I finally decided, now that I have a nice new place to work, to put it all (minus the casing, that is...) back together and make sure it still works. It does! Well... minus the audio... but that's just the fuse that I'd rather NOT bypass in case I short the 12V line again like I did before... which is how I blew the fuse in the first place. >.>

Anyway, that's good news I guess. I'll might encase the disk drive in a separate enclosure and put a port on my laptop to attach it to if I ever want to play a disk, (Say a friend has a game that I don't have on one of my CF cards... am I gonna have them take their game disk to a computer, rip it to an ISO and put it on a CF card just to play it? Probably not...

) so I want to make sure I keep the disk drive intact.

R3ason, did you actually already buy the FPGA and PROM (and all of the other miscellaneous, passive parts)?

I didn't think you were at the point to where you knew everything you needed. Well, anyway, good luck with your finals, and just keep us posted if you make any progress. Oh, and is there anything I can start buying that you're sure is going to be what I need to get started? (I don't have a lot of money... I don't want to spend what I have on something that's not gonna end up being what I need.)

Post by **Triton** » Tue May 22, 2007 10:48 pm

pics of the drive if possible? i too am trying to slim it down

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Mon May 28, 2007 5:45 am

Triton wrote:pics of the drive if possible? i too am trying to slim it down

Ah, so now you're trying to hi-jack MY thread as payback, eh Triton?

Sorry for the delay... strategic posting helps keep the thread towards the top of the page without posting TOO much... so... I waited a bit.

J/k, for the most part... I just didn't know what you were asking for. I can give you a picture of the DD underneath the metal plate I broke off, but it's really just more plastic. What we need to do is figure out how to get that plastic shell off the laser assembly and go from there, but I don't have anything that can get those stubborn (tiny!) star screws out.

Anyway, back on topic, *points and squints at Triton*

has anyone made any progress yet? I've decided to spend my money on other aspects of my portable first... primarily a component video cable for my 'cube, since I just acquired a 9.2" Intec Xbox 360 LCD.

I just can't wait any longer, and even if I buy the parts that I think I need, I'm not going to end up knowing exactly what to do with them... I'm... holding out hope for R3ason, and relying on him far too much to make progress with this... and I really shouldn't be... I wish I could take matters into my own hands... but it's just that I see him as our best... no, our ONLY hope at this point. None of the rest of us posses both the knowledge and money needed to do this on our own. I'm going to have a hard time keeping this project going if nobody else is gonna be there with me. Ah, what am I saying? I'm hardly even the one keeping it going! This thread died when R3ason stopped posting regularly. (Not placing blame!) There's so little I can do at this point... I feel so helpless... ARGH!! What am I supposed to do now?! I'm so afraid this thing is just gonna fall apart just like it has in the past!

Nonsense Man · Post by **Nonsense Man** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:07 pm

So um is this dead just like the last attempt because r3ason hasn't posted for a while and he hasn't posted in his forum since May 2nd. I would help if I could but I'm not very good at soldering.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:56 pm

*Shrug* I dunno... I guess it is. Maybe the NNN finally got him.

Or maybe he got a life... ... ...

Yeah, okay. Like any of us here ever have a shot of "getting a life."

Seriously though... I wonder why everyone that has gotten involved with this project has disappeared.

Finals are over... it's going into summer. Doesn't it seem like this would be the best time for people to... do... stuff? You know, to NOT be so busy?

Nonsense Man · Post by **Nonsense Man** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 7:58 pm

I might try making the detachable dvd drive it seems kind of simple also if i wanted to show proof how would I best do that? Would I make a video of a opened gamecube attached to a screen and then show it with the attached drive then the unattached drive? Also how would you select which iso you would want to run if the project is finished? One final question is are you trying to make it so the gamecube has a hard drive or a cf card reader? One final thing is I would attempt attaching the cf card reader or hard drive if their were instructions on how to do it.
-Nonsense Man

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:51 pm

CF cards and HDD are interchangeable; a CF card can substitute a hard drive in any system with the help of a very simple adapter.

While the project is originally intended for an HDD, we're planning on using CF cards for portable purposes... initially, at least.

I believe there's some kind of boot loader program that you have to load onto the drive to select between ISOs... to be honest, this is actually the part that confuses me most about the whole thing.

A far as the DD re-location "proof" thing goes... well, I don't think it's something "unbelievable" enough to require proof. But, if you desire proof, I would just get some good, clear footage of the DD wired up and sitting next to the disassembled Gamecube, playing a disk. People will obviously be able to see the disk spinning, and if the video is clear enough they'll even be able to see the laser shining through the disk, and when loading, it can be seen moving under the disk... it's kinda cool.

You can also (carefully) pick the DD up and film the underside of it when it's loading something so people can see the laser module moving back and forth. Make sure you get a bit of actual game footage though... so people can see that it's actually loading correctly. And make sure they can clearly see the Gamecube plugged into the screen/TV and that there are no other wires or devices around, just so someone can't say you have another Gamecube behind the TV that's actually playing the game... or whatever.

Post by **gannon** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 11:16 pm

I think the loading portion would be as simple as (easier said than done

) loading a menu as if it were a disc, then on selecting an image writing the file location info to ram on the device and forcing a reset to the gamecube, then instead of loading the menu disc it'd load the disc image that the ram points to.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 1:04 am

gannon wrote:I think the loading portion would be as simple as (easier said than done ) loading a menu as if it were a disc, then on selecting an image writing the file location info to ram on the device and forcing a reset to the gamecube, then instead of loading the menu disc it'd load the disc image that the ram points to.

...That makes a ridiculous amount of sense.

But yeah, easier said than done. And if that's not how the existing bootloader works, it SHOULD. The data will stay in RAM if it's just a soft reset, and games don't completely re-boot when you reset them... they go to the menu (usually), so that's probably what games do already; load data into the RAM telling the game to start at the main menu upon reset.

Okay, so now we know how the bootloader probably works... but we don't know how to implement it... is there a bootloader program on the Crazy Nation website? I can't even tell... all of those little programs and files are so scattered and un-documented that I can't really tell what's what.

TheOnlyOneHeFears · Post by **TheOnlyOneHeFears** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:15 am

A few pages back, I was wandering about what would happen if you turned on the GC without the disk drive attached. Well, I checked yesterday. The GC turns on as though the lid is open i.e. the GC logo appears straight away. The GC logo begins to spin, as though it would go to the settings screen, but half way through spinning, it stops, and an error message appears. So basically, it won't boot without the disk drive. I could take a short video if anyone wanted to see it in action.

I'm not sure how that helps/if it is relevant, but the more info, the better, right?