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Just as a bit of information...

The wonderswan is a rather lovely little handheld device - similar in size to a GBA. I've got two of them...

In hardware terms it supports one or two rather unique features. The display is full colour and comes with a brightness control which helps in extreme lighting conditions - still no backlight though. It's also got any number of rather unique peripherals (most of which are only usable in Japan) such as the Wondergate for multiplayer gaming via a mobile phone and a link up cable for the PS/2. Cream of the crop though is the mighty wonderborg" which *everyone* should play with!

There are some good games available, although for the western gamer it's a slightly mixed bag - like many JPN only consoles it's heavily dominated by Japanese language RPG's (including rocking versions of Final Fantasy I & II) and a few survival horror things. Namco have got a few of their arcade conversions available as well (Mr. Driller, Final Lap) as do Sammy (Guilty Gear) and capcom (Makimaura - Ghosts and Goblins to you and me).

Ebay is always a good place to buy, several hong kong based distributors sell consoles and games. You can also buy at Lik Sang

Anyway, probably more information than you really wanted... And yes, it is a much more exciting machine than the bloody xbox.

Cheers
Chris

http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/news.php?artc=2552

Not a mod, per say, but this kind of amateur development is important, too.

The thing that people like these need to realize, is that people in this world will find a way. If the copy protection is software based, someone will crack it. If it is a hardware based, there will be some kinda of mod chip for your cd drive being sold on Lik Sang

Another interesting handheld console to check out is the GP32 (Note: site's mostly in Korean). I think it's been mentioned on /. before. Very similar layout to GBA, but where the GBA runs at ~16mhz, the GP32's ARM processor can have its clockspeed set by software up to 133mhz (though obviously this drains batteries faster). It doesn't have any custom graphics hardware, you just write 16-bit RGB colour values to a linear frame buffer, but even at the more-usual 60mhz clock speed, it runs Doom very nicely. Oh yes, and the screen is 320x240 as opposed to the GBA's 240x160.

Of course, it's not a Nintendo, so it's almost guaranteed to fail, as Ninty have that market pretty sewn up. Still, if you just want to write something for your own entertainment, the GP32's sweet.

> I have been looking for a more open game console

Well the most open console available is Korea's GamePark 32. Some good info can be found at Lik-Sang and also dev'rs.

The console basically uses standard flash media for cartridges and plays back mp3s, has the same resolution as a SNES, etc.

As a followup, this definitely "brightens" the already vibrant homebrew development scene.

The Visoly flash linker and carts are great, and available from (your friends and mine) Lik-Sang, GameGizmo and Easy Buy 2000 (all no-referral URLs).

The multi-boot cables (for downloading small apps to your GBA without needing to flash a cart) are cool, too, and have been exploited to turn your GBA into a handheld terminal. Check out the PDF on that last link; much nicer than reading the page, with pictures. Wish there was someplace within the continental US to order a couple non-ugly ones from, though. Those MBV2s are just too unweildly to use in sexy handheld terminal demonstrations.

Shouldn't take too long to crack, the Chinese have a way with consumer electronics, why not government electrioncs?

The following is the letter that Sam Michaels is sending to Nintendo, copied from this message board post by Sam Michaels:

Before anything is even considered, I need a letter sent via certified mail with the following:

1) The specific items in my store that violate the DMCA
2) Excerpts from the DMCA which provide support for your claim
3) Past judgements in your favor supporting your claim
4) Legal representation's name
5) The individuals to whom #4 is representing
6) The contact info of 4 and 5
7) The signatures of 4 and 5
8) Your recourse should I choose to ignore this request

Until then, no action will be taken or even considered on my part. Once that info is provided, I'll have my legal representation contact you about possible litigation.

-Sam Michaels

He also mentions in the post that he has been told by the manufacturer of the Linkers and a guy from Lik Sang to basically "tell them to kiss your ass and ignore it".

I myself ordered a "DC Coder's Cable" from Lik-Sang a few months ago, and had it shipped via airmail (USPS). It arrived without a problem. Anyway, the fact that SEGA would nail people for this is very strange, especially since the DC is all but dead and the serial cables are (mostly) used for legitimate purposes, by Dreamcast homebrew hackers.

I wonder if this thing was misidentified by customs as one of Lik-Sang's "Gameboy Advance Backup and Development system. Nintendo has always been more sensitive to piracy, and the GameBoy Advance seems like a big enough market to crack the whip on.

I myself ordered a "DC Coder's Cable" from Lik-Sang a few months ago, and had it shipped via airmail (USPS). It arrived without a problem. Anyway, the fact that SEGA would nail people for this is very strange, especially since the DC is all but dead and the serial cables are (mostly) used for legitimate purposes, by Dreamcast homebrew hackers.

I wonder if this thing was misidentified by customs as one of Lik-Sang's "Gameboy Advance Backup and Development system. Nintendo has always been more sensitive to piracy, and the GameBoy Advance seems like a big enough market to crack the whip on.

Lik Sang stopped selling modchips to the US, Canada, Mexico and "other Latin american countries" as well...

So, for me it seems it is rather a problem of customs vs. Lik-Sang then a DMCA problem...

Quoting a mail from John Goggan which just arrived on the dcdev mailinglist:

Just so people know, here is the situation with Lik-Sang... Customs recently started checking ALL of Lik-Sang's shipments to the US (under the guise of trying to stop any NEO4s from coming in -- even though Lik-Sang immediately stopped shipping them when they were announced as being against the DMCA). They were denying coder's cables, gameboy wormlights, everything. Basically, it looks like they were too lazy to hand-check the packages and just refused almost all of them going from Lik-Sang into the US via UPS. They also did not inform Lik-Sang of this until 3 days after they started denying them -- so a bunch were refused without Lik-Sang's knowledge. They heard from an engineer in the US that was waiting for a USB connector sample from Lik-Sang that tried to call customs and explain that they parcel they had stopped had nothing to do with the DMCA. They told him that they are "CERTAIN that they know what kinds of goods that Lik-Sang are shipping." Bah. Idiots. Note that Lik-Sang has STILL not received their packages BACK yet. In any case, Lik-Sang has now worked out their issues with UPS and will begin shipping with them again very soon. Basically, it looks like UPS is doing all they can to help Lik-Sang get around custom's evil tactics now. heh. They have changed to EMS Speedpost temporarily for shipments to the USA, but said that UPS will be back as their primary shipping method for the USA by the end of the month (note that some of that delay is due to Lik-Sang moving to a new warehouse in HK -- not just the customs issues). Just wanted to clear that up. Some guys at Lik-Sang are friends of mine, so I asked them what was up -- and passed it along to you all.

Here is link to the serial cable he is referring to. It looks harmless to me... Am I breaking DMCA by linking to it?

Go to the website he ordered his cable from: lik-sang.com. Right at the top is the "GameBoy Advance Development and "Backup" Unit (emphasis mine). The word "pirate" pops into my mind immediately, as I'm sure it did with whoever made this judgement. It's wrong, but I bet that's what happened.

who is/are lik-sang?
Lik-Sang is a video game/console import/export company, operating out of (as far as I know) Hong Kong. They often sell weird Asian-only devices to the rest of the world. They have fairly nice prices, but in my experience the shipping that's added generally makes it hurt to buy from them. Still, they're the guys I have to thank for my Neo Geo Pocket Color, which is cool. ;^)

*sigh*

games here.

read the links...

Click here for a picture of how to do it.

Also check www.lik-sang.com for the details.

Click here for a picture of how to do it.

Also check www.lik-sang.com for the details.

The PS2 plays PS1 games.

The Game Boy Advance is about as powerful as Atari Jaguar (i.e. twice as powerful as Super NES) and also plays Game Boy Color games. It also connects to a TV with the third-party TV de Advance.

Nintendo seems to have really raunchy business policies. Suing people, compromising design decisions to protect license fees, etc.

I guess Nintendo messed up when it designed GBA. GBA has absolutely NO independent software creation prevention measures other than checksumming the header and looking for the Nintendo logo (which is legal to reproduce under Sega v. Accolade). Learn how to develop your own software at gbadev.org.

Unforunately, Panasonic has no plans to release this unit in the US. For now, it's a Japan area only device.

It's too bad, the idea of a shiny gamecube that can play DVDs is pretty cool. I'm also wondering if the lack of sales outside of Japan is related to piracy issues--you can fit 5.25" discs into it. One of the reasons the Gamecube uses smaller 3" discs is to prevent piracy since it's hard to get a hold of something that will make them.

Lik Sang (a company that make mod and game copying kits) also disassembled the Panasonic Gamecube including probably better pictures. They also modified it to play US games (remove the territory lock out). They mentioned it was a bitch to open--something like 45 special screws. Doesn't sound like a fun job to modify.

Click here

there is no GBA(or Xbox, or PS2) docking station that lets me plug in a nice monitor

TV de Advance fits onto the back of your GBA and feeds the video to a nice TV. Think of it as Super Game Boy Advance.

keyboard, and mouse for my FPSs.

As Gizzmonic said, first-person shooters aren't the be-all and end-all of video games. But if you really want to play Doom Advance on your PC, use this docking station: Visoly Flash Advance Linker + VisualBoy Advance.

there is no GBA(or Xbox, or PS2) docking station that lets me plug in a nice monitor

TV de Advance fits onto the back of your GBA and feeds the video to a nice TV. Think of it as Super Game Boy Advance.

keyboard, and mouse for my FPSs.

As Gizzmonic said, first-person shooters aren't the be-all and end-all of video games. But if you really want to play Doom Advance on your PC, use this docking station: Visoly Flash Advance Linker + VisualBoy Advance.

Well, I was in #gbadev on efnet a week or two ago when someone came in commenting on how bright his new GBA's screen was compared to the old one. He had received a new one from Lik Sang that was made in Japan, over the one he bought at a retail store that was made in China. He took a screenshot showing the difference between the two, and I must say it was absolutely amazing (I don't want to paste the address because I think it'd be kinda mean to slashdot his images). I can only hope newer GBA's will have the same brighter screen.. and I definitely know where I'm buying mine if/when I get a gba (lik sang!). For all the other GBA's out there though, there's always Portable Monopoly.

-DrkShadow

I just got my GBA for Christmas (yes, I'm 30 years old... what's your point?) and the first thing I started thinking about was how to start programming for it. Here's some of the stuff I found:

• Dev'rs GBA Dev FAQs
• GBXemu Gameboy Emulator site Coolness. Emulators for GBA and GBC and ROMS. Try before you buy...
• Lik Sang Game Boy products Check out the blank 256Mg cartridges for the GBA and GBC with optional adapter. Very, very cool.
• Gameboy Advance Developer's site

And of course a Google search will bring up a bunch more, but these are the nicest I've found so far. The last link is great because it has "demo" programs that include the code - which is key for learning how the insides of this thing work. There's an asteroids example that's really nice.

One thing that I just realized is that the GBA is based on a ARM/Thumb processor and includes a "Z80 like" processor also for when you insert GBC games. This is pretty wild. I think I'll submit an article to /. on how many companies are using ARM-based processors now. I just read that Simbian has just been ported to the ARM, PocketPCs use them exclusively, etc.

-Russ

Lik-snag has some info about it.
see it.
For now on NTSC only. It requires some handywork to replace the back shell.

From what I've read the GNU toolset can target the the gameboy advance. Check this site for more information on programing the gameboy advance. To get the code into them there is a flashable card or a cheaper adapter that will allow you to send code directly to your gameboy advance. Both of those are available at this site

Linux can be easy to use, just ask any TiVo owner. All he would need to do is set it up to launch Mozilla without making her log in, and dial her PPP connection as needed. He could even have Mozilla and the PPP dialer store their preferences on a VMU so that she could change them as needed.

Heck, Lik Sang sells a DC to PS/2 adapter so he could set her up with one of those nice wireless keyboards.

As for being powered off unexpectedly, I doubt that the OS will care, what with it being on read-only media. And as long as grandma doesn't turn off the DC while it's writing Mozilla or PPP prefs, then it should be fine.

If anyone is lazy enough to not read the article, here is a link that should of been posted in the blurb [pictures of the Q's guts]:

http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/master.php?navbar= Opened+Q&inc=qmod.inc

Copying dreamcast games can be done 2 ways. With a custom built serial cable, you can even buy them from lik-sang.com. The second way is via a special boot disc, and the broadband adapter. Boot up the dreamcast, give it an ip, and upload the data from the gdrom to your PC. Information on both of these techniques can easily be found online. Games larger than 700MB usually have the video downsampled, and / or / cdda cut out. That aside, I honestly doubt it was piracy that killed the dreamcast. I think that fear from Redmond did.

lik-sang.com THE hong kong importers. the actual flash stuff (most popular at least) comes from visoly.com

(Meanwhile, Lik-sang have recently denied a credit card payment because of some peice of information that Australian banks don't give out.)

FWIW, (and it's not worth much) you could use the DC coder's cable to hook up to a modem, as far as I know. But finding a broadband adapter, the dreamcast, and one of these cables would be way more expensive than a silly Linksys (or better, Netgear) nat/firewall box; the hack value is ever-present, though.

AAAH! lik-sang.com doesn't exist!

You don't need to actually fabricate a cartridge. Just pick up one of the Super Famicom/SNES "development and backup consoles" here.

It's been a while since I owned one (1993 I think) but even back then, you could copy, disassemble, and hack every game that existed on these little buggers. Back when Street Fighter II just came out on the Famicom, some friends and I patched the nintendo version to behave like arcade hacks popular at the time (check out the various sfII
roms for mame if you don't know what I'm talking about).

They were, and probably still are, pretty fun.

-motardo

Can't swear about American companies (Tronix is my normal shop for US game purchases, though), but you can pick up a Japanese unit pre-modded to play US and Japanese games from Lik-Sang in Hong Kong for a very reasonable price. I've bought from them before, and although some of the cheaper products they sell can be a little shoddy (I wouldn't trust their step down converters as far as I could throw them after one caused my import PS2 to start smoking) they've tended to be prompt and very good for better quality kit.

My personal approach has been to pick up the JP/US Gamecube from Lik-Sang, and the US software from Tronix, who are extremely prompt with delivery (took two days from US to UK by FedEx...)

eio has a few alternatives towards the bottom of the page (starting with the 5L-U4E). They range from $99 to $350 in with sizes 5", 6", and 12" available. Most of these accept an NTSC signal, so you could interface one with a cheap PC fairly easily. Unfortunately, all the color displays appear to be sold out right now. With a little bit of digging, you might be able to find another supplier of the same or similar products, or they might get more in stock sometime.

Also, Lik-sang has both a 5" and 7" LCD display for $99 and $199 respectively. The 5" is a PS One display that accepts NTSC/PAL, and the 7" is a more standard NTSC/PAL display. The latter has additional features like an screen orientation flip (so you can mount it however you like), speakers, and a battery slot. This would probably be my choice for this type of project.

Don't disregard the 3Com Audrey, however. You wouldn't even have to hack the thing to get it running as a picture frame. Just plug it into your network and use the browser to display the images from another server that is doing all the work. The browser has a full screen mode that is pretty well suited for this. I should know because one of mine was displaying a pr0n slideshow for a while :-). With a little bit of php/perl/asp/etc programming, you could make a very flexible (with respect to image size, delay between images, etc) solution that could behave exactly how you want.

eio has a few alternatives towards the bottom of the page (starting with the 5L-U4E). They range from $99 to $350 in with sizes 5", 6", and 12" available. Most of these accept an NTSC signal, so you could interface one with a cheap PC fairly easily. Unfortunately, all the color displays appear to be sold out right now. With a little bit of digging, you might be able to find another supplier of the same or similar products, or they might get more in stock sometime.

Also, Lik-sang has both a 5" and 7" LCD display for $99 and $199 respectively. The 5" is a PS One display that accepts NTSC/PAL, and the 7" is a more standard NTSC/PAL display. The latter has additional features like an screen orientation flip (so you can mount it however you like), speakers, and a battery slot. This would probably be my choice for this type of project.

Don't disregard the 3Com Audrey, however. You wouldn't even have to hack the thing to get it running as a picture frame. Just plug it into your network and use the browser to display the images from another server that is doing all the work. The browser has a full screen mode that is pretty well suited for this. I should know because one of mine was displaying a pr0n slideshow for a while :-). With a little bit of php/perl/asp/etc programming, you could make a very flexible (with respect to image size, delay between images, etc) solution that could behave exactly how you want.

eio has a few alternatives towards the bottom of the page (starting with the 5L-U4E). They range from $99 to $350 in with sizes 5", 6", and 12" available. Most of these accept an NTSC signal, so you could interface one with a cheap PC fairly easily. Unfortunately, all the color displays appear to be sold out right now. With a little bit of digging, you might be able to find another supplier of the same or similar products, or they might get more in stock sometime.

Also, Lik-sang has both a 5" and 7" LCD display for $99 and $199 respectively. The 5" is a PS One display that accepts NTSC/PAL, and the 7" is a more standard NTSC/PAL display. The latter has additional features like an screen orientation flip (so you can mount it however you like), speakers, and a battery slot. This would probably be my choice for this type of project.

Don't disregard the 3Com Audrey, however. You wouldn't even have to hack the thing to get it running as a picture frame. Just plug it into your network and use the browser to display the images from another server that is doing all the work. The browser has a full screen mode that is pretty well suited for this. I should know because one of mine was displaying a pr0n slideshow for a while :-). With a little bit of php/perl/asp/etc programming, you could make a very flexible (with respect to image size, delay between images, etc) solution that could behave exactly how you want.

They are not hardware compatible with standard DVD's, first of all none of the DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW or DVD-RAM drives are able to write two layer discs, then you have the added problem with the protection strips, and as somebody else has indicated the discs spin in an inverse spiral, that's even if you can get hold of the discs since they're a custom size and spec. This isn't like PSX games, it would be very difficult to burn these things with a off the shelf DVD burner.

This is where the "CD burners weren't ubiquitous when the PlayStation was released" part comes in. CD burners have come a long way since the PlayStation came out. In fact, I think they may have been in the $600-$700+ Dark Ages when the PlayStation came out. In the last year and a half of the PlayStation's life (and the PS1 games can still be pirated to your new PS2), CD burners came standard with your new Dell/Compaq/Gateway/Whatever machine, and were at $100-$150 alone. The point? Sure, you can't pirate GameCube games easily NOW, but technology will catch up fast. If DVD burners don't start coming out with dual layer capability, then packages of blank, specially made DVDs, complete with the GameCube security strip already on them, will start appearing on Lik-Sang. The point is, if someone doesn't figure out how to do it immediately, then technology in general will find a way soon, because writable DVD technology is bound to be a quickly growing market, much like writable (and rewritable) CD technology was a quickly growing market until it became completely ubiquitous in new PCs.

As for the whole "inverse spinning" thing, the page makes no mention of that, and someone here has already said it's a rumor. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it IS a rumor, because I've been to that site many times before, and I seriously doubt that they would've noticed that the laser range is larger than the disc, but not notice that the disc is spinning backwards at the same time.

I doubt taking the top off the box will let you use standard CDR's as stated before, if it doesn't play RedBook audio disc's then I doubt it plays any ISO9660 discs. They might have gone as far as using a different laser wavelength than standard DVD's.

I completely agree. Using CDRs is a long shot, but I think someone should still try it out as a test. It would be dumb NOT to try it out.

look! http://image.lik-sang.com/content/gc/gcopen16_l.jp g bottom mid.

• Connect your Game Cube or Nintendo64 console to a VGA monitor for a much brighter display
  
• Auto switching between TV game or PC connection (you can connect your PC and GC/N64 at the same time)
  
• Automatic PAL/NTSC detection
  
• Outputs: Speaker, VGA, AV Multi Out
  
• Inputs: VGA, AV Multi, Sound card
  

• Connect your Game Cube or Nintendo64 console to a VGA monitor for a much brighter display
  
• Auto switching between TV game or PC connection (you can connect your PC and GC/N64 at the same time)
  
• Automatic PAL/NTSC detection
  
• Outputs: Speaker, VGA, AV Multi Out
  
• Inputs: VGA, AV Multi, Sound card
  

Hong Kong game store Lik-Sang had pics of a dissasembled gamecube quite a while ago, Sep 12 to be exact.
They have a bunch of other interesting news, such as the portable screen making the gamecube if not exactly portable, at least luggable.

Hong Kong game store Lik-Sang had pics of a dissasembled gamecube quite a while ago, Sep 12 to be exact.
They have a bunch of other interesting news, such as the portable screen making the gamecube if not exactly portable, at least luggable.

Hong Kong game store Lik-Sang had pics of a dissasembled gamecube quite a while ago, Sep 12 to be exact.
They have a bunch of other interesting news, such as the portable screen making the gamecube if not exactly portable, at least luggable.

Hong Kong game store Lik-Sang had pics of a dissasembled gamecube quite a while ago, Sep 12 to be exact.
They have a bunch of other interesting news, such as the portable screen making the gamecube if not exactly portable, at least luggable.

If I get a game console / DVD player hybrid, it will be the Shinco 868 with a Mega Drive (Genesis) built in. Meanwhile, I like my games consoles mininalist and fan-free. The 'Cube is growing on me...

There is a NES emulator for Gameboy Advance.
You can use it on the real hardware with a flash card.
Works pretty damn good too!

Preorder your item today:

Shinco DVD 030 DVD/SVCD/VCD/CD/MP3/MegaDrive Player

$649.00 US Dollars

Don't see this as an advert - it really sounds like a pretty cool gadget

Before you buy, why don't support some free game development for the GBA by clicking your way to lik-sang from GBADEV