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First Step In DS Wifi Challenge Complete
josath writes "The DS Wifi Bounty Milestone 1 has been completed! (previously on /.) The hardware registers to use the wifi built into the Nintendo DS has been documented. This is a huge step, as this was done with absolutely no documentation on the hardware. Stephen Stair has received ~$1400 for this milestone, and is working towards getting the other half by creating a tcp/ip stack. Once a TCP/IP stack is implemented on top of the hardware layer, homebrew NDS developers can start using the wifi in their own apps/games! This comes before Nintendo has officially released any wifi-capable games."
There has been DS homebrew for a while now. Longer than on the PSP.
It's actually online WiFi code, enabling communication through the Internet, as opposed to adhoc, local WiFi connection code. I've been watching this for a long time, it's good to see that Stephen Stair has almost finished though... It's been a long time coming, heh.
For all of you that don't know exactly *why* he did this.
Sgstair has reversed some of the present apps and games that use the wifi capability of the DS in order to get a working homebrew tcp/ip for the community's usage. Nintendo has their own wifi code they they will be using with their games (mario kart, animal crossing, etc) which are due to be released shortly.
Nintendo uses a proprietary protocol called NiFi, which is different from WiFi (802.11x). But Software's the difference. Future Nintendo games will use Wi-Fi (that is, 802.11b) instead of NiFi. Why? Because you can't connect to a standard router with NiFi, only to another DS. So to play games (such as the upcoming Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) over the internet, the DS needs to use NiFi. The article, however, is about a home-made (unofficial) wi-fi implementation that will certainly be used by DSlinux and such programs.
The DS is a Nintendo portable game system.
Sorry, I made a mistake, you should read "So to play games (such as the upcoming Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) over the internet, the DS needs to use WiFi"
Some random urls:
teh skeen
ds dev
supercard (can't find the M3 and G6 pages longer)
wifime
some info about m3
Emulators for NDS
whatever
I doubt it'll be much longer until SgStair completes Milestones 2 and 3. See his progress at http://akkit.org/dswifi/. Now I'm just wondering which homebrewer will put it in their game or app.
ParrotAtSlashdot
Then someone said that current games use NiFi, but that didn't help much.
"Wi-Fi" is a certification mark for products using IEEE 802.11b, a layer 2 protocol; all multiplayer Nintendo DS games use 802.11b. "Ni-Fi" is the name used by gaming journalism and the DS homebrew community for the non-routable layer 3 protocol that current Nintendo DS games use for wireless communication, as opposed to IPv4. Substitute "IPX" or "NetBEUI" wherever you see "Ni-Fi" and see if things make more sense.
There's still the question as to why it matters that N isn't using WiFi (yet) when they have released wireless games.
Games that don't use IPv4 won't be able to communicate over a network that uses IPv4 for routing.
Those Slashdotters amongst you and those curious should check out the following sites for the latest in Nintendo DS Emulation and Homebrew news and downloads PDroms.com - Legal Rom Download and news site.
Drunken Coders - DS Homebrew News Site.
Nintendo DS Emulation News - Nintendo DS Emulation and Homebrew News and Downloads Site/Archive.
DS Development Forums - The Hub of the DS Development Scene.
All those sites provide you with everything you need to know about the Nintendo DS and its Legal Homebrew Community.
No, the DS uses standard 802.11b wifi with short preamble, see here: http://www.darkain.com/nintendo_ds/nifi.php
I wish to remain anomalous
Actually, we had code running on the machine through the PassMe (a custom CPLD, though back then it was on an FPGA) about two weeks after the device was released. The short version: put a chip between a legitimate cart and the device, wait for the cart to authenticate, then take over and branch to the GBA slot on the bottom, where an oldschool flash cart works jus' fine.
These days, we use a patched BIOS written permanently to the device through FlashMe (only works on older DSes, though that's almost fixed) which doesn't perform the fingerprint check, and boot our games through the wireless hardware over the built in wireless multiboot system.
The bounty is about deciphering and learning to use the wifi hardware in a typical fashion, so that the device can be used with an access point as a network device. VNC, maybe web browsing, and of course, network games are on their way.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Three months, actually. The bounty was started in late July. Besides, people have day jobs. The IM clients should be relatively trivial, a port of KHTML would be a few hundred hours, nobody's even vaguely interested in it as a media player, though companies like g6 have had that running since almost month one.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Ni-Fi refers to Nintendo's protocol on top of 802.11b. In the same context, Wi-Fi is commonly used to refer to TCP/IP over 802.11b. (We could get pedantic about definitions, but try teaching the layer model to an average consumer...)
In that sense, the DS does not use Wi-Fi, but it does use 802.11b.
Then someone said that current games use NiFi, but that didn't help much. There's still the question as to why it matters that N isn't using WiFi (yet) when they have released wireless games.
NiFi is a latency intolerant local communication protocol. WiFi is a long-distance routable protocol. WiFi is a lot more intelligent. NiFi connects to whatever is around. WiFi games would require a server infrastructure somewhere to route people's games properly. NiFi is local area and forms a game with whoever is handy.
NiFi is a lot simpler for Nintendo. WiFi implies a lot of backend stuff that the didn't want to deal with for the first generation.
The ______ Agenda