A bit of a different field, but I know that whenever I am at Best Buy to pick up anything home theater related (I help out a lot of friends/relatives with HT setups) I will inevitably end up arguing with some moron trying to sell me a $140 Monster Cable so it will 'look better'. Being ignorant/a liar is one thing, but it is totally something else when they continue to argue with you about it. I have even, on one particular occasion, taken the time to explain to the clown how digital audio/video works and why purchasing the "better" cable is equivalent to lighting your money on fire, and had him still come back with, "Well, I'm sorry but you're wrong, this cable will make it look better."
After you pay $140 for a cable, you are sure as hell going to think it looks better. But seriously, what if you asked them to do a demo? "Let's try using this cable and another cheap one over there on one of those displays. You can connect one and then the other, without telling me which is which, and I'll see if I can tell the difference." (not a perfect ABX test, I know, but good enough).
Jack Thompson has sued Facebook [...] saying that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers. [...] Thompson is best know for bringing suit against [...] arguing that the game caused violent behavior.
A few months from now, he'll be suing himself, arguing that he caused violent behavior.
That was my exact thought too; you could find whether it costs more to ensure a $200 Samsung LCD versus a $200 LG LCD. They must have some great actuarial data. I was able to find a report from them about game consoles and failure rates, and would love to find others. It'd be sort of like Consumer Reports, except they have a much greater pool of data. But they might not want to share, as it would help competitors price similar insurance plans without having to gather the data.
The Super Game Boy isn't the only way to colorize monochrome games. For Mednafen, it seems you'd use the -gba.colormap command-line switch. Other Game Boy emulators are sure to have a way to do the same. At the very least, you can modify their source code (the original point was that these games coulds still be colorized by emulators before this recent GBC boot ROM dump was made, even if some emulators didn't provide a UI to do so).
Why can't you just take the rom chip out of the gameboy, put it in a socket on a computer and just read the rom 1 byte at a time?
Because the boot ROM is built into the custom CPU. The data bus to this ROM isn't exposed on any of the pins; when enabled, it bypasses whatever is being sent to the external data bus pins on the CPU, so that its contents are never seen by the outside world.
A close comparison is the L1 cache inside a modern CPU. When the CPU is reading from it, you can't know what is in it, since the data isn't output to the bus.
Does this mean that we will be able to colorize Non-Super Gameboy Game Boy Games?
We were already able to. An emulator can do whatever it pleases, including giving colors to things. Most simply, it can give each of the four shades of gray (green?) different colors. Going further, it can use one set of colors for the background shades, and another for sprites. Even further, it could divide sprites and background into multiple groups.
The colorization the GBC did for non-GBC games was the second described above, having one set of colors for the background, and another for sprites (and a few custom palettes for particular games, like Metroid II). The dump of the GBC ROM just allows an emulator to colorize these games in a fully authentic way, rather than in its own way; the end-result is identical.
This is going to be my next case. Wood and brass (fake brass, but close enough). Great thing about a wood case is that it is easily modifiable with simple household tools.
http://www.nmediapc.com/htpc8000.htm
Great case, but that 256-character web page title sure is funny. Looks like they even wanted it longer, but their software truncated it:
<title>NMEDIAPC.com - the leading Home Theater PC componenets manufactory who provide one stop shop for your HTPC needs. Visit us to build your dream HTPC, Media Center PC and Home Media server. We offer the most quiet, cooler, compact and multi-functional case, </title>
Heh, just yesterday I saw a student unicycle by me as I walked to the bus stop. I don't think I've ever seen anyone using a unicycle for normal travel like that either.:)
Why would anybody want to conserve paper? It's a very renewable resource. Tree/grass grows. Becomes paper. Paper rots as soon as book is no longer deemed useful.
Doesn't paper also sequester carbon (assuming the book doesn't get thrown away)? One thing it doesn't do is allow deletion of content remotely (except nuking from orbit, of course), prevention of lending to other people, etc.
Note to future owners: get "accident" protection from SquareTrade
Wow, I had never heard of SquareTrade. Looks very interesting. Having just dealt with Fry's in repairing an LCD with their extended coverage, this looks like something to consider instead in the future. I still can't figure out how they offer warranties like that, even for used items.
Here's my summary of how he did it, since the linked blog posting is quite long:
When the Game Boy Color powers up, a small internal boot ROM is enabled inside the CPU. This displays the logo, verifies that the game ROM is "genuine", then starts executing it. Just before it starts executing user code, it disables the boot ROM by writing to an I/O register. Once disabled, there is no way to re-enable it, thus user code can't easily read the ROM.
Costis found that if he stopped the CPU clock for a few seconds, then restarted it, many of the CPU registers (including the program counter) would take on random values. So he placed NOP instructions in all external memory, along with a small dump routine, then stopped and restarted the clock just before the boot ROM wrote to the I/O location to disable itself. This caused the program counter to take on a value outside the boot ROM, and execute all the NOPs until it hit his small dump routine.
This allows Game Boy Color emulators to display an authentic intro before running the game, including the palette selection available when running a non-color game. There's otherwise no benefit that I can see. This includes initial register values, since those could already be determined via software. Some of the other initial state, like sound registers set by the boot ROM, is more difficult to determine, so this helped there.
When reverse-engineering hardware, it's nice to figure out every detail, and this was one of the much harder ones to figure out. Decapping usually reveals all, but even that failed here.
Human societies often suffer from the Little Red Hen syndrome, wherein everyone wants the bread, but nobody can be bothered to actually help prepare it.
The problem I always see is that there are ten hens, each planting their own crop, and you don't know which, if any, will actually yield something useful. Which one do you spend your time helping? How do you ensure that others in a similar position as yourself help the same one if they have the same desires as you?
Here's a fictional hypothetical imaginary non-violent deterrend for tailgaters: have a device which will emit a large glob of something nasty that will stick to the tailgater's car. Perhaps have the emitter make it look like some mud or something that came from the road. He'd be like "oh shit, what the hell just got on my car!" The main goal is to send a message without putting anyone at risk.
I know I'm probably getting modded Troll for this one; but there isn't always always an easy (magic!) software solution for every little thing. Sometimes you still have to put the work in if you want quality.
Good thing we haven't had any enlightened lazy people in the past who actually solved problems similar to this. If they had, we'd be able to keep things cool without having to constantly refill our iceboxes, calculate things without having to do them by hand or mentally, or even have a machine write things for us just by pressing keys. Oh, wait...
USB now a days is often used to charge devices too, which is not possible with these optical interfaces.
Here's an optical interface that can transfer lots of power: C02 laser. You wouldn't want to feel around the back of a computer with one of these behind one of the interface connectors, though.
I need a car analogy before I can understand this.
This is the best I can come up with: it's like someone getting in a turbo-charged car and driving faster than anyone else has in a car, thus setting a new record.
OK, so your logic is different than installing Chrome on the same machine, because with this plugin, a site can select whether to use it? I was going to rebut your point, but I think I get it now. What if the user could tell this Google plugin to entirely disable IE's native HTML rendering/JavaScript/etc.? I guess that would be somewhat pointless, since you might as well just use Chrome to begin with...
Slashdot Mirror
I take it you're a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy. Just imagine how much information can now be stored in a scratch on the disc!
After you pay $140 for a cable, you are sure as hell going to think it looks better. But seriously, what if you asked them to do a demo? "Let's try using this cable and another cheap one over there on one of those displays. You can connect one and then the other, without telling me which is which, and I'll see if I can tell the difference." (not a perfect ABX test, I know, but good enough).
Why should be illegal for someone to publish software for the Wii that modifies the Boot2 code? It seems you're arguing that it should.
A few months from now, he'll be suing himself, arguing that he caused violent behavior.
Yes, but only if your main display is connected to a genuine Nvidia graphics card.
So you're suggesting that someone can be texting while driving without having any impact on attention given to driving?
That was my exact thought too; you could find whether it costs more to ensure a $200 Samsung LCD versus a $200 LG LCD. They must have some great actuarial data. I was able to find a report from them about game consoles and failure rates, and would love to find others. It'd be sort of like Consumer Reports, except they have a much greater pool of data. But they might not want to share, as it would help competitors price similar insurance plans without having to gather the data.
The Super Game Boy isn't the only way to colorize monochrome games. For Mednafen, it seems you'd use the -gba.colormap command-line switch. Other Game Boy emulators are sure to have a way to do the same. At the very least, you can modify their source code (the original point was that these games coulds still be colorized by emulators before this recent GBC boot ROM dump was made, even if some emulators didn't provide a UI to do so).
Because the boot ROM is built into the custom CPU. The data bus to this ROM isn't exposed on any of the pins; when enabled, it bypasses whatever is being sent to the external data bus pins on the CPU, so that its contents are never seen by the outside world.
A close comparison is the L1 cache inside a modern CPU. When the CPU is reading from it, you can't know what is in it, since the data isn't output to the bus.
We were already able to. An emulator can do whatever it pleases, including giving colors to things. Most simply, it can give each of the four shades of gray (green?) different colors. Going further, it can use one set of colors for the background shades, and another for sprites. Even further, it could divide sprites and background into multiple groups.
The colorization the GBC did for non-GBC games was the second described above, having one set of colors for the background, and another for sprites (and a few custom palettes for particular games, like Metroid II). The dump of the GBC ROM just allows an emulator to colorize these games in a fully authentic way, rather than in its own way; the end-result is identical.
Great case, but that 256-character web page title sure is funny. Looks like they even wanted it longer, but their software truncated it:
<title>NMEDIAPC.com - the leading Home Theater PC componenets manufactory who provide one stop shop for your HTPC needs. Visit us to build your dream HTPC, Media Center PC and Home Media server. We offer the most quiet, cooler, compact and multi-functional case, </title>
Heh, just yesterday I saw a student unicycle by me as I walked to the bus stop. I don't think I've ever seen anyone using a unicycle for normal travel like that either. :)
Doesn't paper also sequester carbon (assuming the book doesn't get thrown away)? One thing it doesn't do is allow deletion of content remotely (except nuking from orbit, of course), prevention of lending to other people, etc.
Wow, I had never heard of SquareTrade. Looks very interesting. Having just dealt with Fry's in repairing an LCD with their extended coverage, this looks like something to consider instead in the future. I still can't figure out how they offer warranties like that, even for used items.
Argh, you're right, and he even has a nice 1...2...3 list describing dropping the 3.3V supply.
Here's my summary of how he did it, since the linked blog posting is quite long:
When the Game Boy Color powers up, a small internal boot ROM is enabled inside the CPU. This displays the logo, verifies that the game ROM is "genuine", then starts executing it. Just before it starts executing user code, it disables the boot ROM by writing to an I/O register. Once disabled, there is no way to re-enable it, thus user code can't easily read the ROM.
Costis found that if he stopped the CPU clock for a few seconds, then restarted it, many of the CPU registers (including the program counter) would take on random values. So he placed NOP instructions in all external memory, along with a small dump routine, then stopped and restarted the clock just before the boot ROM wrote to the I/O location to disable itself. This caused the program counter to take on a value outside the boot ROM, and execute all the NOPs until it hit his small dump routine.
This allows Game Boy Color emulators to display an authentic intro before running the game, including the palette selection available when running a non-color game. There's otherwise no benefit that I can see. This includes initial register values, since those could already be determined via software. Some of the other initial state, like sound registers set by the boot ROM, is more difficult to determine, so this helped there.
When reverse-engineering hardware, it's nice to figure out every detail, and this was one of the much harder ones to figure out. Decapping usually reveals all, but even that failed here.
The problem I always see is that there are ten hens, each planting their own crop, and you don't know which, if any, will actually yield something useful. Which one do you spend your time helping? How do you ensure that others in a similar position as yourself help the same one if they have the same desires as you?
Here's a fictional hypothetical imaginary non-violent deterrend for tailgaters: have a device which will emit a large glob of something nasty that will stick to the tailgater's car. Perhaps have the emitter make it look like some mud or something that came from the road. He'd be like "oh shit, what the hell just got on my car!" The main goal is to send a message without putting anyone at risk.
Good thing we haven't had any enlightened lazy people in the past who actually solved problems similar to this. If they had, we'd be able to keep things cool without having to constantly refill our iceboxes, calculate things without having to do them by hand or mentally, or even have a machine write things for us just by pressing keys. Oh, wait...
Here's an optical interface that can transfer lots of power: C02 laser. You wouldn't want to feel around the back of a computer with one of these behind one of the interface connectors, though.
Maybe, like FireWire, it'll deliver better on its claimed speed, and 10 Gbps will actually be 10 Gbps.
This is the best I can come up with: it's like someone getting in a turbo-charged car and driving faster than anyone else has in a car, thus setting a new record.
But what are you going to do about it, besides rant on Slashdot?
OK, so your logic is different than installing Chrome on the same machine, because with this plugin, a site can select whether to use it? I was going to rebut your point, but I think I get it now. What if the user could tell this Google plugin to entirely disable IE's native HTML rendering/JavaScript/etc.? I guess that would be somewhat pointless, since you might as well just use Chrome to begin with...