Gbit card, modem, HDD

Ok, I had it for now with this r8169 kernel driver. I even tried a suggested newer kernel version but even that didn't help. I put in a new Intel card and it seems to work fine.

Because I switched ISP, I have to return my modem (not my property; Sagem BASE F@ST 3202). I still wanted to know if I could get access to superuser account again. It is still accessible by serial port for which there is no connector unfortunately. An phone data cable with some soldering helps in these cases.
Well.. I just cleaned up the pads I probed and screwing it back together.
Since I can't remember what cables it came with, I just put in the ones in worst condition :)

I also bought a WD MyBook 1TB disk.

My network

New SSH keys generated to login without password on my server, macbook, imac and website. Works nicely. I have set MacFusion to mount automatically.

I've put back the r8169 network card in my server and it now appears to be running stable. Perhaps it's also because I upgraded the kernel version again to 2.6.24-gentoo-r3. Oh and I soldered 3 capacitors on it. They always leave out some to make it cheaper.
[edit]Shit.. still problematic[/edit]

After fiddling with MAC address in Time Machine to backup over firewire target disk mode, I found out that Apple added a hidden feature that enables network disks. With this gigabit network, that should go speedy although it still could be buggy or cause system hiccups. I wouldn't try backing up with my disk or imac turned/turning off though.
This method does not use the filesystem feature with hardlinks etc. but creates one big file: "{machine name}_{MAC address}.sparsebundle". It's probably more optimal for network links.

Btw, my macbook is named Diana and my imac Morte. From Noir-et-Blanc, which I have not seen yet but do have the Morte figurine. The internal HDDs are also called like that to prevent confusion when mounting them over the network.

link down

Since updating my kernel of my linux server, the 1Gbit card (r8169) gave troubles. Occasionally, the link went down.
dmesg shows some PCI quirks and IRQ routing conflicts but afaik it's been like that before.
Although I also had enabled the onboard USB ports and added USB to the kernel.
I then tried loading back the old kernel version only to find out that the problem persisted.
Could the card have gone bad? Sure it's a coicidence. Or perhaps the driver is just buggy somehow. I will test the card in another PC.
Back with the old and slow r8139, it seems to work just fine.
I hate this kind of crap. It takes too much time to figure out.

[iMac] samba vs sshfs

I tried moving some files from my linux server to the external firewire drive on my iMac. It just did not work and my iMac would not see the UTF-8 encoded filenames. Then I learned about the utf-8-mac encoding and though wtf. My gentoo linux installation doesn't know about that. (NT_STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND)
I tried muCommander and bash in the hope that Finder was just screwing up. But nope...
ls: 耳をすませば サウンドトラック « Whisper of the Heart/: No such file or directory
So, after fiddling around, I used MacFUSE and MacFusion user-interface to mount my homedirectory via ssh. That works.
I guess that's another -1 point for OS X.

Also, I could not overwrite files starting with a dot (normally invisible in Finder). It gives "Error code -43". Oh well, that's just a feature.

Encryption, Input, Matrix, Devastation

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a few SRL files that are stored in some romdumps. These are WMB programs, but yet contained encryption information which is only intended for card use. It is kind of odd they would left that in. (7 out of 52 SRL files)

I found an unconnected button input on the mainboard named "R03" close to the SL1 contacts. It is mapped to bit 3 of the I/O register which also contains X & Y buttons. The purpose is still unknown.

Since a while, Nintendo started using Matrix Memory ROM chips for their cards. These seem to require a bigger latency setting. This also gave thought to making a CompactFlash (or SD) converter. This way you can connect two media cards and copy stuff from one to another for example.

I also had an idea of connecting mainboard signals to an FPGA and USB port to turn it into a real developer's system. This will include video and both card/tridge slots. I will call it Dev-a-Station :)

PassMe2

As you might have seen already, PassMe2 programming files are available at http://darkfader.net/ds/games/. The CPLD logic is precompiled for XC9572XL-VQ44 devices, so it cannot be used directly on some PassMe brands which use a different chip.
I will continue to update the list until KeyMe is out. Information on where to get up-to-date dumps easily is appreciated. Many thanks go to Loopy for making the ARM/thumb code for PassMe2.

NDS-tool v1.24

NDStool now can generate PassMe vhdl sourcecode and SRAM file from an nds rom file.
Here's the full Changelog.
Compiling the vhdl sourcecode requires Xilinx ISE, so I will look for a less tedious way to create a programming file since it's technically possible.
Xilinx project files and a readme can be found here.
I will soon update the nds rom database page with more info, functionality and download links for programming and SRAM files.

DSbrick trojan

I've added some information on the DSbrick trojan on my intro page.
Bad news I'm afraid. Perhaps more to come or nothing at all.

NDStool, CompactFlash adapter

NDStool now includes a PassMe loader by default, so you don't need to add a special loader in front of it. Again not very useful, except when developing perhaps or when you don't want an extra cartridge offset. It uses the WMB logo data area, so that will look like garbage.

I've put up the schematic for the homebrew CompactFlash adapter and also Eagle files for it. I don't know where to buy small reversed CF sockets. I'll leave that up to the person who is crazy enough to make PCB out of that design :) For single pieces, GBA Movie Player is cheaper. So someone could mass produce them. Perhaps it needs more functionality though.
Dang... I really want to get perpendicular and get a 10GB microdrive :P

Also finally uploaded that Lights Out Cube to my page.

Firmware recovery

I have successfully recovered the firmware of two DSes using the parallel port of my laptop. A bunch of wires, one cut trace on the PCB, external power supply and a piece of software did the trick. Source/executable available as "ppflash.zip".