Nintendo recently began selling their next-generation handheld console, the Nintendo DSi. I picked one up on eBay from Japan, since they will not be available for sale here in the US until April.
Why did bushing buy a new DSi, especially given the fact that he’s turned his DSlite on maybe 3 times and he can’t read Japanese?
Because of the awesome pix, of course!
Bunnie did the first real writeup of this thing, which was enough to encourage me to buy it. I, of course, took it apart and nearly broke the thing (blew a fuse) while trying to dump the flash on it; I didn’t succeed.
The reason this device is interesting to me is that the DSi seems to be to the DS what the Wii was to the GameCube. The DSi has two modes — a “native mode” and a “compatibility mode”. In the compatibility mode, the clock is slown down to half the speed and access to the new peripherals is disabled — sound familiar? In the native mode, you get a faster clock and more RAM — used to perform the real-time face recognition and image processing shown above — as well as an SD slot and two cameras (front and back-facing). The device boots up into a “System Menu” that is fairly reminiscent of the Wii.
Oh, did I mention that it has a Shop Channel where you can download apps, like Opera? And you can download firmware updates online? Hey, guess what — we can download firmware updates online!
TMD:
Versions: 0, CA CRL 0, Signer CRL 0, System 0-0
Title ID: 00030015-484e464a ('\x00\x03\x00\x15'-'HNFJ')
Title Type: 0
Group ID: '01'
Access Rights: 0x00000000
Title Version: 0x500
Boot Index: 0
Contents:
ID Index Type Size Hash
00000002 0 0x1 0x66a400 d1 25 16 d5 5e b8 49 1d 8d 5e 77 a9 4d c7 7c c7 df 7a 54 79
The ticket and contents are downloadable in the same way. Unfortunately, they aren’t reusing the same common key, so we can’t actually disassemble anything (yet). Although they’re probably reusing much of the ES code from IOS, they probably fixed the blatant flaws that allowed us to rip the key and fakesign.
Now all we need is someone to step up to the plate and grab the new key! Then you can come and start filling in our new wiki.
27 responses so far ↓
1 Ibrahim Awwal // Jan 25, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Awesome, I’m so glad you guys are fiddling with the DSi already. I’m waiting for the US release to get one because not having access to the shop would suck, but it will be really cool to have homebrew enabled on the DSi without having to buy anything. I think there was actually a guy, Yasu, who found an exploit, but he never shared it. And I think the people on the gbadev.org forums have poked around it a little too.
2 HyperHacker // Jan 25, 2009 at 10:22 pm
So does that little red and white sticker on the board bear any resemblance to SL1 on the DS? They used to have the same sticker.
3 http://maikelsteneker.blogspot.com/ // Jan 25, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I’m glad that there are already people working on it! Sure, Yasu showed that it was possible and the pirates have their new flashcarts, but homebrew using the new features (preferably using the SD card) is so much more interesting!
4 Dood77 // Jan 26, 2009 at 2:04 am
I’m disappointed nintendo opted for another update for the DS instead of giving us a real upgrade… Especially since new DS games won’t apparently have any new DSi-only features. It just doesn’t at all feel like a new system like the Wii was a new system after the GC.
Good luck finding those keys, I’m sure you’ll find something.
5 creativeprocrastinators.blogspot.com/ // Jan 26, 2009 at 3:04 am
Yet another reason for me to get a DSi.
6 sanderevers // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:11 am
Now I, finally, understand why it’s called DSi :p
7 ChipD // Jan 26, 2009 at 9:35 am
A new toy to take apart….Im jealous 😛
8 MechaBouncer // Jan 26, 2009 at 10:31 am
There’s been a lot of misinformation going around about exactly what kind of ARM CPU is in the DSi and the actual clock speed of it. Do you know if it’s still an ARM946E-S clocked at a higher speed, or is it an entirely different chip (like an ARM11 as speculated by Bunnie and others)? Also, you mention that it runs at half speed for compatibility mode. So is it clocked at 133MHz compared to the 66MHz ARM9? Lastly, any idea how it handles the processing that used to be done by the ARM7? Could it be clocked even higher to handle the absence of the chip? Thanks.
9 http://emailtoid.net/i/2db6ddbf/c3ba7666/ // Jan 26, 2009 at 10:49 am
Well, well. More connectivity surely means more ways to get in? Nice to see you already nearly destroying kit that hasn’t even been ECC certified yet, bushing. Keep it up!
10 Android17 // Jan 26, 2009 at 11:45 am
Homebrew fo the DSi is goin to be a “breeze” thanks to its SD card compatiblity. Lets not forget the free DS roms you can get and load it through the SD card, like i said a “breeze”.
11 DanielHueho // Jan 26, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Huahauahuaahuahauahauaahuhaua, you are awesome. And I love the kitty pic =P
Personally, although I still think DSi was in some aspects, a bad joke from Nintendo, I also think this console is going to be much better for homebrew than original DS, considering it’s specs. Hope you discover good stuff, bushing.
12 Remadon // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:56 pm
YAY! Homebrew progress on a system Im Actually looking forward to! and before its released too!
13 mercluke // Jan 26, 2009 at 10:23 pm
great to hear, just recently received my DSi. It’s an awesome gadget to play with, can’t wait to see what an amazing hacker like yourself can do with it 😀
14 Ajax // Jan 27, 2009 at 2:24 am
Ooh, the possibilities of homebrew and an increased cpu speed make the DSi alot more attractive. Perhaps even to the point of compensating for the lack of a GBA support (with a port of VBA or something).
Well here’s hoping that Nintendo did as good a job on security implementation as they did with the Wii (heh heh).
15 Apicio // Jan 27, 2009 at 5:56 am
Great! I’m waiting for PAL DSi but I’m happy to see you working on in. ^__^
16 Slowking // Jan 27, 2009 at 6:51 am
No GBA-Slot = dealbreaker for me.
But none the less, it will be very interesting to see what you guys can do with this thing, so go for it! ^^
17 t34p075 // Jan 27, 2009 at 7:14 am
awesome. I’m thinking that it should be possible to make a HBC for this eventually, which would be amazing. Also, SDHC slot means no need for a flash cart? that would be awesome. Can’t wait to see what you do with this thing.
18 Brainy142 // Jan 27, 2009 at 8:13 am
… here we go…. again?
19 SnoFox // Jan 27, 2009 at 4:42 pm
So, are you planning on working on the both the DSi and Wii fronts, now? That’d be pretty neat.
I’m not looking into the DSi quite yet, as I really don’t care about it, but I could look into them if it’d help out the Team. I just bought a DSLite, since the DSi is still a couple months, so I’m good for the DS for a while.
20 Makar // Jan 27, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Sweet. It would be nice to see a DSibrew. I need a new DS anyway, I still have the first one >.>
I’ll be looking forward to more news on this.
21 Tsab // Jan 28, 2009 at 2:33 am
So the DSi is CARBON COPY of a Wii architect.
I am REEEEALLY interested in the specs of the device. The only thing we know right now is the size of the Flash. I mean the new CPU is it only overclocked, or new ARM family? What about the ram? is it over 9000, eh 8mb?
22 NavadeHo // Jan 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Great, bushing 😀
It would be awesome if the DSi’s full capacity could be used for homebrew and things. I’m definitely going to buy the DSi on the launch date in Europe and can’t wait for your great hacks \o/ Maybe it’s even possible to make a kind of BootMii for the DSi xD
Flashcarts will be probably banned out in a newer fimware version for the DSi, so if you guys hack it and we can use the SD slot and camera’s people could create even more great homebrew!
Thnx for the good news, bushing 😀
23 Wack0 // Jan 29, 2009 at 7:07 am
hah. /me wonders what the release date in the UK will be. Some time around October maybe ? 🙂 When I eventually get one, I know I’ll brick it in the first five minutes though 😛
24 MechaBouncer // Jan 29, 2009 at 10:33 am
Android17, the Wii has a SD slot, but homebrew on it isn’t a “breeze”. Look how long it took to hack it and how much Nintendo locks down on the various exploits used to run homebrew. The SD slot may not even work in “compatibility mode”. However, I’ve read that some software can run in a sort of hybrid mode where it’s regular DS software, but can have access to specific DSi features. If this backdoor does exist and can be exploited, there’s a much better chance of getting full access for homebrew.
25 yoshicircuit // Jan 30, 2009 at 6:00 pm
DSi, codenamed the Portable Wii.
So, will this HBC take as long as the one on the Wii? Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing what Team Twiizers will do with the system. But then again, we hardly know what Nintendo has done with it. I’m happy as long as it’s less than $200.
I hope that the introduction to DSibrew won’t slow down the production of Wiibrew, but then again, I only really care about DSi hacking right now.
Hoorah for the return of GBA games!
26 emailtoid.net/i/2def59d2/… // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:24 pm
i know its a dumb question, but has anyone got anywhere? I have seen other forums and sites, and it looks like last update for most was 4/14/09? Just wondering, Heard Loopy had a SECRET team so to speak. Either way I am excited about all this!
27 bushing // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:30 pm
No, as far as I know Loopy has no “team” and I do not understand his motivations. I (and the other people I have spoken with) have not made any progress; we’re all waiting for the first DSi-enabled cartridges to be released.
You must log in to post a comment.