HackMii

As you can see in the latest Wiimpersonator log, Nintendo has released an update for the Wii software — “Wii Menu 4.2”.

Nintendo’s release notes state, rather blandly,

September 28, 2009
Wii Menu 4.2
Unauthorized Modifications
Because unauthorized channels or firmware may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.2 will check for and automatically remove such unauthorized files. In addition, there are some behind the scenes enhancements that do not affect any prominently-used features or menus but will improve system performance.

That’s the best they could come up with? Seriously? This is almost as bad as the first update (3.3) they did to (try to) kill the Twilight Hack, which they justified with “an enhanced Mii channel”. Don’t update. Seriously.
[Read more →]

Hey everyone. This is my first post here. Some of you may know me from the GameCube homebrew scene. Anyway, this post is not about the Wii or the DSi. It’s more of a vintage hardware hacking post.

The Nintendo Gameboy Color was released by Nintendo to the public in 1998. Since then no one had dumped its internal boot ROM (the first code that runs when you turn on or reset the system). After spending a few days glitching the GBC CPU voltage supply and clock input, I finally managed to get it to spew out the contents of this initial boot ROM.

Read all about it (as well as download the binary and an almost complete commented disassembly) on my website here: http://www.fpgb.org. The website is mainly a blog about my FPGABoy project, which is an attempt to design a complete clone of the original Gameboy hardware on an FPGA.

Or if you are too lazy to click on the GBC Boot ROM link on the right of the FPGABoy blog page, you can directly hop to it here.

I also dumped the Super Gameboy’s boot ROM about a week or so back, which you can also read about (as well as download) here.

I hope it’s at least mildly interesting news albeit being related to an ancient console. 🙂

Costis

binary, source code

Extremely short instructions: put this savegame on your Wii (if you have one on there already that you want to keep, back it up first!), start the game, walk to the “art room” (find some walkthrough on the intertubes if you cannot find it), look at the second character, enjoy!

Kudos to “roto” for finding the original buffer overflow, and many thanks for doing lots of testing!

UPDATE: I uploaded a new zip file that fixes a packaging error and clarifies the copyright and licensing. People who are “re-hosting” this file should update, read the license, and reconsider whether they really want to host this binary themselves; whoever distributes the binary needs to distribute the source code as well (loosely speaking, read the license for the exact terms!)

Just don’t, and simply link to us, k? Best for everyone 🙂