@RockYoMomsWorld i would never have guessed that. I just thought that they wanted the system to have wi-fi capability regardless, but it having a secondary feature is pretty cool to be honest.
@@wc7484 another fun fact is the nand chip that contains the firmware is the exact chip that ds cartridges use to store save files. You can desolder and pop one off a ds cartridge and resolder it on the WiFi module and flash it with the firmware to replace the nand if it ever breaks or anything
@tailsprower9542 same thing happened to me. I was struggling with fishing the wire under the cartridge slot and I said screw it and just left it unplugged. Lol
I hate them too but “I replaced the wifi antenna on my nintendo ds lite to change the software to development and ique versions” isn’t very algorithm friendly. enjoy x
5:24 This is curious: retail iQue DS units have localized (actually minimized) safety caution text on the bottom screen. This could be another protootype.
You can flash a custom firmware to the wifi board yourself with a flashcart and firmware flasher, toothpick, scotch tape and aluminum foil. I put FlashMe on my NDSL to boot directly into whatever cartridge I have inserted skipping the title screen, and you can even do a DS TV-out mod by patching your dumped FlashMe firmware. It outputs the top screen to a display through the headphone jack.
The NDS TV mod still requires you to install a custom PCB inside the console, the FlashMe portion is just to prepare the firmware to work properly with the TV Out function, based on the Gameboy Macro specs that leaked in 2021.
Some of the late fat DS models already contained the backlight controller found in the DSL. There is a ROM to check if yours indeed has the 4 brightness steps and another ROM that flashes the DSLite firmware to be able to use them. Did that a few years ago but can't remember the details
@louism771, using FlashMe to flash a specific version of the DS Lite firmware. It's actually not a common thing unfortunately because they're the last fat batches after the launch of the Lite. Pretty cool tbf.
The original gray fat DS and the DS lite are hands down Nintendo's most durable handhelds, I remember as a kid how many times my DS was dropped because I let a bunch of other kids borrow it, and when people don't own something they basically don't give it much care, and that poor DS survived so many falls and stuff, and like even its battery was amazing because I remember putting mine in storage for like 8 years and the freaking battery still had a charge, that allowed me to play for a couple of hours, they just don't make things like in that era, because no matter how many additions the DSi and 3DS added to the overall functionality for those devices, those things were just flimsy devices that would wear down easily even with proper care.
Disagree with the original one. They suffer from hinge failures, especially now that the plastic is getting britter. More than a half of original DS on the market are broken hinge ones.
I spoke in regards to my own experience, my household owned 2 phat gray DS and a white DS lite, and besides the gray coloring on the shell for the original phat DS turning yellowish and the rubbery parts becoming sticky, both devices are 100% functional, and the hinges on none of those devices have broken. I cannot say the same about my 3DS though, I own the Link Between Worlds edition of the XL, and that one has an almost broken hinge, and I've had to replace the circle pad like 5 times now, not to mention that I ended up replacing the SD card on it twice, because for some reason after a couple of years it wouldn't want to read my Sandisk cards, and don't even get me started on the batteries, where I ended up replacing that freaking CTR-003 battery like 5 times in like the 10 years I've owned the freaking 3DS, and then I purchased the Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate edition of the "New" 3DS XL, and overall that device has been even faultier than the Link Between Worlds XL, because not only have I had to replace the circlepad and battery almost the same amount of times as the other 3DS despite it being newer, but I think I will need to replace the top screen soon, because I've seen it act strangely like blurring some objects and stuff on the screen, as if there was some kind of lag or something weird and it didn't use to do that, and I take care of my devices, I store them in places where they are protected from humidity in their own hardcases, and I even buy silica gel packets to put in the cases, as well as having Damprid containers in the rooms, while the regular old DS did not get the same treatment, and in the 20 years of owning them, I've not had the need to do any replacements of any kind since as mentioned even after having it in storage for like 7 years, the battery still worked like a champ and gave me a couple of hours of charge... And I don't want to talk about the nightmare that has been being a Switch owner, like whoever designed those JoyCons should have been fired and banned from the industry, because those have been the cheapest feeling controllers, that even if you barely use them end up with drift issues, and all the kids that I know have had to go through several of them, because those controllers can't take a good hit like the Wii remotes could, where I pretty much believe the reason why they had the Nunchuk accessory, was because they could double up as a melee weapon lol.
@@richardwang9315 That's what likely ruined my original White DS Lite The top screen started bugging out, and I'm pretty sure the hinge started to fail
The entire prototype firmware is available online, and the actual startup sound has been dumped from it and is on the TCRF page "Proto:Nintendo DS/ver.40820D"
My DS Lite would have green light but the screen was black. Searched up and found out it might be the antenna. Didn’t have to replace mine only had to put it in place. Great video btw.
I didn't even know there was information in that chip, what a learning experience with your channels. And for the clickbait title, we all understood what you were thinking --'
Awesome video. But I am concerned about the tiny children contained and haunting you in your Nintendo DS, shouting for help everytime you turn the device on.
Hey, I really appreciate what your channel is attempting to do, educating more people on the restoration & preservation spaces is huge, there's so much of the space that just isn't seen to so much of the world. Having a bigger youtuber care about this space is awesome, and could be such a hugely positive force within the community that needs that attention sometimes. However, I don't think this video quite hit the mark, though I can understand where this video came from... 1. I know some comments have been removed here, whether automated, or manual, these comments had their own criticism, and weren't swearing at you, weren't like doxing/threatening/etc. Removing valid critique never looks good. I don't think an apology is needed, but let people see their critiques. I can understand removing mean comments, or rude comments, but valid criticism is okay, and can be used as a learning opportunity. It's okay to learn, it's okay to grow! We should be encouraging more of "hey there's stuff I didn't know look at this cool stuff". 2. As has been pointed out in some of those removed comments, there are some things yah missed here. I can understand why, saw a cool thing pop up on ebay, bought it, I'm sure asked a couple questions about it to the seller and turned it into a video to help support you. However, given so much was left out, and credit was missing it'd be awesome to make a follow up video explaining all the questions you posed in this video, as well as much of the information out there! Like again we should encourage learning about prototypes, isn't that the point of videos like these? To show off, and preserve all the cool content people may not know about? Some example questions that might be cool to delve into (though i'm sure you can find much better things than my dumb ideas of the top of my head): - Why is the firmware stored on the WiFi chip? As you mentioned it's totally unexpected, what's going on there? - What firmwares were these? They weren't brand new/never before seen (in fact quite old), but like why don't people know about them, how did we get them, WHO LEAKED THEM? Where can folks go find more, what other prototype firmwares can we find? Even if you don't like RMC, well respected community sources like TCRF have great guides that would be awesome to link too and credit the folks who did dump these firmwares, and put through the hard work to share with us. - Talk about the fact it's custom flashed, and the processes developed by hardworking community members so folks can make their own, and explore their own. It's not a real prototype from the factory or anything, but still leaves more open to folks! What if you made your own with your soldering experience? "Flashing prototype firmware GONE WRONG" - I understand you didn't see anything different in the firmwares (but like iQue has most of it's special stuff behind Chinese language selection only), it'd be cool to see more info on specifics of why the iQue exists, and how these firmwares are different, this stuff is documented. 3. The IS-Nitro-Capture/Debugger units were not prototypes, but were development kits, I know you've made a video calling it a development kit before and a whole video on that, unsure why it got missed here... but it's okay, mistakes happen. 4. I know you gotta clickbait to make that bag, and I know you hate it. I get why you need to do it, but I still think there's a better clickbait title here. Like @SIGuess mentioned what about something like "I put a custom prototype on the DS Lite, and this happened....", or something along those lines. Anyway, I'm legitimately not trying to tear you down here. Again I think your content could be really useful to the space, and encouraging learning across youtube always seems like a huge plus to me. It'd be really awesome if you followed this up with some information, and custom flashing, and info for those folks who clearly enjoy your content.
I've seen some people make custom WiFi boards for NDS that can be flashed with custom firmware (somehow). I wonder if there's an easy way to dump what's on that prototype board. Might need some special hardware, though. Fun video though, nice one Elliot!
You'd dump it the same way as you would any normal board. This prototype firmware is not special, it was custom flashed using a guide I wrote (same with iQue lol) and there are many copies of the dump floating around. This firmware wasn't even built for DS lites lol. Elliot just did a poor job of explaining... like always.
@@esotericsean it missed all the potential it could have had. This is a very interesting topic that could have taught us a lot about prototype hardware and interesting tidbits about the firmware, but just skipped over all that. As usual he doesn't seem interested in making videos, just in making a quick buck.
@@lillianskinner1984 I think Elliot's audience aren't super hard-core Nintendo nerds like you or me, but more casual viewers who just like to play Game Boys. Elliot is a smart guy and can absolutely go into more detail and do more research on something if he wanted to, but that's not really what his channel is about. Been checking out your videos, though. Seems like you're much more qualified to talk about the details.
@@esotericsean it's not a matter of being qualified or not. A quick google search brings up everything you need to know. When you have a big audience, you have a responsibility to get your facts straight and to properly describe things. Someone's first impression of a topic will stick with them forever. Once a big youtuber teaches something, that becomes fact. It's very difficult to change afterwards. His reach extends to people that would have never known about this before, but now they've been given terrible information and will go on to spread that further.
I got two screws to put back in, and that's a Seiko H601 taken down to its knickers, cleaned and reassembled, I paid a tenner for it as I wanted to swap the case with correct pushers for the working one I have but missing top pusher and I was bored so started breaking it down, little bath in my 1970's ultranotsonic vibratory cleaner and was most surprised when it fired up with clear LCD and precise analogue... the other one has its original Seiko Japan SQ bracelet so colour me chuffed :D
0:44 That's fun, i have the same DS Lite model ... but in mine there is a flash cartridge in the GBA slot and a game that i don't care about (used as a dust blocker) in the DS game slot.
By the way the top of the IFixit screwdriver kit can double as a screw sorter. Just thought I would let you know! (It makes it super convenient when taking apart stuff, especially something like a Nintendo DS.)
That prototype DS is something I've never seen before. I would love to get my hands on one! Also, the only difference with the iQue DS is that it can play real iQue games and that it has the Chinese language. If you put an iQue cartridge into a regular DS, the words "ONLY FOR iQue DS" appears on screen. I have so many iQue products, and I would love to see you dive into the iQue rabbit hole!
It makes perfect sense for the firmware to be on the wifi module. The wifi already needs to be modular because you need different wifi chip sets for different parts of the world's wifi bands so you might as well combine it with something else.
The little message that you said "almost certainly says 'reboot'" actually seems to say "Completed." It says "しゅうりょうしました," which some really basic machine translation tells me is that. But it also recommended translated from "終了しました," which seems like it's just that hiragana converted to Kanji where possible, but when I change it to that, the machine translation says "Ended" instead. With the very little bit of formal education on Japanese that I have, it's pretty common to see ”します” (shimasu, to do) follow a noun to refer to doing something associated with that noun. Like "電話します” (denwa shimasu) would be to make a phonecall. So here, you have "しゅうりょう" (shuuryou, completion) with ”します” which is "do a completion" or "complete." And then you change the "-ます" (-masu, formal non-past tense inflection for verbs) to "-ました” (-mashita, formal past tense inflection for verbs) to get ”しゅうりょうしました,” (shuuryoushimashita, did a completion, or completed).
Interestingly, this prototype firmware has been on the scene for quite some time and there is a lot written about it and there are also other firmwares, how to install you just need: - Flashcart - DS phat or DS lite - Screwdriver
BLT means backlight, and all you've done is enter a devtest kernel, this is normallt accessable with a jailbreak, most of this is baked into the DSI kernel as well as the 3ds one
Those chips aren't only wifi "antennae", but rather have the wifi chip + wifi antenna connector on the upper side and the bios chip on the bottom, that's why it works.
With regards to the chinese market, even without the government restrictions the written chinese languages are complicated enough to warrant their own roms for that era of chip.
I don't like the clickbait titles, but if you want to make them algorithm-friendly, you could have named it something like "I Put Wi-Fi on a Nintendo DS Lite, and This Happened..." Something like that at least alludes to what happens in the video.
I don’t understand why they even have this. The original ds already had roughly the same user interface, so why would they need a prototype one for the ds lite when that’s pretty much the same hardware in a different form factor? I don’t know but it’s still quite an amazing piece of gaming history you’ve got there Elliot!
The NDS and DS Lite have differents motherboards, but they have the same WIFI and BIOS module and they are both compatible, theres no need to make another prototype due to it costing some money.
now I want to know if booting retail ds and gba games and using download play works. Could be that the functionality is there (besides pictochat) and it‘s just missing a final GUI
Hello Elliot, this is Shigeru Miyamoto. I will be willing to overlook your grave transgressions and call off the Nintendo ninja-lawyers if _and only if_ you will send me a lifetime’s supply of Twixes. Not the white chocolate ones either, they suck.
@@SproutyPottedPlant you’re right lol idk what I was thinking. I think I was thinking of the DSi which has the nand chip on the motherboard. The ds phat and ds lite nand is 100% apart of the WiFi module. My apologies
So when Reggie said the DS wasn't a member of the gameboy line but a side product, a "third pillar" it actually had Gameboy inside it from the beginning
Couple comments on the prototype firmware you present: There is a user interface there that you are using, you wrongly labled it as not having such. The kind of interface you are using is there is a TUI or Text User Interface. Its most commonly seen with Command Line programs like shell or python scripts. You also mentioned the nitro emulator, which is not an early version of the DS. Clearly, because it is not based on the chunky DS. It is in fact running on a DS Lite. The Nitro Emulator served as a Software Development kit. A testing unit to be exact. Whoever made the Nitro emulator was also a bit silly, by the way. It is NOT an emulator, despite parading itself as such. It is an actual DS, just with its guts in an extenal box, and a whole lot of extra stuff bolted to it. Kinda gorey from a technological aspect, but it got the job done, so I cannot complain. Also, BLT most likely stands for BackLighT.
let's be real here, what is there to test on the DS Lite, the software is exactly the same as on the OG DS. the only major diffrence is the brightness level control. software wise it has been done on the OG one, samen GPU and CPU just a diffrent form factor,
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
Once wireless download mode was activated an alarm was triggered at Nintendo HQ and the ninja's were dispatched
"cracking down on people having fun" this isn't even a joke, well said
Considering "BLT" said "ON" I'm guessing it means Backlight
or bluetooth, but the hardware shoudnt support it. so its probably backlight.
Bacon Lettuce and Tomato.
Kids these days 😂
boys Love series Loading
definitely the backlight. on the original ds model, the backlight is just on or off and there is no brightness level.
@@caseyvuen111 very much this especially for a beta firmware.
Antiques roadshow: and this DS chip contains the souls of 5 children.
Excellent condition: $750.
Pawn Stars; "Yeah well I'm gonna have to resell it, maybe $10? Let me call an expert"
So that's why a ds lite won't boot up without the wi-fi chip. Interesting.
Yup, the WiFi chip contains the bios
@RockYoMomsWorld i would never have guessed that. I just thought that they wanted the system to have wi-fi capability regardless, but it having a secondary feature is pretty cool to be honest.
@@wc7484 another fun fact is the nand chip that contains the firmware is the exact chip that ds cartridges use to store save files. You can desolder and pop one off a ds cartridge and resolder it on the WiFi module and flash it with the firmware to replace the nand if it ever breaks or anything
YEAH. made me feel dumb not plugging it in one time after taking my DS apart, i thought it just needed the wireless connector to post.
@tailsprower9542 same thing happened to me. I was struggling with fishing the wire under the cartridge slot and I said screw it and just left it unplugged. Lol
I cannot adequately describe how much I hate these clickbait title names . . .
I hate them too but “I replaced the wifi antenna on my nintendo ds lite to change the software to development and ique versions” isn’t very algorithm friendly.
enjoy x
@@TheRetroFuturewe love you .
Not enough to ignore the video though xo
How is it clickbait though? It’s 100% true that Nintendo could and might sue him
Nintendo's lawyers are still probably hating his guts for this video thought
5:24 This is curious: retail iQue DS units have localized (actually minimized) safety caution text on the bottom screen. This could be another protootype.
iirc the language has to be changed to Chinese to show that
Most likely is, iQue mostly uses PAL version as the base, and modify it to support chinese.
@CyanTrigger no such thing as a "PAL" NDS firmware, there's only international (and it's revisions), iQue and Korean
You can flash a custom firmware to the wifi board yourself with a flashcart and firmware flasher, toothpick, scotch tape and aluminum foil. I put FlashMe on my NDSL to boot directly into whatever cartridge I have inserted skipping the title screen, and you can even do a DS TV-out mod by patching your dumped FlashMe firmware. It outputs the top screen to a display through the headphone jack.
The NDS TV mod still requires you to install a custom PCB inside the console, the FlashMe portion is just to prepare the firmware to work properly with the TV Out function, based on the Gameboy Macro specs that leaked in 2021.
@@Gogeta007yBro ahhhhhh, wasn't aware of the pcb requirement
For a matter of fact these are just flashed firmwares being sold by 1 guy lol i found him. Whatever brings in the money i guess
Some of the late fat DS models already contained the backlight controller found in the DSL. There is a ROM to check if yours indeed has the 4 brightness steps and another ROM that flashes the DSLite firmware to be able to use them. Did that a few years ago but can't remember the details
@louism771, using FlashMe to flash a specific version of the DS Lite firmware. It's actually not a common thing unfortunately because they're the last fat batches after the launch of the Lite.
Pretty cool tbf.
I don’t care what you name your videos, as long as you keep making them
I hope people keep leaking console prototypes and dev kits. We should have the right to reverse engineer these wonderful devices.
10:18 😂 BLT and video description.
Loved the video 👍 Congrats on your success my friend. By the way, I sent u an email.
The original gray fat DS and the DS lite are hands down Nintendo's most durable handhelds, I remember as a kid how many times my DS was dropped because I let a bunch of other kids borrow it, and when people don't own something they basically don't give it much care, and that poor DS survived so many falls and stuff, and like even its battery was amazing because I remember putting mine in storage for like 8 years and the freaking battery still had a charge, that allowed me to play for a couple of hours, they just don't make things like in that era, because no matter how many additions the DSi and 3DS added to the overall functionality for those devices, those things were just flimsy devices that would wear down easily even with proper care.
Disagree with the original one. They suffer from hinge failures, especially now that the plastic is getting britter.
More than a half of original DS on the market are broken hinge ones.
nope it wasn't the amount of broken hinges was enormous. such a fragile part.
Isn't DS lites are prone to the top LCD ribbon cable issues 😅
I spoke in regards to my own experience, my household owned 2 phat gray DS and a white DS lite, and besides the gray coloring on the shell for the original phat DS turning yellowish and the rubbery parts becoming sticky, both devices are 100% functional, and the hinges on none of those devices have broken.
I cannot say the same about my 3DS though, I own the Link Between Worlds edition of the XL, and that one has an almost broken hinge, and I've had to replace the circle pad like 5 times now, not to mention that I ended up replacing the SD card on it twice, because for some reason after a couple of years it wouldn't want to read my Sandisk cards, and don't even get me started on the batteries, where I ended up replacing that freaking CTR-003 battery like 5 times in like the 10 years I've owned the freaking 3DS, and then I purchased the Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate edition of the "New" 3DS XL, and overall that device has been even faultier than the Link Between Worlds XL, because not only have I had to replace the circlepad and battery almost the same amount of times as the other 3DS despite it being newer, but I think I will need to replace the top screen soon, because I've seen it act strangely like blurring some objects and stuff on the screen, as if there was some kind of lag or something weird and it didn't use to do that, and I take care of my devices, I store them in places where they are protected from humidity in their own hardcases, and I even buy silica gel packets to put in the cases, as well as having Damprid containers in the rooms, while the regular old DS did not get the same treatment, and in the 20 years of owning them, I've not had the need to do any replacements of any kind since as mentioned even after having it in storage for like 7 years, the battery still worked like a champ and gave me a couple of hours of charge...
And I don't want to talk about the nightmare that has been being a Switch owner, like whoever designed those JoyCons should have been fired and banned from the industry, because those have been the cheapest feeling controllers, that even if you barely use them end up with drift issues, and all the kids that I know have had to go through several of them, because those controllers can't take a good hit like the Wii remotes could, where I pretty much believe the reason why they had the Nunchuk accessory, was because they could double up as a melee weapon lol.
@@richardwang9315
That's what likely ruined my original White DS Lite
The top screen started bugging out, and I'm pretty sure the hinge started to fail
It's the bios board & WiFi board. I remember flashing them so they would boot directly from slot 2 flashcards
good ol flashme
I use flashme to save time every startup. I know it's just an a press but it should be instantaneous :3
Haha, i said the BLT thing stood for bacon, lettuce, tomato as well.
Great minds think alike.
So did I.
it probably stands for backlight. like on the original DS, you could turn off the backlight and the screen would behave like an original GBA screen
@@konkondotzip yeah, i knew that's what it stood for, i was just being funny.
Great finds there! I always enjoy seeing prototypes of software and hardware to see what was going to be, or could have been.
Can you please plug into the headphone jack and do a direct capture of the start up noise for preservation?
The entire prototype firmware is available online, and the actual startup sound has been dumped from it and is on the TCRF page "Proto:Nintendo DS/ver.40820D"
BLT = Backlight
Great video - neat to see the early development stuff.
Awesome video! Love how good everything looks, you changed the room!
My DS Lite would have green light but the screen was black. Searched up and found out it might be the antenna. Didn’t have to replace mine only had to put it in place. Great video btw.
This is the kind of stuff that always interests me. Honestly id probably use the ique one since its a great conversation starter.
hello i am nintendoo please refrain
I didn't even know there was information in that chip, what a learning experience with your channels. And for the clickbait title, we all understood what you were thinking --'
Awesome video. But I am concerned about the tiny children contained and haunting you in your Nintendo DS, shouting for help everytime you turn the device on.
Nice video bro, I've found the iQue DS Lite in the thrift store for about 15 dollar last year and it's now a part of my collection
I really like this new background for videos :)
Hey, I really appreciate what your channel is attempting to do, educating more people on the restoration & preservation spaces is huge, there's so much of the space that just isn't seen to so much of the world. Having a bigger youtuber care about this space is awesome, and could be such a hugely positive force within the community that needs that attention sometimes.
However, I don't think this video quite hit the mark, though I can understand where this video came from...
1. I know some comments have been removed here, whether automated, or manual, these comments had their own criticism, and weren't swearing at you, weren't like doxing/threatening/etc. Removing valid critique never looks good. I don't think an apology is needed, but let people see their critiques. I can understand removing mean comments, or rude comments, but valid criticism is okay, and can be used as a learning opportunity. It's okay to learn, it's okay to grow! We should be encouraging more of "hey there's stuff I didn't know look at this cool stuff".
2. As has been pointed out in some of those removed comments, there are some things yah missed here. I can understand why, saw a cool thing pop up on ebay, bought it, I'm sure asked a couple questions about it to the seller and turned it into a video to help support you. However, given so much was left out, and credit was missing it'd be awesome to make a follow up video explaining all the questions you posed in this video, as well as much of the information out there! Like again we should encourage learning about prototypes, isn't that the point of videos like these? To show off, and preserve all the cool content people may not know about?
Some example questions that might be cool to delve into (though i'm sure you can find much better things than my dumb ideas of the top of my head):
- Why is the firmware stored on the WiFi chip? As you mentioned it's totally unexpected, what's going on there?
- What firmwares were these? They weren't brand new/never before seen (in fact quite old), but like why don't people know about them, how did we get them, WHO LEAKED THEM? Where can folks go find more, what other prototype firmwares can we find? Even if you don't like RMC, well respected community sources like TCRF have great guides that would be awesome to link too and credit the folks who did dump these firmwares, and put through the hard work to share with us.
- Talk about the fact it's custom flashed, and the processes developed by hardworking community members so folks can make their own, and explore their own. It's not a real prototype from the factory or anything, but still leaves more open to folks! What if you made your own with your soldering experience? "Flashing prototype firmware GONE WRONG"
- I understand you didn't see anything different in the firmwares (but like iQue has most of it's special stuff behind Chinese language selection only), it'd be cool to see more info on specifics of why the iQue exists, and how these firmwares are different, this stuff is documented.
3. The IS-Nitro-Capture/Debugger units were not prototypes, but were development kits, I know you've made a video calling it a development kit before and a whole video on that, unsure why it got missed here... but it's okay, mistakes happen.
4. I know you gotta clickbait to make that bag, and I know you hate it. I get why you need to do it, but I still think there's a better clickbait title here. Like @SIGuess mentioned what about something like "I put a custom prototype on the DS Lite, and this happened....", or something along those lines.
Anyway, I'm legitimately not trying to tear you down here. Again I think your content could be really useful to the space, and encouraging learning across youtube always seems like a huge plus to me. It'd be really awesome if you followed this up with some information, and custom flashing, and info for those folks who clearly enjoy your content.
Well that was long but i agree with your comments , even though i am not a regular viewer here , keep it up !!! ❤❤
Always enjoy your content, Elliot.
I've seen some people make custom WiFi boards for NDS that can be flashed with custom firmware (somehow). I wonder if there's an easy way to dump what's on that prototype board. Might need some special hardware, though. Fun video though, nice one Elliot!
You'd dump it the same way as you would any normal board. This prototype firmware is not special, it was custom flashed using a guide I wrote (same with iQue lol) and there are many copies of the dump floating around. This firmware wasn't even built for DS lites lol. Elliot just did a poor job of explaining... like always.
@@lillianskinner1984 Well, it was still very interesting to see.
@@esotericsean it missed all the potential it could have had. This is a very interesting topic that could have taught us a lot about prototype hardware and interesting tidbits about the firmware, but just skipped over all that. As usual he doesn't seem interested in making videos, just in making a quick buck.
@@lillianskinner1984 I think Elliot's audience aren't super hard-core Nintendo nerds like you or me, but more casual viewers who just like to play Game Boys. Elliot is a smart guy and can absolutely go into more detail and do more research on something if he wanted to, but that's not really what his channel is about. Been checking out your videos, though. Seems like you're much more qualified to talk about the details.
@@esotericsean it's not a matter of being qualified or not. A quick google search brings up everything you need to know. When you have a big audience, you have a responsibility to get your facts straight and to properly describe things. Someone's first impression of a topic will stick with them forever. Once a big youtuber teaches something, that becomes fact. It's very difficult to change afterwards. His reach extends to people that would have never known about this before, but now they've been given terrible information and will go on to spread that further.
What an amazing find but gosh that black screen is eery!
Very very interesting find. Thanks for sharing!
7:28 - That says: Completed.
yep google translate says completed
Iirc the Chinese DS units also have slightly more ram which may mean that even with a China ROM, it may not run Chinese games
This mood in this vid is everything!
bot
I got two screws to put back in, and that's a Seiko H601 taken down to its knickers, cleaned and reassembled, I paid a tenner for it as I wanted to swap the case with correct pushers for the working one I have but missing top pusher and I was bored so started breaking it down, little bath in my 1970's ultranotsonic vibratory cleaner and was most surprised when it fired up with clear LCD and precise analogue... the other one has its original Seiko Japan SQ bracelet so colour me chuffed :D
Now you can have 2 DS Lites in your collection with these special Wi-Fi chips installed in them!
0:44 That's fun, i have the same DS Lite model ... but in mine there is a flash cartridge in the GBA slot and a game that i don't care about (used as a dust blocker) in the DS game slot.
By the way the top of the IFixit screwdriver kit can double as a screw sorter. Just thought I would let you know! (It makes it super convenient when taking apart stuff, especially something like a Nintendo DS.)
That prototype DS is something I've never seen before. I would love to get my hands on one! Also, the only difference with the iQue DS is that it can play real iQue games and that it has the Chinese language. If you put an iQue cartridge into a regular DS, the words "ONLY FOR iQue DS" appears on screen. I have so many iQue products, and I would love to see you dive into the iQue rabbit hole!
A quick question, can an iQue DS play regular DS (western and japanese) games as well?
@RockRedGenesis Yes it can!
@@RockRedGenesis I should also mention the DSi can play all DS games, iQue or not
@@WhirlwindSet9 Thanks for the quick reply
Whoa this is so interesting, great video!
It makes perfect sense for the firmware to be on the wifi module. The wifi already needs to be modular because you need different wifi chip sets for different parts of the world's wifi bands so you might as well combine it with something else.
Glad u back at it
Definitely more Windows 3.1 vibes than Windows XP. The graph paper look is also very reminiscent of Sega Master System box art.
thats neat! you come across some interesting stuff man!
I flashed the dev firmware on my own ds lite once. Was really neat to mess wirh
The little message that you said "almost certainly says 'reboot'" actually seems to say "Completed." It says "しゅうりょうしました," which some really basic machine translation tells me is that. But it also recommended translated from "終了しました," which seems like it's just that hiragana converted to Kanji where possible, but when I change it to that, the machine translation says "Ended" instead.
With the very little bit of formal education on Japanese that I have, it's pretty common to see ”します” (shimasu, to do) follow a noun to refer to doing something associated with that noun. Like "電話します” (denwa shimasu) would be to make a phonecall. So here, you have "しゅうりょう" (shuuryou, completion) with ”します” which is "do a completion" or "complete." And then you change the "-ます" (-masu, formal non-past tense inflection for verbs) to "-ました” (-mashita, formal past tense inflection for verbs) to get ”しゅうりょうしました,” (shuuryoushimashita, did a completion, or completed).
Interestingly, this prototype firmware has been on the scene for quite some time and there is a lot written about it and there are also other firmwares, how to install you just need:
- Flashcart
- DS phat or DS lite
- Screwdriver
Nintendo: only approved fun allowed
I always thought that the DS OS was stored in some flash chip in the main board. This is quite interesting tbh.
Looks like it's a combination of wifi module and the NAND flash chip makes sence, Sill removable on the switch makes programing easier
1:35 I'd rather say "Windows 3.1" 😅
BLT means backlight, and all you've done is enter a devtest kernel, this is normallt accessable with a jailbreak, most of this is baked into the DSI kernel as well as the 3ds one
"Please don't sue me"
Nintendo: "No, I don't think I will"
You just get how to make a great video!
Every day clickbait titles like this one become more and more of a potential reality
I actually got a silver DS Lite earlier this year and when I got it, it turned out to be an iQue DS Lite. Paid $30 for a ~$200 collector's item :D
They're too busy suing PalWorld
Those chips aren't only wifi "antennae", but rather have the wifi chip + wifi antenna connector on the upper side and the bios chip on the bottom, that's why it works.
With regards to the chinese market, even without the government restrictions the written chinese languages are complicated enough to warrant their own roms for that era of chip.
I don't like the clickbait titles, but if you want to make them algorithm-friendly, you could have named it something like "I Put Wi-Fi on a Nintendo DS Lite, and This Happened..." Something like that at least alludes to what happens in the video.
BLT is BACKLIGHT. Press R-trigger to toggle.
In the real menu, that's where the backlight on/off button is. As if anyone ever used it haha
The backlight toggle is actually in the bottom left corner on retail models, not the bottom right as seen in the proto
That completely amazing!
Nintendo is never happy
ln America, Nintendo can litigate for just looking at its products in an unfavourable manner.
EU is often ahead with this kind of things, still everything that happens in the US or Japan is going to hit us in some ways
Unresolved heamorroids.
0:44 Nintendo disapproved of that. Generally they disapprove of almost everything so .
I'm certain this protoype firmware came with a fat DS.
Hard to imagine they still referred to the later released DS.lite as GameBoy.
If they did that to me, then they would learn to never do it again.
I'm sure this has been said already but when those kids speak on the boot up I swear they're saying "SEGA" which is all kinds of trippy to me.
Yeah that definitely means Bacon Less Tomato
After almost 20 years, I don't think Nintendo cares.
Hey man when will you do a switch lite rebuild or restore or shell swap ir repair 😂 ?
Stepping on Lego but respect the balls you have
"Nintendo is a very litigious company" I just watched a video from a guy putting a GBC on an horizontal form factor shell. You will be fine.
They don't care about the DS anymore 😂
That screen at 7:30 said "terminated/closed" probably as in application or wireless connection closed.
I don’t understand why they even have this. The original ds already had roughly the same user interface, so why would they need a prototype one for the ds lite when that’s pretty much the same hardware in a different form factor? I don’t know but it’s still quite an amazing piece of gaming history you’ve got there Elliot!
The NDS and DS Lite have differents motherboards, but they have the same WIFI and BIOS module and they are both compatible, theres no need to make another prototype due to it costing some money.
I think BLT means backlight
erm nintendo eill sue me for this!!!!
no,they wont. Unless you sell multipul ig,then i guess so????
Outstanding!
The "GAME BOY" animation isn't even the one from the GBA-- it is just some bespoke prototype animation. How peculiar.
I wonder if people will figure out how to homebrew some FPGA or something to slap in the WiFi socket and have more control over the device....
Nintendo aren't going to give a crap about you doing this. It's like 20 year old hardware at this point. 😂
Bro they still don't want you to emulate 20 year old games😂
Dude, Nintendo has gone after people for less with older stuff
Oh I'm sorry. Didn't realise this was a dick stroking contest.
I'd reply the way I want to, but TH-cam deletes any comments that aren't all sugar and frikin rainbows.
now I want to know if booting retail ds and gba games and using download play works. Could be that the functionality is there (besides pictochat) and it‘s just missing a final GUI
Should of tried the download play would like to see how it downloads and boots those
Backlight Test (BLT)
Hello Elliot, this is Shigeru Miyamoto. I will be willing to overlook your grave transgressions and call off the Nintendo ninja-lawyers if _and only if_ you will send me a lifetime’s supply of Twixes. Not the white chocolate ones either, they suck.
so ive worked on dsi and 3ds aswell and ive seen that or simliar wifi card and now i wonder do they function similarly to the ds lite like this
All this time breaking in and out of my DS, I didn't know the whole DS nand is on the wifi module.
I don’t believe the nand is on the WiFi module, it just contains the system bios
@@RockYoMomsWorldwhat other NAND would a DSLite need, there’s nothing but the system ROM and game saves are on the cartridge!
@@SproutyPottedPlant you’re right lol idk what I was thinking. I think I was thinking of the DSi which has the nand chip on the motherboard. The ds phat and ds lite nand is 100% apart of the WiFi module. My apologies
On some devices that have Bluetooth, it is shortened to "blt" I don't know if it can help but it's the first thing I thought of
ARCHIVE THE VIDEO
Lord knows how jumpy Nintendo has been to copyright anything that mentions the name.
So when Reggie said the DS wasn't a member of the gameboy line but a side product, a "third pillar" it actually had Gameboy inside it from the beginning
? Did you not know the ds had a gba slot?
I had an iQue DS lite that I bought at a village fete for £2. It was no more interesting than my normal DS lite so I sold it on eBay.
The clickbait future
BLT means backlight. Also sleep mode doesn't work with this firmware.
Couple comments on the prototype firmware you present:
There is a user interface there that you are using, you wrongly labled it as not having such.
The kind of interface you are using is there is a TUI or Text User Interface. Its most commonly seen with Command Line programs like shell or python scripts.
You also mentioned the nitro emulator, which is not an early version of the DS. Clearly, because it is not based on the chunky DS. It is in fact running on a DS Lite. The Nitro Emulator served as a Software Development kit. A testing unit to be exact. Whoever made the Nitro emulator was also a bit silly, by the way. It is NOT an emulator, despite parading itself as such. It is an actual DS, just with its guts in an extenal box, and a whole lot of extra stuff bolted to it. Kinda gorey from a technological aspect, but it got the job done, so I cannot complain.
Also, BLT most likely stands for BackLighT.
Nintendo derangement syndrome
Its a bios chip it contains the bios. The wifi antenna plugs into it.
He doesn't have any of the Nitro modules available at the moment anyway unless you want to buy a full mianboard ;)
let's be real here, what is there to test on the DS Lite, the software is exactly the same as on the OG DS. the only major diffrence is the brightness level control. software wise it has been done on the OG one, samen GPU and CPU just a diffrent form factor,
That different form factor came with a slightly bigger battery than the OG DS, 1000mAh vs 850mAh.
I can't be the only one thinking he should have grabbed another DS and tried a game with download play to see how the prototype firmware would respond
The ique ds screen were slightly brighter than the normal ds