Hacking Why hasn't homebrew been released much?

[Gurjas]

Software Development Kit

On a very basic (and exaggerated somewhat in both directions) level, it allows a programmer to use a piece of code that says something like "draw this picture at this point of the screen", as opposed to having to know the memory structure of the 3DS and write "00111010111011100011100111110101000100100111100001010101110...."

Thank you so its basically Binary?

A tool to develop homebrew.

Thank You

 

[Kupie]

I guess the general consensus is this:

The 3DS public SDK hasn't been developed enough, and there really hasn't been enough homebrew itself. We'll have to wait until the future from now until someone can come up with something later, even if it's later than 6.3 3DS Firmware.

Really, there hasn't been progress in this regards. Thanks for the answers, everyone!

 

[DarkKnigh_t]

its funny it seams like the 3ds is powerful enough to run some great apps. i dont understand why nintendo didnt make the browser a bit better and why we cant view youtube. maybe having flash support would make it more prone to be hacked i dont know but my opinion is that as soon as our hero and saviour hacks the 3ds we will have loads of homebrew as nintendo drops the 3ds prices and good games start coming out like pokemon and others we are more likely to see someone hacking the 3ds.

 

[Ennea]

A tool to develop homebrew.

Perfect "I don't know shit" answer. I think you won.

 

[smealum]

Alright, so I'm just wondering... we have a pretty cheap 3D-capable device, but homebrew hasn't been released for it. At all.

Do you think 3D is just a gimmick? I guess if users (and hackers alike) feel it's not worth it, then we wouldn't be seeing homebrew for this console. We've seen many homebrew apps for the DS (I remember sitting there, late at night sneaking in some IRC on my homebrew'd DS, and it was the bomb!)

Also, lately we have smartphones which can do everything we want. What can we, as users, show to homebrew devs that the 3DS deserves some attention?

I'm asking this not even at the 3DS level. We have the PS3, the Xbox 360, and the Wii out... but even then, there's not much homebrew. It's mostly about piracy and stealing games.

I feel we have some ideas missing. There's something missing from our own ideas, and that's...what can we do with an 'unlocked' system? We have android phones, we have iPhones... they're hacked all the time. We can already emulate DS games on any Android phone.

I guess my final question is: What do you think homebrew for 3DS can separate itself from a Smartphone? It has 3D capabilities, sure. But what can *truly* make it different from just buying an Android Phone for cheaper?

We beg for Homebrew. We want "more" hacking of this system. But what can it deliver? All ideas welcome.

Thanks for your neuron-electric thought patterns.

main reason would be that nothing's really been released yet. sure there's flashcart stuff that uses an exploit to run unsigned code, but it's not usable for anything other than piracy (yet, and for the vast majority of users anyway). IMO what we need is a nice way to allow anyone to run homebrew. unfortunately it's not as simple as just releasing whatever we've got in its current form. sure, it would work, there are tons of talented people out there who could make use of it and come up with a nice homebrew loader in a matter of days I'm sure. however considering how completely we control what runs on the 3DS it's almost a certainty that a warez loader would follow shortly thereafter. I speak only for myself when I say this but I don't want to be part of allowing mass piracy on the 3DS. that's why what I release will have to somehow prevent this, and so putting it together is going to take some time.
let's also not forget that GW claimed to be working on allowing homebrew a while back. not sure if/when they'll make that happen, but seeing how clones are sprouting up I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to get something out the door as soon as possible.
either way, whoever ends up releasing a homebrew loader, I'm sure once it does happen there will be people joining the documentation effort and we'll see the start of a nice little homebrew scene.

 

[Duo8]

Thank you so its basically Binary?

Without an SDK you'll have to write programs in binary like that

its funny it seams like the 3ds is powerful enough to run some great apps. i dont understand why nintendo didnt make the browser a bit better and why we cant view youtube. maybe having flash support would make it more prone to be hacked i dont know but my opinion is that as soon as our hero and saviour hacks the 3ds we will have loads of homebrew as nintendo drops the 3ds prices and good games start coming out like pokemon and others we are more likely to see someone hacking the 3ds.

The browser's sandboxed, so having flash won't make any difference. No flash support is because of the weak hardware (it could barely render gbatemp properly).

 

[enarky]

[...] Beyond that it is hard to convey just how devastating the rise of idevices (and now android) was on the homebrew scenes for the DS and PSP. [...]

That's the main problem, IMO. Smartphones and tablets offer everything you need as a developer on a silver plate, professional SDKs are available, every little detail is documented and when you have a problem you don't run into a wall, but you have dedicated communities (notice the plural) of thousands of people that have dissected every detail of your plattform of choice and an answer usually is just a question and a couple of hours away. These devices just weren't available as plentiful and as cheap when homebrew on GBC/GBA/DS was in its prime.

To be completely honest, the only thing I'm missing on the 3DS is a Virtual Boy Emulator, as that's hard to emulate on another system. For everything else I'd rather use a smartphone or a tablet.

 

[FAST6191]

The potential of the 3DSXL seems to be limited, much attributed to Nintendo's part. Not sure if hardware is the limitation, but I thought the Internet Browser could have rendered more things than just spew out text.

From what I heard this is more due to security (the setup seriously hampers their ability to do javascript at any good speed and that cripples most modern websites) than hardware limitations.

[sdks what are they]

SDK = software development kit as others said.
We can do a quick thought exercise for the DS or something.
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm
It lists pretty much every quirk of the hardware, the memory mappings for it all (if they have any) and how it all comes together. The 3DS actually lacks something like this right now though you can figure it out through various means, it is a nightmare but you can do it (back on the DS there was actually a bounty on getting the wifi decoded and working-- http://web.archive.org/web/20090214054931/http://sc.tri-bit.com/DS_Wi-fi_Bounty ).

However if you lacked something like devkitpro you would have to learn all the hardware and write to code to twiddle the various bits/registers and deal with the memory mapping. You do not need to do it in binary/machine code or even assembly as you can write your own libraries, compilers and more. However most modern coders are not taught this at all (give or take maybe a few classes that mention so it is not completely alien if they do encounter it), most modern languages for programming do all that and much more besides (and for a lot of people that would be like saying "you can not use adjectives unless you build the concept up" would be if you switched the examples to human languages) and nobody really likes doing the former if they intend to write their own high level program, they might otherwise enjoy the challenge but it is really not a productive way of setting about making code.
Traditionally there is also something of a divide between said low level coders and those that make things the average pleb would call impressive, for a nice example of the latter see many of the responses to Smea's hacked firmware picture where people were seemingly unaware it represented the keys to the kingdom/total control. See also things like if you develop a website for someone they might say something about the background colour which if you have made the site properly you (or possibly even they) can change it in a few seconds.

 

[Duo8]

That's the main problem, IMO. Smartphones and tablets offer everything you need as a developer on a silver plate, professional SDKs are available, every little detail is documented and when you have a problem you don't run into a wall, but you have dedicated communities (notice the plural) of thousands of people that have dissected every detail of your plattform of choice and an answer usually is just a question and a couple of hours away. These devices just weren't available as plentiful and as cheap when homebrew on GBC/GBA/DS was in its prime.

To be completely honest, the only thing I'm missing on the 3DS is a Virtual Boy Emulator, as that's hard to emulate on another system. For everything else I'd rather use a smartphone or a tablet.

Well, I had lots of fun hacking systems.
While I could just turn to my PC. I actually prefer doing it on my DS.

 

[TheDreamLord]

Alright, so I'm just wondering... we have a pretty cheap 3D-capable device, but homebrew hasn't been released for it. At all.

Do you think 3D is just a gimmick? I guess if users (and hackers alike) feel it's not worth it, then we wouldn't be seeing homebrew for this console. We've seen many homebrew apps for the DS (I remember sitting there, late at night sneaking in some IRC on my homebrew'd DS, and it was the bomb!)

What IRC program did you use? I did, and still do the same I used CLIRC.

As for the rest, I believe it's for three reasons ;

1) The fact that the PS3 and the 3DS need a certain firmware. The PS3 needed 3.55 and the 3DS needs (atleast for the moment) 4.5.

2) The system is BARELY open. Developers are only now figuring out drivers, how the system works and communicates with other parts etc.

3) Phones are something nearly everyone has, and it's not hard to root/jailbreak. As well as that, most people with a console/handheld are interested in hacking their device.

It'll take time, but you will see homebrew, and probably still won't be a hell of a lot.

 

[Subtle Demise]

main reason would be that nothing's really been released yet. sure there's flashcart stuff that uses an exploit to run unsigned code, but it's not usable for anything other than piracy (yet, and for the vast majority of users anyway). IMO what we need is a nice way to allow anyone to run homebrew. unfortunately it's not as simple as just releasing whatever we've got in its current form. sure, it would work, there are tons of talented people out there who could make use of it and come up with a nice homebrew loader in a matter of days I'm sure. however considering how completely we control what runs on the 3DS it's almost a certainty that a warez loader would follow shortly thereafter. I speak only for myself when I say this but I don't want to be part of allowing mass piracy on the 3DS. that's why what I release will have to somehow prevent this, and so putting it together is going to take some time.

I don't understand the logic of cracking a device just to put more AP on it. Besides, game consoles are a dying breed anyway, might as well put them out of their misery.

 

[smealum]

I don't understand the logic of cracking a device just to put more AP on it. Besides, game consoles are a dying breed anyway, might as well put them out of their misery.

that's actually something I struggle with myself. seems extremely hypocritical doesn't it ? but as I said, I do *not* want to be responsible for piracy/online cheating, so I guess if I want to release anything I don't have much of a choice.
it's not really AP though, it would just be giving homebrew makers the same level of access regular 3DS developers have, which should be enough for any kind of game/app. of course it sucks that it wouldn't allow for modifying the custom firmware itself, but again, I don't want to be responsible for illegal conduct.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I don't understand the logic of cracking a device just to put more AP on it.

Because many homebrew developers have a set of morals, and don't like their work being used so cheap bastards can commit criminal offenses.

People who think the whole point of homebrew is for piracy give developers a bad name.

 

[IronClouds]

Because many homebrew developers have a set of morals, and don't like their work being used so cheap bastards can commit criminal offenses.

People who think the whole point of homebrew is for piracy give developers a bad name.

That's a little harsh to criticize and demean pirates over the choices they made, but you are entitled to your own opinion like everyone else is. I disagree with your views though.

 

[JoostinOnline]

That's a little harsh to criticize and demean pirates over the choices they made, but you are entitled to your own opinion like everyone else is. I disagree with your views though.

How dare I cast a negative image upon criminals who abuse the work of developers.

 

[FAST6191]

To be fair a criminal offence is actually a legal term and most software piracy, if indeed it is (and a lot of the time it is), would probably be a civil offence instead.

As for the matter at hand I figure your code/hack then you get to choose how suggest (including suggesting with force of code) how it runs. To that end "meh, your choice" is my response to said homebrew devs and I certainly would not find myself half as annoyed as many of the people in that why add AP to the GC loader program for the Wii thread seem to find themselves, indeed I can not think of a valid reason for it. About the only time I would even note it is if the dev decided it was wrong for someone else to reverse engineer the code and reimplement it in another program.

As for why I figure many a homebrew dev or even open source dev (software or hardware) is a dev back in the real world or at least knows the game and might not wish to help deprive those in their field of whatever. Personally I do not care either way though I am happy enough to play along with the "do not mess up online" rules (informal or codified) of a hacking community and will tend to avoid straight up ruining someone's day (it is boring, frequently quite easy and has been done many times before).

 

[Vappy]

that's actually something I struggle with myself. seems extremely hypocritical doesn't it ? but as I said, I do *not* want to be responsible for piracy/online cheating, so I guess if I want to release anything I don't have much of a choice.
it's not really AP though, it would just be giving homebrew makers the same level of access regular 3DS developers have, which should be enough for any kind of game/app. of course it sucks that it wouldn't allow for modifying the custom firmware itself, but again, I don't want to be responsible for illegal conduct.

I appreciate your point of view on the matter, and moral/ethical/legal implications aside it's your work and entirely your choice to do what you want with it. The only counter I'd offer is that, regardless of your choice, piracy on the 3DS is available either way. Only difference is that with flashcarts, that's people profiting from piracy which, in my opinion, is far worse a situation than one where piracy is free and at least there's no money changing hands. For what it's worth, I've got no personal stake in it either way, bought almost all my games legitimately, got gateway for the occasional region unlocking. I just think it's a shame you having to restrict your eventual release and, I'd imagine, go through a fair amount of work to do so.

Maybe tueidj will share his antipiracy magicks for some software to dump carts to SD cards ;P

 

[JoostinOnline]

Well I only release utilities because they generally can't be used for piracy.

 

[IronClouds]

How dare I cast a negative image upon criminals who abuse the work of developers.

I see. Well alright then, I see being civil in an attempt to have a healthy debate is not something that you are willing/able to do. That's fine, I'll end it right there. Carry on.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I see. Well alright then, I see being civil in an attempt to have a healthy debate is not something that you are willing/able to do. That's fine, I'll end it right there. Carry on.

There was nothing uncivil about that. I answered the question as a developer.