i've heard of chiptunes but
January 17, 2024 1:43 PM Subscribe
Warning: sharp, startling static sounds
Turns out if you crash a GBA game and wait a couple hours, it will start singing the entire content of its memory to you: Dumping the ROM of a GBA game by crashing it
Turns out if you crash a GBA game and wait a couple hours, it will start singing the entire content of its memory to you: Dumping the ROM of a GBA game by crashing it
This is so weird and interesting, though I felt rather old at the "childhood DS" part.
The use of the 3.5mm jack on the DS reminded me of recording KORG DS-10 compositions straight from my DS Lite into a PC. Never thought it could be used for GBA ROM dumping.
posted by May Kasahara at 2:44 PM on January 17 [3 favorites]
The use of the 3.5mm jack on the DS reminded me of recording KORG DS-10 compositions straight from my DS Lite into a PC. Never thought it could be used for GBA ROM dumping.
posted by May Kasahara at 2:44 PM on January 17 [3 favorites]
Aaah! I'm subscribed to this channel but have been busy this week, I would have found it first if it weren't for that! (shouting) "Coooor-teeeex!!"
posted by JHarris at 2:48 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 2:48 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
This content is relevant to my interests. (I really want the follow-up video they tease at the end.)
posted by phooky at 2:56 PM on January 17
posted by phooky at 2:56 PM on January 17
The bit from ~1:08-1:20 could be part of a Tex Avery cartoon.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:08 PM on January 17
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:08 PM on January 17
If you dump the ROM of a chinese counterfeit, do the crimes involved cancel out?
posted by pwnguin at 3:09 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]
posted by pwnguin at 3:09 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]
There is absolutely nothing criminal about dumping the ROM of a product you own. It's fun and easy! I have written in the past about the joy of dumping.
posted by phooky at 3:21 PM on January 17 [4 favorites]
posted by phooky at 3:21 PM on January 17 [4 favorites]
Hah, this is fascinating!! I love that you can get it clean out of an actual DS too! With some tweaks and a jerry-rigged adapter, of course.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:41 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:41 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: I have written in the past about the joy of dumping.
posted by potent_cyprus at 4:34 PM on January 17 [7 favorites]
posted by potent_cyprus at 4:34 PM on January 17 [7 favorites]
Given that it’s cortex, should the title be “I’ve heard of chiptune butts, LOL?”
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 PM on January 17
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 PM on January 17
The first Apple ][ I owned we saved/loaded our programs to cassette tape using any old cassette recorder and (extremely low quality/years-old) cassette tapes we happened to have kicking around the house.
Saving then restoring the program you had spent multiple hours creating/testing/refining was always an extremely fraught event - with a high chance of permanent failure and no real way of checking that your save worked properly, other than re-loading from the tape - which would overwrite everything in memory.
Anyway, the process reminds me a lot of this. You're just converting the contents of memory to sound, then processing the sound to recover the bits. And when it works, it works!
Of course, all of our recorded media (floppy disks, hard drives, optical disks etc) and transmission methods (fax, modem, DSL, network cables but also fiber optic cables etc) work in the same general way, in that there is some kind of a waveform being transmitted at some kind of a frequency and so it is always possible in some way or other to convert those into audible waveforms - and then also (theoretically, at least) possible to convert the waveform back to retrieve the original data.
But it is a little more obvious that it is so when the process of saving your data is recording it on a very low-fi audio device like so.
posted by flug at 6:50 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
Saving then restoring the program you had spent multiple hours creating/testing/refining was always an extremely fraught event - with a high chance of permanent failure and no real way of checking that your save worked properly, other than re-loading from the tape - which would overwrite everything in memory.
Anyway, the process reminds me a lot of this. You're just converting the contents of memory to sound, then processing the sound to recover the bits. And when it works, it works!
Of course, all of our recorded media (floppy disks, hard drives, optical disks etc) and transmission methods (fax, modem, DSL, network cables but also fiber optic cables etc) work in the same general way, in that there is some kind of a waveform being transmitted at some kind of a frequency and so it is always possible in some way or other to convert those into audible waveforms - and then also (theoretically, at least) possible to convert the waveform back to retrieve the original data.
But it is a little more obvious that it is so when the process of saving your data is recording it on a very low-fi audio device like so.
posted by flug at 6:50 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
flug, you'll be pleased to know that sound-to-data on the Apple ][ is alive and well -- you can transfer, decompress, and write an entire floppy disk via tape input at speeds up to 9600 bps. In fact, this is one of the few ways to get data into an 8-bit system from a modern device (until 3.5mm headphone jacks started disappearing, alas...)
But that's a relatively well-defined process compared to this GBA hack. That a device with a fancy ARM chip freaks out in such a '80s fashion is one thing, but the reengineered Chinese bootleg cartridges is another level of cyberpunk.
posted by credulous at 7:37 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
But that's a relatively well-defined process compared to this GBA hack. That a device with a fancy ARM chip freaks out in such a '80s fashion is one thing, but the reengineered Chinese bootleg cartridges is another level of cyberpunk.
posted by credulous at 7:37 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]
catting weird ROMs to /dev/audio
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:16 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:16 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]
I watched the whole thing, I have no idea what happened, but I'm am so here for it.
posted by slogger at 8:08 AM on January 18
posted by slogger at 8:08 AM on January 18
polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice you didn't have to Wayback-ify that link, for Everything2 survives on this day, January 8th 2024!
posted by JHarris at 9:38 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 9:38 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:46 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Aaaah wow. But thanks for remember poor li'l ancient E2!
posted by JHarris at 9:54 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 9:54 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
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posted by Artw at 2:44 PM on January 17 [16 favorites]