Lik-Sang Back Online 169
Alexander Burke writes "Lik-Sang appears to be back online (until we slashdot them). However, their selection of PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Xbox "backup and import" (pronounced modchip) items seem somewhat lacking. Coincidence? Surely not..." This previous posting should provide some good background reading if you've not been following this episode.
dupe.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:dupe.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:dupe.. (Score:1)
Re:dupe.. (Score:2)
maybe they're just duping this because they want more links to places that still sell modchips.
Re:dupe.. (Score:2)
gamegizmo.com (Score:4, Informative)
Unofficial GBA dev tools (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, tools like that will always find their way. Unfortunately also the site of the company that makes them [visoly.com] is either hacked or taken down. Anyone know which?
Jouni
Lik Sang still has MBV2; Game Gizmo has GBA flash (Score:5, Informative)
In the GBA Develop and Backup [lik-sang.com] category, Lik Sang still has the MBV2 cable.
If you want flash memory cartridges and writers for GBA, CDworld [cdworld.co.uk] and Game Gizmo [gamegizmo.com] still have them.
Success has them as well (Score:2, Informative)
After a bit more searching, I found a GBA compatible 64 Mbit flash cartridge [success-hk.com] with a linker for only $50 + S&H at Success Compu.
It's piracy.. that's why.. Explanation....... (Score:1, Insightful)
When you make unlicensed software (Ie. your own homebrew games - Without paying Nintendo $$ to license/release it) you are bypassing any profit that NINTENDO is supposed to be making off the game. Now, if they let everyone make their games for free, or run emulators etc.. Who would actually BUY the games in the stores? Well, a lot of people would, but a LOT of people would also just buy a GBA and play nothing but homebrew games and emulators and linux stuff that people developed for it, and this is where Nintendo loses money, they DEPEND of people who buy a GBA to BUY licensed and legit software because that is where they make their money. Right now MicroSoft is losing hundreds of millions because of people jhust buying the console and modding it to just use Linux and copy games. They need people to buy nearly a dozen games off the shelf to break even on the cost they spent to give you the XBOx that cheap - but the people who are fanatical are killing the consoles by modding and skipping the storebought software. It happened to the Dreamcast, it's happening to the XBox, and Nintendo doesnt want it to happen to their GBA.
If you're REALLY serious about devloping on a GBA, or any other console, you NEED to get licensed to do it, or join a company who already is. Otherwise you're literally hurting the company that you like so much.
Catch 22? (Score:2)
If you're REALLY serious about devloping on a GBA, or any other console, you NEED to get licensed to do it, or join a company who already is.
Under the no-homebrew-allowed-not-even-non-commercially scenario that some posters in this discussion have postulated, I have to be with a licensed publisher to get GBA experience, but even with a B.S. in computer science (due in May 2003), I apparently need experience to get a job with a licensed publisher. Where do I start?
May have been trolled but (Score:1)
YHBT
No, I'm serious. How does a fellow "legitimately" go from PC software development to console software development?
Re:It's piracy.. that's why.. Explanation....... (Score:1)
If the manufacturers choose to dump the hardware at below their cost to boost their market share, or for whatever reason they have in mind, that is their business. (Unless it is illegal dumping. I'm not exactly clear on when selling below cost to enter a market is ok and when it is illegal.) In any case, after you legally own the product, you can do anything you want with it, burn it, hack it to pieces with an ax, or even write your own games to run on your own hardware. You are not obligated in any way to buy more games.
If the manufacturers don't want to lose money, it is easy for them. Just remember to sell above cost!
Re:It's piracy.. that's why.. Explanation....... (Score:1)
anyway i don't know of anyone selling games they wrote for the gba, weell i don't know of any homebrew games for sale so if they're not being profited on then why pay for the licence. sure it does hurt nintendo if that's all you do but i find it unlikly that many people are only playing homebrew games.
as for joining a company, you can't just get a job with a company justy becease you want to try making a game for gba, you'll be bound by a contract (what about your old job) and you're not even guaranteed they'll hire you.
and at the price a flash cartrage is i don't think there will be that much of a black market with them.
Re:It's piracy.. that's why.. Explanation....... (Score:2)
Yeah, the Dreamcast died because of the homebrew community. [rollseyes]
And the GBA could potentially fail due to, at most, a few thousand people out of millions not buying games for it.
You're destroying the platform... (Score:1)
Re:You're destroying the platform... (Score:1)
Re:Unofficial GBA dev tools (Score:1)
- 320x240 screen (dumb framebuffer, no gfx hardware)
- 66-133Mhz ARM9 (with cache)
- 8mb RAM (16 bit wide, though, quite slow)
- Takes Smartmedia cards
- Fairly open platform for development, despite some (flawed) DRM for official game releases
The console is more expensive than a GBA, but a GP32+128MByte SMC card will cost less than a GBA+Flash cart kit
There's a pretty good port of Doom to it, but it's quite lacking in other software. But could handle some nice 3D stuff, or emulators, with a bit of careful ARM coding
taken down, definitly taken down (Score:1)
What the? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the? (Score:2)
Slashdot, the world's best-disguised DDOS mechanism.
Re:What the? (Score:1)
Then: "Lik-Sang Back Online, Minus Modchips"
Today: "Lik-Sang Back Online"
Eh (Score:5, Informative)
There are some good homebrew apps coming out too. The XBox Media Player is very nice. You can stream VCD/SVCD/DIVX/MPEG to your TV. It works VERY well.
Re:THIS IS NOT A FLAME! (Score:1)
Re:THIS IS NOT A FLAME! (Score:1)
You lose by default (Score:1)
And since when is reverse engineering illegal, if I may ask?
Since you were born without money. A console maker can sue you for anything, and if you don't have the money to show up in court and defend yourself, you lose by default.
Re:Eh (Score:3, Interesting)
Care to prove otherwise?
Everyone should keep in mind that these accusations are being made by "the project from hell" [linuxworld.com]
Re:Um, they've been back online for a while now... (Score:2)
All Hail the Great M$ (Score:1, Funny)
Re:All Hail the Great M$ (Score:2)
Re:All Hail the Great M$ (Score:2)
Re:All Hail the Great M$ (Score:1, Insightful)
The borg at work (Score:2, Interesting)
The borg's marketing machine is in motion. (Like that should be news to anyone.)
What TV can you purchase now adays which is not "XBox Ready"? I wonder how much cash MS pushed their way to get that label. I would not even consider buying the unit just due to that.
The TV was on and endcap no less.
-Pete
Re:The borg at work (Score:1)
Xbox incompatibility (Score:5, Informative)
What TV can you purchase now adays which is not "XBox Ready"?
How about a TV that pukes when it sees the 524-line (as opposed to 525-line) image that many consoles output?
How about a TV that reacts poorly to Macrovision encoded signal?
How about a TV with only RF input as opposed to composite video input (yeah, I still see those)?
How about a TV that cuts too much off the sides and corners of the image?
Any of those four might introduce a compatibility problem between a game console and a television set.
Re:Xbox incompatibility (Score:1)
Huh ? There's no such thing. Your TV doesn't care what the resolution of the input is, as long as the Horizontal and Vertical frequencies are correct. (60Hz Vertical, and I forget the Horizontal)
How about a TV that reacts poorly to Macrovision encoded signal?
Um, games consoles don't output Macrovision when they're playing games ! In any case - such a TV also wouldn't work with a VCR/DVD/etc.
How about a TV with only RF input as opposed to composite video input (yeah, I still see those)?
How about a TV that cuts too much off the sides and corners of the image?
Ridiculous. If you can't afford a decent TV, then you sure as hell can't afford a $200 Games Console, with $40 each games !!
Re:Xbox incompatibility (Score:1)
Your TV doesn't care what the resolution of the input is, as long as the Horizontal and Vertical frequencies are correct.
And for some consoles, especially those produced before the Dreamcast that run in low resolution, the video frequencies are off by a bit.
Um, games consoles don't output Macrovision when they're playing games !
I'll admit that was a bit of a red herring, but the Xbox with the DVD kit installed does output Macrovision when playing a DVD movie with the Macrovision bit set.
If you can't afford a decent TV, then you sure as hell can't afford a $200 Games Console, with $40 each games !!
Tell that to my folks, who initially let me use my NES only on an old throwaway black-and-white TV. Back then, I was 9 years old, and I couldn't even afford the NES (it was a Christmas present).
Re:The borg at work (Score:1)
It's just a normal TV with a special x-box input on it. Since my friend has all the major game systems, he thought it would be nice to have the extra port.
But, it turns out, it wasn't a good choice. The TV had a strange hum... he had the service guys out twice to fix it, but no luck so he wound up returning it.
--ST
Re:The borg at work (Score:2)
Since Thomson/RCA (NOT Microsoft - they just provide the $$ and advertising) is actually the one that designed and manufactures the XBox, this is perfectly fine IMHO. A good selling point for their TVs for less-than-educated people that want to hook up an XBox.
Re:The borg at work (NO!) (Score:1)
Damn (Score:2)
I knew RCA and MS were "like this" [makes appropriate finger motion] but looks like I was wrong. Hmmph.
Re:The borg at work (Score:1)
-br0ken
TOO easy (Score:3, Funny)
If that's common enough any enterprising consol maker can FUD "Our games run on ALLTVs. Even the ones that are X Box ready"
Leave an image of "If you want to use X Box you gotta buy a brand new tv or use ours on your exsisting perficly good 50 inch wide screen"
Re:The borg at work (Score:1, Troll)
Just for a moment, for a single solitary fucking second, remove your head from your rectum and think. How the fuck is The Evil Empire supposed to force RCA to plaster 'XBox' on a TV?
C'mon fucktard, enlighten us. Please.
Lik Sang is still viable (Score:5, Informative)
Homebrew? (Score:1)
now you can't run illegally copied games, boo hoo.
Would you consider homebrew software [gbadev.org] to constitute an "illegally copied game"?
If each copy isn't licensed fron Nintendo. YES. (Score:1)
Becoming licensed, Sega v. Accolade, and resumes (Score:1)
Everything that comes out needs to have money exchange hands.
Even if I'm willing to pay Nintendo to manufacture my carts, where do I sign up?
Any game you write yourself needs to be licensed through Nintendo/SOny/Whoever.
What law? What court precedent? A simple header check like the one in the GBA is Sega v. Accolade [virtualrecordings.com], judgment for the independent publisher.
If they allowed people to just simply write their own software for a hobby, the software library would grow so huge no one would bother buying any games in the stores, and Nintendo would go out of business.
Microsoft allows people to just simply write their own Windows applications for a hobby. People still buy Warcraft 3 and MOHAA in the stores. Does Microsoft go out of business?
Besides, if Nintendo requires all developers to work with licensed publishers, then how is a developer supposed to train himself or herself and get the critical "GBA experience" that publishers require on a résumé?
I'm sorry. I love Nintendo and all, but there's no constitutional right to a business model.
Illegal games? (Score:2)
Stealing the devkit to make your own games is illegal too.
So why should making your own devkit be illegal?
Of course, there are other ways to deem a game illegal.
I know of only a few, such as using somebody else's copyrighted cartoon character, using somebody else's copyrighted music, using somebody else's copyrighted story, etc.
Re:Illegal games? (Score:1)
(short answer: DMCA)
(not in Canada)
(untested in a court of constitutional law)
(the DMCA is concerned only with effective access controls around a copyrighted work, and the Game Boy Advance doesn't have those)
Sega v. Accolade and Newlib (Score:1)
By encoding the libraries into non-human readable code, Nintendo has effectively created an "access control".
The only thing required to get a GBA game to boot is a valid header, and reproducing that is fair use under Sega v. Accolade. From there, most homebrew GBA games just use newlib [redhat.com] (a Red Hat libc under BSD style license) or something.
effective? (Score:1)
What was once legal is now illegal.
But how can you prove that a simple checksum constitutes "effective access control" that the DMCA requires to kick in the ban?
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
From one point of view yes. From another point of view I must now seek out a supplier to provide me with equipment to play games I have legitimately purchased overseas. In Australia this practice enjoys legal protection and is a way to curb corporations natural instinct to try and charge as much for a product as any particular market will bear.
Providing themselves with protection against piracy is a legitimate cause for a software company, I just dislike the way the cause can also be used to render useless certain 'inconvenient' liberties that get in the way of maximising profits...
Re:Oh no (Score:1)
if you make a backup of one of your games so that you don't damage the original and if it breaks you can still play it, is that illegal.
beceause the way i understand it it's illegal to distribute copys but not to create them or possess them if you posses (legally) the origianl.
i'm not sure about this so can somone let me know what the law is reguarding this
Sigh... (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft send a letter of support, and was one of the official plantiffs, but did not originally bring the case.
Yet Slashdot still picks the MS-Borg icon for the story. How transparently bias.
Why under Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand Microsoft bashing, but this is pure lie. Next time, maybe it will turn out to be only Sony. The story changes every time.
Because MicroSoft sucks.. Sony / Nintendo is cool! (Score:1)
Re:Why under Microsoft (Score:1)
as a whole it's all of their faults but when looking for someone to complain about most people here hate microsoft and they started it so they're the easy ones to complain about.
Something I should have added (Score:3, Informative)
Oh well, here it is...
does this mean (Score:1)
Nintendo (Score:1)
Re:Nintendo (Score:1)
Ummm... yeah... (Score:1, Redundant)
And THIS previous posting [slashdot.org] should tell you that slashdot likes to post duplicate stories if you're new here.
Dupe - Not (Score:3, Interesting)
seems to be handling the traffic well (Score:1)
Flash advance (Score:1)
Last Post! (Score:1)
whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits
LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Handheld? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to run Linux on an Xbox, build a $200 PC and you get better.
Do I get NTSC TV output for that price? A 25" TV is cheap; a 25" computer display is way out of my price range.
And what if I want to write software to run on a $70 handheld device? No Palm device has the graphics power or battery life of a Game Boy Advance system.
Re:Handheld? (Score:1)
Yes. It's not very hard to get VGA to NTSC anymore. Most cards, even the cheapy ones support it.
Question is: would you really want to run it on a TV? The answer is no. TV (NTSC) is not useful for your every day computing needs. Mainly because text would have to be rather large to be readabl.
I have a very particular use for an NTSC feature, though: VGA -- NTSC is crap. However, if soembody'd write a DivX player that plays back DivX
Why? I have a PVR built from an old PC running Snapstream. Shows are captured to MS Media Player. (I have the option to use DivX or other codecs in
In any case, I don't think cracking the XBOX is that useful. Until somebody puts it to a really compelling use to it, it's going to be hard to shake the opinion that it's just a matter of playing burned games.
Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:1)
It's not very hard to get VGA to NTSC anymore. Most cards, even the cheapy ones support it.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to pick which video card to put in my Dell computer two years ago. What inexpensive video card do you recommend as an upgrade from an NVIDIA TNT2?
would you really want to run it on a TV? The answer is no.
Would you really want four players to crowd around a 17 inch VGA display? The answer in my circle of friends is no.
TV (NTSC) is not useful for your every day computing needs. Mainly because text would have to be rather large to be [readable].
Which is why games designed to run on TVs have big 20-point text.
Re:Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:2)
Are you asking because you want a better card, or is that in relation to my comment about VGA to NTSC? You got a price range? $150 got me a Geforce 4MX with dual monitor outs. I don't remember if it does SVideo out or not. Is that what you're looking for?
Re:Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:1)
Re:Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:1)
Re:Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:2)
But does that video card also include a DVD drive, component out, digital 5.1 out?
Can I play Xbox games on it?
Re:Console-style multiplayer on PC? (Score:2)
"Can I play Xbox games on it?"
Heh. And why do you need to hack an XBOX to do all that?
$300 vs. $500 (Score:1)
And why do you need to hack an XBOX to do all that?
To save $200.
A $200 Xbox, a $90 modchip, and a $10 copy of Linux costs $300.
A $200 Xbox, a $200 PC, a $10 copy of Linux, and a $90 VGA to TV converter costs $500.
You're avoiding my question.. (Score:2)
Unless you can answer that, you don't really have a point, because the Xbox does provide all that for that price.
Re:You're avoiding my question.. (Score:2)
And what a toy it is! (Score:2)
Re:And what a toy it is! (Score:2)
Re:Handheld? (Score:2)
A 25" TV sucks compared to even a 17" monitor. Your 25" TV gets 320x240 resolution only (unless you've got some high res digital screen, and the xbox as well as linux/xfree86 support the resolution).
Re:Retards (Score:1)
i know it's still illegal but most of my games are legal it's just games that are fun for a few months and then i get sick of them then i won't pay for them.
so while i do commit piracy (and only a small portion of my games are illegal) i at least have some ethics involved, and the companys don't lose any mony they wouldn't have made.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Dear michael and timothy,
It seems that you've done very good jobs here. Here are big buckets of money you deserved.
Keep up the good work, honey.
Best Rgds,
B.Gates.
Re:Repeat (Score:1)
Re:News for Felons. Stuff that's illegal. (Score:2)
Why? Because I think rather than blindly obey.