nintendo ds gba link port

[phreak97]

in a minute, im going to look inside my gba sp and my nintendo ds, and see if anything connected to the sp link port exists inside the ds.
i would be greatful for any info on whether or not it is possible to add a link port.

damnit, i want to use my ds to control tingle:P

EDIT: UUGHH.. im about to start desoldering the card slot.. it's soldered in over the top of the cpu's.. i may regret this :S

uuhh.. wheres the arm7??

[phreak97]

well.. my conclusion is: fuck
the "CPU NTR" chip must contain both the arm7 and arm9, it has all it's pins underneath, there are 36 around the outer edge (i think) (still underneath) and it goes more than 1 pin deep (i thought 3 but im not sure) as far as i could tell judging from the fucking tiny vias underneath, so ALOT of pins.. the link pins on an sp's arm7 are pins 47, 48, 49 and 50.. if those pins are on the ntr cpu, im not going to find them.. especially if they dont have test points attatched to them.

/me leaves the cpu ntr to the experts.

edit: at least they used recycled plastic for the cart slot

[Aidan]

It's called BGA - Ball Grid Array. Instead of putting a bunch of pins on the bottom, there is a matrix of solder balls. They're a pain to do rework on, but it saves a socket on a board. The pins are labelled with a letter and a number, like A1, or B9. This allows the matrix of pins to be clearly laballed, but finding which pin is which is still a pain.

I'm not sure why you're assuming there would be an SP style link port on the device, given that it's not just a re-work of an existing design? It requires more than just hardware for the link port to work!

[phreak97]

the gba bios has not been reworked at all, you can still put it into multiboot mode with a game in by pressing select and start at once. multiboot is when you boot via the link port.

[HellioN]

the gba bios has not been reworked at all, you can still put it into multiboot mode with a game in by pressing select and start at once. multiboot is when you boot via the link port.

Don't mean to Hi-Jack but can you give me A link with more info on this multi booting?

[phreak97]

i tried google, but only came up with a bunch of flash linker pages.. you can try yourself if yu like.

basically, the gba has a built-in boot algorithm for loading code via the link port into external WRAM (256k bytes) and then executing this code (external wram is inside the gba, not external)

what i have been wondering about, is some multiboot application or something to let the gba be used as a game controller by a pc via a cable made for the purpose.

[camuX]

the EZFA kit's cable also supports multiboot straight from the rom flashing program.  these are going pretty cheap lately and it has all the stuff you need, but be careful because some of the cables are very fragile.  i havent broken one personally, but i'd really really hate for it to happen.  

multiboot sends a program/instruction to the GBA that exists solely in RAM.  like how PocketNES works in 2 player mode, and how other games work in single pak multiplayer.  i think for normal multiboot files have a limit of 256 kilobytes (correct me if i'm wrong) and for PocketNES it can only single pak multiplay games smaller than 190 kilobytes.  this memory is very useful if you are a developer or just want to try small stuff without a flash card.

[Guest]

I've got an EZFA 256mbits and there's a little program - designed for the EZFA - that can make the GBASP a truly working gamepad for PC. It's name is "EZFA Keyboard Emulator". You can download it on the french site where I've purchased my EZFA: afdac.org

***sorry for my poor english, I'm french as you'll probably noticed