The Real GC Scene Speaks Out Concerning ViperGC

[<G>]

Apparently the recently announced gamecube modchip has stirred some controversy due to its development. Many sources have complained that this is not much more than a rip of tmbinc's original hardware work. Now tmbinc has spoken out concering some new development coming out before the end of the year, in effect disclosing all information on how to make your own viper-like hardware in order to keep commercial proliferation of the scene away.

From all of the staff at psx-scene.com we want to publically say we are fully behind the work of tmbinc and those that contribute to the GC scene with no commercial aspirations.

You can read the entire thread concerning the ViperGc and tmbinc's work Here

we have also added some links to dextrose forums and gcdev into our gamecube section.

[The 1]

I've also spoken out against this at www.gcdemos.com

It is an outrage... it is not only similar to TMBInc's original IPL Replacement but others aswell.

It's a shame it's come to this but I suppose we can expect it from places like.. ownz...

[shepd]

It might be bad they're ripping him off, but I've never seen such a device exist before. At least now there will be hardware that can be purchased for people who don't own a PCB fab. Also, according to many sources, there's now a mini-DVD-R flash that is supposed to work. If that's the case, the existence of this commercial chip has improved the scene, although it might make tmbinc angry (and rightly so).

The ends might not justify the means, but being able to back up game cube games has been something parents have needed for 3 years now and if this is what it takes for that to exist, so be it.

[Ex-Cyber]

Good to see that ps2-scene is on top of this, even if it's only tangentially related to the PS2 scene. It didn't take long for most serious GC folks to notice that the wire count and features pretty much pegged it as being mostly feature-equivalent to tmbinc's work as far as the GC side of it goes. I don't think it's entirely fair to call it a "rip" since it does apparently bring a new implementation and a couple conveniences to the table , but it's certainly not the revolution it's being hailed as by some, and also not the "first GC modchip", just the first commercial one.

At least now there will be hardware that can be purchased for people who don't own a PCB fab.

Give me a break. The GC BIOS is based on an SPI-style interface that needs a whopping 4 wires to take over the whole thing. This can certainly be done on protoboard without killing yourself.

[shepd]

Give me a break. The GC BIOS is based on an SPI-style interface that needs a whopping 4 wires to take over the whole thing. This can certainly be done on protoboard without killing yourself.

I don't know about you, but from the pictures of the GC Viper that is definately not a set of ICs you can just solder together on any kind of protoboard I have ever seen in my life.

Perhaps you can point me out the protoboard I could use to play about with fine pitch SMDs? (good luck!)

Yeah, the 4 wires look easy. It's the other 99.95% of the work that's needed still after that. GC Viper went and did that. Looks like tmbinc is going to now, as well. It's unfortunate he didn't think of this as a simple way to make some money earlier. But, as usual, when people want something badly enough, but can't do the labour themselves, and nobody else is willing to do it, eventually a batter steps up to the plate.

[Pixel]

Come on... just browse the dextrose forum. There were pictures about that "mod" before. IIRC, a single PIC could do the work.

[Ex-Cyber]

I don't know about you, but from the pictures of the GC Viper that is definately not a set of ICs you can just solder together on any kind of protoboard I have ever seen in my life.

Perhaps you can point me out the protoboard I could use to play about with fine pitch SMDs? (good luck!)

You don't have to play with fine-pitch SMDs to do what the Viper does; the Viper design is probably only using the chips it's using because they're what was already being used for PS2 mods, and the toolchain, supply chain, and developer knowledge for them were already in place. A BIOS replacement can be done with a chunk of SPI flash memory (tmbinc used an AR dongle) and a small CPLD (tmbinc used a XC9536 in PLCC).

edit: sorry, it was an XCR3064 (Coolrunner rather than XC9500)

[unkv]

The Viper is created by the D M S. team so it should come to no surprise that there is some sort of code theft involved.

[shepd]

Well, if it's doable with a PIC, I'm willing to change my mind. However, I've never seen a PIC with enough memory to replace a full BIOS. I suppose you could figure out a way to hook up a DIP EEPROM. Seems like a lot of work, but in that case, yeah, that could work.

It seems that the chips the Viper is using have a lot more horsepower than a PIC, though. Wouldn't it be odd for a modchip to go that far overboard?

[Ex-Cyber]

The Viper is created by the D M S. team so it should come to no surprise that there is some sort of code theft involved.

I've not really seen any reason to suspect actual code theft at this point (for starters, I doubt VHDL intended for a Coolrunner is going to just copy over into a ProASIC toolchain), but we'll see what "Team *****"'s coding geniuses produce.

However, I've never seen a PIC with enough memory to replace a full BIOS. I suppose you could figure out a way to hook up a DIP EEPROM.

Actually, as far as I've heard the bus is compatible with SD/MMC, so you could probably even use that as long as you have a way to get a second-stage bootloader into a fixed location on the card (do FAT-formatted flash cards have a boot sector?).

It seems that the chips the Viper is using have a lot more horsepower than a PIC, though. Wouldn't it be odd for a modchip to go that far overboard?

It doesn't make much sense if you're designing it from scratch as your only product. But if you've already bought a huge quantity of those chips, already have the toolchain for those chips set up, already have a developer who knows how to work with those chips, want to make the product in small batches because interest is relatively limited and it's not clear how many you'll actually be able to sell, and want to produce a design that's more difficult to clone than a PIC or SX, it makes perfect sense.