EZ-Flash USA Forum

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

Also, cory1492, when speaking of a modified loader, I wonder how difficult it would be to compile a version where

1. the "EZ-Flash" screen is skipped (i.e. you go straight from selecting the File Manager to the ROM list), or
2. the loader goes straight to the ROM list after booting up (after saving), i.e. the main menu is skipped.

Another nice loader hack could be to skip the message screens after selecting a main menu item. I.e. when selecting Help for example, you would go straight to displaying the help text file, instead of first showing the "More help in here" message.

I know it's probably just wishful thinking, of course depending on how far anyone has yet succeeded in reverse engineering the loader... :wink:

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

Found two more replaceable text strings:

Format Nor Flash Y/N;Format Nor Flash Y/N;1
WARNING;WARNING;1

The first one is pretty much self explanatory, the second one is the title of the message saying "Read saver to current". BTW, what's the purpose of loading a save file to the SRAM separately? And why is it a warning (what's the danger?).

On a side note, does anyone know a way to delete a single file on the SD-card, via the (GBA) loader/file manager? I know how to delete a file in the NOR memory by pressing Select and A, but this doesn't seem to work in the SD-Card folder and subfolders.

Only, you can mark the SD-Card folder ("EZ-Disk") and press Select + A, and it asks you to delete?!! I wonder what that does - I've been too chicken to confirm!!

Also, I was wondering about the NOR memory: What does "NOR" stand for? And would it be safe to copy a game to the NOR memory and then delete the .gba file on the SD-Card which was the source for copying?

cory1492 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:40 pm

1&2 - it's up to EZ to modify it to do those types of things. A JMP or JAL or whatnot inserted might be able to do it, but I'm not going to go there. There is abundant info on the EZ3 at any rate that it is quite possible anyone who feels like it could use the SD driver with the GBA kernel to make a modified version of Pogoshell to do whatever you want. No one thus far has seemed inclined to do so though.

SD write operations are performed by the EZ4 kernel with modifying the FAT as little as possible it seems, so no SD delete operation was included.

NOR:
[hide]http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=wiki%3A+NOR&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#NOR_memories
which is based on a common logic gate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOR_gate

NOR technically meaning "NOT + OR" (a combination of 2 basic logic gates, the NOT and the OR), logically:
NOT
1 = 0 (make it NOT what it was)
0 = 1

OR (talking about bits here, which can either be 1 or 0, on or off)
0 OR 0 = 0 (neither is 1 so the answer is 0)
1 OR 0 = 1
0 OR 1 = 1
1 OR 1 = 1

NOR
0 OR 0 = 1 (get the OR (0) and make it NOT (1) what it was)
1 OR 0 = 0
0 OR 1 = 0
1 OR 1 = 0[/hide]

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

Ok, thanks.

Do you know the answers to my questions regaring the "Read saver to current" message, too?

cory1492 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:20 pm

I can try...

Quote:

BTW, what's the purpose of loading a save file to the SRAM separately? And why is it a warning (what's the danger?).

The SRAM stores your save data until the card is rebooted. It has to be loaded when you want to continue your progress, and all DS and GBA are patched to use the EZ4's SRAM. You can alternately skip saving a save file on bootup, and manually re-load the save file in the GBA kernel by pressing A on a .sav type file - I have personally used this to do 2 things: load a different saver to the SRAM when I skipped saving (so I don't permanently write the data I dont want, like a death in bomberman, to the SD card), and to load specific data I wanted in SRAM when I decided to use it. I think the original intent of it was so you could manually load a save file for PassMe2.

As far as I know, there is no real danger (the file is read not written) aside from the fact that it you turn it off in the middle of the reading to SRAM, reboot and try and play the game that the save belongs to, the EZ may think your save is already loaded and the game may tell you your data is corrupt.

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

Thanks for explaining.

About the bug in the GBA loader regarding the non-transparent background that I mentioned in some posts above: I've noticed that this bug occurs in all message screens in the loader where text or graphics are updated. For example when showing the progress of loading a game, writing to the NOR flash or selecting language options. I don't know if this would help to find where to change the code?

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

I have used EZ4skin-R7-09-07 for quite some time, with great success.

However, I am unable to skin the modified kernel posted by modulo here. (the version in the EZ4loader070315-RESET.zip file)

I get an error when EZ4skin is about to skin the NDS Loader:

[hide]

Code:

checking for extra EZ3 files in GBA skin
Done checking for extra EZ3 files

creating GBA skinned ROM...
Generate Base Rom ... OK
 Type   Path And FileName                                      FileSize
----- : ---------------------------------------------------- - ------------
[DIR] : \.shell\bmp
      : \.shell\bmp\TXTLoadSaver.bmp                         - 18728
      : \.shell\bmp\TextScrollBack.BMP                       - 24
      : \.shell\bmp\TextScrollButtonSign.BMP                 - 24
      : \.shell\bmp\TextScrollDown.BMP                       - 136
      : \.shell\bmp\TextScrollUp.BMP                         - 136
      : \.shell\bmp\Time_col.bmp                             - 8840
      : \.shell\bmp\Time_title.bmp                           - 11016
      : \.shell\bmp\arrowL.bmp                               - 296
      : \.shell\bmp\arrowR.bmp                               - 296
      : \.shell\bmp\deskicon.bmp                             - 11528
      : \.shell\bmp\desktop.bmp                              - 76808
      : \.shell\bmp\ezoption.bmp                             - 76808
      : \.shell\bmp\ezpdalogo.bmp                            - 76808
      : \.shell\bmp\filemng.bmp                              - 65288
      : \.shell\bmp\filemnghead.bmp                          - 11528
      : \.shell\bmp\icons.bmp                                - 8968
      : \.shell\bmp\itemdisc.bmp                             - 20488
      : \.shell\bmp\mineBG.bmp                               - 76808
      : \.shell\bmp\ok.bmp                                   - 680
      : \.shell\bmp\txtSaveSaver.bmp                         - 18728
      : \.shell\bmp\txtbg.bmp                                - 76808
      : \.shell\bmp\underFlag.bmp                            - 264
      : \.shell\bmp\x.bmp                                    - 296
      : \.shell\Kopi af help.txt                             - 547
      : \.shell\asc.dat                                      - 1536
      : \.shell\help.txt                                     - 547
      : \.shell\hzk.dat                                      - 182736
----- : ---------------------------------------------------- - ------------
TotalDir: 1,  totalFile: 27
RomFile Size: 928 KB

Error(s): 0  warning(s): 0
creating NDS skinned GBFS...

      1536 asc.dat
      2487 disk.jpg
    182736 hzk.dat
     33907 mainBG.jpg
      2611 nor.jpg
      1559 select.jpg
      2486 setting.jpg
     23356 subBG.jpg
      8883 window.jpg

attempting to skin ezfla_up.bin ...

EZ4skin - NDS and GBA skin replacer
-----------------------------------
EZ updater file: ezfla_up.bin
backup updater : ezfla_up.bak
Texts file     : text.txt
GBA skin-ROM   : gba.bin
NDS skin-GBFS  : nds.bin

reading ezfla_up.bin into buffer
backing up ezfla_up.bin to ezfla_up.bak

---Finding GBA skin offset---
GBA skin found at offset: 0x40000 (262144)
reading gba.bin and overwriting GBA skin in buffer

---Skinning texts---

58 strings found, 0 not replaced


---Finding NDS skin offset---
** Error re-opening ezfla_up.bin.

DONE! Skins updated.

Now use the file ezfla_up.bin as a normal update.

if it fails on reboot, place an official update
back onto your miniSD and boot holding the R button

[/hide]
I wonder why it doesn't work. EZ4skin works fine with the original version of the latest kernel, and according to modulo all he changed is two bytes in the GBA loader part.

Also, when I look a the original and modifed kernels in a hex editor, the NDS loader still starts at the same address as always (0x10bd00). Why does EZ4skin fail at skinning the NDS loader, then?

modulo · **Joined:** Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:52 am **Posts:** 3

CoNS wrote:

I have used EZ4skin-R7-09-07 for quite some time, with great success.

However, I am unable to skin the modified kernel posted by modulo here. (the version in the EZ4loader070315-RESET.zip file)

I get an error when EZ4skin is about to skin the NDS Loader:

I wonder why it doesn't work. EZ4skin works fine with the original version of the latest kernel, and according to modulo all he changed is two bytes in the GBA loader part.

Also, when I look a the original and modifed kernels in a hex editor, the NDS loader still starts at the same address as always (0x10bd00). Why does EZ4skin fail at skinning the NDS loader, then?

File permission? I often mark files "Read Only" to prevent accidental changes...
I guess those permissions are stored in the zip files. Whoops!? Fixing...

CoNS · **Joined:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:30 pm **Posts:** 296

That was it!

Thanks, it works now!

BTW, modulo, I am really eager to hear your answers to the questions in this post about modifying the GBA loader.

hariboo · **Joined:** Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:49 am **Posts:** 31

Lo Cons or modulo i have same problem with the NONDS version
I will try it with the -RESET version for the GBa.

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