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Modded DS Adds Hard Drive For Some Reason

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:27 AM
from the because-you-can dept.
Hardware Hacking Data Storage Portables (Games) Entertainment Games
An anonymous reader writes "The legendary Natrium42 has been hard at work on making an IDE connection for the DS. He now has a working 40GB hard drive ready for his DS to utilize, now he says perhaps he could listen to music or watch full length rips of his DVDs."
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Modded DS Adds Hard Drive For Some Reason 50 Comments More /

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  • Worst headline ever! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sinryc (834433) on Sunday September 10 2006, @10:30AM (#16075802) Homepage
    This is SLASHDOT! Why does someone need a reason other than "why not" to mod something? I can see plenty of uses for this(Homebrew storage, movies, music, backups of games...).
    • Yeah, for a moment I thought I missclicked and was reading The Onion. :-)

    • The future for Nintendo DS owners? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Gnomes of Zurich (628019) on Sunday September 10 2006, @11:46AM (#16076194) Homepage
      Hi, we're from the [RIAA | MPAA | etc] and we have a court order which allows our expert look at your NintendoDS to see if it contains anything we can sue you for.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sivar (316343)
      "This is SLASHDOT! Why does someone need a reason other than "why not" to mod something?"


      "Why not?" seems to be the only reasoning behind the Slashdot mods sometimes...
    • While using my Apple IIgs with a Focus hard drive IDE hacked internal drive card (using small, early laptop drives partitoned into 32mb ProDOS partitions) , a LANceGS etherent card on a kooky hacked TCP/IP stack, 4 times the memory (8mbs) that a standard spec Apple II would ever be equipped with, and a CDROM via a SCSI interface (Classic RAMFast card) I too wonder why anyone would do such a uselss hack..

  • Paris Hilton + touch screen + mic (Score:5, Funny)

    by antifoidulus (807088) on Sunday September 10 2006, @10:31AM (#16075804) Homepage Journal
    =the newest innovation in porn.
  • Dont forget to use flux! It comes in different forms, but I use the paste you can see above. Flux is the magic ingridient that makes soldering easy.


    Dude, if you can't solder using just the flux that's inside the solder wire, you should do a quick Soldering-101 course before you try hacking something...

    • Besides... (Score:5, Informative)

      by mangu (126918) on Sunday September 10 2006, @10:39AM (#16075849)
      ...in those cases when you do need extra flux, a true hacker *makes* his own flux: dissolve rosin in alcohol. But that's only needed where the parts to be soldered are corroded in some way, which is not the case in TFA, soldering recently peeled wire to gold plated pins.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by fabs64 (657132)
        or anything galvanised.
        Though be warned, that crap stinks when the flux dissolves it

    • Re:Use flux???! (Score:5, Informative)

      by MyDixieWrecked (548719) on Sunday September 10 2006, @10:50AM (#16075910) Homepage Journal
      I've got limited experience with electronics soldering (I took a class in middleschool and I also needed to do some work on my guitar, once), but iirc, not all electronics solder has flux in/on it. personally, I'd prefer the stuff with the flux on it already, since it's less messy.

      When it comes to doing soldering involving plumbing (I was a plumbers apprentice in HS), I know most solder is packed with flux, plus we always smeared flux all over the pipe-end beforehand, too, before hitting it with the torch.

      perhaps it's his preference to control the amount of flux he uses himself, rather than relying on the manufacturer of the solder to put the right amount in.
    • I think it is possible to *find* flux-free solder wire, but I don't think it's typically used for electronics. I'm hardly an expert, though.

    • Re:Use flux???! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SigILL (6475) on Sunday September 10 2006, @11:20AM (#16076075) Homepage
      if you can't solder using just the flux that's inside the solder wire, you should do a quick Soldering-101 course before you try hacking something...

      Not that I RTFA, but try doing SMT with just the flux in your solder.. not gonna work.

      A true hacker is beyond such dogmatic attitudes; (s)he uses the tools needed to get the job done. If flux is what's needed to get a good solder connection, then (s)he'll use flux.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Dan East (318230)
        Who needs flux for SMT? Just use a toaster oven [seattlerobotics.org].

        Dan East

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by SigILL (6475)
          Just use a toaster oven [seattlerobotics.org].

          Er...

          If you read that article you'll see that they use solder paste, which is essentially flux with a bit of solder mixed in.
        • For what it's worth, my friend makes use of a toaster oven in his soldering experiments, and it's quite easy to do it wrong - he toasted an iPaq at least once doing that.

    • Re:Use flux???! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Spankophile (78098) on Sunday September 10 2006, @11:45AM (#16076191) Homepage
      hey "dude' instead of bitching about someone's choice of solder, try doing something useful. This guy made an IDE mod for DS. He's way 1337er than you. so STFU.
    • Another quote from the article that just oozes unprofessionalism:
      I cut my 80-wires IDE cable to 50 wires, then I stripped both ends with my fingernails
      And all this to make a CF to IDE adapter that should be available easily.

      • You certainly can use too much flux.

        If it does'nt all cook out of the solder you used too much flux or not enough heat. The item will stink of flux every time it gets hot (e.g. 'Stinkpads').

  • I wonder how this would impact the battery life of the DS.
  • Sure, ok, he did it because he could. Congrats. But really. Why not use a micro drive instead or a very high capacity flash card? It would at least be portable.

  • Homebrew compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)

    by weg (196564) on Sunday September 10 2006, @10:59AM (#16075964)
    Hmm, I guess since this is using the exact pin-layout of a CF flash card this implies high compatibility (i.e., will work with GBAMP NDS Firmware Hack [drunkencoders.com] and the GBAMP FAT driver [drunkencoders.com]. I was wondering which DS flash card to buy, and I was eying the M3 lite [maxconsole.net] for DS, but given all the compatibility problems [maxconsole.net], I'm leaning towards a CF solution [tobw.net], now, even though this sticks out of my Nintendo DS lite as much as a mile..
    Or can anybody recommend something else that's compatible with homebrew (M3 CF (or SD) lite, or one of the Supercards)
  • I bet the NetBSD guys put him up to this.
  • We all know where this is going [uncyclopedia.org]. I'm looking forward!

  • O Natrium42, is there anything you can't do? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2006, @12:24PM (#16076351)
    The legendary Natrium42 has been hard at work on making an IDE connection for the DS.
    Ahh yes, it always brings a wistful smile to my lips whenever I recall the many legends of Natrium42, taught to me by my forefathers in front of our cooking-fire...
  • "For some reason"? It even says in the summary that the mod creator planned to use it for music and movies. The reasdons for adding an IDE drive are numerous and obvious, so I consider this wording to be a rather poor choice (especially for Slashdot, whose readership generally understands what disk storage is).

  • For the truely demented (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tycho (11893) on Sunday September 10 2006, @04:54PM (#16077562)
    A similar 4GB Hard Drive that sticks on the underside of a Sony PSP is available. It has a CF connector inside of it too. I'm not sure what the maximum limit for the size of a Memory Stick is. However, I'm sure many people would like to know. At any rate, there are 60GB 1.8" hard drives which when coupled with the adaptor would make for a somewhat portable PSP or Nintendo DS.

    I suppose one could, with a IDE to SATA bridge board and a few other parts, add an eSATA port to a PSP or a Nintendo DS. I suppose then, with a four drive eSATA rack, one could add up to 2TB of storage. Why 2TB? because 2TB is the largest size that FAT32 can be formatted. I'm not sure at all what one would do with a 2TB Nintendo DS, but that shouldn't stop anybody. Perhaps one could run a large database off of a Nintendo DS. Speed and stability would be a problem though.

    I wonder though, does either the Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS have a Memory Management Unit (MMU) with their processor? If they do not, it would be impossible to use a swap file. Then again, Motorola made a separate MMU, the 68851, for processors about 15 years ago. I suppose one could try to add an MMU to a PSP or NDS too, but that would be really demented.
    • It has already been done with everything from Compact Flash to MicroSD cards. This hack was done more for shits and giggles than for portability. Besides, when was the last time you saw a 40GB SD card on a store shelf?
    • They need to get it done with a flash drive.

      It's already been done with flash drives. From the image "What you see is what you need" [jk0.org], bottom right is a CompactFlash card, and bottom center is a CF to DS SLOT-2 adapter.

      Now most PC hard drives communicate with the PC using a wire protocol known as parallel ATA, on which CF is based. One could run a ribbon cable out of the CF adapter, run it through some level shifters (DS is 3.3 V while hard drives are 5.0 V), and run it into the 40-pin data port of a hard drive.

    • but if you invest in an Open Game Console [GP2X] in the first place, you'll find its not so hard to do yourself ..

      Say I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, and I have eleven $20 notes in my hand. What store can I walk into and buy a GP2X system? Wal-Mart and Best Buy don't seem to carry them. Neither does EBGames, which tends to carry a larger selection of video game hardware. The advantages of hacking a DS ($200 for everything you see here [jk0.org]) are 1. the DS's selection of commercial games if you get tired of

    • Some of us, however, like to play popular, modern games on our consoles.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by torpor (458)

          oh, i dunno .. for sure, the GP2X, a linux handheld console, has thousands, and thousands of games you can play on it. it truly is a massive collection, more than you would think, and not just TuxRacer or fortune, yo .. we're talking the sum total of a rather rapidly growing list of emu's, from EDSAC to Atari to Nintendo to the Arcades, and on into the 32-bit console territories..

          the GP2X has, very definitely and in flying colors, one thing the DS doesn't have: audience-participation in the development pro

    • Re:Drunken Sailors need more storage? (Score:4, Funny)

      by finiteSet (834891) on Sunday September 10 2006, @11:22AM (#16076088)
      This would look less lame if you wound define the acronym even once. Dragon Stone? Door Stop? Denver Sexworker? Drastic Step? Dirty Shit? Diligent Securitymodule? Dying Suitor? Dog Spit? Drunken Sailor? Dastardly Scruples? Dead Sloth? Dominant Submissive? Danish Singer? Dual Singleton? DeathSword? Dread Symphony? Dynamite Saw? Diamond Sewer? Deloused Sundancer? Defluxedmagnetonumetric Sensor?
      Yep, you guessed right, it's Deloused Sundancer.

      I dare you to mod me informative ;)

    • Re:Drunken Sailors need more storage? (Score:5, Funny)

      by weg (196564) on Sunday September 10 2006, @12:44PM (#16076442)
      Yeah.. I totally agree.

      It's like this PC thing that everybody seems to be talking about nowadays..
      I have no idea what the fuck it means.. Post-Communist? But why would somebody like to have one at home, then? Particle Collider? I've heard the one in Switzerland [web.cern.ch] has a diameter of several miles, but my friend told me he has a PC at home and his flat isn't that large.

      I'm confused.. ;-)

      • It's like this PC thing that everybody seems to be talking about nowadays..

        And while we're at it, what the hell is this "/." thing that everyone keeps mentioning?

      • PC has meant Police Constable for far longer than you've been alive - and if I'm wrong on that and you have documentary evidence to prove it, get in touch with the Guinness Book of World Records. There could be a number of reasons why people like to have one at home, ranging from fear of burglary to personal relationships.

        HTH. HAND.

    • This would look less lame if you wound define the acronym even once.

      Dragon Stone? Door Stop? Denver Sexworker? Drastic Step? Dirty Shit? Diligent Securitymodule? Dying Suitor? Dog Spit? Drunken Sailor? Dastardly Scruples? Dead Sloth? Dominant Submissive? Danish Singer? Dual Singleton? DeathSword? Dread Symphony? Dynamite Saw? Diamond Sewer? Deloused Sundancer? Defluxedmagnetonumetric Sensor?


      After reading your post, I was inspired to suggest Dumb Shit.
    • I demand picture-in-picture to make this worth my while! That way I can watch "The Matrix," "Go," "Fight Club," and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" at the same time.

      Not that I'd want to, but controlling the power of an attention-deficit grenade would be pretty sweet.

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