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Handhelds Hardware

GameBoy Web Server 214

Posted by michael from the why-ask-why dept.
Huma79 writes "Adrian O'Grady has successfully gotten TCP/IP and PPP working on his handheld Gameboy Advance for a web server. Pictures of the server running and a telnet session to it can be found at fivemouse.com."
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GameBoy Web Server More

GameBoy Web Server

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  • Uhhhhhhhhhh (Score:1, Funny)

    by cscx ( 541332 )
    Wonder how fast it gets Slashdotted!

  • This is all well and good (Score:4, Funny)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:17PM (#3297311) Homepage Journal
    until the damn thing crashes and loses your high score for SuperMarioLand. You listening, Adrian? Don't come crying to us then, sucker!

  • GBA.battle.net (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vardamir ( 266484 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:19PM (#3297318)
    I'd like to see a program written for the Gamecube and/or PC(this includes macs, etc.) that allows you to connect your gameboy advance (for the gamecube there is already the GCN-GBA link) and play with other GBA players over the internet (when the NIC for the Gamebue is available) as if GBA's were directly linked.

    Right now, I'm mainly thinking about playing Golden Sun against other people.
    • That is sooo not practical. The lag would be unbearable. You're better off playing chess with someone in Europe by writing your each individual move on paper, putting it in a glass bottle, and throwing it into the North Atlantic.
    • i'd like to see world peace, end to suffering and hunger, blah blah blah.

  • this is cool 8) (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:20PM (#3297319)
    I can see now: Access Denied. You are not allowed to view /personalrecords.pl until you have successfully found all 6 Diamond Crystals and converted them to Gaia Armor or until you have beaten stage 4 in the Darm Realm, "Ville of the Damned." add more excitement to that dull intarnet!

  • *sigh* (Score:4, Interesting)

    by beowulf_26 ( 512332 ) <beowulf_26&hotmail,com> on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:22PM (#3297325) Homepage
    Does anyone else hear the rumble of Nintendo closing in on this poor chap? I think it's sad when I read something like this and I first think "Oh cool. That's really smart, useless but cool." and then I cringe thinking about people like him getting squashed in litigation. I got five bucks that says he gets a cease and desist letter...

    Heh, that or I've been successfully turned to /. pessimism. You decide.

  • GBA programming (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:23PM (#3297328)
    It's amazingly easy to write programs for the Gameboy Advance. Since it has an ARM processor, gcc is readily available, and there is a strong developer community. Even a programming novice could probably write a few decent demos or games. For anyone who is interested in game programming, check out gbadev.org.

    Don't be intimidated; the webserver looks like it took a lot more work than it would take to create a game. The hardest part for his project was probably establishing a PPP link.

    • Re:GBA programming (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Canis ( 9360 )
      Yup, there's plenty of emulators available to get started with and if you want to see stuff running on actual hardware, all you need is a multiboot cable [devrs.com] (you can get them from Lik-Sang [lik-sang.com]). Because the GBA allows multiplayer games to run with only one cartridge, it already has a protocol in place for transmitting programs from one GBA to another -- the MB cable simulates this from a PC, allowing you to upload your software to the GBA, which is pretty damn cool. Later, you may wish to get a flash-cart writer which allows you to dump your software into flash RAM in a GBA-compatible cartridge, which gives you more space to work with and you can take it with you instead of being tethered to the PC... however you may want to watch that DMCA if you're in the USA as this may be classed as a 'circumvention device' (sigh).

      Another interesting handheld console to check out is the GP32 [gp32.com] (Note: site's mostly in Korean). I think it's been mentioned on /. before. Very similar layout to GBA, but where the GBA runs at ~16mhz, the GP32's ARM processor can have its clockspeed set by software up to 133mhz (though obviously this drains batteries faster). It doesn't have any custom graphics hardware, you just write 16-bit RGB colour values to a linear frame buffer, but even at the more-usual 60mhz clock speed, it runs Doom very nicely. Oh yes, and the screen is 320x240 as opposed to the GBA's 240x160.

      Of course, it's not a Nintendo, so it's almost guaranteed to fail, as Ninty have that market pretty sewn up. Still, if you just want to write something for your own entertainment, the GP32's sweet.

  • let's hope (Score:1, Funny)

    by Squareball ( 523165 )
    Let's hope that since his site is now posted on /. that he isn't running his website THROUGH his GBA web server ;)
  • PPP on a gameboy? What's next? I know I, for one, will not be happy until somebody TCP/IP-izes my old Atari 2600...

  • Not as cool as... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ralian ( 127441 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:38PM (#3297367) Homepage
    the Spud Server [totl.net]!!
  • Now all someone needs to do is make an 802.11b adapter in a gameboy cartridge and you could serve pages anywhere while kicking ass in Tetris!

  • Apache? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Galahad2 ( 517736 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:41PM (#3297374) Homepage
    Yeah, echo server is all and good, but I'd like to see them get Apache 2.0 on there.
    Oh.. that's right... no mod_pearl. Oh well.
  • TCP/IP is cool and all for a GBA. but since its a strong arm processor why not port/figure out how to load linux on a cart? I think this is a very cool step in a good dir for GBA. if nintendo doesnt stomp it out 1st.

    • Re:next. (Score:2, Informative)

      by darc ( 532156 )
      Basically, porting linux would be fairly difficult. Since the GBA doesn't have an MMC, you can only port embedded versions, like ucLinux, without serious work. The hardware is also totally foreign, so in the end, it's pretty damn hard to do.

      Not impossible, but still really hard.
    • It's not a StrongARM, it's an ARM7TDMI running at 16.78MHz. 256K RAM 240x160 LCD.

      So it has more horsepower than a Palm, but still no memory manager or cache. This means it's restricted to MMU-free micro-ports of Linux like uClinux [uclinux.org].

      Like someone else posted.. not impossible, but probably not terribly satisfying as a target. Not to say it wouldn't be a satisfying, educational, or fun project, though. :)

  • Poor mario... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 42forty-two42 ( 532340 ) <bdonlan.gmail@com> on Saturday April 06, 2002 @09:48PM (#3297394) Homepage Journal
    If he didn't have a super mushroom he'd never survive all those SYN packets...
  • Everyone's favorite ISP, AOL, has just released a press release that they are switching to Game Boy Advances for their servers.

    According to the press release, it will increase server output by 300%.

    Oh yeah!

  • wehavethewayout.com (Score:3, Funny)

    by Traser ( 60664 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @10:05PM (#3297435)
    In related news, port scans of wehavethewayout.com indicate that it is running on a GameBoy Advance. It is reputed to be much more stable than the Windows IIS put in to replace the FreeBSD box.

  • Pays an homage to saint Linus... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anticypher ( 48312 ) <anticypher.gmail@com> on Saturday April 06, 2002 @10:08PM (#3297441) Homepage
    If you look way down on his web page, back to the october days, he starts by creating a multi-threading kernel, and then writing alternate A's and B's to the screen. This is what Linus did when he was testing his first attempt at multi-threading two processes.

    If you read through the site, you get the idea he is learning all kinds of requisite CompSci skills along the way. That's good enough reason to do a project like this.

    From a late night hacking session on 3rd April 2002: I believe this may be a world first. My GBA is currently connected to the Internet (yes, if I gave you the address, you could access it right now!).

    Now, if he only would post that IP address, we could see how it stands up to the /. effect :-)

    the AC
  • I hacked up a 802.11 card for mine.
    • Got a website about that? I'd like to see how you built it....
      • While this was meant as a joke (and moderated as "Troll"... do they hand out free crack with the 5 points?) I could point you in the right direction. Personally, I've been into hardware hacking for about 3 years now, and I have tried my hand at 10baseT. Good thing I'm an amateur too, sucess rate has only been about 50%. 802.11 is something else entirely though... I know *just* enough to know that I'll never be any sort of RF engineer. This doesn't seem as important at first, providing that you can get ahold of some sample chips, it's not like you're designing a fancy antenna, right? The thing is pretty much a 1 chip solution. The problem is, that the whole pcb itself tends to affect the signal in ways that I just can't understand, no matter how I try. I'm one of those guys, that all the physics I know, I learned from star trek (another joke, crackmoderator... besides, I just got my karma up to 40, have fun trying to knock me down).

        Now... have someone figure out the RF aspect of it, and I might have a shot. It wouldn't be the best designed 802.11 card ever, it would probably even be pretty skanky, but I might manage a functional design. And since this guy already has a tcp/ip stack written...

        Actually, there are 2 pico ip stacks that I know of anyway, if that's even necessary. The GBA is pretty beefy, right? No longer the ugly little z80 with 32k of ram. Hell, you might even manage to funk the linux kernel and drivers well enough, to not have to worry so much about drivers. Haha, that might actually be fun, providing you can make it small enough to fit a pass through connector... play multi-player wireless (I'm not so great on the software side of things, but some sort of software shim to make it think that you were using the serial port can't be that impossible). Hell, I might even go for wireless web browsing. Does the color screen do high enough rez to get some porn on it? ;-)

        If you're truly interested, email me at john.oyler@attbi.if-u-cant-figure-this-out-i-dont- want-to-talk-to-you.com. I can at least walk you through the process of finagling crystal to send some sample chips (not so keen on hobbyists).

  • For everyone who is asking why (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06, 2002 @10:09PM (#3297444)
    This is taken from an interview with the author http://www.consolevision.com/features/interviews/g ba/adrianon.shtml

    "I wanted to write something that was technically perfect but practically useless so that the university couldn't make any money out of my project. "
  • I dont know about you, but im getting started on the first ever gameboy internet rpg.
  • That's nothing new. Konami had a Web Server for the original Gameboy. You activated it from any Konami game by pressing Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start. (Doh didn't post with my name above)
  • I hoped the linked site would be run off the Game Boy.

    Fastest Slashdotting ever.

  • Ping? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SeanTobin ( 138474 ) <byrdhuntr@hotmai ... m minus caffeine> on Saturday April 06, 2002 @10:41PM (#3297503)
    If you ping it, will it pong?
  • The fact that it can run a web server certainly makes me overlook the "screen is too dark" issue.
  • Guy writes a TCP/IP stack for GBA. Think about it... how about plugging your gba into your network and firing up a gamespy type utility on your gba and BOOM.. you can play multiplayer over the internet.

    Of course someone needs to figure out the fine details and write this shit but nonetheless kudos to the Guy!

    • Think about it... how about plugging your gba into your network and firing up a gamespy type utility on your gba

      If only I could code worth a damn - this would be a great toy to port tcpdump to. Set it up to fill a flash EPROM and dump it all across the 'net to one of my own boxen, maybe, and leave it sitting in a drop ceiling somewhere.

      --saint

  • oh, of course (Score:3, Funny)

    by yzquxnet ( 133355 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @10:54PM (#3297530) Homepage
    soo... what games do you have for your GBA?

    games? oh, I never got into the whole gaming thing.

    so what are you doing with a GBA?

    oh, just hosting a website or two. you know, in my spare time.
  • bah... I just wrote a webserver for a _windows XP_ box. try beating that.
  • nice... time to telnet cyberspace.org and play Nethack via GBA!

  • How does one measure usefulness? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @11:53PM (#3297637) Homepage Journal
    I skimmed some of the posts on this topic and was a little disheartened by some people's reactions to the usefulness of this hack. Let's put a couple of things into perspective:

    1.) It's not a product

    2.) It looks as though he just wanted to do it for shits and giggles, not seriously trying to solve any probelms other than 'it can be done.'

    A lot of things we take for granted today were based on ideas that people questioned the usefulness of. Did anybody think Pong was useful? "Why would I pay $119 for a game that I could play on a pingpong table?"

    Consider that usefulness depends on the individual too. You yourself may not care about running a websever on a GBA, but soembody might find an interesting use for it. If I were setting up a brand new network somewhere, I could see the potential of firing up a GBA, getting it on the network, and seeing if I could connect to it. It could be a troubleshooting device, maybe. (Although if it's connected to a Linux machine, that idea seems a little absurd. But if they made the GBA independent of it...)

    What of somebody took the code from this project and made the GBA into a VNC client? I think there are sysadmins out there who would find that rather useful. Seeing as how GBA's are $70 nowadays, that could turn into an interesting product. There are some of us out there that would think it was totally cool that I could buy a GBA and get reimbursed from my company with it, heh.

    Come to think of it... if the XBOX were a little more open, it could turn into one hell of a sysadmin tool....

  • Somebody needs to get that dude laid.
    • Bah, that was a cheap shot...

      Craploads of very useful inventions were built on the guys who stayed up late, ignoring their supple (??) wives/mates, wanting to tinker with their toys a little bit more.

      But if you're looking to get someone laid, how about tossing me a bone? :D

      sheez
  • If we slashdot it, will it catch on fire? I always wonder what happens to all these little webservers people keep making.. a watch, a gameboy... what will a DoS attack do to it?

    Drain the batteries for sure..
  • He talks a lot about connecting your GBA to a Linux box, yet all of his screen shots are from Win9x. Hrm, can I all BS on this one yet or am I missing something?

  • Dirty (Score:1)

    by 68030 ( 215387 )
    This is by far the dirtiest thing I've ever seen.
    Wrong wrong wrong. Sometimes you have to do
    something because the possibility exists, and
    far too many other times you have to find the
    will power to not do something that you can
    because of the sheer dirtiness of it.

    This hurts me.
  • "Umm, no sir that's not a Gameboy, it's a Linux based pda..."

    OR

    "That's not Tetris, it's our new synergy-building groupware"

  • FTP server on a palm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Sunday April 07, 2002 @02:48PM (#3300013) Homepage
    What *I* really want is and ftp server, or SMB share, on my Clie (any palm, really). Sure would make grabbing stuff from it or putting stuff on it quite nice. It shouldn't be hard, somebody just has to write it...yeah, I know, but it's not so important to me to take my time away from other projects yet :)

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