Gameboy Development Forum

nitro2k01 wrote:

Hi. What is the goal you're trying to achieve? To use that code you need some sort of hardware glitch setup that you can use bypass the boot ROM lockout, which would require you to open up the Gameboy and solder to the main board. But unless you have some unreleased Gameboy hardware that differs from anything that's already known, there isn't point in doing that. You can download the currently known boot ROMs here:

https://gbdev.gg8.se/files/roms/bootroms/

My goal is to find a way to dump the boot ROMs.

I know how to solder the clock pin. But to me, it sounds like a general thing. And, I know that there are other boot ROMs out there, including the GBC boot ROM in GBA.

There is something that is called BIOS Protection (or Anti-Tamper). I can think of that as Windows Defender or Windows Firewall. In my experience, I know a way of disabling the tamper protection of Windows Defender. If I can disable the tamper protection of Windows Defender, I might be able to disable the BIOS protection of the boot ROM as well. And, the question is this. How do I disable the BIOS protection? To me, this question sounds obvious. The GBA boot ROMs have the lack of the BIOS protection, and the GB+GBC boot ROMs do not have the lack of the BIOS protection. I should create a tool to disable the BIOS protection of GB+GBC.

Hello,

about the coding question, I can give you following input:

1.) in the Picture M-0.png it shows that you are using the wrong type of brackets. Use {} instead of () for the body of the main function.
This is also what the compilier error shows in the picture M-2.

2.) Because the compilier cant compile your code, no *.o file was created for the second step in your *.bat file

3.) The error in Image M-0.png means that VSCode can't find the dependencies for GBDK.
You have to create a configuration file (*.json) for C with the path of your GBDK installation.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/cpp/ … igurations

On my machine (Mac OSX) it looks like this:



I hope this helps you.

Last edited by rune-dev-matt (2020-12-30 08:24:20)

sorry K5T3, but development is probably not your vocation.

What rune-dev-matt meant in his previous post was that you need to use curly brackets "{" and "}" for the body of the main function. He did not say to replace all parenthesis with curly brackets.

Your program should look like this (assuming that the GBDK include is fixed):

#include <gb/gb.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void main() {
    printf("HELLO WORLD");
}

You will need to meticulously copy the example code as shown in the tutorials (e.g. here on Youtube) if you do not know C in order to get started.
But you will definitely need to learn C for your endeavor!

Please also notice that rune-dev-matt only showed you the relevant parts of the configuration file to make the GBDK include work. However, you do need the proper structure in c_cpp_properties.json, see the documentation page he linked to. You will also need to move the file to the .vscode sub-directory of your project directory as stated in the documentation I just linked to.

Look at the example: "includePath" is defined within each configuration JSON Object ("dictionary"; identified by the curly square brackets "{" and "}") of the configuration JSON Array ("list"; identified by the square brackets "[" and "]"), as shown in the example here:

{
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "GCC",
      "includePath": ["${workspaceFolder}/**"],
      "defines": ["_DEBUG", "UNICODE", "_UNICODE"],
      "windowsSdkVersion": "10.0.18362.0",
      "compilerPath": "C:/Program Files/mingw-w64/x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh-rt_v6-rev0/mingw64/bin/g++.exe",
      "cStandard": "c11",
      "intelliSenseMode": "gcc-x64"
    }
  ],
  "version": 4
}

Notice how you need a name for your configuration, possibly some defines etc.
Notice also that there is a version number identifying the configuration file format version at the bottom.
Notice again that the file is one huge JSON Object (look at the curly brackets "{" at the top and "}" bottom).
You can read more about JSON on Wikipedia if you have trouble with the format.

Last edited by Tauwasser (2021-01-05 00:38:27)

So, I used the .\make.bat command. I do not see any errors, so it worked well.



And, I have a .gb file in this folder.



Plus, I have a .gb file with a message, "HELLO WORLD".

You do realize that the code is 100% useless if you don't have the exact setup that he had, right?

I used the same codes (plus a bit more of the codes) to compile the main.c file to a .gbc file as a Hello World example. But, it ends up like the same .gb file. I think that I have done something wrong in here.

Here are the codes that I have so far.

rune-dev-matt wrote:

K5T3 wrote:

I used the same codes (plus a bit more of the codes) to compile the main.c file to a .gbc file as a Hello World example. But, it ends up like the same .gb file. I think that I have done something wrong in here.

Here are the codes that I have so far.

https://i.postimg.cc/jq0BKhZC/UWRK.png

What makes you think that is wrong?
If it works than it works. If not then what are the issues?

BTW: What are you trying to archieve?
GB/C development is not a beginner friendly path to software development because it requires a lot of knowledge. Even I (10+ .net Developer) have to read a lot about this topic and ask (stupid) questions because it’s on a whole other level.

If you simple want to create games I would recommend you, to give GBStudio a chance. It does a lot of background work for you, has good UI and there is nice community which also produces great games. It allows you to create your ideas without the hassle and gives you a basic introduction into the basics of loops, events and triggers. And the next version (currently in Beta) allows you, to create also Game Boy Color Games.

https://www.gbstudio.dev/

- Matt

I am trying to compile the .c file to a .gbc file. Also, I wanted to make the simple applications for dumping the BIOS (Super GB, Super GB2, and GBC).

Last edited by K5T3 (2021-01-11 03:27:34)

rune-dev-matt wrote:

K5T3 wrote:

I am trying to compile the .c file to a .gbc file. Also, I wanted to make the simple applications for dumping the BIOS (Super GB, Super GB2, and GBC).

So, I did some research about this topic and I've to tell you, what you are trying to archieve is not possible the way you think.

Look at Pierre's really well writen blog entry:

https://kemenaran.winosx.com/posts/game … om-dumped/

Well, the issue is that after it initialized the hardware, the boot ROM locks itself, just before giving the control to the cartridge code. That means you can’t read the boot ROM memory location anymore. The only thing someone managed to do was to dump the original black & white GameBoy ROM, using a powerfull microscope to read the bits one-by-one on the chip — that’s how easy this locking protection is to bypass.

And also the guy which achieved this used a hardware hacking aproach:

Basically, he breaked out the GameBoy Color case, and took control of the cartridge connector, the CPU clock cristal and the CPU voltage.

This means, it's technical not possible to write a "simple" script and execute it from a cartridge to dump the BIOS from a GB or GBC. You have to to get a flashcard with a dumper software, then do nasty hardware tricks at the right time to skip the instruction that disables the ROM Locking and then using said dumper software.

- Matt

I do not see a program like a GBC BIOS-dumping program. I searched around for a GBC BIOS-dumping program, but it is not found.

So, I decided to make a GBC-BIOS-dumping program, and here is the script that I have written.



And when I tried to compile my main.c file, these are the errors that I have watched.



I also made some scripts for the SGB+SGB2 BIOS-dumping programs.

Last edited by K5T3 (2021-01-11 19:28:36)

That code is useless. You need to connect a FPGA to the cartridge bus, you need to replace the oscillator of the GB by a circuit in the FPGA, and you need to really know what you are doing. That is not going to work.

EDIT: At the very least you need to replace the oscillator, the cartridge bus thing is for one of the methods only.

Last edited by AntonioND (2021-01-12 19:35:32)

Speaking of the FPGA thing, I know that there is another way to dump the GB+SGB+SGB2+GBC BIOS, and that is the Visual Inspection.

The Game Boy CPU chip has 80 pins (48 pins in-length + 32 pins in-width). The CPU chip has the BIOS.



To the PCB, I should first use a soldering heater to make the pins safer for the CPU chip to pull out. Second, I should use a small tip-looking tool to pull out the CPU chip. Third, I should put a CPU chip in a slot of a programmer.



Fourth, I should use the programmer to analyze the data of the CPU chip, and I should save the data in a computer.

Last edited by K5T3 (2021-01-25 02:59:44)