Gooday Gaming Guests - Nintendo Switch falling Back to GameBoy Boot Process

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

I want a Switch Box as the Next Gen System just for the TV.

Alright, so for today, Saturday, I'm going to do Nintendo Switch for my boot process. I look back, I did all the other ones. The only thing I haven't done from the Nintendo is the Nintendo Switch. Switch Lite and then the Switch OLED, which is basically the same thing. Although we'll check. So let's go to my buddy here. I'm going to do Nintendo. Oh, you know what else we can do?

I know what I'll do. I'll do handhelds. I forgot about handhelds for Nintendo. So let's do Nintendo Switch first. Boot process. And then we can double back to like Game Boy and all those. Yeah, let's do that.

That'll be fun. Okay. So Nintendo Switch boot process. We'll start with that. It's multi-stages. So we'll see what kind of system it is. And as everybody else is, we're all excited to see what

the next... I want a Switch box, which is a dedicated system. You put your Nintendo Switch cartridges into a dedicated system for the TV. Not a handheld. Not a handheld fan. I like handhelds, but I just can't play them at all. And if you know the Nintendo Switch, the handhelds, they don't last. They are not durable at all

even the newer ones between the screen and the buttons and the joy-con buttons breaking the push-in button they should never design a button to push in like that because they just fail kids just jam them in when they're really running through a system and then that button fails. Same with what else has a pushing button? A lot of the handhelds have that. One of the actions is when you push the button in and it just wrecks them.

The Joy-Con themselves are just really, really junk. They just don't last. Especially with kids. And Nintendo Switch, I was really, really junk. They just don't last. Especially with kids. And Nintendo Switch, I was really, really into them. Maybe a year after they came out, I had hundreds of them. Hundreds and hundreds. And I fixed a lot of them.

A lot of them, if the battery is dead, you might get lucky. And if you switch the battery, it'll come back to life. Many times, as the charging chip goes, there's a memory chip in there, something that goes. And other things but I've sold every board I've ever had been to tend to switch either working or not I've got some screens left over empty screen and I still have all kinds of fun I still have two boxes of fun accessories meaning pieces of like

neon green joycons like the shells I got some buttons I don't have a Switch now. I have a Bacchusera that I got that has pretty much most of the newer Switch games, including Tears. But you have to really play it.

You play it on your PC. So the mod, you can get any game pretty much. All right, so let's go to Nintendo Switch. The boot process here. This will this will be fun should be complicated but it so when you power it on there's a Tegra x1 system on chip so it's called a Tegra x1 and then onboard PMIC power management the bootmom is ready selecting the embedded memory on the SOC it performs hardware check initializes low-level hardware like the RAM and the eMMC when how much EMMMC is on it primary bootloader is called

Horizon OS Stage 1 these are things I would never know until right now boot ROM verifies the integrity of the boot loader using chirographic signatures rsa

slash sha dash 56 warm boot chain RSA slash SHA-56. Warm boot chain. Loads warm boot. Payload in the system. It's assuming it's for sleeping. So the second stage is stage loader 2.

Using the Horizon OS kernel. Kernel being the system firmware initializes the trusted exec execution environment T e fuses on the trip are checked and show the system isn't tampered with so has some fuses on the chip the Tegra chip uh, Horizon Kernel initialization it initializes the RAM goes through the in and out graphics driver

sometimes these get logo stuck too I wonder if it'll say whether that does that uh, I would assume it's a failed boot of some kind, uh, Joy-Cons are activated and interacted game cartridge checks for Wi-Fi, so I would assume it's a failed boot of some kind. Joy-Cons are activated and interacted. Game cartridge. Checks for Wi-Fi. So I would assume the next generation.

I hope it's not another Nintendo Wii. I mean another Nintendo Switch rather. Not like a Switch. I hope it's not completely different. Like going from N64 to GameCube. That was cool. And then from GameCube to Wii. And then Wii U is basically the same thing.

But hopefully it'll be something dramatically different. And I hope it's TV-based and not handheld-based. Because it's handheld for everything now. All right, so we're at Interaction here. Loads to games. Key technical aspects. This has a NVIDIA Tegra platform. Used a trusted platform module TPM. Recovery mode. RCM used for firmware updates. Diagnostics Custom firmware Exploits vulnerable and older models Allowing injections of unsigned code During the boot ROM

And RCM stage Enabling custom firmware loading So that's why everyone wanted the Everyone wanted the Early models of it So let's go to I'm sure there's really much of a difference, but we'll go to Nintendo Switch Lite.

Boot process. Let's see if there's anything different there. It doesn't say what kind of memory is in there. Oh, no no I get this It gives me two sponsors The boot of the processor is similar to Nintendo The Switch Lite uses a newer version Of the Tegra X chip

It's called the Tegra X Mariko Mariko Which Improved the power efficiency And migrates Those vulnerabilities which improve the power efficiency and migrates those vulnerabilities. The Tegra Mariko power zone has the RAM.

So that's really the only difference, I think. Something about e-fuses. Protects burn with unique chirographic keys on it. Prevent unsigned code. So that's how they try to get... I've never had a homebrew Nintendo Switch. I've never tried to do it either. And unfortunately, as technology gets better,

all these older systems, which actually Nintendo Switch is old now, they always find a way to get in there. And then there's also tons of mods for them. So there's no reason to rush out and try to get one now. Cold Boot, Warm Path. Cold Boot, Warm Path, Splash. Horizon OS System.

Not really seeing anything. Game Detected. What is the specs? I want to find detected what is the specs I want to I want to find out the specs for that one what are the specs Nintendo Switch. What are the specs? I just didn't quite, they didn't really give me a detail on that one. So I also signed up for Gemini Advance, which is called Flash.

Chat GBT is my zippy. I've always called him zippy since I started doing it. And Flash was already named for Gemini so by zippy and flash now so Nintendo switch we've kind of backed up here for a minute had the switch the switch light and then the switch oled it came out in 2017 oh here we go now we got some good specs nvidia tegra x ar arm cotex dash 5 a57 plus cotex dash a53 maxwell cpu and those it's four gigabytes of ddr4 ram 32 gigabytes of emmc expandable up to 2 terabytes all right so this the resolution was 1280 times 720 handheld was that 720 doc it can

dock up to 180 but none of these are. Bluetooth 4.1. USB-C. Then the Nintendo Switch came out next. Oh, cool. It did all three of them for me. Awesome. NVIDIA Tegra X1. The MaraCoVision version. More power efficient.

4 GB of RAM still. 32. The pixels. 1280 by 70 720 it goes the same as well 1280 by 720 yeah so now we should go a handheld 720 no dock mode because only handheld that changes that and if you want to change the buttons we talked about pushing in buttons and on those switches changing the buttons in the nintendo switch light requires a complete teardown on one side and it's usually the side that the button gets broken it's a complete nightmare you can do it but it's a nightmare okay that the button gets broken. It's a complete nightmare. You can do it, but it's a nightmare. Okay, so then OLED came out in 2021.

And as we know, so far, it's been our last system. So this is the NVIDIA Tegra X1, the Marco version. 4GB of LPDDR RAM however now this one upgraded to 64 gigabytes of eMMC expandable to 2 terabytes the resolutions that isn't any different 120 128 by 72 pixels I thought it would be type OLD captivated touchscreen. Docked at 180. It's really the only difference there. Key differences.

Oh, here we go. Key difference between the models. The original was 6.2 LCD. The light went down to 5.5 LCD. And then the OLED went up to 7 inches OLED. Light is handheld only. Storage original and light were 32 gigabytes. The OLED was 64 gigabytes. Light has the smallest battery capacity all of the

offers the longest play time due to power efficient display and updated SOC about? Nintendo Game Boy. That would be the first one, right? So we'll stick with these. The other thing I want to learn about here are the Steam handhelds and the ASUS handhelds. I don't know anything about those. They're really expensive.

It's a little... They look like fun. The Nintendo Game Boy boot process is straightforward. Here's how it works. Turning on a voltage regulator ensures the stability. So in the... Again, we're going all the way back now. Because I finished with Switch,

so I have nowhere else to go but backwards. Which is sometimes more fun in the past than in what's coming up so it's a z80 based cpu uh ram and vram uh the game boy includes a 256 byte boot rom also called the bootstrap code pretty fun again i'm sort of reading all of it I'm just kind of Game Boy Advance's all taken apart and there may actually be Game Boys in there. So with that note I'm going to play around with those as a video a little bit. They don't work but we'll see. All right so the Game Boy process is consistent across its variants. So it's already telling me Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color.

Though the Game Boy Color includes an extended boot ROM. So Game Boy Color, I actually have one for sale. And it's got some sort of an EverDrive thing for it. With additional features for detecting and running color-en enabled games. Alright, so let's go to Nintendo. So Game Boy Let's go Nintendo.

Next in line would be DS, right? Game Boy Advanced. No, Nintendo Game Boy Advanced. Game Boy Advanced. Oh, no, Nintendo Game Boy Advanced. Game Boy Advanced. There's a couple different

styles to those. I've got some of those listed. Some of them actually work. I just found a plug for it, so I can go back and retest them. Nintendo Game Boy Advanced boot process. Yeah, so we'll tie

this right into a video for later. That sounds like fun. Alright, so GPA is more advanced than the predecessor, the Game Boy. Obviously, the games were used a 32-bit ARM

7 TDMI processor processor powers up begins uh system switches to arm state with 32-bit instructions internal work ram wram and video ram vram are cleared the game boy has 16 kilobytes kb boot rom the other one had what did i say it was 8 or 12 or something 8 for the game boy uh there's a logo screen look what it looks for the game uh press code address 0x08 with a lot of zeros. Six zeros after in the cartridge. Backwards compatibility to Game Boy Advance. Can also run Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. I didn't know there was a Game Boy Advance games.

And it changes to Game Boy mode with Z80 coprocessor. So it downgrades itself to play those so technical overview arm 7 TD mi 32-bit plus the z80 copressor coprocessor for backwards compatibility boot ROM 16 kilobytes memory map boot different places in the memory let's go right on to yes so then we're going to and I think I decided to do I'm gonna run games systems doing it even doing this because I'm going to run out of games systems, even doing this. So I may go to pick some games and maybe I can get some code of how the games are coded

or something. Something fun like that. I don't know. I haven't figured it out yet. Nintendo Boot Press. DS. Once we get the DS, there's like a million different versions of it. I have an XL. Really cool XL. There's like a million different versions of it. Right. How many different. I have an XL. Really cool XL.

It's got Zelda on it. But the top screen. It's the 3D. 3D XL. But the top screen is broken. And there is another nightmare. The top screen of any DS. To try to replace that screen.

There's a curly cable inside there. That you can uncurl. And curl it back in. That's a nightmare. So I that you can uncurl and curl back in That's right there So I just I just have it listed alright, so now we're on to DS The system powers on arm processor arm 9 and arm 7 on those The arm 9 on 7 process different each handling different tasks arm 9 handles a 3d graphics game logic and primary OS arm 7 handles audio 2d

graphics and legacy game boy events functionality so it's backwards compatible and I assume it's backwards compatible for game boy as well so the system enters ds firmware menu interaction with uh pico chat and ds downplay uh which i'm not sure anybody ever used those but uh backwards compatibility game boy advanced cartridge inserted slot the system reconfigures to Game Boy mode Game Boy Advance mode the DS can run Game Boy GBA games using the secondary cartridge slot slot 2 only one screen is active and DS specific hardware features are disabled so you only get one screen so technical overview arms ARM 9 67 megahertz primary processor ARM 733 megahertz secondary processor boot ROM firmware the screens top screen is 2256

times 192 resolution bottom screen same audio is handled by the arm see if we we go to DS so let's let's do this says how all the rest of the DS compared in specs wound up with until the series ended so let's see if we get a quick spec because I'll be sitting there all day doing all these so we'll just say take all the rest of DS as you go from 2ds 3ds and you I like the flat one the ones that you have to flip open or a pain says the NDS and I've significantly from the release in 2004 to the end of line, which saw it discontinued in 2020. Nintendo 3DS family. Alright, cool. We got the specs there.

Yeah, this will work. That's where we're at. Like I said, I don't like to go around 20 minutes. We're a little bit over, but it's alright. So, we've already said the original DS. ARM 9, ARM 7 4 megabytes of RAM backwards compliant

so now we're going to go to the DS Lite 2006 slimmer and lighter, brighter screens with adjustable screen levels, improved battery so I would assume all the specs are the same for the CPU and stuff.

And then we go to the Nintendo DSi 2008-2009. ARM 9 at 133 MHz, doubling the speed of the DS. So the DSi was double the speed. ARM 7 was the same,

33. The RAM went up significantly. Four times. 16 megabytes. same, 33. The RAM went up significantly, 4 times. 16 megabytes. Storage, 256. Slightly larger screen. It had a camera. Improved Wi-Fi. Then we went to the Nintendo DSi XL,

which is 2009, 2010. Bigger screen, pretty much, is all it's saying. Then we go to the Nintendo 3DS, which at the time nobody really liked it. It was kind of made you dizzy. So this significantly went up. Dual-core ARM11. MP-Core CPU. 268 MHz per core. Single-core ARM for backwards compatibility with ds

ram was 128 had one gigabyte internal storage interesting i didn't know that uh top screen 3d 3d enabled uh 800 by 24 resolution 600 by 240 per eye for 3d which is weird bottom screen was 320 by 24 by 240 rather had a camera front and back cameras improved wi-fi compatible and then we go to this the one i have now is the nintendo 3ds xl 2012 bigger screen battery life improved same hardware inside and then we went back to the 2DS which you could then then play 3DS games on because nobody liked the 3D feature no 3D function only 2D play identical all the spectra identical to the 3DS. And then there's different versions. Like Icore CPU at 204 MHz. Single-core ARM9 for the DS capabilities, compatibilities.

256 RAM, 128 usable for games, 1 GB expandable. Additional features, C--stick for enhanced controls built-in NFC support for MBO I never know still MBO is alright so then we go to the new Nintendo 3ds XL 2014 2015 just a bigger screen. That's what it's saying. And then there's another. Then there's the new 2DS XL. Foldable clamshell design. No 3D functions. Everything else is the same.

But there's also... So it gives me all the rundown. The new 3DS came out in 2007. The new 2DS XL it was a flat it was a flat 2DS

a flat 2DS what was that called Nintendo released 2013 budgie friendly 3DS shaped wedge shaped 3D came out in 2013 that's the flat one he uses a flat 2ds so it had the arm 11 dual core processor AR arm 9 backwards compatibility 128 RAM 128 megabytes Let's see if there is anything I am missing here

Flat wedge design unlike the clamshell design Flat in one piece, the design is more durable Made for younger players Because opening those hinges always break on them All the other ones because opening up those things, the hinges always break on them. All the other ones. Don't care about the 3D systems. Casual players, for games who don't care about 3D functionality.

It compares the 2DS flat to the 3DS clamshell to the 3DS XL. Speakers, only mono speakers in the 2DS flat stereo and the other two the weight was more than the 3ds battery life was about the same lower cost 129 higher costs up to 199 2ds was enabled in several themes so there was a Pokemon XY you could get in that cool so that's pretty much it I'm trying to think if I can think of any more handhelds I'm sure there is that's a pretty much rundown so we went from switch back down the Boy, and then up the ladder to the end of the new 2DS. Alright, so I'm going to play around with some of that stuff. I've got a box full of it, so I'll pull it out for a video in a little bit. Alright, I'll talk to you guys later.

Alright, bye.