ViperGC/QoobSX with bigger flash memory

ViperGC/Qoob/etc
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webhdx
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Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:40 am

ViperGC/QoobSX with bigger flash memory

Post by webhdx » Sat Oct 31, 2020 5:43 pm

I spend whole evening fighting with old devkitPPC and libogc to compile iplboot with SD2SP2 support and it wasn't really working out. I'm able to compile it with newest DKP/libogc but of course the filesize is too big to fit into QoobSX/ViperGC memory. I thought fuck it, the technology is more available now and electronic components can be ordered from China really cheap :) I ordered a bunch of SST39VF040 (512kB vs 128kB in standard QoobSX/ViperGC) CMOS flash chips to experiment on.

I noticed SST39VF010 has all address lines connected to ASIC on ViperGC so electrically it's possible for ViperGC to read bigger flash chips. I'm not sure if ASIC is programmed to do so but we will soon find out. I also have QoobSX which uses the same parallel memory. I will let you know how it turns out. It might be possible to flash empty ViperGC via Cobra OS (it's sketchy tho as you need to unplug Viper once Cobra is booted...) but to be safe I ordered TSSOP8 adapter to program the chip via Arduino.

If anyone tried that before please let me know. I don't want to spend too much time on it if it has been proven to not work. The post is just solely for attention and to express my frustration with iplboot/devkitpro/libogc :)

BTW. Someone should really pick up iplboot and make it <128kB. I know GC homebrew community is really small but damn... maybe it could bring more people in if it was a tad bit easier to run Swiss and all the goodies like SD2SP2. GCLoader is not for everyone as it's quite expensive.
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