IDE-GBAMP Hack Adds a Big Hard Drive to Your DS |
Ó
There's Datel's 4GB hard drive and media player that slots into the DS GBA port. But apparently someone wants more storage space hooked up to his DS. Like about ten times as much - 40GB worth. Imagine how many full-length DVD rips or lossless MP3s will fit in that baby.
One of natrium42's latest hardware projects involves hacking a laptop hard drive to the DS through a GBAMP cartridge. The result is definitely unwieldy and does nothing for portability, but it is a demonstration of how a traditional PC storage device could communicate with the DS through the GBA port. The idea for this came from the realization that CompactFlash cards use the same IDE interface as standard hard drives, and thus each IDE pin could be connected to its corresponding CF pin.
But this hack isn't as straightforward as connecting the IDE-CF dots; natrium42 points out that the DS only pumps about 3.3 volts to the GBA slot, and that an external 5V power source was required. So natrium42 added an 11.1V LiPo (lithium-ion polymer) battery and a 5V DC-DC converter to provide the needed juice to the HDD. Both the battery and the converter are available at a local R/C aircraft shop.
Other required materials include the GBAMP card, a laptop/notebook HDD, a 2.5" USB hard drive enclosure, and an 80-wire IDE "ribbon" cable. Plus a good soldering kit, some fast-drying epoxy glue, a good pair of needlenose pliers (really needle-nosed, you'll be using this on the GBA's contact pins), and a hobby knife.
What natrium42 did was to solder a connection between the GBAMP's CF reader and the IDE hard drive connector (which is desoldered from the USB hard drive enclosure, as seen below). The GBAMP is disassembled, and each individual wire of the IDE ribbon cable is soldered to each CF pin. The GBAMP is reassembled (with a slot cut into the bottom for the IDE ribbon to feed through), and then the other end of each wire is soldered to its coresponding IDE pin.
The jerry-rigged 5V power source (the LiPo batery and the converter) are plugged into the HDD to provide the needed juice for its operation (check the picture below; the power source is the top row of parts). The USB hard drive casing is recycled as the casing for the laptop HDD to protect the sensitives and keep everything in place.
There. 40GB of storage space to play on the DS whatever mega-media there is on the HDD. Of course it's still unwieldy - one comment on his site suggested using the new generation of thumb-sized hard disk drives. If you want to make your own, you can check his site out at the source link, but be warned that this is do-at-your-own-risk stuff that's not for the faint of heart.
34 Jumps PSP Homebrew - PSPDisp v0.4
Contact Us:
The QJ.net Network |
 |
| Site | Feed |
| QJ.NET | RSS |
| Nintendo DS | RSS |
| PlayStation 3 | RSS |
| PSP Updates | RSS |
| Wii | RSS |
| Xbox 360 | RSS |
| MMORPG | RSS |
| Personal Computer Games | RSS |
| iPhone - iPod Touch | RSS |
| QJ.NET Forums | RSS |
Add QJ.NET
User Favorites - December
User Favorites - December
Categories
Archives
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
Comments [refresh]
Well done! You've just made your DS totally unportable! Not to mention you've made an utterly pointless mod.
It'd be nice if these hacker types, instead of thinking "Could I?" started thinking "Should I?" and then actually invest their time in producing something useful. (DS ram expansion = Good idea.)
"lossless MP3s" ?!
The point of this hack was more of a proof-of-concept.
Show me a Sony PSP with a 40GB memorystick that can be fully utilized within the XMB?
That's right, you can't.
It's just showing that the GBAMP uses a regular interface like any other drive. I'm sure if more effort were put into it then the whole thing could be placed into a DS Lite-sized case and mounted on the bottom. A little more bulky but more portable.
Like iball said, this is a proof of concept. Who knows where this could lead. Maybe we might eventually be about to store your files in an iPod or something and connect that to the NDS.
Now THAT would be portable.
OMG It's iball teh noob eaterz! ruuunnnn
Comparing a big freakin' hard drive to a memory stick is retarded.