S3C 2015-10-30 16:42:40

I conclude my tl;dr posts with an abstract in gif form. But they say a picture is worth a 1000 words, and abstracts are limited to 250, though...so I guess I didn't think that one through...let me think about it and get back to you?

S3C 2015-11-20 10:11:16

Thanks for the kind words!! Actually, not insects, although insects are a type of arthropod. Should have been more specific. The study was actually done on lobsters (here's an interesting article somewhat related: http://theweek.com/articles/459332/5-animals-that-may-hold-key-immortality).

oh huh I thought you did...well you do have Project 2009, so you might as well take credit for writing poems consecutively for the past 6+, minus March 21st...that would be interesting, though you probably don't eat a different lunch every day of the year so...yeah I was planning on having some feature vocal improvs too

microbiology/music/genetics it is then

S3C 2015-11-21 06:05:40

LOL! I can't do anything vocal related worth sh*t. I meant "feature vocal improvs" as in featuring someone else to lay a line over the top, such as you for example.

meh...that'd be cool, though the PS2 soft-hacking scene is pretty much dead. I'm two consoles behind!! I don't even think cheat devices for next gen consoles even exist. everyone's playing fallout 4 now and I can't relate to people's gaming pursuits IRL

S3C 2015-11-21 10:44:10

well Doom and other computer games will always be popular to mod, mainly for how comparatively easy they are too hack. Hmm, no one ever got around to creating a mod that contains new enemies??

the PS2 modding scene is still fairly alive, I think. But with software hacking you can do a lot less, it's considerably more difficult to get interesting results, but IMO that makes it all the more rewarding, not to mention it's also a good perspective of how to reverse-engineer digital information. It also doesn't require any additional hardware modifications, just boot up the cheat device disc, insert the codes, and games, and you're good to go! Which is why it was actually popular back in the day. Now it' just a very niche area that has very little interest.

S3C 2015-11-27 03:10:48

why the frank not?? there's only so many combinations and arrangements of enemies across widely diverse yet limited landscapes, to the point where it gets old (and easy). New enemies offer more replayability!! And it seems that these are actually cleverly modified monsters, previously I had just seen monsters that were re-skinned or had increased health!! But imagine the possibilities...a cacodemon that fires homing fireballs! a pain elemental that spawns archvilles! a floating Cyberdemon! *sweats profusely*

has something to do with how televisions read graphics in different regions, or something (who decided to develop different hardware between regions?? it really boggles the mind). That's one reason for soft modding, that allowed to correct for coordinates for games that were slightly modified, for European, Japanese, and Norther American countries.

lol, no PS2 discs aren't writable (you're not changing anything on the disc but altering the RAM memory on the PS2, by nature RAM is read/write), I don't think any software discs irregardless of the console they are intended for have writing capabilities, otherwise you could lose the information forever!! well you could copy and store the information of course, but there's always the possibility of losing that. Point is, there is no purpose for a company to make their discs not read-only.

with that said: i forgot about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swap_Magic

makes sense, seeing how Gameshark/Datel/Codebreaker/etc. are not produced by actual game publishers!! I wonder why this wasn't more popular during the day. This would make soft modding an easier process for sure!

You find what you want to modify within the games executable (it's all hex data, though you can use a disassembler to make it somewhat readable, although still largely incomprehensible) and enter the code into the cheat device. The cheat device is able to constantly write a code if it's linked to a system call (that's being called constantly in the game).

Still doesn't fully answer your question though, how are codes able to run if the disc containing the code isn't in the console, and the data on the game's disc cannot be modified?? I guess I never really thought about this intuitively. Here's an astoundingly astute and provocative answer: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/76858/how-do-gameshark-codes-work

Since the RAM is being modified, no, the mods are not stored. That's the nature of RAM. The console stores data (that is temporary, in a sense) that is available while you play, but when you shut the console off (or reset)- it's all gone. of course if you have a code that modifies a stat, and this stat is saved on the memory card when you save your game, then in a sense the code is being stored. But essentially it was a code that modified the data stored at the address, and you are just saving the data at the address in memory, not the code itself. Therefore, it is possible to modify stats directly by modifying the game save stored on the memory card, but not modifying the game save to change the RAM the way a cheat disc does. This goes back to my last point, you can modify a game save (because by definition, they must be read and writeable) and risk corrupting this file, but the worst a cheat disc code can do is cause the game to freeze or prevent it from running to begin with.

btw, i invented a new technology: introducing Dr. S3C's infinite memory!! There is a caveat though, it's not read/write memory, or read/only memory, but write/only!! Truly profound. Almost as useful as my time machine (that moves at a rate of 1 second per second and only in one direction: forward).

S3C 2015-12-14 06:24:04

You're right, it's illegal to modify hardware for the sake of circumventing the copyright mechanisms (this also includes copyright mechanisms that are incorporated via software). Which is precisely what Swap Magic does by allowing a user to run non PS2 discs... which doesn't really make sense considering that it's perfectly legal to make a backup, although how the hell can you run the backup if PS2 cannot even play ISOs burned to a standard DVD?

I've spent the past two hours researching the issue. It seems that even soft modding is legally a gray area as well, even if it doesn't technically circumvent the copyright mechanisms. The DMCA states that it is legal to reverse engineer the game, but apparently PS2's EULA that presumably prohibits against reverse engineering its software (I haven't found the EULA to confirm, but I would imagine there would be such a clause within) which potentially overrides the government sanctioned DMCA. Yet, back in the day, you would still see cheat devices being merchandised alongside games in most major video game retailing chains. Given the fact that codes add replay value, and you need to purchase the game itself to actually play the game, is why this ostensibly illegal paraphernalia wasn't heavily objected against by Sony.

in any case, I just read Swap-Magic only allows for homebrew CD-R/DVD-R to be used on the system, so it would be a pain in the @ss to use for the sake of testing mods. Using a single disc for each attempt (which will be copious) aside, do you remember how long it takes to write GBs of data to a disc. Seems like it would be faster to just boot the cheat device, enter the codes manually or transfer them via USB and then boot the game. Emulators seem a great way to go but my wooden computer cannot handle that...

Save game-save cheats and developer mode options will save only if if the original developer planned for it to be saved in the game file. For example a button cheat in GTA that enables taxis to jump. The button cheat would not save because the developers did not design the game so there would be a variable, object, address, or whatever digital spaces that corresponds with saving this event. It may be possible with some rather clever coding (i've never seen it done) but you cannot just make a code that reallocates to save different or additional data that was not intended to be written to the game save.

well that is true in that sense; ROM is limited by the capacity of RAM a system has...but the good thing about my infinite memory HD is it works for computers that contain infinite RAM capabilities (let me know when you find one)

I was using an ActionReplayMax for a while but then switched over to CodeBreaker as you didn't need to encrypt your codes, it enabled USB transfer capabilities (thus I had no need to buy additional memory cards if I could just transfer saves to my PC- probably why Sony ended up losing the USB port in the newer slim PS2s) and the GUI was more simplistic. ActionReplay/CodeBreaker/Gameshark all are the same type of tool that can play the same type of codes. They just differ in their encryption so competitors cannot "steal" codes but those encryptions end up being cracked eventually. That's pretty much it from a hardware standpoint. And then I had a certain tools on my computer to disassemble the game's executable and other specialized programs to assist in niche areas in my hacking pursuits.

S3C 2015-12-18 17:05:31

LOL!! according to that article if you were transferring a legally obtained digital song from one folder to another, and you accidentally pressed Ctrl+C instead of Ctrl+X you could get arrested. The ugly head of capitalism is reared once again. That and the technology illiterate geriatrics who run the governments...Digital data cannot hold monetary value, rather it is the time and service that should hold monetary value...I would support hard drive taxation in lieu of all these specious copyright laws but then again I don't really trust such geriatrics to appropriately use my money anyway...

I don't think there's any cases were the video game manufacturer has won against emulation. It's the same legal guidelines that surround soft-modding. But like I said above, some reverse engineering needs to be done in order to emulate/mod so technically the EULA can prohibit such actions overriding the DMLA and making such actions illegal.

yes my computer can play all those 2-D console games. They are also easier to hack since I can "track" data with the emulator. They're real small too which is nice. The size of games greatly increased in the next generation (like ten-twenty fold). Probably has to do something with the inclusion of video files and analog music (stepping up from synthesizers/midi).

I suppose the developers could technically do that, but why?? it may be a feature or statistic that was intended to be savable data at one point, but then scrapped in the final release. as was the case with the "hot coffee" minigame in GTASA. Did you know it was just a simple boolean switch that enabled the mini-game eventually leading to Rockstar/Take Two settling for 20+ million dollars in lawsuit(s), not to mention a sizeable loss in sales due to being forced to recall their games from the shelves? The hacking violated the game's EULA, but it didn't hold up in court.

actually not high-tech at all lol. I used to do this all on a Windows 95. the biggest obstacle was file size. My old comp with Windows 95 comp only had 1 GB in hard drive space, with game executables being around 4-7 MB and all the programs together being no more than 1 MB. Doesn't seem like a whole lot even back then, but the text conversion of game is around 30-40 MB. Right now I'm working on mapping out the functions for GTAIII.

S3C 2015-12-25 05:29:01

Merry Christmas!! Happy Kwanza!! I wish you a rich Chanukkah! A splendid Paganmas! And a politically correct new year!!