NES emulator hidden inside Animal Crossing (GameCube)

Unused feature has been hidden in Animal Crossing for nearly two decades.

The Oldest Known Surviving PC Operating System

By Jenny List

You’ll all be familiar with the PC, the ubiquitous x86-powered workhorse of desktop and portable computing. All modern PC's are descendants of the original from IBM, the model 5150 which made its debut in August 1981. This 8088-CPU-driven machine was expensive and arguably not as accomplished as its competitors, yet became an instant commercial success.

The genesis of its principal operating system is famous in providing the foundation of Microsoft’s huge success. They had bought Seattle Computer Products’ 86-DOS, which they then fashioned into the first release version of IBM’s PC-DOS. And for those interested in these early PC operating systems there is a new insight to be found, in the form of a pre-release version of PC-DOS 1.0 that has found its way into the hands of OS/2 Museum.

Sadly they don’t show us the diskette itself, but we are told it is the single-sided 160K 5.25″ variety that would have been the standard on these early PCs. We say “the standard” rather than “standard” because a floppy drive was an optional extra on a 5150, the most basic model would have used cassette tape as a storage medium.

The disk is bootable, and indeed we can all have a play with its contents due to the magic of emulation. The dates on the files reveal a date of June 1981, so this is definitely a pre-release version and several months older than the previous oldest known PC-DOS version. They detail an array of differences between this disk and the DOS we might recognize, perhaps the most surprising of which is that even at this late stage it lacks support for .EXE executables.

You will probably never choose to run this DOS version on your PC, but it is an extremely interesting and important missing link between surviving 86-DOS and PC-DOS versions. It also has the interesting feature of being the oldest so-far-found operating system created specifically for the PC.

If you are interested in early PC hardware, take a look at this project using an AVR processor to emulate a PC’s 8088.

DS Programming For Newbies

This is a PDF file that contains the posts made by Foxi4 in this post as an introduction into C programming.

This is so that people can download & view on mobile devices or print out, without having to go through each & every post he's done.

More Or Less Catch All Tutorial (3DS)

By Sgt. Lulz 

Since the 3DS scene is on red alert because of the keynote from a couple days ago, I decided to write a catch-all guide to installing Menuhax and Ironhax through Browserhax in anticipation of the upcoming exploits.

First and foremost:

STOP UPDATING. STAY ON 10.3, THIS IS THE LATEST EXPLOITABLE FIRMWARE. Don't update anymore.

If a system firmware update has been released, STOP READING THIS GUIDE. You need to set the blocker DNS before proceeding. You can read about this in the 'WHAT'S THIS ABOUT DNS?' section of this guide.

1. Download the Homebrew Starter Kit from https://smealum.github.io/ninjhax2/starter.zip
2. Place the contents in the root of your SD card

3. Proceed according to your System Version (Found on the top screen, bottom right corner in System Settings). You will need this system version to install Ironhax as well, so write it down if you need it.

4a. Old 3DS, System Ver. <= 10.1.0-27:
Visit http://yls8.mtheall.com/sliderhax.php on your 3DS browser and follow the instructions.
4b. Old 3DS, System Ver. = 10.3.0-28:
Visit http://yls8.mtheall.com/spider28hax.php on your 3DS browser and follow the instructions.
4c. New 3DS, System Ver. <= 10.1.0-27:
Visit http://yls8.mtheall.com/browserhax_fright.php on your 3DS browser and follow the instructions.
4d. New 3DS, System Ver. = 10.3.0-28:
Visit http://yls8.mtheall.com/browserhax_fright_tx3g.php on your 3DS browsr and follow the instructions.​

You should now see the Homebrew Menu. If you don't, restart the console and try again. Clearing the cookies and cache in your browser helps.

The next step is installing a new entrypoint, as Browserhax becomes unavailable every time a new system update comes out, potentially even leading to it being patched.

You have two entrypoints available for install from here: Menuhax and Ironhax.

You'll definitely want to get Menuhax, but Ironhax is also an option if you're a complete klutz (In your own opinion anyway, I don't mean to insult anybody) and are afraid of system updates or changing Home Menu themes.

MENUHAX:

1. Open the Menuhax_Manager app.
2. Hit 'Install'.
3. You're done.

OPTIONAL: Hit 'Setup a built-in Home Menu 'Basic' color theme' to use a different theme with Menuhax.​

To activate: Hold L while starting up your 3DS to open the Homebrew Menu.

CAUTION: Don't change your Home Menu theme after installing this, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Doing so will uninstall Menuhax and render it unusable. There are ways to use any themes if you REALLY want to do so, which I will further explain in the future.

IRONHAX (REQUIRES AN NNID):

1. Open the eShop - Old Version Downloader app.
2. Download Ironfall Invasion
3. Restart and open the Homebrew Menu (Using either Menuhax or Browserhax)
4. Open the Ironhax Installer app.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions. Your Ironfall version will most definitely be 1.0. System Version will be whatever you wrote down during the first guide, and the save slot doesn't matter.
6. You're done.
To activate: Open Ironfall Invasion and open the save slot you installed the exploit to.

CAUTION: Don't update Ironfall Invasion after installing this, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The game will update to an unexploitable version.

WHAT NOW?:

You wait for the CFW and other-such >9.2.0-20 kernel stuff to show up.
I'll update this guide when it DOES happen.

WHAT'S THIS ABOUT DNS?:

System Versions 9.9 and above force you to update to use the Browser, as it checks with Nintendo's servers if the console is on the latest firmware to prevent exploitation. The current System Firmware as of this guide, 10.3, is exploitable as well as not needing the DNS. Things will change at 10.4 and beyond.

DON'T OPEN THE 3DS INTERNET BROWSER IF THIS IS THE CASE, YOU'LL RENDER IT COMPLETELY UNUSABLE. FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW BEFORE YOU EVEN TRY TO DO SO.

To change your DNS settings to bypass this:

1. Open System Settings.
2. Go to Internet Settings > Connection Settings. Edit your main connection settings.
3. Set Auto-Obtain DNS to 'No' and enter 107.211.140.065 under the DNS: Both primary and secondary.
4. Do this for all your other connections, if any.

Remember: Don't update. Ever.

To the smart people:
 
If I've missed anything in this guide or there are any mistakes, let me know.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.