Fun with a GC mod chip (shuriken attack)

Not sure if this is needed not with wasp fusion / xeno gc / softmod gc's however it was fun for me to do and it is cheap ($10) so I will share this little project.

Many moons ago back at the start of 2014 I wanted to better understand tmbinc orginal attack vector into the gc (the one that started gc homebrew). I managed to find some infomation and went about trying to re-create his attack and came up with this

http://www.retro-system.com/gamecube2.htm

At the end of 2014 I was thinking ok a learned alot but I dont really like the hack so went about trying to improve my attack vector and ended up with this

http://www.retro-system.com/shuriken_attack.htm

Which was ok for my homebrew needs I wrote my own loader and was happy. Wind on two years and I wanted to add a bypass / program switch and whilst looking at the code I thought I wonder if a) I can make it small enough to fit in a xc9536 as they are cheap ($5) and b) can it actually run anything other then my homebrew loader.

So last weekend / this week I started playing around and managed to fit it into a xc9536 cpld and load gcos version 1.5 and 1.x (beta). Declaimer I have not had time nor am I actually that bothered to fully test that gcos functions 100% correctly. All I can say is that gcos 1.5 loaded from the shuriken attack board can boot a real game / boot the orginal bios and can boot swiss from a burned dvd thats all I tested.

As this attack vector is basically based of tmbinc work you will need to lift the PIN9 of U10 when installing just like you had to do back in the day. Not sure if anyone is interested in building one if so let me know and I will update the PCB to version two and make a OSH link. If not it was a fun project for me and I hope someone may learn something from it.

 

I asked citrus3000psi for some ideas on how to make a nice install as always he came up with some good ideas. The current plan is to create QSB that will fit over the serial port and then stack a second PCB on top with the CPLD and serial flash fitted to that. On holiday till next week so will make a start when I get back unless citrus3000psi beats me to it ;-)