It's been more than a year since I used one of these blog thingies, but that changes today.
Today, me, rmc and xp are jointly releasing several Nintendo DSi development console dumps that we have acquired from a fellow collector by the name of collection_nintendo, mainly consisting of Nintendo DS Classroom units used during the program's final testing phases.
I can already hear you ask questions; a Nintendo DS in the classroom? Glad you asked! Here's some context.
Nintendo DS Classroom
In 2010, Nintendo collaborated with Sharp - specifically their Sharp System Products devision - to release special versions of the Nintendo DSi LL (XL internationally) to be used in classroom settings for all different kinds of grades. The program is titled Nintendo DS Classroom, with the bundled application of the same name communicating with a teacher's PC to retrieve assignments, questionaires, and even tests with 50 consoles being able to connect to one PC at once. The Nintendo DSi Camera also played a role, with students being able to draw and send photos or images to a drawing board. It was ahead of its time, and somewhat comparable to what schools regularly offer now in terms of digital learning environments. The service remained exclusive in Japan with no plans for an international release, but it did make a few headlines (as with IGN) when the program was originally announced in 2009. Whether the program was actually successful isn't entirely known, but we do know Sharp stopped offering support for the program between 2012 and 2018. Though, it was successful enough to warrant a brief section in an Iwata Asks interview. Furthermore, each Nintendo DSi LL unit came bundled with the Rakubiki Yiten dictionary software split over three applications, Flipnote Studio and the Nintendo DSi Browser, with the only caviat that the Nintendo DSi Shop is unavailable.
Now that you know some of the context, it's important to understand some of the changes that were made during the program's development. Nintendo originally announced that the program would make use of the standard Nintendo DS (Lite), providing several pieces of applications distributed through DS cartridges, including the Nintendo DS Classroom software (which, by the way, is just a heavily modified version of Nintendo Zone set to connect to a local network). The switch was made to make use of the Nintendo DSi only a few months after its announcement, mainly so software could be stored on the console's internal storage. Just before the units went into mass production, the Nintendo DSi LL would be used instead, as it had just released in November 2009.
Skipping to the end of August 2023, and people noticed that someone on Reddit posted about owning a Nintendo DSi development unit. Listings from June were also seen on Yahoo! Auctions from the same unit. The real kicker is that there are special stickers on the back that are out of the ordinary on standard Nintendo DSi development units; yellow stickers showing the Nintendo DS Classroom logo with a special code, going up from K04 to K08. Whoever owns the consoles said they were running v1.3J, but standard Nintendo DS Classroom units would be running v1.4J_kst (kst meaning kyoshitsu, classroom). After some back and forth and waiting, rmc got in contact with collection_nintendo - one of the buyers - and convinced him to dump the consoles to examine their contents. Sure enough, we had internal storage dumps in no time (except for K05, which was bought by someone else), and we were able to confirm that these consoles were indeed used for the development of the classroom program.
Each unit varied in its contents, but it was generally the same software that was on each one. Here's what we found:
What surprised us is, of course, this camera KART application. As of writing, we haven't fully figured out what it does, but what it's supposed to do is clear from its title. This is a simple application testing the possibilities of AR functionality in a classroom setting. AR with a VGA 0.3-megapixel camera, I know. On the bottom are FPS and frame recognition counters, which appears to shoot up whenever the software recognizes a certain pattern, sort of like the AR Cards bundled with the Nintendo 3DS. While we haven't gotten anything to display, we did find some models buried in the files of Pikachu, a figure from a game we didn't recognize, and (exclusive to camera KART 2/n2) a folding game console that might've revealed the figurine.
A cartridge version of the app was also dumped - sort of, we couldn't produce a good dump, but with the help of two different dumping tools, we managed to produce something that the DSi will happily read - that doesn't have any of these models, but does let you pause the screen in different ways (B/Start/Select), switch between the inner/outer cameras (X) and increase the FPS up to 30 (Y), which causes the screen to split near the bottom. Maybe the installed applications and this cartridge would've communicated with eachother. We haven't been able to test this as of writing, since we couldn't get the cartridge version to run on melonDS.
What's strange is that these applications were built with an IS-TWL-Debugger library from March 2010, just a month before the program supposedly launched, suggesting that AR was just an afterthought for potential (future) software if the program sold well.
From left to right: pika, man_02 and cube.
That's it for the Nintendo DS Classroom development units, something I wasn't expecting to surface this soon considering the PC software that makes all the magic happen is still lost. However, the story isn't over yet; collection_nintendo provided us with dumps of other development and showcase units, which resulted in me getting sidetracked by finding remains of a scrapped service; MangaON. How did we go from talking about school to reading mangas in the same blogpost?
MangaON
Nearing the end of 2008, Sunsoft revealed a brand new Japan-exclusive service for the Nintendo Wii and DSi, titled MangaON (temporary name). MangaON would allow fans and readers of manga to purchase and read mangas on their TV through WiiWare or on the Nintendo DSi through DSiWare. The service would've offered mangas from One Piece, Dragon Ball, and other things from Shonen Jump. The service also would've offered out-of-print and rare issues, all to purchase on a digital storefront that (probably) would've costed you your precious Wii or DSi Points. Teasers were also shown of an interactable hub world. Think of it as Wii no Ma, but only for manga.
The service was revealed at Jump Festa 2009 on Decemebr 20th, 2008 with a scheduled release for Spring 2009. You know what was also coming out in Spring 2009? Wii no Ma. I doubt that this was the reason for its cancellation, but it probably would've seemed strange to have two separate in-app purchase applications release around the same time in Japan. We may never know.
You're probably waiting for me to say that we unconvered a service that wasn't only cancelled, but also lost to the sands of time. Unfortunately, we were only able to recover about 10% from it. Contained on one of the internal storage dumps that we were sent, we found the Jump Festa 2009 showfloor version of MangaON for Nintendo DSi, overwritten by the system's v1.0J launcher. We have a build date from December 17th, 2008 at 18:52:11, the arm7/9 binaries, banner, fat and fnt binaries, and only part of the comic on display - which we haven't been able to identify because nobody recognized the file format. Because this was overwitten with a relatively early version of the Nintendo DSi's system software, this suggests someone reinstalled the console's firmware right after the event was over. I felt a bit sour seeing showfloor photos, probably showing the exact same unit that we had gotten a dump from. You win this time, Sunsoft.
MORE?!
Not really. We were sent a few more dumps with nothing of interest on them. These are as follows.
While we can't share downloads here, we have uploaded seven internal storage dumps somewhere on the internet. For convenience, we also extracted the contents so you wouldn't have to rummage through with ninfs or a hex editor. Where on the internet exactly? I was told your frenemy "Google" might be able to help you out.
Massive thanks to rmc, xp and collection_nintendo for research and making this release possible. If you want to help figuring out the file format for MangaON's single available (half overwritten) manga, or help figuring out what makes camera KART tick, feel free to do so! We can use some help.
Thanks for reading!
Today, me, rmc and xp are jointly releasing several Nintendo DSi development console dumps that we have acquired from a fellow collector by the name of collection_nintendo, mainly consisting of Nintendo DS Classroom units used during the program's final testing phases.
I can already hear you ask questions; a Nintendo DS in the classroom? Glad you asked! Here's some context.
Nintendo DS Classroom
In 2010, Nintendo collaborated with Sharp - specifically their Sharp System Products devision - to release special versions of the Nintendo DSi LL (XL internationally) to be used in classroom settings for all different kinds of grades. The program is titled Nintendo DS Classroom, with the bundled application of the same name communicating with a teacher's PC to retrieve assignments, questionaires, and even tests with 50 consoles being able to connect to one PC at once. The Nintendo DSi Camera also played a role, with students being able to draw and send photos or images to a drawing board. It was ahead of its time, and somewhat comparable to what schools regularly offer now in terms of digital learning environments. The service remained exclusive in Japan with no plans for an international release, but it did make a few headlines (as with IGN) when the program was originally announced in 2009. Whether the program was actually successful isn't entirely known, but we do know Sharp stopped offering support for the program between 2012 and 2018. Though, it was successful enough to warrant a brief section in an Iwata Asks interview. Furthermore, each Nintendo DSi LL unit came bundled with the Rakubiki Yiten dictionary software split over three applications, Flipnote Studio and the Nintendo DSi Browser, with the only caviat that the Nintendo DSi Shop is unavailable.
Now that you know some of the context, it's important to understand some of the changes that were made during the program's development. Nintendo originally announced that the program would make use of the standard Nintendo DS (Lite), providing several pieces of applications distributed through DS cartridges, including the Nintendo DS Classroom software (which, by the way, is just a heavily modified version of Nintendo Zone set to connect to a local network). The switch was made to make use of the Nintendo DSi only a few months after its announcement, mainly so software could be stored on the console's internal storage. Just before the units went into mass production, the Nintendo DSi LL would be used instead, as it had just released in November 2009.
Skipping to the end of August 2023, and people noticed that someone on Reddit posted about owning a Nintendo DSi development unit. Listings from June were also seen on Yahoo! Auctions from the same unit. The real kicker is that there are special stickers on the back that are out of the ordinary on standard Nintendo DSi development units; yellow stickers showing the Nintendo DS Classroom logo with a special code, going up from K04 to K08. Whoever owns the consoles said they were running v1.3J, but standard Nintendo DS Classroom units would be running v1.4J_kst (kst meaning kyoshitsu, classroom). After some back and forth and waiting, rmc got in contact with collection_nintendo - one of the buyers - and convinced him to dump the consoles to examine their contents. Sure enough, we had internal storage dumps in no time (except for K05, which was bought by someone else), and we were able to confirm that these consoles were indeed used for the development of the classroom program.
Each unit varied in its contents, but it was generally the same software that was on each one. Here's what we found:
- The Nintendo DS Classroom application. Unfortunately, aside from being debug signed, there's no differences from its released counterpart, suggesting these units were used late in testing.
- Several applications titled "camera KART", "camera KART2" and "camera Kartn2", which led me to believe this to be an abbreviation of "Kyoshitsu Argumented Reality Test".
- An unknown application with the title ID of BC6J. It seems like this application was safely erased, as we couldn't find any traces in each units' twl_main partition. All we have is its ticket.
What surprised us is, of course, this camera KART application. As of writing, we haven't fully figured out what it does, but what it's supposed to do is clear from its title. This is a simple application testing the possibilities of AR functionality in a classroom setting. AR with a VGA 0.3-megapixel camera, I know. On the bottom are FPS and frame recognition counters, which appears to shoot up whenever the software recognizes a certain pattern, sort of like the AR Cards bundled with the Nintendo 3DS. While we haven't gotten anything to display, we did find some models buried in the files of Pikachu, a figure from a game we didn't recognize, and (exclusive to camera KART 2/n2) a folding game console that might've revealed the figurine.
A cartridge version of the app was also dumped - sort of, we couldn't produce a good dump, but with the help of two different dumping tools, we managed to produce something that the DSi will happily read - that doesn't have any of these models, but does let you pause the screen in different ways (B/Start/Select), switch between the inner/outer cameras (X) and increase the FPS up to 30 (Y), which causes the screen to split near the bottom. Maybe the installed applications and this cartridge would've communicated with eachother. We haven't been able to test this as of writing, since we couldn't get the cartridge version to run on melonDS.
What's strange is that these applications were built with an IS-TWL-Debugger library from March 2010, just a month before the program supposedly launched, suggesting that AR was just an afterthought for potential (future) software if the program sold well.
From left to right: pika, man_02 and cube.
That's it for the Nintendo DS Classroom development units, something I wasn't expecting to surface this soon considering the PC software that makes all the magic happen is still lost. However, the story isn't over yet; collection_nintendo provided us with dumps of other development and showcase units, which resulted in me getting sidetracked by finding remains of a scrapped service; MangaON. How did we go from talking about school to reading mangas in the same blogpost?
MangaON
Nearing the end of 2008, Sunsoft revealed a brand new Japan-exclusive service for the Nintendo Wii and DSi, titled MangaON (temporary name). MangaON would allow fans and readers of manga to purchase and read mangas on their TV through WiiWare or on the Nintendo DSi through DSiWare. The service would've offered mangas from One Piece, Dragon Ball, and other things from Shonen Jump. The service also would've offered out-of-print and rare issues, all to purchase on a digital storefront that (probably) would've costed you your precious Wii or DSi Points. Teasers were also shown of an interactable hub world. Think of it as Wii no Ma, but only for manga.
The service was revealed at Jump Festa 2009 on Decemebr 20th, 2008 with a scheduled release for Spring 2009. You know what was also coming out in Spring 2009? Wii no Ma. I doubt that this was the reason for its cancellation, but it probably would've seemed strange to have two separate in-app purchase applications release around the same time in Japan. We may never know.
You're probably waiting for me to say that we unconvered a service that wasn't only cancelled, but also lost to the sands of time. Unfortunately, we were only able to recover about 10% from it. Contained on one of the internal storage dumps that we were sent, we found the Jump Festa 2009 showfloor version of MangaON for Nintendo DSi, overwritten by the system's v1.0J launcher. We have a build date from December 17th, 2008 at 18:52:11, the arm7/9 binaries, banner, fat and fnt binaries, and only part of the comic on display - which we haven't been able to identify because nobody recognized the file format. Because this was overwitten with a relatively early version of the Nintendo DSi's system software, this suggests someone reinstalled the console's firmware right after the event was over. I felt a bit sour seeing showfloor photos, probably showing the exact same unit that we had gotten a dump from. You win this time, Sunsoft.
MORE?!
Not really. We were sent a few more dumps with nothing of interest on them. These are as follows.
- A unit with a stamp on the back that reads「販売店様 説明員用」 ("For Dealers And Explainers"), running the latest retail firmware (v1.4.5J).
- A development unit used by Altron, who never developed anything specifically for the Nintendo DSi. Therefore, it had nothing of interest hiding in its twl_main partition.
- A Nintendo Zone Box running retail firmware v1.4.1U, which was used at stores and kiosks to distribute demos and trailers. As expected, there was nothing on it.
While we can't share downloads here, we have uploaded seven internal storage dumps somewhere on the internet. For convenience, we also extracted the contents so you wouldn't have to rummage through with ninfs or a hex editor. Where on the internet exactly? I was told your frenemy "Google" might be able to help you out.
Massive thanks to rmc, xp and collection_nintendo for research and making this release possible. If you want to help figuring out the file format for MangaON's single available (half overwritten) manga, or help figuring out what makes camera KART tick, feel free to do so! We can use some help.
Thanks for reading!
