3DO ZONE Forums

I remember Gir Draxa mentioning something about editing the text in 3DO games without the need to re-encrypt. I guess it's not actually encrypting, I guess it's hashing, so if you keep the file lengths the same, you might be able to dupe the system into booting a disk?

I've just UnCDROM'd Dr Hauzer, and the entire text is easily readable in Japanese, and stored neatly, it's even formatted in seperate files, on the disk. It wouldn't take much to Fansub this.

That would be quite something? Eh?

Failing that, anyone care to speculate how the the Game Guru worked for Oldergames? I'm guessing there is a simple way of getting the GameGuru bootfiles into loading anything.

but...

ANyone know where I can get information on the 3DO boot sequence, what files do what, in what order?

Holy crap this would be so awesome if this would work

this would be awsome. from what i remeber drH was like a junior version of code veronica but older. total 3d!

bulletbob wrote:this would be awsome. from what i remeber drH was like a junior version of code veronica but older. total 3d!

http://fz1-3do.blog.co.uk/2006/09/21/title~1146636

It's an awesome game for sure

You know we'd have to do Policenauts next

3DO Experience wrote:You know we'd have to do Policenauts next

That would be awesome wouldn't it?

Then Blue Forest Story

Then Grand Chef.

As an aside, I've been studying Japanese (with a private tutor) for a few weeks now. I am the dumbest language student on earth. It just doesn't sink in. Ug! No one really speaks Japanese I reckon. I believe they just mumble like that when the tourists are around.

fingers crossed for you! In theory it should work but hey the last thing I ever programmed was in BASIC on the VIC20! so what would I know!

Right, so, I'm perilously close to figuring this out.

Some points:

1) You can indeed edit the ISO in a Hex editor and still have it run. It's not encrypted, it's hashed.

2) Mrs 3DOkid (native Japanese reader/writer) has agreed to translate the text for me.

3) I found the text (which was a good thing given point #2)

4) the text is recorded 5 times in the ISO and I cannot figure out which one to change but I am close - very close

5) Converting Kanji to hex to ASCII (so you can search) is very painful but not impossible.


6) wish me luck

Good luck! You know I'll need to play this when you are done.

You will. It's awesome.

3DOKid wrote:Right, so, I'm perilously close to figuring this out.
4) the text is recorded 5 times in the ISO and I cannot figure out which one to change but I am close - very close

Change all of them. The 3DO's filesystem duplicates files across the disc to lower disc seek times. It will use different files at different times, depending on where the laser head is.

Mobius wrote:

3DOKid wrote:Right, so, I'm perilously close to figuring this out.
4) the text is recorded 5 times in the ISO and I cannot figure out which one to change but I am close - very close

Change all of them. The 3DO's filesystem duplicates files across the disc to lower disc seek times. It will use different files at different times, depending on where the laser head is.

Bingo. Thank you.

This thread has gotten me thinking and tinkering again. I looked up the basics of digital signatures, and from what I gather, it works like this:

1. A hash function is run to get a hash of the source data
2. The results of the hash are encrypted
3. The encrypted hash is bundled with the data and delivered
4. The encrypted hash is decrypted at the destination
5. The hash function is run on the delivered data
6. If the calculated hash matches the decrypted hash, the signature is verified

So assuming this is the scheme the 3DO uses, there are a couple of ways to approach running homebrew. We could learn the encryption key so that we can create our own signatures, or we can create data that matches an existing signature. Depending on the complexity of the hashing algorithm, creating data to match an existing signature could be fairly straightforward.

Does anyone have more information about what changes to an ISO break a game and what changes don't? As Gir Draxa and 3DOkid have talked about, modifying data files and keeping them the same size doesn't break the game. I just did a test and verified that modifying the main executable (LaunchMe) and keeping it the same size doesn't break it, either.

Does adding a file break it? How about deleting a file? Or changing a file name? Do all files have to remain the same size, or just certain ones? Can you extract and rebuild the ISO and have it work, or do you have to directly edit the original?

I could do some more experiments to answer these questions, but if anyone knows off the top of their head, it would save me some trouble.

I'm cheering you on 3DOKid!

3DO Kid, you could also tap ULTRA EDIT 32, it's what I used to edit CD images for the 3DO years back.

It would be interesting to see a translation for Moon Cradle, one day or another.

PS Gir Draxa, great avatar! Splatterhouse forever!

Plissken wrote:It would be interesting to see a translation for Moon Cradle, one day or another.

PS Gir Draxa, great avatar! Splatterhouse forever!

Thanks, but actually, its not from Splatterhouse. It's the final boss (version A) from EYE OF TYPHOON for 3DO. I donated some avatar pics awhile back that were taken from the game. Trev uses one of them as well.

Oh, and instead of Moon Cradle, how about we do a total translation of DEEP BLUE FLEET. lol

Drax

3DOKid,

Did you make any progress on this? Sounds like you were on the right track.

Im curious too. Any luck?

3DOKid wrote:I've just UnCDROM'd Dr Hauzer, and the entire text is easily readable in Japanese, and stored neatly, it's even formatted in seperate files, on the disk. It wouldn't take much to Fansub this.

Once you've got a script dump, it's much much easier to get a translator on board. I'm sure someone at ROMHacking.net would be up for participating in the first 3DO fan-translation ever!

Are there any Mac-based tools for mounting 3DO filesystems, BTW? Or, regardless of platform, what tools are folks generally using? I know there's some kind of support in Linux, and I'd love to be able to take a look inside real discs or, if necessary, disc images.

Just posted about this on ROMHacking.net.

Six months later, still wondering about this. If the Doctor Hauzer text files can be made available, it shouldn't be too hard to find a translator, if Mrs. 3DOKid isn't interested/available anymore. (I have an original DH disc but I'm on a Mac.)