NDS homebrew with passcard3 & M3Perfect
Role:
Date: February 20th, 2007
I live out here in Tokyo, and despite what you might imagine, it is very hard to get ahold of homebrew kit out here. There are some dodgy shops here and there, but often they are geeky and un-comunicative about what they sell due to legal reasons.
So, out for a walk trying to find a dreamcast with my friend in Akihabara last weekend, I spotted a shelf full of NDS “stuff”.
I enquired to the geeks behind the counter about what hardware I need but they told me that they cannot give me any information about how it all works! They even told me that even if I do buy any of the kit I can’t take it back or have a receipt!
With that in mind, and a stubborn intent to buy at least something, I got a Passkey3. Outside I realised that it had no slot for adding SD cards and took it back, they let me exchange for the more expensive M3 Perfect (mini SD, I have a 1st gen NDS). In total I spent 13,000 yen. That’s about 55 quid currently. Having absolutely no idea how this works I thought I could run homebrew games from that bit of kit alone.
After a bit of searching on the internet I bought a Passcard3. You need both cards. One to pass the anti piracy features using slot 1 (top of DS) and another card to store the data (GBA slot).
Getting the system up and running was very easy. In windows I formatted my Mini SD card to Fat32, placed the software that came with my M3 Perfect on there. Used that upload software to add a rom to my card (lemmings homebrew) and I was away! it is also possible to run hacked Nintendo DS games using this combo.
easy