Hello all,
One of the main reasons I joined TT was to be able to share information about Tamagotchi that I learned while playing with them. This includes the reverse engineering of my little shelled friends. Before I start diving into everything, I'd like to get a feel for what types of Tamagotchi hacking would be accepted by (or even preferred by) the community. There are a few different areas of hacking that are available to you in the Tamagotchi world, and the ones that come to mind are as follows:
Logout Code Generation: As you know, there is the D-Best hack that queries the Bandai TamaTown servers and allows you to generate codes for any amount of P or items. Unfortunately, it is reliant on TamaTown's servers being online. If they are offline, you are unable to connect via PC.
If they were to go down for good (i.e. Bandai decides it only wants to support from Music Star to more recent tamas), you would be unable to ever generate codes for your tama again. The disadvantage of having this information available is that it would allow people to easily have an unlimited amount of P/items and would be likely to significantly encourage cheating. This is not really too much of a problem as tamas are single player, but some may feel that it will cause people to stop playing as excessive cheating tends to remove the fun from a game. Being able to create Log Out codes without a dependency on Bandai removes the risk of the servers going away, as well as lets other people create minigames/etc that will give you P for your Tamagotchi, and more.
I'd like to expand in this area and learn how to generate my own Log Out codes. This is actually where most of my research has been conducted currently.
Login Code Generation: Once I had Logout codes reverse engineered correctly, I thought that it would be nice to be able to generate my own valid login codes for a specified Username. This may not be useful to most people, but there are many things that could be done with it. It is necessary to be able to generate TamaTown Login codes to create a correctly functioning Tamagotchi Simulator or even your own Tamagotchi. It's likely not a far walk to get to this point after reversing the Logout Codes.
Simulation: Simulation is the creation of programs on different hardware (in this case, likely your PC) that performs functions similar to another piece of hardware/software (i.e. your Tamagotchi) As far as I know, there was a simulator created a long while ago. I would like to create one at one point, that is fairly accurate in terms of sprites, mechanics, and games. Unfortunately the possible issue of copyright comes into play. For it to be accurate, the sprites used would have to be exact to the pixel. I am unsure of the legal status of this (as the graphics are fairly low resolution..) but it may come up at one point.
I have begun some work on my simulator, but have only implemented the framework for it so far.
IR Reverse Engineering: The communication between the Tamas that we cannot see; IR is what lets our Tamagotchi talk. This falls into a similar realm of Logout Code Generation, as knowing the protocol that they speak would only be useful to a few individuals. I have a few ideas of what could be done if we are able to duplicate the protocol. This ranges from allowing a Tamagotchi simulator talk to a handheld one to adding IR to your own custom Tamagotchi. I also had an idea of creating an online service that would allow people to connect their Tamagotchi over the internet. That would be fun :] Have you ever wanted to connect with any of your TT friends? This would let you do that. It seems like some people have investigated this before a little, but I haven't been able to find any additional information (see: https://blog.makezine.com/archive/2005/06/t..._sounds_li.html) This area of reversing would probably relatively easy as IR protocols tend to be unprotected.
Hardware Modification: Like debugging your Tamagotchi? By taking those screws out of the back of the case, you open a whole new world of Tamagotchi hacking.. You've seen people swap their Tamagotchi backgrounds. Imagine having a backlight on your v4.5. What about volume control? The possibilities are endless..
Hardware Creation: Sure Tamagotchi simulators are fun, and customizable, but the problem with them is that you're tied to a computer to play with them. What if you wanted to make your own Tamagotchi? Once you have a thorough understanding of the Tamagotchi IR protocol, login and logout code generation, etc, it should be possible to create your own Tamagotchi using parts you can get online or at your local RadioShack. I have done a lot of work with micro controllers and processors and know that it wouldn't be too difficult to create a Tamagotchi of your very own.. (Surely not for the faint of heart though ^^')
----
After I get some feedback regarding the above Tamagotchi hacking fields (what people are interested in, etc) I may create a few threads to discuss what work I've done and what needs to be done (and to find people to help!) If you have any questions or opinions on the above, I'd greatly appreciate your reply. Thank you for your time!
--Garrett
One of the main reasons I joined TT was to be able to share information about Tamagotchi that I learned while playing with them. This includes the reverse engineering of my little shelled friends. Before I start diving into everything, I'd like to get a feel for what types of Tamagotchi hacking would be accepted by (or even preferred by) the community. There are a few different areas of hacking that are available to you in the Tamagotchi world, and the ones that come to mind are as follows:
Logout Code Generation: As you know, there is the D-Best hack that queries the Bandai TamaTown servers and allows you to generate codes for any amount of P or items. Unfortunately, it is reliant on TamaTown's servers being online. If they are offline, you are unable to connect via PC.
If they were to go down for good (i.e. Bandai decides it only wants to support from Music Star to more recent tamas), you would be unable to ever generate codes for your tama again. The disadvantage of having this information available is that it would allow people to easily have an unlimited amount of P/items and would be likely to significantly encourage cheating. This is not really too much of a problem as tamas are single player, but some may feel that it will cause people to stop playing as excessive cheating tends to remove the fun from a game. Being able to create Log Out codes without a dependency on Bandai removes the risk of the servers going away, as well as lets other people create minigames/etc that will give you P for your Tamagotchi, and more.
I'd like to expand in this area and learn how to generate my own Log Out codes. This is actually where most of my research has been conducted currently.
Login Code Generation: Once I had Logout codes reverse engineered correctly, I thought that it would be nice to be able to generate my own valid login codes for a specified Username. This may not be useful to most people, but there are many things that could be done with it. It is necessary to be able to generate TamaTown Login codes to create a correctly functioning Tamagotchi Simulator or even your own Tamagotchi. It's likely not a far walk to get to this point after reversing the Logout Codes.
Simulation: Simulation is the creation of programs on different hardware (in this case, likely your PC) that performs functions similar to another piece of hardware/software (i.e. your Tamagotchi) As far as I know, there was a simulator created a long while ago. I would like to create one at one point, that is fairly accurate in terms of sprites, mechanics, and games. Unfortunately the possible issue of copyright comes into play. For it to be accurate, the sprites used would have to be exact to the pixel. I am unsure of the legal status of this (as the graphics are fairly low resolution..) but it may come up at one point.
I have begun some work on my simulator, but have only implemented the framework for it so far.
IR Reverse Engineering: The communication between the Tamas that we cannot see; IR is what lets our Tamagotchi talk. This falls into a similar realm of Logout Code Generation, as knowing the protocol that they speak would only be useful to a few individuals. I have a few ideas of what could be done if we are able to duplicate the protocol. This ranges from allowing a Tamagotchi simulator talk to a handheld one to adding IR to your own custom Tamagotchi. I also had an idea of creating an online service that would allow people to connect their Tamagotchi over the internet. That would be fun :] Have you ever wanted to connect with any of your TT friends? This would let you do that. It seems like some people have investigated this before a little, but I haven't been able to find any additional information (see: https://blog.makezine.com/archive/2005/06/t..._sounds_li.html) This area of reversing would probably relatively easy as IR protocols tend to be unprotected.
Hardware Modification: Like debugging your Tamagotchi? By taking those screws out of the back of the case, you open a whole new world of Tamagotchi hacking.. You've seen people swap their Tamagotchi backgrounds. Imagine having a backlight on your v4.5. What about volume control? The possibilities are endless..
Hardware Creation: Sure Tamagotchi simulators are fun, and customizable, but the problem with them is that you're tied to a computer to play with them. What if you wanted to make your own Tamagotchi? Once you have a thorough understanding of the Tamagotchi IR protocol, login and logout code generation, etc, it should be possible to create your own Tamagotchi using parts you can get online or at your local RadioShack. I have done a lot of work with micro controllers and processors and know that it wouldn't be too difficult to create a Tamagotchi of your very own.. (Surely not for the faint of heart though ^^')
----
After I get some feedback regarding the above Tamagotchi hacking fields (what people are interested in, etc) I may create a few threads to discuss what work I've done and what needs to be done (and to find people to help!) If you have any questions or opinions on the above, I'd greatly appreciate your reply. Thank you for your time!
--Garrett
