Anonymous

Changes

From Rare Gaming Dump
349 bytes added ,  20:57, 15 October 2018
no edit summary
Line 40: Line 40:  
|-
 
|-
 
! scope="row"| IOS3
 
! scope="row"| IOS3
| IOS3 is quite interesting, and there is much more behind it than the generic stub which is present in the folder. IOS3 was used as the IOS slot and title ID for a series of pre-release IOSes used before the release of IOS4v3 in August 2006. Since IOS0 is not a valid title ID, and IOS1 and 2 are taken (as mentioned previously), IOS3 was the first choice to be the title ID for the initial branch of IOSes. While specific details are scarce, it is known that the IOS version 0.7.6 (v1978 in decimal) existed and was distributed to developers at some point before the aforementioned release of IOS4; according to information found in .ddf files in the extended SDK, it is believed that this version used IOS0 for its internal version number, but used the IOS3 title ID and as such installs to the IOS3 "slot". This is the only known instance of an official IOS's internal version number not matching with its title ID. Unlike its successor IOS4, IOS3 was never (as far as is known) released onto retail Wiis through any distribution channel. However, the IOS3 stub present in the folder was released onto retail Wiis through one distribution channel; it was bundled onto newer (possibly LU64+) Wiis. It was never released on NUS or discs. The exact reasoning for this is unknown, however, as Nintendo's factory tools are known to use very old IOS versions, it can be assumed that IOS3 was used for a factory tool starting with a newer production batch of Wiis, and the stub was installed at the end of the factory process in order to overwrite the old, working IOS3. It was presumably vulnerable to the signing bug, and it was not used by any retail software, so it was easier to stub it than to pointlessly patch it. As such, while the IOS3 present in the folder is an odd generic stub, there is at least one more version of IOS3 in existence (and likely many more) which are working and were used for early development purposes.
+
| IOS3 is quite interesting, and there is much more behind it than the generic stub which is present in the folder. IOS3 was used as the IOS slot and title ID for a series of pre-release IOSes used before the release of IOS4v3 in August 2006. Since IOS0 is not a valid title ID, and IOS1 and 2 are taken (as mentioned previously), IOS3 was the first choice to be the title ID for the initial branch of IOSes. While specific details are scarce, it is known that the IOS version 0.7.6 (v1978 in decimal) existed and was distributed to developers at some point before the aforementioned release of IOS4; according to information found in .ddf files in the extended SDK, it is believed that this version used IOS0 for its internal version number, but used the IOS3 title ID and as such installs to the IOS3 "slot". This is the only known instance of an official IOS's internal version number not matching with its title ID. Unlike its successor IOS4, IOS3 was never (as far as is known) released onto retail Wiis through any distribution channel.  
 +
 
 +
However, the IOS3 stub present in the folder was released onto retail Wiis through one distribution channel; it was bundled onto newer (possibly LU64+) Wiis. It was never released on NUS or discs. The exact reasoning for this is unknown, however, as Nintendo's factory tools are known to use very old IOS versions, it can be assumed that IOS3 was used for a factory tool starting with a newer production batch of Wiis, and the stub was installed at the end of the factory process in order to overwrite the old, working IOS3. It was presumably vulnerable to the signing bug, and it was not used by any retail software, so it was easier to stub it than to pointlessly patch it. As such, while the IOS3 present in the folder is an odd generic stub, there is at least one more version of IOS3 in existence (and likely many more) which are working and were used for early development purposes.
 +
 
 +
While datamining [[RVL_DIAG]], a version of IOS3 was discovered in the BroadOn WAD format, otherwise only used for boot2. Its purpose on the RVL_DIAG disc is unknown. It is believed to be one of the final versions of IOS3, possibly 0.7.6. It has not been converted to a normal installable WAD yet, but the binary has been successfully extracted.
 
|-
 
|-
 
! scope="row"| IOS4
 
! scope="row"| IOS4