For those that don´t know, the X-Band was a device for the SNES that:
- in essence was a massive "Game Genie", it is a hacker´s dream come true, allowing fairly massive patching of almost any game
- the "main program" on the device itself was updatable
- it contained a modem
- there used to be a service that you could call into and download updates, and hacks ... Which allowed many games to be turned into multi-player modem games!
- the US user base was fairly large and enthralled with it, but when the company was bought out the service was shut down (I´m probably getting history a bit wrong here, but they were bought out ... eventually leading to Qualcomm as the owners I think)
- From the sounds of it, the programmers were a close knit group of hard working youngsters just out of college. They disassembled and gutted many a game to hack it and over came the obstacles to make games 2-player modem games ... which they obviously weren´t originally designed to be!
- You could also send mail and read news "online".

and finally
- There is actually a secret built in memory viewer/hexeditor! (This means if we can get something working, by making just a couple changes, ie the dialup number in memory, anyone with an X-Band could try out what we create... they don´t need a copier or any other special equipment.)


This thing has plenty of potential. Who´s interested in helping?

What would really help:
- If you own an X-Band, check if the memory (battery backed SRAM) is still good by starting it up. If so, I´d love to get a copy of some real patches (haven´t found any X-Bands with good bateries yet).
- Try checking local used game stores and seeing if they have some X-Bands that still have the saved memory.
- If you have an X-Band and can´t help, but would like to donate it ... well, it would be very much appreciated

Side oddities that would be fun to fiddle with:
- If you own an X-Band keyboard (or know where to get one), I´d be interested seeing how it works. (This was added later in its life, and I´m not sure if it got beyond the proto-type phase.)


For those interested in helping with the hacking, some skills that would be helpful (not required though):

Code readers:
- understand SNES asm
- understand C at a low level (We will be looking at the code in asm, but it was originally written in C and then compiled ... so it looks kinda weird unless you understand C at a low level.)
- goals are to figure out software protocals and hardware features so that we can make this puppy do whatever we want

Code writers:
- can write a modem program for a PC (I have done this in DOS in C with asm thrown in as well, but I used direct register writes and swapped interrupt vectors ... I´m not sure how to do it "the modern way" in Windows)
- this is for eventually making a new "server" ... which will depend on info from the code readers above, but I´d like to have at least the fundemental communication routines setup so we can play with / test info as it comes in.

- also plenty of test programs to figure out the hardware will be necessary (SNES programs)
- ultimately, it would be fun to do a proof of concept with MarioWorld (It´s two player, but you take turns ... so there are no synchronizing issues). Then try out MarioKart.

- maybe someone that could write a crude "decompiler" to turn the X-Band code back into a crude form of C (would make reading it much quicker).


Hardware skills:
- even if you don´t understand asm, you may be able to help interpret strange findings from the code ... a good understanding of the memory map and chips involved will help us figure out the hardware (I already have a rough sketch of the memory map, and have a datasheet explaining the modem chip used in this cartridge)
- For testing purposes, it would be nice to connect the X-Band directly to the modem of a PC. There appears to be a mode of the modem chip on the X-Band that supports this ... however, I have no idea how to get the PC modem to do this. Help here will be nice as well.
- help with understanding the theory behind how they overcame the lag in a phone line to make a synchonous multiplayer modem game


Basically, there are plenty of fun things to work on.
After this progresses a bit, I can supply the following to big helpers that need it:
- a SF3 or SF7 (an SNES copier) which is versatile enough to use the XBand on pass through and still allow modifying the ROM
- an X-Band for testing


So who´s up for the thrill of conquering this rom hacking challenge?
People with all ranges and levels of interest are welcome!

Thanks,
-nevisti...