caralynx teardowns

BTW, I've mentioned that I have the second and third wave Tamagotchi Paradise to tear down. I still need to do that. I was holding off until a tripod accessory I ordered arrived, and that took a month, but when it arrived it worked poorly and I got frustrated and gave up.

So at some point I'll get to the Tamagotchis again. Probably after I mess around with the PixTube more, which I did take photos of and I'm in the process of trying to dump its sprites (which I have tools for since it's the same engine as Punirunes, but locating associated data is a chore).

Bit different than usual, I got some mini DisplayPort dummy plugs from Amazon for review. I thought I'd try to take one of them apart to see what's inside (usually an EEPROM). www.amazon.ca/dp/B0GX5PD3Y8

CONFIG1 is pulled up to indicate an alternate mode should be used (i.e. this is a passive converter; this probably only works with DP++). AUX pins are hooked up directly to the EEPROM for I2C, and as expected, WP is pulled high.

However, it's connected to the HPD pin, so if you have a mini DP breakout board, you can tie that pin to ground and it should allow you to reprogram it.

The plastic also pulled the EEPROM chip off, and when I tried to free the chip itself the plastic flexed and twisted the chip's legs sideways, resulting in them getting mangled and a couple coming off. So if you want to disassemble this, be careful.

Here's the PCB. Pretty straightforward, it's a bunch of resistors, an I2C EEPROM, a capacitor, and a LED.

I did try it and it does work. I was able to dump the EDID data out of it. Unfortunately, the EDID appears to be write-protected.

The construction of this thing is fully molded plastic around a PCB, then glued and slid into a metal shell. Disassembly is somewhat destructive, particularly for the plastic.

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

3 June

I think I forgot to follow up since I lost interest rather quickly in this (the gameplay is not very good), but the sprite format is roughly the same as modern Tamagotchis, however I don't think they are using the rest of the engine with all the animation formats and stuff.

3 June

Sprites are banked in a way where there's several copies of the sprite pack spread across different banks, and there's repeated assets so common sprites can be accessed without having to give them new IDs. Bit of a waste of space, but whatever.

Got my Digimon Color Digimon Xros Wars 15th Edition. Looks the same as any other DMC but with a UV print. I don't care much for Xros Wars and only got this for the firmware, so I only have this one color. The tape seems wider than usual, dunno what's up with that.

It's really just a normal DMC hardware-wise. Nothing to really see here. Software-wise, it looks more like a PenC than a DMC. Firmware is not compatible with any other device because they changed how rendering works again.

Evolution guides and manual here. Took a bit longer than last time to figure out due to the new features and previously mentioned overtime, but it's done. bsky.app/profile/humu...

humulos@humulos.bsky.social

The guide for the Digital Monster Color Digimon Xros Wars 15th Edition is complete! Evolution requirements, DigiXros combinations, usage instructions, World Battles and details on every Digimon on the device can be found at humulos.com/digimon/dmxw/ #デジモン

I didn't actually bother taking more photos than the front and back of the device. I guess I worked too much overtime and just wanted to get it dumped, and forgot about photographing the other sides.

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

As usual, flash dumped. I'm not sure which engine this is using at a glance, but probably the one in Punitapi-chan (some of the sound effects seem identical). I don't think they're actually using the full 32MB of flash in the base firmware, but maybe they are using it for the journal.

ENG LISH It drives me nuts that the LCD is misaligned compared to the lens, and it wasn't due to my disassembly. I checked a couple of her videos and they're both like this. How did Takara Tomy manage that? Also, these buttons are mushy and terrible.

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

Taking off the upper three screws removes the front bezel and lens. Taking off the bottom two screws frees the LCD and button assembly. The buttons are secured to the screen assembly, which makes assembly easier. The port in the corner is probably a UART, and below that is a debug port.

Here's the back of the screen assembly. The LCD part number is unfortunately blurry in this photo, but it starts with GD, and has QQ in it, which I've seen a few times with screens used for vpets. Wonder what it stands for. Maybe resolution?

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

Here's the main PCB The important parts are the microcontroller, a GeneralPlus GPL95101UB1-002A-QL241. The flash is a Macronix MX25L25645GM2I-08G, which is a whopping 32MB SPI NOR.

Also notable is an AnalogTek AT8568S, which is an RTC. Not sure why there's a separate one because the GPL951 has one built in, with generally amazing accuracy. Maybe for interrupts?

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

The top layer has a number of capacitive pads, and is held in place by two screws. There's not much slack on those wires, so the assembly kind of hangs off and gets in the way.

After that, you can remove the rear half of the black piece. There's a bracket on each of the left and right sides, one is a motor and the other is the speaker. To take out the main assembly, remove one screw on each side towards the front. The main assembly is mounted vertically, a bit unusual.

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

Here's the battery door open, revealing spaces for an astonishing 4 AAA batteries. Why so much power?

As usual, we open the thing up before trying to use it. After removing the two screws, the top shell is still clipped on. The trick here is to slide your fingernail around the device until it is beside the screen, and pull towards you so the shell starts unclipping. Do this for the other side too.

I finally managed to get my hands on a Pokemon Friends Pokeball. Box is smaller than expected, and appears to have been retaped (probably at the factory).

Quick look around. There's also a small leaflet, not shown, probably telling you to look at the full manual online.

Finally got some stuff from Japan shipped. For the longest time Japan Post wasn't shipping to Canada. Anyway, it's another Punitapichan, specifically this year's rerelease. I mainly wanted to see if it's got new firmware.

Misspoke about the warning panel on the right side of the box. It's actually Chinese and English.

BTW I managed to find the western release at Barnes and Noble, and according to the box everything is still in Japanese. Only the instructions are in English.

My Pendulum Color ver. 6 and 7 finally arrived, after a week of mysterious movement (thanks Canada Post).

Here's v. 7 Toho Braves. This one did not give me any trouble.

All of the data mining was done a couple of days after the devices released, and now that I've got mine, I've updated the hash checker accordingly. The new versions are also supported in the sprite tool.

My Pendulum Color ver. 6 and 7 finally arrived, after a week of mysterious movement (thanks Canada Post).

As usual, you get the device, a USB cable, and instruction leaflets inside the box

Here's v. 6 Saiyu Warriors. It's got a red PCB. Also they managed to get a bit of glue on the peg holding in the display assembly, so that was a bit of a struggle to get loose so I can dump the flash. Also the little frame on top of the LCD panel fell off.

There is indeed a firmware update. This one is from 2022 instead of 2020. I'm not sure what's changed. The main code probably got rearranged due to the linker, but the data pack seems to be the same as last time.

I guess the only thing left is to play it and see if there's anything different.

FWIW if I'd have bought this sooner, I would have noticed that the text probably meant a US release, which did happen. You can buy Puni Boba-chan at Barnes & Noble. Still, I don't understand why there's FCC text on the Japanese version. Surely the US SKU is different?

The inside is basically the same as before. Same slightly weird disassembly, same PCB (the only change appears to be the manufacturing date code), same GeneralPlus GPL95101UB. The 8MB flash is KH branded this time, but the original GeneralPlus brand is just a rebadge of the same chip.

Inside are the device and the manual.

The device itself looks the same as the original release, except for the battery door, which has a bit of a different design. Instead of a Tapioca illustration, it has uhhhh... FCC notice. Really weird. The SKU is also lasered in instead of molded.