We had a huge table and still managed to fill it up entirely. Just look:

Console Hacking table at the Hackcenter

The iPhone Dev Team guys also sat with us. We even worked together on several occasions, and it was really cool to have these two teams meet together and learn from each other.

On Day 2 we gave our talk in Saal 2, Console Hacking 2008: Wii Fail.

Throughout most of Day 2 and right until the talk, we worked on trying to get a BootMii demo done. Just before the talk, my monitor finally flashed an image of a text-based I2C waveform dump – this is the very first time we got that to work without involving IOS (it turns out IOS does some video init too). John_K and Erant worked before and during the beginning of the talk to bring us the little System Menu/Homebrew Channel menu which proves (if you believe us anyway) that we finally got video output working in fully custom PPC code running from BootMii. After some roadbumps and my failure to remember to cat /dev/usbgecko on the computer (that’s why we got a black screen the first time), it finally worked at the very last minute.

Oh yeah, and the batteries on the Wiimote weren’t dead. I tried them later and they were fully charged – I think the Wiimote had crashed or something and the battery changed had gotten it to reset.

You can grab the slides, view them online, or watch the talk in its h.264 glory.

We also had an insanely fun time with the 25C3 Capture the Flag competition. At first some of us were somewhat reluctant to participate since we were all totally unprepared, but in the end the iPhone Dev guys and the Wii guys joined forces. We worked together really well, and we managed to pull off a first place! Congratulations to the other teams and to the organizers too – it was very fun and we hope we can do this again soon, maybe as a remote team. Next time I promise I won’t run killall5 and bring down our entire server for a while (whoops!)

Time to start crossing days off until next year

Pack up has been interesting. Behold:

Standards vary, but I think this is somewhere between “reasonable by 25c3 standards” and “completely insane”. This should be fun though. See if you can spot the key components. FYI: My Wii lives in that 56K modem box.

In an attempt to keep this blog from developing a severe case of cobwebs, I’ll try to keep you posted on what goes on at 25c3. Here’s the vital information:

• 25C3 opening is Dec 27th at 10:00AM CET
• Our talk (Console Hacking 2008: Wii Fail) is on Dec 28th at 9:45PM CET
• We’ll have a 12-seat table near the middle left of the Hackcenter

I’ll be arriving there on the 26th, a bit after Erant and bLAStY. Hope I can make it to the hotel with zero knowledge of German.