Nintendo DS accessories
Encyclopedia

Official accessories

Although the secondary port on the Nintendo DS does accept and support Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

 cartridges (but not Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...

 or original Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

 cartridges), Nintendo has emphasized that its main intention for its inclusion was to allow a wide variety of accessories to be released for the system, the Game Boy Advance compatibility titles being a logical extension.

Rumble Pak

The Rumble Pak was the first official expansion slot accessory. In the form of a Game Boy Advance cartridge, the Rumble Pak vibrates to reflect the action in compatible games, such as when the player bumps into an obstacle or loses a life. It was released on October 24, 2005 and bundled with Metroid Prime Pinball
Metroid Prime Pinball
Metroid Prime Pinball is a pinball video game themed after the Metroid series. The game uses the graphical style and various story elements from Metroid Prime. It was developed by Fuse Games for the Nintendo DS handheld game console, and released by Nintendo in North America and Australia in 2005,...

. It can be used in games such as Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, Star Fox Command
Star Fox Command
is the fifth game in Nintendo's Star Fox series which was published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS in 2006 and 2007. Released in Japan on August 3, 2006 and in North America on August 28, 2006, it was first announced at the E3 2005 conference, under the name Star Fox DS...

, Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime Hunters is a first-person shooter and adventure game for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was developed by American video game developers Nintendo Software Technology, and was released by Nintendo in North America in March 2006, in Europe and Australia in May 2006, and...

, Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man is a fictional character, a superhero in the . The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, first appearing in Tales of Suspense #39 .A billionaire playboy, industrialist and ingenious engineer,...

, Diddy Kong Racing DS and 42 All Time Classics and is sold as a separate accessory. (For complete list of compatible games to the Rumble Pak, refer to the main link above.)
A specially designed Rumble Pak was released in Japan in late May, 2006 for the Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo DS Lite
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a slimmer, brighter, and more lightweight redesign of the Nintendo DS, designed to be aesthetically sleeker, while taking styling cues from the Game Boy Advance SP, and to appeal to broader commercial audiences...

The cartridge is about 1 cm shorter to prevent it from protruding out of the Nintendo DS Lite as standard Game Boy Advance cartridges do. A North American version of the accessory was released following the June 11, 2006 release of the system. However, it is not compatible with the Nintendo DSi
Nintendo DSi
The is a handheld game system created by Nintendo and launched in 2008 and 2009 in Japan, North America, PAL territories, and other regions. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable...

, DSi XL or the 3DS
Nintendo 3DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software...

 because none are equipped with a GBA slot.

Headset

The Nintendo DS Headset is the official headset for the Nintendo DS. It plugs into the headset port (which is a combination of a standard 3.5mm (1/8 inch) headphone connector and a proprietary microphone connector) on the bottom of the system. It features one earphone and a microphone, and is compatible with all games that use the internal microphone. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2006.[39] The headset was released in North America on April 22, 2007, alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl
are role-playing games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. With the enhanced remake Pokémon Platinum, the games comprise the fifth installment and fourth generation of the Pokémon series of RPGs...

, two games that have built-in voice chat. It was later released in Australia on June 21, 2007, also alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Other communication headsets not made by Nintendo also work as the mic.

Opera Web Browser

On February 15, 2006, Nintendo announced a version of Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...

, a cross-platform
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

 web browser, which will take advantage of the dual screens for either zooming in on certain sections of a website or having a longer vertical view. The browser went on sale in Japan on July 24, 2006, for JP¥
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...

3,800 (approx. $33). It was released in Europe on October 6, 2006.

Memory Expansion Pak

The Nintendo DS Browser
Nintendo DS Browser
The Nintendo DS Browser is a version of the Opera web browser for use on the Nintendo DS, developed by Opera Software and Nintendo. The Nintendo DS Browser comes in separate versions for the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite; this is due to differing physical size requirements for the memory...

 ships with an 8MB RAM pack which fits into the accessory slot, and which is required for the browser to run. Two versions of the Memory Expansion Pak are available. One is compatible with both the original DS and DS Lite, although the cartridge sticks out of the DS Lite. The second is a smaller translucent version which fits flush with the body of the DS Lite, but it can be used in the original DS if modified. The Expansion Pak is not used by any other commercial software, but some homebrew applications can use it.

Nintendo MP3 Player

Nintendo of Europe released the Nintendo MP3 Player in December 2006. It is very similar to the Japanese Play-Yan Micro, however the MP3 Player cannot play video files. Music is played from an SD Card inserted into the MP3 Player Cartridge (which fits into the GBA Slot), and a special Headphone port is included in the cartridge to enable playback during sleep mode, and in a higher quality than the DS speakers. It has two menu themes, a Stickman theme and a classic Super Mario Bros theme.

The Nintendo MP3 player is compatible with any device that can play GBA games, however it is not recommended for the Game Boy Advance or GBA SP due to short battery life.

DS Camera

The DS Camera is a camera that plugs into the GBA slot of the DS. It is included with Face Training, in which it is used to give the player a view of whose face as who uses the game.
It is currently only available in Japan. No release date has been given for the rest of the world.

Slide Controller

Launched in Japan on 2007-08-03, the Slide Controller is bundled with the game Slide Adventure: Mag Kid
Slide Adventure: Mag Kid
is a game published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS video game console. The title was developed by Nintendo NSD with programming assistance by...

. The Mag Kid is a little magnet that stays all of the time in the center of the touch screen. The Slide Controller is attached to Slot 2, of the DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

, which makes use of the technology of a computer's optical mouse
Optical mouse
An optical computer mouse or "optic mouse" uses a light-emitting diode and photodiodes to detect movement relative to a surface, unlike a mechanical mouse which has a ball which rotates orthogonal shafts which drive chopper wheels for distance measurement.- Early optical mice :Early optical mice,...

, being that the pak emits red light from a LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....

 light located at the bottom of the controller. In order to move the Mag Kid across the screen during the game, the player has to slide the whole Nintendo DS system with this controller (combined with a slant angle) on a table surface, thus given the name "Slide Controller". On August 3, 2007, the bundled package of the Controller with the game was released at the price of HKD310 (USD39.99) across Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

.

Nintendo DS Digital TV Tuner

The Nintendo DS Digital TV Tuner is a 1seg TV tuner that picks up TV signals and plays them on the Nintendo DS. The prototypes Nintendo had at the press conference were running via the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot, but the final version plugs into the DS card slot complete with TV aerials that unfold when in use. It was released on November 23, 2007. The top screen is for watching the broadcast in 16:9 or 4:3 ratio. The touch screen is used to change the channels. Not much information is available on the product. Currently available in Japan only because it only picks up 1seg broadcast signals. It is unlikely this will become available for use in North America or Europe. Sold at an online Nintendo shop in Japan. It works with the original DS, DS Lite, DSi, and DSi XL.

Activity Meter

The activity meter is an IR Pedometer. It connects to the DS by plugging an Infrared game card into the DS Card slot, meaning it will work with the DSi. It can clip to a person's clothes or a dog's collar. Unlike other pedometers, it does not have a display, meaning that it needs to be connected to a DS in order to tell how far someone walked. It can record up to 7 days before needing to be connected to a DS. It currently works with Personal Trainer Walking, which has an IR receiver in the game card.

Pokéwalker

The is a Poké Ball-shaped pedometer
Pedometer
A pedometer is a device, usually portable and electronic or electromechanical, that counts each step a person takes by detecting the motion of the person's hips...

 which can connect to Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver
Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver
are enhanced remakes of the 1999 video games Pokémon Gold and Silver. The games are part of the Pokémon series of role-playing video games, and were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS...

 game cards via infrared signals. The player can transfer a Pokémon to the Pokéwalker from either HeartGold or SoulSilver. Every time the player takes a step, the Pokémon inside gains experience point
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...

s and the player earns "Watts", a type of in-game currency which was also used on the Pokémon Pikachu
Pokémon Pikachu
Pokémon Pikachu, also known as in Japan, is a series of portable Pokémon digital pets featuring the famous yellow electric Pokémon, Pikachu. This product was intended as an exercise toy and mentioned by Guinness World Records as the most popular exercise toy of its time...

 virtual pet. Players can also catch various Pokémon on the device and obtain items, then transfer them to the game. The device comes bundled with the games.

When players transfer a Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...

 from their game into their Pokéwalker, they can select which route they would like to take their Pokémon along. Depending on which route the player takes (such as in a grassland or by the sea), they will encounter different wild Pokémon and items. When players first begin their journeys with the Pokéwalker, the list of routes they can select from is short. But, the more players take a stroll with their Pokémon, the more routes will appear and the more Pokémon and items they will be able to get.

One criticism of the pokewalker is the ease of "cheating" or "hacking" in which players will intentionally create artificial situations mimicking walking. This has consequently led to multiple varieties of Pokéwalker cheats causing Pokémon to gain experience without the user actually expending any effort. Nevertheless, the device has still been praised as a good way to get kids active and to have fun at the same time.

Flash Cartridges

A device used for running software on the DS not hard-encoded into a cartridge, such as homebrew games, homebrew software, listening to music, viewing pictures or documents, other not-officially available functions, and virtual versions of the software on official cartridges; often stored on removable media such as an SD card. There are many DS flash cart variants on the market. Although they are still compatible with the DS, Slot-2 flash carts originally intended for the Game Boy Advance have been superseded by more modern DS flash cards which use slot-1, such as the N-Card, M3, Supercard, EZFlash Vi, G6DS Real, DSTT, R4, Acekard, and CycloDS Evolution. It is probable that 3D-compatible cards like the Crown3DS will also be compatible with Moonshell.

Guitar grip controller

The Guitar grip controller comes packaged with the game Guitar Hero: On Tour and is plugged into the GBA game slot. It features four colored buttons just like the ones that can be found on regular Guitar Hero guitar controllers for the stationary consoles, though it lacks the fifth orange button found on the guitar controllers. The DS Guitar Hero controller comes with a small plectrum
Plectrum
A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...

-stylus that can be put away into a small slot on the controller. It also features a hand strap.
The controller comes with two adapters, one for the DS Lite, and one for the original DS.

Max Media Dock

Datel
Datel
Datel is a UK-based electronics and game console peripherals manufacturer. The company is best known for producing a wide range of hardware and peripherals for home computers in the 1980s, for example replacement keyboards for the ZX Spectrum, the PlusD disk interface and the Action Replay series...

 manufactures the Max Media Dock, this allows you to access, store and run media content from CompactFlash
CompactFlash
CompactFlash is a mass storage device format used in portable electronic devices. Most CompactFlash devices contain flash memory in a standardized enclosure. The format was first specified and produced by SanDisk in 1994...

 cards. It can accept cards up to 8 GB in size. This tool also lets you use DS homebrew. DS homebrew is software written for the Nintendo DS handheld games console by hobbyist programmers.

Max Media Dock is compatible with both the original Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo DS Lite
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a slimmer, brighter, and more lightweight redesign of the Nintendo DS, designed to be aesthetically sleeker, while taking styling cues from the Game Boy Advance SP, and to appeal to broader commercial audiences...

.

Paddle Controller

Manufactured by Taito
Taito
Taito may mean:*Taito Corporation, a Japanese developer of video game software and arcade hardware*Taito, Tokyo, a special ward located in Tokyo, Japan*Taito, also known as matai, paramount chiefs according to Fa'a Samoa...

, the paddle controller is available only in Japan. It is sold both as a standalone and bundled with Arkanoid. The paddle controller is a miniature version of the arcade knob controllers first made popular with Pong.

In addition to Arkanoid, the paddle controller is also supported by Space Invaders Extreme
Space Invaders Extreme
is a re-vamped incarnation of the classic arcade game Space Invaders. The DS and PSP versions were released to mark the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders which saw its original arcade release in...

. Despite being available only in Japan, the controller is compatible with versions of the Arkanoid and Space Invaders Extreme released in all regions.

Supported titles:
  • Arkanoid
  • Space Invaders Extreme
    Space Invaders Extreme
    is a re-vamped incarnation of the classic arcade game Space Invaders. The DS and PSP versions were released to mark the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders which saw its original arcade release in...

  • Space Invaders Extreme 2
    Space Invaders Extreme 2
    is the sequel to Space Invaders Extreme. Space Invaders Extreme 2 features new content compared to its predecessor. A cut-down version of the game called Space Invaders Extreme Z has been made available on DSiWare for 500 Points.-Gameplay:...

  • Space Bust-A-Move
    Space Bust-A-Move
    Space Bust-A-Move is a puzzle video game developed by Lancarse and published by Taito for the Nintendo DS. It was first released in Japan under the title Space Puzzle Bobble on December 18, 2008, It was later released in North America under the title Space Bust-A-Move on July 28, 2009, and in...


Play-Yan

The Play-Yan
Play-Yan
The Play-Yan is a media player for the Nintendo DS/Game Boy Advance. It uses SD flash memory to play MP3 audio files and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video files. It can also play 13 bonus mini-games, 12 of which are available freely on the Nintendo website in Japan and one is limited to ClubNintendo members...

 is an adaptor which allows the Game Boy Advance SP and Nintendo DS to play MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...

 videos and MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 music from SD
Secure Digital
Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...

 memory cards. It was originally marketed as a Game Boy Advance accessory, but it can also be used with the Nintendo DS. The adaptor bears a superficial resemblance to the AM3 player (which allowed playback of pre-recorded movie files from read-only memory cards on a Game Boy Advance); the memory card slides into the right hand side of the adaptor, which then plugs into the cartridge slot of the parent console.

Trainer Toolkit

The Trainer toolkit is a device which fits into the GBA slot on a DS. It must be used in combination with an Action Replay
Action Replay
Action Replay is the brand name of a series of video game cheating devices created by Datel. As of 2010, Action Replays are currently available for some of the current major gaming platforms which include the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, PlayStation 2, and the PlayStation Portable, and many older...

 DS. The trainer toolkit is connected to a PC via a mini-usb cable where software can be used to produce a dump of the DS's RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

. The software also provides means to analyse the dump for example to search for specific values, changing or static values. Through this process locations for specific values can be found, commonly health, ammo or time. These can be altered by the action replay code language to create custom cheats. It also provides basic action replay functionality allowing the user to test codes they create.

Motion Pack

Tony Hawk's Motion
Tony Hawk's Motion
Tony Hawk's Motion is a 2008 video game in the Tony Hawk series of video games, for handheld consoles released on the Nintendo DS on November 18, 2008.-Gameplay:...

 uses a motion-sensing peripheral called the "Motion Pack", which is inserted into the Game Boy Advance game slot as the method of control.

DS Brut

DS Brut is an open source hardware prototyping platform for the Nintendo DS, developed by and for electronics enthusiasts, artists and game developers. By connecting the Nintendo DS to the outer world with UART, GPIO, PWM, ADC, I²C, etc., the game console can be easily hooked up to a variety of sensors (e.g. GPS receivers) and can itself control all different kinds of actuators, servo motors and others.

DS Bluetooth adapter

DS Bluetooth adapter is a tiny Slot-1 cartridge that allows you to hook up the Nintendo DS wirelessly with other devices such as GPS-receivers, robots and so forth.

Didget glucose system

Didget glucose system was developed by Bayer, together with Paul Wessel, father of a child with diabetes mellitus. One day, Paul noticed that his son Luke often loses his blood glucose meter, but not for a moment parted ways with the Nintendo Game Boy console. In 2000, Wessel quit his job and with the support of Nintendo founded his own company, Guidance Interactive Healthcare, to pursue the creation of children’s blood glucose meters. Later Wessel ideas permeated Bayer, and the resulting system has appeared in Didget.

DSRobot

DSRobot turns your Nintendo DS into a fully functional robot with 20 digital input/outputs, customizable motors and sensors, and wireless programming and control. It is programmable in C or C++ with devkitpro and a custom library to manage the signals.

DS Motion Card

The DS Motion Card and DS Motion Pak are motion sensors for the DS and DS Lite handheld gaming systems.http://web.archive.org/web/20080503100321/http://ndsmotion.com/ They each contain a 3-axis accelerometer and a single-axis gyroscope, and plug into the DS to enable full motion sensing on the DS and the DS lite. This will work with Mario Kart DS if the Action Replay code is used.

They are the first tri-axis accelerometers that can be used for homebrew DS development, and the first accelerometer/gyroscope combinations available for handheld gaming.

DSMem

The DSMem is an adapter for the Nintendo DS produced by the engineer amadeus in his spare time, aiming to supply the DS with a means of rewriteable storage, and to free some of the DS's 4MiB
MIB
MIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...

 of available memory by using userspace XIP on the binaries contained within the internal flash memory. Over the last months, since the project's announcement on the DSLinux forums at 10:36 on 21 July 2005, the device has evolved from a plan into a fully working prototype. It is to provide an RS232 interface, Flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...

, and a microSD port. The Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 kernel and uBoot bootloader will be stored in the Flash, while other data are to be stored on the microSD cards. The DS has only limited battery power, so low-power parts must be used. This influenced the decision to use the microSD card, Xilinx
Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. is a supplier of programmable logic devices. It is known for inventing the field programmable gate array and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model....

 Coolrunner II CPLDs, and Intel P30 flash memory, with an LM3670 voltage switcher.

FlashMe

One of the most prevalent booting tools is the program FlashMe. This is a modified firmware for the DS. It is used in many DS devices including the R4, M3, and DSTT card.

GBA Movie Player

This card was originally designed for the Game Boy Advance, but was hacked by Chism, a homebrew DS developer. The firmware modification allows the GBA Movie Player versions 1 and 2 to boot DS homebrew. The files are stored on a Compact Flash card. Since the GBA Movie Player is a Slot-2 device, it must be booted using a PassMe, FlashMe, WiFiMe, or another pass device such as NoPass. The booting application must be renamed _BOOT_MP.nds, which is booted when the DS starts up. A shell program, such as MoonShell, DSOrganize, or GBAMP Multiboot, may be used to boot other applications after it boots.

PassMe

After the first passthru (patching card information) got homebrew code running, several people started to produce and sell the so-called PassMe devices. Currently, the BIOS
BIOS
In IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface....

 of the Nintendo DS has been disassembled and will lead to passthrules cards. PassMe v1 could simply use any Nintendo DS Game Card to operate, while PassMe v2 required on-board memory for game specific booting, which would combat with later versions of the Nintendo DS's firmware that blocked nongame-specific boots. However, this required SRAM in the media that the PassMe was booting to, and thus did not operate with some media devices, such as the Game Boy Advance Media Player (CF/SD).

NoPass devices

Datel has introduced to the market the first of the aforesaide passthrules cards, dubbed "NoPass" by the homebrewing community.
It functions similarly to a PassMe, and unlike previous generations, does not need an official game card or an SRAM-enabled storage device. This opens up the option of using the Game Boy Advance Movie Player with newer-firmware Nintendo DSs.

Wi-Fi

Ever since the Nintendo DS's release on November 21, 2004, several groups have been attempting to extend and build upon the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi protocol. Darkain was leading the reverse-engineering of the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi and Ni-Fi protocols at the time the Nintendo DS came out, which has influenced many of the available Nintendo DS Wi-Fi hacks and applications today.

Interestingly, two groups (Project Nitro and Team Xlink) had claimed to be successful in tunneling the Nintendo DS WiFi protocol over the internet creating online multiplayer possibilities around the world using the handheld and multiplayer-enabled Nintendo DS games.

However, Project Nitro never put out any software or evidence to support their claim, and has since completely disappeared (the developers moved on to create DSmeet, a place to meet other NDS WiFi users). Team XLink claimed to have a workable system, but later publicly announced they were no longer working on tunneling the Nintendo DS, saying they were not making enough progress to warrant their continued efforts.

In both cases, it is all but certain there was never any tangible product created.

Recently a new project entitled DSTunnel has come into being. It is a culmination of a hacker's work in reverse engineering the DS's Wi-Fi hardware. While it has shown promise, and a beta version has shown some success, it still has the requirement of the user having a RAlink RT2500 based Wi-Fi card for it to work.

Since early to mid 2006, Nintendo DS developers have been able to create working Wi-Fi applications through the use of Stephen Stair's NDS Wi-Fi Library. Through modifications of this library, people such as Bronto, of NDSMail, have created functional Wi-Fi apps. DSLinux has also employed Wi-Fi in their port of the Linux operating system. (See below)

Linux

There is currently an ongoing project aiming to bring the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 operating system to the Nintendo DS, "DSLinux
DSLinux
DSLinux is a port of the Linux operating system to the Nintendo DS. DSLinux was maintained until sometime in 2010.-Software:DSLinux runs a modified μClinux kernel. It is based on uCLinux 2.6.14 . It only runs in textmode and which is displayed using a custom framebuffer console driver...

". As of February 2006, this project has successfully executed a 2.6 kernel, the retawq text-only web browser, simple shell, telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

, SSH
Secure Shell
Secure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...

, telnetd, some text-based games, touchscreen support, sound (beta) and Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

 support.

Voice over IP

Using the built-in microphone and Wi-Fi connection, developers have recently begun to create Voice over IP
Voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...

 applications, effectively turning the Nintendo DS into a WiFi phone.
Only DS-to-DS calls were possible, and now support for SIP
Session Initiation Protocol
The Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...

 has been implemented in the form of SvSIP. In conjunction with a SIP provider, it allows you to make phone calls to anyone using the DS whenever there is Wi-FI available.

Cyber Famulator Lite

Cyber Famulator Lite is an addon for the Nintendo DS Lite which allows users to play Famicom games, and NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

 games with a converter.

NDS Adaptor Plus

NDS Adaptor Plus is a NDS Slot-1 flash cartridge read/write USB adaptor that allows you to back up game ROM and SAV files from the NDS game card to a computer.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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