4pp13 Team Blog

You don’t know how much I hate not getting updated on something.  I’ve been hitting the Dev-Team’s website consistently for the past 3 weeks awaiting a 3.1 3GS jailbreak method; or at least an update on their progress, but nothing.  But I can’t complain too much… It’s been almost a month since we’ve update our blog here!  Anyways, we made a ton of progress recently.  There were a couple of obstacles we were battling and researching until our fingers had calluses on them.  Today marks a very special day!  We finally overcame each and every one of them, and don’t foresee any other obstacles for the future.  So, please bear with us just a bit longer as we finish up everything!  There’s still a good bit to do, but at least we all know it’s all possible and easy things that require little to no research.  Feel free to comment and give us some encouragement as we continue programming for you guys.  And don’t forget to help cover server costs by donating a few bucks.  Things are coming up for renewal in a month, and the more ya’ll can help, the more bandwidth we can order for the next year…

First of all, I’d like to say, it’s quite amazing how many of you can be very rude in your comments.  I know by saying this that I’ll probably get 4 times as many rude comments, but come on!  The comments and emails are not helping.  The more you complain and tell us to “get back to work and get our head out of our ***”, the less we actually feel like doing the work.  Maybe some people don’t understand.  All of the 4pp13 Team members have day jobs, a family, and a life; all of which come first.  They are only doing this for the community.  We get no compensation whatsoever, and have recently been spending our own money to foot the costs of the new server (which still isn’t being utilized).

On that note, we made quite a bit of progress on the “overhaul”.  Despite what some of you are saying, the overhaul is something that needed to be done. The method of distributing the ROMs via Cydia was just not the correct approach for us.  For one, it takes too much work for us to manually package each and every single ROM separately (and we know most of you would rather download ROMs one at a time; rather than as packages).  Also, the new method will utilize multiple mirrors, which will help prevent the infamous “host not reachable” and other connection issues related to the mass amounts of downloads ya’ll are doing.  Finally, the new method will allow for easier management of already installed ROMs and will make it easier for the 4pp13 Team to add additional ROMs that ya’ll request.

So, as for today’s update:  We never told you, but for about the past 3 weeks, our main system has been in repair.  Unfortunately, lack of funds means that all the team members share the one Apple system that we have.  Some of you may know that programming for the iPhone can only be done in xcode which only runs on an Apple computer.  And since that system has been in repair for the past 3 weeks, we’ve gotten no work done on the overhaul.  But, we’re glad to announce that the repairs are completed, and our truly missed Apple system should be back in our hands soon!

Oh ya, one more thing… We never said you HAD to update to the 3.0.x version firmware, we just suggested it.  It’s doubtful that we’re require you to run 3.0.x and we’ll do our best to find BETA testers that are running earlier versions of the firmware to test it out on their devices before we do a public release.

It’s been a while since we’ve done anything with the project, and just from reading some of your comments, there is obviously a lot of frustration and confusion.  First of all, we’re not scam artists or crooks.  Donations are meant to help us pay operating costs for the servers.  We don’t directly charge for the ROMs or any other downloads.  Also, we know there are problems, especially with the BIOS files, but instead of trying to fix them, we’re starting out fresh.  While I can’t say much, because I don’t want to spoil things, we are in the process of rebuilding everything from the ground up.  Trust me, you’re going to like love it.  It’s like nothing else you’ve ever seen before.  However, with the new project, we want to do it right the first time.  We’re not going to rush things and push out a buggy release.  In the meantime we suggest upgrading to firmware 3.0 and jailbreaking.  Also, anyone interested in BETA testing the new program, please email us at 4pp13 (at) 123Locker (d.o.t.) com with the subject line “BETA TESTER”.  Include in the email the following information in the following format:

Name:
Location (i.e. USA):
E-Mail Address:
Device (iPod Touch / iPhone):
Device Version (i.e. iPod Touch 2G, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, etc):
Device Firmware:
Do you have broadband internet:
Why we should select you:

Make sure to expand on that last one.  We’re not going to let just anyone be a BETA tester. This would defeat the purpose.  We need some smart people; people with experience that will know what we mean when we ask them to SSH into the device and do xyz.  Expand and what kind of experience you have.  Have you developed for the iPhone before?  How much hacking have you done on the iPhone?  What about XCODE, are you familiar with that and how to do any programming?  Who knows, if we like you enough maybe you can have your own spot on the 4pp13 Team!  Good luck!

Some have reported today that there’s a problem downloading the GBA BIOS file…  I haven’t had time to look into it yet, but I will soon…  I don’t know if it’s just coincidence and lots of people are having internet issues, or if there’s something else…

If you’re having the problem, please comment with as many details as possible.

And as always, please don’t forget to donate… We’re almost to our goal!!!

We have received many complaints from people recently about downloads not completing, stopping, or timing out. We are aware of this issue and have implemented a temporary fix. We have gotten so popular that we were hitting our daily bandwidth limit before even half of the day went by, which brought down everything. We have temporarily relocated some things to another server, so speed should be back up and everything should be more reliable. Go ahead and try downloading those packages again… Should be smooth sailing. If you continue to have problems, you might want to SSH into your file system and remove any files that are located in the following folder:

var/cache/apt/archives/partial

In the meantime, please go ahead and make a small donation. We’re almost to our goal in obtaining enough money to get a new server. Right now everything is located on a temporary server, and who knows how long that will last…

First, let me ask you this:  How much money have you spent on applications that you love from the App Store?  Now, if we had decided to charge for our work, how much would you pay?  However, we do not charge for these.  We just ask kindly for your donations and support…………

After releasing the GENESIS and GBA ROM packages, we have been plagued with support request about the downloading never finishing and timing out.  Even after we released it, I went home and downloaded just one of the packages, and it seriously took 60 minutes!  The reason for this is because our server that the content is hosting on is a shared server located in the Netherlands.

Our next focus is on moving the content from that server to a new and faster server.  However, things aren’t cheap, especially when you’re looking for a server that offers a high amount of bandwidth, which is what we need because of the popularity and the size of the ROM packages.

Hence, we are asking for your support in providing some donations.  We don’t need much, and every donation counts, even if it’s just $10, $5, or $1.  Once we get enough donations from the community, we will move the content and then continue working on our other ROM package releases (PSX, MAME, and SNES).  For those of you who keep asking us to release the PSX ROMs, you need to know that it will not be possible with our current situation.  The ROMs will gain too much popularity, and we will go over on our bandwidth allocations and everything will crash, hence why we are waiting until we get new server space.

Thanks for your support!

-4pp13 Team

Fund raising Percent to Goal:  73%

A big THANKS goes out to the following people, for helping support the 4pp13 Team:

Kevin M. - Donated 11/25/2008
Josh M. - Donated 11/27/2008
Salvador G. (Papeto) - Donated 12/2/2008
Maneul V. - Donated 12/4/2008
Dominique R. - Donated 12/5/2008
Joseph S. - Donated 12/8/2008
ZULEIKA T. - Donated 12/11/2008
Vivek A. - Donated 12/26/2008
Tobias W. - Donated 1/4/2009
Lila L. - Donated 3/4/2009
Joel R. - Donated 3/7/2009
Mathew S. - Donated 3/12/2009
Wendy F. - Donated 3/22/2009
Jessie B. - Donated 4/20/2009
Mike C. - Donated 5/7/2009

Drum Roll, Please

Yep, that’s right!  You’ve been patiently waiting, and we’ve been gathering the popular ROMs that you have requested.  We have released the GENESIS ROMs Package, as well as the GBA ROMs Packages tonight!  It was a lot of hard work and long hours, so if you appreciate it, and want us to continue doing more, please donate!  Continue to check back over the next few weeks as we will soon be releasing the MAME and PSX ROMs Packages…

P.S. Don’t forget to donate to keep the team going strong and to show your support!

Mad props to ZodTTD for releasing gpSPhone, the Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iTouch. This is our first release of the ROMs package. and we are still collecting and organizing new ROMs for future package releases. Any other GBA (Game Boy Advance) ROMs would you like to see in our Package?  Please post a comment with a list of your favorite games for that console, and we’ll try out best to get it added to the next release of this package.

Included ROMS:

Read the rest of this entry »

Mad props to ZodTTD for releasing mame4iPhone, psx4iPhone, and genesis4iPhone. We are currently in the process of collecting and organizing a new ROMs package for these emulators, but need your help:

What MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) ROMs would you like to see in our Package?  Please post a comment with a list of your favorite games for that console, and we’ll try out best to get it added to the package.

Mad props to ZodTTD for releasing mame4iPhone, psx4iPhone, and genesis4iPhone. We are currently in the process of collecting and organizing a new ROMs package for these emulators, but need your help:

What PSX ROMs would you like to see in our Package?  Please post a comment with a list of your favorite games for that console, and we’ll try out best to get it added to the package.