A few day ago there was a theory about taking some offsets of a TB eboot and putting them in a retail eboot +3.60 to get it to work wich was a bust.
But someone (don't remember who), stated that the true blue dongle doesn't do anything besides checking that you've bought the dongle, and that everything that you need to run TB eboots is in the firmware.
Then someone else stated that someone should write a True Blue emulator and that started me thinking.(witch is usually a dangerous thing ,lol)
So I started to compare REBUG_3.55.2 to REBUG_3.55.2_TB.
Unpacked both pups and saw that 2 files had different hashes, version.txt( this is normal different names in them) and update_files.tar(more interesting)
I unpacked the 2 tar's and saw that 3 files where different.
1)CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg
2)dev_flash_011.tar.aa.2010_11_27_051337
3)dev_flash_022.tar.aa.2010_11_27_051337
First i unpacked the CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg and found that 2 files where different.
1) lv1.self
2)lv2-kernel.self
Decrypted those and looked at them in a simple hexeditor.
In lv1.elf only 3 offsets differ as to lv2_kernel.elf is completely different at first glance. the filesize differs and one of them starts out with a lot of zero's where the other does not. But when I compare the files from the bottom up I see a lot of things that are the same but the 'code' has shifted to other offsets.(Don't know what this means, if someone could elaborate on that it would be much appreciated.)

Then the dev_flash:
I can't seem to get it unpacked.Tried every tool and script I could find, spent hours reading the ps3_dev_wiki to no avail and then I read somewhere that you can't unpack the dev_flash from the pup when it is created in MFWbuilder.Apparently a bug in the current tools.(Is there any truth to that?)

I tought that if one could find where the REBUG_TB firmware points to the dongle, maybe it could be redirected to somewhere else.(say a folder on the ps3 where one could put the TB_dongle_payload.)

I know I'm a noob at this but I try to do something constructive as to all the drama and flaming going on.(no offence intended to anyone!)
So please tell me,
Is my way of thinking a step in the right or the wrong direction?
and
What do I need to do to get to the next step cause I'm totally stuck at the moment.(Unpacking the dev-flash from REBUG and REBUG_TB).

Update:
Managed to get both dev_flashes unpacked using MFWbuilder's Temp directory and having the program patch something that isn't there.This way the program halts but the temp dir is not deleted.Just copy paste.lol so I'm looking in to those now.

Update 2:
Compared 'dev_flash_011.tar.aa.2010_11_27_051337' and it's the same thing as in lv2_kernel.self different filesizes but the same code is there at different offsets.Strange indeed.
And after looking at 'dev_flash_022.tar.aa.2010_11_27_051337' I can see they are verry different.
And it calls for sprx modules that I can't find in the 'modules' folder.
I'll start comparing the sprx module hashes now, as there have been comments that TB firmware uses modules from 4.00.

Update 3:
All sprx modules have exactly the same hashes and filesizes.

Update 4:
After doing a little more research I found out that I am missing a lot of the sprx files that should be in dev_flash\vsh\modules folder, so it seems that MFWbuilder only unpacks the sprx-es it needs.Any input on how to completely unpack the entire dev_flash would be welcome.
Thanks in advance.


Read more: Need help comparing firmwares - PS3Hax Network - Playstation 3 Hacks and Mods