I've been developing a QEMU emulator for the iPod Classic 6G (Samsung S5L8702) that boots the original, unmodified Apple retailOS. Navigation, the disc, the screen, and the music library worked for a while, but the music player appeared partially rendered and without sound. There were four different errors, and the last one was my fault in a way that I found amusing enough to write about.
For months I've been trying to emulate the iPod Classic 6G I have in my drawer, without success. After a long time, I finally managed to get it running, although it's still somewhat rough. In QEMU, I managed to boot the original, unmodified Apple retailOS. Navigation, the disc, the screen, and the music library worked for a while, but the music player appeared partially rendered and without sound.
One thing we already know is that the firmware is from Apple and is encrypted, so there's no legal download. I have an iPod Classic 6G from 2008. With the help of Claude Code, I was able to create code to extract it using emCORE. I extracted the contents of the flash memory and decrypted the image myself.
and the boot ROM cannot be read from the running device. I confirmed the latter the hard way, and along the way, my iPod restarted several times (pressing the center and menu buttons for 5 seconds to restart it).
There is no datasheet for the SoC. Each model register that allows unlocking some part of the guest is derived from a write operation performed by the guest itself,
Code and notes, including the ~16 hypotheses I had to retract along the way
One of the things that gave me a lot of trouble was unlocking the music player. Reverse engineering it was really difficult. I investigated many possible variations, tried searching on https://freemyipod.org for memory register information, but there was nothing for this particular iPod that could help me with the music player. Now I'm trying to unlock Cover Flow, which is something I really liked the first time I saw it on my iPod.
I can imagine some people feel like it's cheating because they did it the hard way. I have much respect for those people and their skillset and I hope AI doesn't discourage them.
I've been developing a QEMU emulator for the iPod Classic 6G (Samsung S5L8702) that boots the original, unmodified Apple retailOS. Navigation, the disc, the screen, and the music library worked for a while, but the music player appeared partially rendered and without sound. There were four different errors, and the last one was my fault in a way that I found amusing enough to write about.
For months I've been trying to emulate the iPod Classic 6G I have in my drawer, without success. After a long time, I finally managed to get it running, although it's still somewhat rough. In QEMU, I managed to boot the original, unmodified Apple retailOS. Navigation, the disc, the screen, and the music library worked for a while, but the music player appeared partially rendered and without sound.
One thing we already know is that the firmware is from Apple and is encrypted, so there's no legal download. I have an iPod Classic 6G from 2008. With the help of Claude Code, I was able to create code to extract it using emCORE. I extracted the contents of the flash memory and decrypted the image myself.
and the boot ROM cannot be read from the running device. I confirmed the latter the hard way, and along the way, my iPod restarted several times (pressing the center and menu buttons for 5 seconds to restart it).
There is no datasheet for the SoC. Each model register that allows unlocking some part of the guest is derived from a write operation performed by the guest itself,
Code and notes, including the ~16 hypotheses I had to retract along the way
One of the things that gave me a lot of trouble was unlocking the music player. Reverse engineering it was really difficult. I investigated many possible variations, tried searching on https://freemyipod.org for memory register information, but there was nothing for this particular iPod that could help me with the music player. Now I'm trying to unlock Cover Flow, which is something I really liked the first time I saw it on my iPod.
It's a rarity to see a comments section in r/emulation that isn't just endless screaming about AI code
Why is it a problem? Sounds to me like emulation is a very good fit for AI.
I can imagine some people feel like it's cheating because they did it the hard way. I have much respect for those people and their skillset and I hope AI doesn't discourage them.
I was deep into customizing iPod firmware almost 20yrs ago in 7th grade or something.
Anyone looking for FW/IPSW https://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/