PictoChat Protocol Adapter

The PictoChat Protocol Adapter (PCPA) set of tools is designed to interact with the Nintendo DS PictoChat protocol, via a compatible Prism54 USB WiFi adapter.

Distribution

The core pcpa library allows for a computer to send and receive black-and-white bitmap data to a PictoChat chatroom. When active, the PC is counted as a connected user.

The pctt library (PictoChat Text Toolkit) allows recognition and exchange of plain text through PictoChat, by recognizing the standard PictoChat font. When recognition fails, pctt falls back to bitmap data by default.

Build process

This project not being ready for release yet, there is no official build toolchain for the moment.

Why it exists

A while ago, a piece of software called pictosniff was created, which allowed users to decode incoming PictoChat messages, but not to interact with them. This library re-uses code from pictosniff, which is courtesy of Sebastien Bourdeauducq under the GNU GPL.

Where I can get a Prism54 WiFi adapter

The official Nintendo USB WiFi adapter is powered by the Prism54 chipset, the same which can be found inside of a Nintendo DS, DSi and 3DS. Should be easy enough to find by looking for "Prism54" on Amazon. Bought an official Nintendo USB WiFi adapter and realized I'm a dunce and it, in fact, can't sniff PictoChat packets. Development is paused until I decide to buy another Prism54 dongle and actually test things out. 🤦‍♂️

Starting point for contributing

If you want to participate to the development of PCPA, you will need the following things:

• A Nintendo DS/DSi/3DS with PictoChat (duh)
• A PC with Linux 4.18 or more recent
• A Prism54 WiFi adapter
• Wireshark, or any other packet sniffing tool
• A recent version of the gcc C compiler