Most people like to personalize their phone.
Hidden inside the tones menu of every Nokia 3310, buried right at the bottom of the list. Is an
option called screensaver. The 3310 was the first phone that gave users the option to put a custom
image on their phone's home screen. It seems odd that this key new feature was placed in such an
obscure location in the menu. When Nokia released the 3315, a slightly enhanced version of the 3310,
they included a picture editor. Which could edit both picture messages and the custom screen saver.
This new feature came with its own top level menu. Putting it at the same level as the phone book,
messages and games. But they still left the screen saver option at the bottom of the tones menu. I'll
come back to these strange menu choices later. Because first I want to upgrade my 3310
to include the functions of the 3315. Any 3310 can be upgraded to a 3315. To do this
I need to build a set of interface cables. As well as upgrading, the cables I'm making can
unlock, upload custom graphics and ringtones, and even modify some of the functions of
the phone. If you have a late model 3315 or even a very late model 3310, you might be
able to upgrade your phone to the high end 3330. This gives you animated screen savers
and an internet web browser built in. Then there's the whole custom ROM scene of the
early 2000s. With enough know-how the right cables and a willingness to risk hacking your phone,
you could customize your 3310 with new graphics, new fonts and even third-party custom games.
If this sounds good then stick around. Because I'm going to explore all these possibilities
and see just how far the Nokia 3310 can go. Using the secret code 'star hash four zeros
hash' shows us the firmware version of the phone. In this case version 3.24. With the date
of the 22nd of August 2000. That's the week before the 3310 was officially released.
Making this the first available 3310 firmware and the best way to see the 3310 in its original
form. With all its standard menus including games. To upgrade the firmware we need to connect
to four pads located in this hard to reach area under the battery. The pads include a
ground, a one wire Mbus, and a two wire Fbus. Building a classic Nokia interface is quite easy.
If you have a parallel port on your computer. I built one of these in a previous video for the
Nokia 5110 and 6110. This should also work fine on the 3310 with a few modifications. The hard
part is connecting to those four pads. One of the best ways is to find one of these serial port
cables. That fits under the battery to connect to the pads. Then modify it to use the parallel port
as well. But these can be hard to find. Instead I have this. It's an adaptor that's used to
plug into more expensive service equipment. These are easier to find. By searching for
keywords like '3310 service box cable' The one I have here though doesn't go under
the battery. It completely replaces it. The intention being powering the phone directly
from the equipment. In my case this gives me the added challenge of needing to find a way to
supply battery power. To do this I'm going to use the parts from this damaged 3315 to build a
battery jig. I'm lucky to have this. It's unusual to see a damaged Nokia of this era. This one
must have been hit by a mountain or something. What I'll do is I'll set up the green mat. So despite this phone being broken. There's some
important parts here that I'm going to use later. So we do have a way to connect the battery. I've
gathered together the bits that I'll be needing. Including this RJ45 socket for connecting to
the adaptor. I will be taking my parallel port cable apart and removing the 5110 connector. And
instead adding wires to make it more flexible for connecting to different phones. These Nokia
parallel port interfaces are easy to make. With a common IC, two diodes and two resistors.
Building the jig was also relatively easy. I did have to do lots of checking along the
way. With a multimeter and referring to the pin out diagrams. To make sure each wire was
going where it needed. When I thought I had everything connected properly, I got out my
laptop for a quick test. Connecting to a phone I was pleased to see that it
was working on the first go. Well it actually works! With that done I
hot glued all of the wires in place to keep everything stable and finished the jig. I also
added connection pins to an old Nokia serial cable to complete the set. The parallel port is used
for firmware upgrading. While most other functions need to use the serial port. I can now set up
my Toshiba laptop to do some firmware upgrading. This is my favourite Windows 98 machine. The
software I'm using today is called 'Leads kNok Phoenix build 1 mostly nutzo's work'. The software
also runs on Windows XP and Windows 7. It probably also runs on Windows 10 but you do need parallel
and serial ports to connect to the phone. With everything set up and the firmware file chosen,
I'm ready to upload into the flash memory chip in the phone. This process is often just called
'flashing'. When ready, pressing the power button on the phone starts the process. The phone screen
remains blank during the upgrade. First the flash chip is erased. Which takes about 10 seconds.
The whole process takes about five minutes. Once complete, press the power button again
and the phone turns on with new firmware. To upgrade to the 3315 we need to first upgrade
to firmware 5.45 or higher. In this case I flashed firmware 5.47. To activate the 3315 functions,
either flash a 3315 eeprom settings file. Or switching to a serial cable, which is easy
for me to do thanks to my new modular setup, select the 3310-3315 conversion option. This flips
the bit in the internal settings that activates all the 3315 options. To check this has
been successful, scroll through the menus until you find the Picture Editor function is
now available. With this done I'm now keen to try out some of the custom ROMs that people have
made for their 3310s and 3315s. OK I really want to see some of these custom ROMs. So I'm going to
switch back to the parallel port flashing cable. All colour coded. There we go, it's
that easy to reconnect everything. OK parallel port is connected reconnect phone, and start flashing. OK let's power up and see what we've got here. It's got a nice startup animation there. Wow! that's pretty cool. I've got a new font. OK this looks like a pretty cool ROM. Wow! this is really amazing. There's some crazy animations. This is some heavy customization. Even the sub menus all have pictures as well. As I go through these firmwares, I'm increasingly
impressed by the quality of the modding that was done. Looking back at all the graphics
and work that has been put in is amazing. I've included the file names of each firmware
below. Because these creators deserve to be credited for their hard work. Many of the
custom firmwares are in Polish. Because the Nokia modding scene was big there, and
I found most of these on a Polish website. some of these firmwares have third-party
games included. Which is a real treat to find. In a previous Nokia video I showed how to
add these custom games to Nokia firmware. There are some games here I don't
remember seeing at the time. So it's a nice Game & Watch style game, and it's not one of the ones I've
seen before in any of the lists. Let's see what else there is, Puzzle,
Rotator, Race 2, a lot of games in this one. What's Rotator, huh I'm not sure
I've seen this one before either. The problem here is these are already installed.
And if I don't have the original install scripts, then it wouldn't be possible to install these in
other firmwares. Eventually I'm going to make my own ultimate Nokia firmware. Until then I need
to keep exploring. OK let's go DBLO presents. Wow! that was awesome. Not every firmware flash seems to work. Some
just end up saying 'contact service'. A message from the boot code indicating there is some
software corruption and the phone can't start up. I will try switching to the serial cable
and see if I can reset the phone. OK full factory reset all settings. Switching over to
the serial cable and using the service functions to reset all settings and fix checksums, can
sometimes get the phone to start up. But doing this can also reset the startup graphics, and any
screen savers that were set up in the firmware. Even with resetting some of these firmwares have
glitches. But they do still work. This one for example, the main font seems to be missing.
But I'm still able to go through the menus. I'm glad I did because this one has
more third-party games included, and includes some of my favourite
third-party games, such as Breaker. Pills is a Dr. Mario clone. Not sure how Nintendo
was able to bring out a drug related game. But it is addictive, so I guess there's that. Stones is the first to get five stones in a row
game. The AI is quite good to play against. So many games in this one. This is the kind of thing
that I'm going to do with my ultimate Nokia. I end up spending hours flashing dozens of ROMs and
looking through all the custom mods as I go. I'm realizing that I still have lots to learn about
adding graphics and customizing these phones. Later after taking a break, I came back to have
a look at some of my favourite mods. One of the things I avoided earlier was ringtones. Because
generally these classic Nokia ringtones can be quite shrill and not the most pleasant to listen
to. However scrolling through the third-party ringtones included in many of these ROMs, I
found some good renditions of classic hits. Since this phone can't seem
to sit still, I'm going to do one more upgrade. This time I need to swap the
main board from my busted 3315 into my 3310. The board from this 3315 is
special. Let's get out the mat. Now I'm going to swap the
main boards over, six screws. While it looks identical to the 3310 board,
there's one important difference. This board has a four megabyte flash memory chip. Instead of
the regular two megabyte flash chip in the 3310. The high-end Nokia 3330 requires a four
megabyte flash chip to hold the firmware. With this installed I can now do
a firmware upgrade to the 3330. Being double the size means the flashing
process now takes twice as long. 10 minutes later I now have a 3330. One of the
new features of this phone is the WAP browser. WAP or W.A.P. was a way for these early phones
to browse some compatible websites. Infortunately I don't have a 2G tower near me to demonstrate
this. At least not yet :) But Nostalgia Nerd did a good video on the 3330 that's worth watching.
In this video he demonstrates the web browser and he even built his own WAP compatible
website. Ihis is great stuff. Also in the 3330 is an official Nokia game called Bumper.
A pinball game that's not too bad. This is my first time playing
bumper and I'm kind of impressed. This is the sort of game that works well
with these controls in this form factor. The final feature that I'm looking
at is the animated screen savers. These were usually downloaded
using the built-in WAP browser. But another way to add animated screen savers
was using a serial cable and software such as LogoManager. LogoManager is also an easy way
to draw your own graphics. Especially compared to the built-in Picture Editor. Which by the
way was not included in the 3330's functions. And that screen saver option in the 3330? Well
it's still at the bottom of the Tones menu. I think the reason the screensaver option was put
in the Tones menu goes back to the 1990s. When phones were built by large network equipment
manufacturers. Such as Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. We can look at the way new functions
were introduced at the time. Such as the way SMS text messaging was first implemented in the
1990s. Text messaging was initially seen as a way for networks to send messages to their customers.
Not for people to communicate with each other. Some handsets such as the Ericsson GH337 didn't
even include an option to compose a text message. Only to receive them. Phones were designed with
centralized networks in mind. Rather than people. The Nokia 5110 and 6110 had the option
to display your network provider logo as a graphic. The idea that you might want
to personalize your own phone was simply not considered. Even for a company whose tagline was
'Very Human Technology'. This is when third-party software such as LogoManager first appeared.
LogoManager became popular because you could replace the network's corporate logo and choose
something of your own to personalize your phone. When the Nokia 3310 arrived, overriding network
logos with your own logos had become so popular, that Nokia decided to add the screen saver
option. To make it easier for people to personalize their own phone. But where was the
best place to put this new function in the menu? You would think that the settings menu would
be a good choice. But I think the old mindset of the way phones were designed more for network
providers rather than people were still prevalent. Industry habits die hard. But the new changes had
already started to appear. In the previous model, the Nokia 3210, the Tones menu had been
expanded to include custom ringtones. I think this menu represented Nokia's new
side. With their focus on Human Technology and Connecting People. This is the opposite of
the settings menu and I think this is why this key new graphics feature of the 3310 ended
up shoved into the bottom of the Tones menu. I really enjoy making these videos. It means
a lot to me that you're watching, thank you. I always look forward to starting the next one
and thinking about how it might turn out. In the meantime there's plenty more here on this channel
to watch. If you like what you see let me know. If I have something wrong then definitely let me
know. Thanks for watching and see you next time.
