The Birth Of The Custom ROM

Since the dawn of gadgets, people have been modifying and personalizing them. Today we are still customizing our phones when we first get them. This practice started a long time ago, when some smart people were able to get access to the internal firmware in their phones. See some of the very first phone firmware patches that were made in the early 2000s. And explore the custom ROMs that people shared and showed off their work.

Long live the Siemens SL45i !

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[ludovician]

Unsigned code, what a time to be alive.

[MrPionner]

10:04 Yes, it's Polish. Seems that author changed some strings though, because "Network search" is literally replaced with "Looking for p*ssy". Some other labels are also replaced to be "cool": "Zapodaj" in menu is hard to translate, as it's slang term similar to "gimme some".

[RTheren]

The flipped screen is obviously meant for the Australian model :P

[tadeustad]

Interesting how the SL4x series of phones modding was so popular in Poland, Ukraine and Russia, I never knew that!
Also, at 10:05 - as a Pole myself the text replacement for "Searching for Network" made me chuckle (to put it lightly, it means "searching for p*ssy" lol)

[JanusCycle]

I made a couple of minor mistakes in this one. Such as saying the birds in the tree were cats. Also maybe some others I have not spotted yet. But I wanted to get this out in about a week as promised. And I'm sure there's nothing that breaks the story. I hope you enjoy the deeper look into this amazing phone :)

[GrzegorzZawada-hnyi]

Very active community in Poland was a part of a oldschool phpBb forum. Greetings to all of you who remember.

[axelsandi]

Unbelievable. I love the vibrancy of the eastern European modding scene of that time. I remember glimpsing at one or even two displays of modded phones (in public transportation for example) during my teens in Greece in the early 2000s.
Janus i also adore every aspect of your videos, from the edit to your characteristic monotonic intonation, elaborate wording and lovely outros. It's always a treat.

[RedNoise-hznh]

That orange screen is amazing. Maybe better than the green nokia screens!

[MicraHakkinen]

8:23 Crazy Frog is such a perfect reminder of that era :D

[MichaOstrowski]

that was the best device ever! Live firmware patching! Java that could initiate calls and send SMS, there was an app for sending long messages that the phone didn't support natively! Java also had filesystem access, which let me read a lot of books on this teeny tiny screen! Some people even used it for playing videos! And the hardware MP3 decoder was nice, although you needed some freaky looking adapter to actually listen to the music using headphones. Once, I spent my food money for a 256MB SD card to avoid converting my MP3s to 64kbps. Thank you for this video

[johnduty]

The Matrix : The red pill ❤
John wick : The blue pill 💙
Siemens SL 45 : The orange pill 🧡

[Wojtn]

10:02 The phone saying "Szuka cipki" which literally translates to "Searching for pussy"" made me crack up quite a bit. You gotta love 2005 humour :')

[hyperturbotechnomike]

My parents worked at Siemens computer division from late 80's to the early 2000's before it was sold away.

I remember this phone, because they brought one home. Also a very early camera phone and one which was a windows mobile 2005 PDA with a phone, GPS and lots of other functionality. And loads of weird computers. My first PC as a kid was an embedded PC with matrox graphics.

[AndyAlex-dzwf]

I love old technology, they feel like an ancient artifact with their own style and character, I didn't grow with them so I think this is why I feel like that toward them.

[framebuffers]

Couple years on, I was _pretty deep_ in the Sony Ericsson K310/W220i modding era. I remember hacking my K310 to have the W220i software, and gaining a whooping **COUPLE MEGABYTES** of That and the Walkman MP3 player.

I loaded it with 10-20 tracks at 64kbps, got a shitty Sony Ericsson to 3.5mm jack cable, and there I was jammin at chiptunes in recess (and also in class heh). I was in... 4th-5th grade? But holy shit it felt so liberating to hack your phone and have it completely transform into something completely different.

I haven't modded my phone's in probably 10 years. I've had over 30, swapping them every 6 months by flipping them when I was a kid. Now I just have a boring S22+, bone stock, being the computer I use the most. It's just a boring black slab, tbh.

[psikaczpatentowanypenoziar]

I am glad I subscribed to this channel. This is a high quality content the modern internet needs. Besides, it gives a feel of nostalgia, yet still developing some technical skills that may come handy at some point. Keep on doing it, this is honestly a valuable input.

[Budgiebrain]

Unparagoned music selection. I have never heard a single song you've included before, and each one takes me on an existential journey.

[sby-x]

As a software engineer, I'm truly impressed by the incredible amount of work that goes into creating the software for these devices. It's fascinating to think about all the coding and problem-solving that must have been involved. I have a deep appreciation for the skill and dedication of those who develop such amazing technology.

[loganmacgyver]

I really loved Siemens phones. I got my dad's C60 when I was 8 in around 2011, I literally cried when they told me I might need a new one because the battery was going bad

[blakegriplingph]

I always envied those who had Nokia phones running custom ROMs at the time. Wish the cables used for these old devices could be easily obtained tho.