For Those Of You (Especially iPad 2 Users) Who Want Ultima On Your iOS Device

For those of you who want to run Ultima games on your Apple iDevice (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc.), the only means of doing so (at present) is to jailbreak the device. For users of most iOS-based devices, jailbreaking is a fairly trivial task to complete…but for iPad 2 owners, the story is somewhat different; Apple’s latest tablet has proven to be extraordinarily resilient against attempts to gain full root access to its filesystem.

Until now, that is.

jailbreakme.com first surfaced back in 2008 (and the exploit method it uses was first deployed in 2007, against iOS 1.1.1). It surged back into the jailbreaking spotlight in 2010, and now has returned again to offer a very user-friendly, very effective and quick way to perform an untethered jailbreak of any — and I do mean any — iOS-based device out there.

The process is fairly simple: visit jailbreakme.com and “purchase” (for free) the Cydia app; the website will launch an exploit (of a flaw in the iOS PDF reader), jailbreak your iDevice, and install the third-party app store app that has long been the gateway to all that jailbreaking has to offer. Redmond Pie offers tutorials for the iPad 2 and other iOS devices, but the process is basically the same in any case.

And once you’ve jailbroken your iDevice, use Cydia to install http://www.litchie.net/blog/?page_id=123″>DOSPad, a DOSBox port for iOS. All that remains at that point is digging up your old Ultima Collection CD and copying the installed game directories into the folder that DOSPad mounts as its C: drive.

Caution: Redmond Pie warns that “[t]here are rumors that a new version of iOS 4, iOS 4.3.4, will come out soon to fix this serious PDF Exploit, even as Apple is hard at work developing iOS 5. If you?re planning on using this method, make sure you don?t update to 4.3.4 is it ever comes out. Meanwhile, enjoy this vulnerability while it lasts.”

17 Responses

  1. Rob Searing says:

    Hey there – well, it finally arrived (jailbreak). Not sure if you remember me, you helped quite a bit with how to get DOSBox installed and working – just had a question. In your article you said to use Cydia to install DOSPad and you provided the link. Where do you go, within Cydia, to download that?

    Many thanks,
    Rob

    • WtF Dragon says:

      Hi Rob,

      I remember you, indeed…tried to send you an email about the xu4 beta test, but I don’t know if that ever got through.

      Anyhow, within Cydia, you may need to add the necessary source to Cydia’s database in order to obtain DOSPad. See this forum posting for details and instructions.

  2. Rob Searing says:

    PERFECT – got it installed. Only other question now – I copied by Ultima directories from the CD. Each directory has quite a few files (ie, Ultima 6 – All.con, animdata, … blocks.cga, blocks.ega…..ultima6.exe, etc. IS there a way to copy the entire folder over – and have them in seperate folders in DOSPad?

    Thanks much,
    Rob

    • WtF Dragon says:

      There is, yes. I will have to actually mess with DOSPad on my iPhone to tell you the exact means to do so, but there is.

      One thought: I wrote a tutorial some months back concerning how to copy files into iDOS, which is a fork of the DOSPad project; search the site for “iDOS” and you should find it. That solution should also work for DOSPad.

      I believe there’s another, possibly easier way to do it, but…like I say, I have to do some investigation first.

  3. Zygon Dragon says:

    Hiya Rob,
    Really easy. If you’ve got your ipad/iphone jailbroken just install on your PC/MAC the FTP client called Filezilla. Its open source and free.

    http://filezilla-project.org/

    What this allows you to do is SFTP all the files you want to your ipad/iphone. You obviously need to have your MAC/PC and ipad/iphone connected on the same WIFI network to do this.

    The default user and password on you idevice is:

    User: root
    Password: alpine

    Then you can copy entire directories. Make sure you set the file permissions on the copied files to 777.

    Cheers,
    Rob

    • WtF Dragon says:

      Rob: Apropos of Zygon’s comment…if you do enable SSH access on your iPad, be sure to change the root password; as you can see, the default is widely known.

  4. Rob Searing says:

    Ok, feel that I am SO close, and really appreciate the time. Just trying to figure out how to FTP between the two? I installed Filezilla and ran it…when i boot it up initially, it asks for a server address and port with 127.0.0.1 and 14147 as default. Is this trying to create a server on my windows machine? If so, do I then put my Ultima folders somewhere special so that I can get them on the IPAD? Along those same lines, how do I connect from the IPAD to the FTP server on my windows maching (via browser and address of ftp://192.168.1.? ?)

    Sorry for the questions – getting real close.

    🙂
    Rob

  5. Rob Searing says:

    Ok, so I realized I was using Server and not Client. So when I’m trying to use client, I put the IP address of my IPAD (192.168.1.16) in the host name – then root and alpine. There is a space for port, do I need to put in a particular port here? Reason I’m asking is that it doesn’t connect. So follow up questions would be:

    1) Not sure what you meant about file permissions / 777
    2) Once uploaded, what directory do I point DOSPad to, to find them?

    Thanks again,
    Rob

  6. Rob Searing says:

    Ok, looks like I had to install openssh on my ipad. I get into root directory. Just wondering where to install the ultima directory to be able to see it from dospad?

    • WtF Dragon says:

      Okay…go to var, then mobile, and then Documents; this is the folder DOSPad mounts as its C: drive.

      What I do is put each game in its own folder inside the games folder in this directory, then leave myself a batch file for that game in the Documents folder. So when I start DOSPad, I just need to type…”u6″, let’s say, to start up my favorite game.

  7. Rob Searing says:

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

    Ok – I had to reboot dospad to get the directory to show up – was wondering why I couldnt find what I put there.

    LAST question – what do I need to install/do so as to change my SSH/FTP passsword from alpine to something customer?

    (was even able to figure out the 777 file change…..feel so stupid).

    Many thanks to everyone’s help…SO excited.

    -Rob

  8. Rob Searing says:

    Ok, Googled it. I installed mobile termulator and then typed passwd at the prompt.

    Really appreicate everyone’s help. I have them up and running and just – the nostalgia – on top of being able to play it mobile on my IPAD – just makes my day. I really am thankful for all of the tips and advice.

  9. Rob Searing says:

    LOL – ok, I “thought” I did it right. When I went into mobile termulator, it apparently changed the password, but when I go through filezilla, it still only worked with the “alpine” password – not the one I changed it to.

    🙁
    Rob

    • WtF Dragon says:

      I usually just uninstall openssh once I’m done with it; it takes nothing to reinstall, and SSH can’t be a security flaw when it’s turned off, can it?

  10. B33po says:

    Message bodyHello,

    I’m trying to run Ultima V on my first Gen ipad (jailbroken 4.3.3)

    The steps I’ve taken:

    1) Installed U5 on my home PC
    2) SSH’ed into my iPad
    4) Placed the the U5 folder into private/var/mobile/documents/games
    5) Cd games
    6) Cd Ultima~1 (is the way it displays)
    7) Typed Ultima to run it.

    I recieve the following errors:

    run-time error R6003
    -Interger divide by 0

    run-time error R6001
    -Null pointer assignment

    Any help you can provide would be most appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.

  11. B33po says:

    Perfect! Initially I only applied the permissions to the ultima.exe file

    This worked. After doing it for all file it worked!

    Thank you very much for the help and advice. I haven’t played these in AGES and I’m so looking forward to playing through the series again.