ROMCACHE and the WTV Classic: What we now call the Classic, was WebTV's original set-top box introduced in late '96. To speed loading, especially of WebTV's web pages, a collection of pre-loaded images was built into the box's rom. That ROMCACHE image directory was found years ago. What was only discovered recently that if additional images were needed, the box would fetch them from the WebTV service. But if you look at WNI page source code you'll notice that even boxes without these precached images still make use of the same URLs as do boxes with the precached images. For more info please go to here. When the WebTV Plus box was introduced in late '97, it included a 1.1 gig hard drive. Nothing spectacular by PC standards but easily 500 times the storage of the old Classic.
WebTV took advantage of this storage to precache a huge image directory there. These images are in addition to the ROM images all boxes have.
In August '98, while looking for a way to bypass the new security measure incorporated into the Summer '98 upgrades, Inspector Gadget realized he could access ROMCACHE IMAGES using ANY seemingly valid web page URL such as http://ultrax.terrashare.com/romcache/community.gif. A WebTV user will probably get an image of a few featureless figures. At the time more promising methods to direct access WTV URLs came along and this curiousity was forgotten.
In spring of 2000 Ru Darling discovered that by converting WebTV's file:// URL to an actual IP:port/file, he could ftp transload images at Freeloader, though not at the Transloader, to his web page. That this was possible took some sorting out but was pretty easily explained. This also explained why there is a file IP on the WTV Client:ShowServices IP list. But it was also the start of another ROMCACHE mystery.
A study of WebTV page source code soon reveals that there are seemingly 40+ directories of ROMCACHE images. For example, there might be a wtv-home:/romcache.flag.gif, a wtv-mail:/romcache.flag.gif, a wtv-author:/romcache.flag.gif etc etc. That was counterintuitive since ROMCACHE was thought to be in the file:// directory URL, not one of the other WebTV IP services. But, with file://romcache the normal rules of directories do not totally apply.
It seems the WebTV browser has a unique way of dealing with ROMCACHE images. For example the image URL might be file://romcache/image_name.gif but it can be displayed with ANY wtv-XXXX prefix.
This lead to even another ROMCACHE mystery: the browser can not just visit images that are not there on the web, but the browser can even IGNORE real images at a homepage location. Getting back to the example http://ultrax.terrashare.com/romcache/community.gif. Most WebTV users will see the well-known community gif. But that's NOT what that file is. A PC user will see the real thing: a picture of Jill of Resident Evil fame.
There seem to be at least TWO ROMcache image directories on the Plus. The first has never been found but must exist since several ROMcache images can be accessed which do not appear on the harddrive directory we have found. The first set will be displayed here first.
The second set are the images on the Plus HD file://romcache directory. If you have a plus try accessing it here.
I have now five of these directories... all are of different file sizes. WebTV can add to the image directories whenever they want. Some of us may remember getting the Instant Messenger Logo weeks before the upgrade was first released.
Some of these images were not for use with the US service but for Japan or Canada. Some were apparently never used. Some were used and are now discontinued. For example, some of you might remember these images which were once used with the old "My WebTV" section first introduced in Summer '98. They were discontinued with the HIPHOP upgrade in '99. These images probably are (or were) in the original Classic as well.
