Ordered a DS Max Media Dock

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Socoder -> Handheld Coding -> Ordered a DS Max Media Dock
Thu, 14 Sep 2006, 04:20
Jayenkai	Today, I placed an order for a DS Max Media Dock. It's a nice little DS cart which loads up the media player, and a GBA/DS cart which sits in the GBA port, and holds a Compact Flash card. You can put Movies, Music and Pictures on the card. ... You can also put Homebrew apps on it, too. I'd best get learning this stuff, then! Coming Soon : JNKPlat DS Then I'm doing Stringy Things... -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 14 Sep 2006, 10:08
svrman	Wow, kinda cheap too (gizmondo says its $39 for just the dock. UK price?). I'll definitely have to look more into this (arg! I should get my DS back!) -=-=- BlitzRSS script back online!
Thu, 14 Sep 2006, 10:26
Jayenkai	I paid £24.99 from Amazon.co.uk for the version without a Compact Flash card included. You can also buy the device with a 1Gb or 2Gb card included, but I've already got an unused CF card from my camera.. Which uses up battery power in about a minute, so I typically wind up just using my phone! So, no more card in the camera, it'll go in the DS! I'll let you know how well it works, once I get it. The expected shipping day is 24th Sept.. \|edit\| I need to add smilies \|edit\| -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 14 Sep 2006, 14:57
magicman	cool, and cheap. would you be able to use blitz or would you have to use java or c/c++? id asume it wouldnt work with blitz, but you never know. -=-=- Stuff... Yeah...
Thu, 14 Sep 2006, 15:30
Jayenkai	LOL!! No, you have to use C++, and certain Dev tools to compile. I'll make a tutorial once I've started learning it.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 18 Sep 2006, 10:10
Jayenkai	Today I downloaded the Dev-Pack which appears to be fairly simple, once you get the hang of things. I can get it up and running, and I managed to compile a few bits and pieces. So, I considered writing a tutorial. I managed to get Part 1 done. The basic "Install Dev-Kit, compile the included examples, and get them running on the emulator." stuff. It works fine. But the next part seems to be a whole bunch of random events as opposed to a single simple tutorial. How to save your sprites, how to start a new project, where to put the sprite, and then a huge lump of code to load it in. Not very structured. And infact, the language is kinda garbled, too, really. So, I was thinking, instead of a tutorial, of creating a whole Blitz-Like set of functions. Then, to start your project all you'd have to do is extract the folder, open a certain file, and away you go. ... I'm thinking this is probably the stupidest idea I've ever come up with. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 19 Sep 2006, 18:01
svrman	So, I was thinking, instead of a tutorial, of creating a whole Blitz-Like set of functions. Then, to start your project all you'd have to do is extract the folder, open a certain file, and away you go. Cha-ching!$! Seriously though, imo it would still recieve a great amount of interest even in the conceptual stages. Anywho how far have you got with the whole gbadev thingy of late? Any screenies? -=-=- BlitzRSS script back online!
Tue, 19 Sep 2006, 18:43
Jayenkai	How far have I got. I got Hello World to work, then got all confused by the odd way the DS Screen stuff works. But I'm determined to learn it. Stringy Things must exist on a touchscreen, and if it kills me... Then at least my mum can nick my DS Lite and play Stringy Things at my funeral. I spent about 3 hours trying to get the screen stuff worked out, and then thought "I'll come back to it.. I should get a 'TEXT' command working for Debug and stuff." Function Text (int X, int Y, .... ) The .... is the point at which I remembered how much of a bastard C++ is at working with strings. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 19 Sep 2006, 19:47
Scherererer	Sounds like its time to make a class-based representation of a string. Make sure to overload the operators to make a true blitz-like experience . have fun! -=-=- YouTube Twitter Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Wed, 27 Sep 2006, 10:07
Jayenkai	The Max Media Dock arrived, this morning. My old Fujifilm Compact Flash card didn't work, so I went and grabbed a 256Mb SanDisk one, which did the trick. Everything works as planned (except it doesn't play GBA games ) and I spent all day playing Doom on the thing Tomorrow, I'll start coding.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 01:52
Jayenkai	Ok... I finally got going with this thing! I downloaded the following (for those who wish to play along) 1. DevKitPro - Installs C++, Compiler, Programmers Notepad, and enough stuff to compile for Nintendo DS, GP32 and PSP. 2. PALib - Makes it all 100% easier, so you can actually get coding stuff, instead of trying to wrap your head around all sorts of useless stuff. I'll just be using this, instead of trying to write my own set of functions!! I wanna code something, already! 3. Dualis - Emulator that runs the nds files as I go along. For a tutorial, I'm using PALib's Wiki which has most of the info necessary. (Although I have been skipping huge chunks, since it's stuff that most of us already know.) And.. I just ran Platdude across my DS's screen \o/ yeay \o/ -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 02:49
svrman	SCREENIES!!! wow nice, jay. This stuff is too advanced for me to even comprehend (well generally speaking, "thinking" makes me sleepy!). Interesting stuff though! Thx for the links, might just read up on the wikis when I'm bored -=-=- BlitzRSS script back online!
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 03:13
Jayenkai	It's not too hard at all, actually, once you get going. Those damned strings are still ticking me off, but I got JNKPlat to use a large 1000 character string as the map, redrew a font to include the map sprites, and then got it to display the map that way! Bit of a tweak but it works! Platdude is showing up as a sprite, meaning I can shift him about easy (even if he is in JNKPlat Block-at-a-time mode), and can even flip his sprite around, so he looks to the left when walking that way! Wowie!! I'm just about to start working on the basic JNKPlat physics. Yup, only just! It is taking a while, but I finally managed to figure out a weird String issue.. carefully view the following examples.. Doesn't work strcpy(Map,'Test'); Map[5]='A'; Doesn't work strcpy(Map,"Test"); Map[5]="A"; Does work strcpy(Map,"Test"); <-- uses "s Map[5]='A'; <-- uses 's Seriously, who designed this language! It sucks!! sigh -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 12:33
magicman	thus the reason why i like blitz!! i would love to learn C#/C++ and while im at it i can contine learning java, but, im just to lazy!good luck in your learning of C, hope it all works out, when your done with the plat you must show us. -=-=- Stuff... Yeah...
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 13:30
hyruleknight	jay, the language is old and was the cleanest low-level language at the time of creation. i personaly find it pretty easy to read except when people go overboard on the math and try to put a long math formula in one line when it is easier to read spaced out 2 or 3 lines -=-=- i like green haired girls...
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 16:59
Scherererer	i'll explain quotations: when you use "" that denotes a string, or a collection of characters. Conversly, when you use '' that designates a single character ONLY. this also includes escape characters though, such that '\n' is valid, along with any other escape char ('\t', '\r', etc). So when you are using a single character, use '', and for strings, use "". -=-=- YouTube Twitter Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 19:39
svrman	Meh, i think it's just showing its age Oh I actually meant to say "PHOTO!!!" but you're alrite -=-=- BlitzRSS script back online!
Tue, 03 Oct 2006, 19:51
Scherererer	no, not quite, seeing as how that's the same syntax in java and in C#, which are both quite new. -=-=- YouTube Twitter Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Thu, 05 Oct 2006, 09:58
Jayenkai	Well, I still haven't sussed out this File System. The Datel Max Media Dock has a non-standard file access style, which makes it awkward to read+write. You need a non-standard Driver, and I haven't the foggiest how to work it. I've asked a few people, but gotten no response. So, JNKPlat's on hold until I get it sorted. Not much point if you can't load+save levels, is there! In the meantime, I decided to get the main bit of Stringy Things going. The big-ass wordbank. Since the DS only has 4Mb of internal ram, in which to hold.. pretty much everything.. I decided to cut down my wordbank from 170,000 words, to just 45,000. Still. That's plenty, right!? And then I came upon issue 2. No file access. .. I eventually wrote a Blitz program to spool out a huge array definition. The huge array is include'd and everything's going hunky dory. I can do a search for strings, up to 18 characters in length, through all 45,000 words, all within a single 60fps frame.. I can do 60 word checks per second.. (probably more, but I didn't bother to check... 60's plenty!) All on the little tiny DS chip. To put that into perspective, I could do a single check in Blitz on my Celeron 2.5Ghz, within about a second.. Phew! Now all I need do is... um.. draw the sprites, write the game, write the menu, and pretty much do every other little thing in the game.. and THEN I figure out how to save the hiscores. Methinks demo#1 won't have hiscores!! Stringy Things size so far = 500Kb, JNKPlat = 86kb, and that one has sound and graphics! That's one big wordlist! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''