DS HomeBrew Review:

I've had the R4DS for about a month now, and I love it. I haven't had an official cart in my gameboy for weeks... let's review what I've downloaded, where to find it, and what I think about it...

1. StillAliveDS: http://stillaliveds.free.fr/
   PORTAL clone. fun as hell, I've been obsessed... Might get a console just to play the real thing
2. LAMEBOY: http://lameboy.nutki.com/
   GameBoy emulator. Sure I have a real gameboy, but I can play those games on the DS instead of risking damaging my precious carts
3. ProteinDS: http://gorgull.googlepages.com/home2
   Crazy music app, 2 loops (that you can scratch) a sampler, and a controller (I think it's midi) I'm still fumbling my way around the details but it's great.
4. Population Tire / Secret Collect: http://www.mrphlip.com/ds/
   Videlectrix can make a good game, I'm glad somebody ported these, I'm just waiting for a version of 20 ex-dee 6
5. PocketPhysics: http://www.freewebs.com/pocketphysics/
   Draw something and then run it through your drawn world ... more fun than a barrel of monkeys, I keep making crazy domino runs with balls & pendulums and stuff.
6. Colors: http://www.collectingsmiles.com/colors/ds.htm
   Man, I love to doodle. If this thing had an eraser I'd be a lot happier, but the replay function replays every line of you making your drawing, sweet.
7. DS2Key: http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showforum=88
   A DS wardriver/gamepad emulator... I found 10 wifi networks on my street, some of them are completely open !!
   
8. ChorDS: http://nobkilla.free.fr/spip.php?article1&lang=en
   A Tab-viewer for DS soon to have a chord dictionary & a section called "Beginners"

I have some other things on there but none really worth mentioning, and a few things I have yet to even touch... 

What I got ...

I got all 3 packages from my last post. r4ds, screwdrivers, arduino ... and I've been playing around pretty hard ... gotta say, much love to the lameboy It's been keeping me entertained with some music roms (and a couple other weird games I pulled off the interwebs) also Protein[DS] is more fun than I ever dreamed...

Naturally I took apart my gameboy color, but I couldn't find any wire around suitable for the pro-sound mod ...

And the arduino (which I just got started with because my power's been out for two days) Is awesome ... I've just been playing around with that. and naturally any time a true nerd is given processing power over LED's this has to happen:

Which was done using a little "Work Around" I learned from flash:

dir = true;

if(pinA == 9){

dir = false;

}else if(pinA == 2){

dir=true;

}

if(dir){

pinA++;

pinA = HIGH;

pinA -1 = LOW;

}else{

pinA--;

pinA = HIGH;

pinA +1 = LOW;

}

Recent Purchases, very exciting

I'm very excited ... decided to buy some geek-stuff last week, which means that soon I'll have some new geek stuff to pass on to you... (other than what-ever soldered in those capacitors from last post is friggin' invincible.) But on the way is : R4DS, DS homebrew music ^_^ ... then there's an arduino comin' in some some interesting midi apps or something has to come out of that ... and as a side note I got some screw-drivers to open up palm & nintendo products so warranties be warned!

Hopefully all this means more posts in the near-future about some pretty advanced & blog-worthy stuff.

Cylon

About a week ago I've decided to build the cylon-lights project from parts laying around the house (apparently I'm really good at getting more parts than I need for a project)...

Anywho ... I'm going by the Cylon-O-Lantern design, because it seemed pretty straight forward, and I'm sure I had all the stuff sitting around.

Found a 555, the of 4017's and a bag of led's & resitors and started hacking away... But after searching my stock-pile and my dad's only found 4 appropriate diodes. I have no suitable capacitors either so I found a bunch in a beat-up non-functional DVD player, But they're friggin impossible to un-solder :-(

So I had to break down & head out to radioShack... Grabbed a new tin of flux, a bunch of diodes, and a solder-sucker (I usually use braid) ... Still no luck on those caps though, Where does the 'Industry' get this super-solder !! it's driving me nuts ... Hopefully someday I'll get the caps off that damn board and finish this up for my super-evil plans...

By the way, the basics of this circuit (as in not connecting it to 6 leds) can be built into a pretty mean step-sequencer for DIY synths by connecting it thusly:

The pots all connect to one LED to control its brightness, which in turn controls the resistor's value makeing it play a simple melody.

Free Ipod Touch ??

I've never been able to get anything for free (except for lunch at costco, where I walk past the samples a dozen times) So I'm testing this free Ipod Touch deal, I chose the easiest to complete (8gb iPod Touch) it only takes 1 offer and 5 refferals... so Please help me out with my little experiment...

Click here:

OR go to this link: http://www.YourFreeVideoiPods.com/index.php?ref=5305182

Sign up for something .... I did the free credit report ...

and then I'll let you know how it goes...  Alot of people are doing it, so it can't be that bad.

Also it'll give you your OWN referral number so you can get a free ipod too...

And if I get an iPod, you know I'll jailbreak & hack it, and give you all the details....