DS2x86 Status

August 19th, 2012, 22:57 Posted By: wraggster

I have not done anything to DS2x86 during the past week. I am rather busy at work again, and I have to admit that I am starting to lose interest in working on DS2x86. It seems that I am currently pretty much the only homebrew developer programming for the SuperCard DSTwo environment. As other programmers have moved on to other platforms, also the users either have already moved on or will move on soon. Looking at the recent posts on the Supercard SDK forum it is pretty evident that without BassAceGold and myself there would not have been much happening in that scene for the past several months.
The whole NDS homebrew scene is also long past it's peak, I think it was actually on the decline already 3 years ago when I began working on DSx86. Hard to imagine I have already worked on it for more than three years.. I suppose smart phones have largely replaced the dedicated handheld gaming devices nowadays. That is somewhat sad as architecturally Nintendo DS is a pretty neat device to program for. I do want to continue working on DSx86, but I am starting to think that perhaps the Nintendo DS hardware does not offer any more the kinds of interesting challenges and learning experiences that keep me interested in my hobby projects.
It might be interesting to look into Android programming, and possibly even port DSx86 to Android smartphones at some point. The potential user base would be huge, and my x86 ARM assembler code would be simple to port to ARM-based Android phones. I'm not sure how useful an x86 emulator would be on a smart phone that does not have a keyboard, and also any reasonably new smart phone has enough power to run a port of DOSBox, so perhaps my porting DSx86 to that platform would be rather redundant.
But in any case, I feel that after three years of working on DSx86 and DS2x86 I need to take a break. I have been toying with the idea of attempting to port my old LineWars II game to Android environment. After all, I began my Nintendo DS homebrew coding "career" by first porting LineWars II to it, and only after that I started on DSx86. Perhaps it would be a good idea to move into Android programming using a similar approach. If I indeed want to start coding for Android, which I have not decided yet. I'll take a break from hobby programming, at least while I am very busy at work, and then see what would be my next hobby programming project. Or whether I find some new interesting things to do for DSx86, as that is certainly also possible.

http://dsx86.patrickaalto.com/DSblog.html

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