ASCIImator DS - First Release!

Here's an early Christmas present for you! This is only a short message because it's very late, but I have just released ASCIImator DS!

More is in the readme. Remember to comment here about any bugs you may find - I was in such a rush to release it tonight that there are almost certainly a few flaws. The maximum amount of frames is 500 now. It'll probably be better that way. Merry Christmas to you all!

http://geckostop.webs.com/ASCIImatorDS1_0.zip

Remember to check the readme!

That's it for now. I won't have internet for a few days, so I guess I'll see you after Christmas!

ASCIImator DS - Max frames? (again) - this is IMPORTANT!

Alright. I was having problems with the save slots because they took up too much RAM and caused the program to stop working (what do you expect with three 1000x24x32 arrays!?). So, I decided that instead of using save slots, I'm going to allow you to save and load each ASCIImation as a different .sav file. This is useful because it means that:

• It uses up far less memory in the program.
• You can save as many ASCIImations as you like!
• You can give names to your ASCIImations.
• It will be easier to add an export feature.

So, there is one problem: each .sav file is a whopping 700 kb! Are you happy with this, or do you want me to halve the maximum number of frames (which is currently 1000)? This is important guys, it will take up quite a bit of space on your SD cards if you are a devoted ASCIImator. Please comment!

ASCIImator DS - Nearing the first release!

ASCIImator DS is really worked on in very short bursts. Most of the time I do other stuff, then I suddenly get the urge to work on this project. When I am working on it, progress is incredibly swift. The other day I posted this tweet:

My school is closed today! ( yay! #uksnow ) I'm at home, my target for the end of the day is to have completed ASCIImator DS v1.0.

I wasn't able to do that, but it is now very near to a usable and polished release. I found a way to get files over to my micro SD card (since my USB adapter went kaput). I've added some icons which can be pressed with the stylus. Saving and loading works (although you might have a few problems saving and loading with an emulator), and now all I need to do is make the help system and maybe change a few other things. Exciting eh? Everyone's gonna love it!

Note, the 'share' button will not work for the first release. It will be used later on to export ASCIImations to the scrollbar format, which is importable to ASCIImator 3.0, thus providing a way of sharing your 'mations with the outside world.

ASCIImator DS - Keyboard Shifting with L!

This is just a quickie to tell you that it is now possible to 'shift' the keyboard with L - this will be a useful shorcut rather than having to toggle caps lock with the stylus. It really is a timesaver. I have no idea how I did it, but MLucanius on the PAlib chat found a function from the PAlib source code which did it for me. Thanks very much to him!

Don't forget to check out the ASCIImator wiki (link in the post below).
Tomorrow I'll work on it more, and make a ASCIImator DS progress page which will be very informative. Now I've got some long science homework to do, so I'll see you all tomorrow!

AmplituDS (and some more stuff)!

Sorry you haven't heard any ASCIImator DS news for a while. I've been working hard to bring you two new levels for the awesome DS homebrew game 'AmplituDS'.
You can download the levels from this site. If you haven't already played AmplituDS, I seriously reccomend you do so now from the site I posted. It's a remake of an old PS2 music game called Amplitude, which is far more original than Guitar Hero (in fact it was made by the same company, and was a sequel to their first ever game, which looked even more original than that!).

If you enjoy AmplituDS, I think you should then give Marfitude a try. It's not as good as AmplituDS, but it's major advantage is that it will convert any .mod, .xm, .it, or .s3m file into a level, meaning you can play just about every module that ever existed. It's also got multiplayer and some other stuff...

Anyway, it's back to ASCIImator DS for me. I've got a new icon (the old one was just some green 'Aa's in the style of the ASCIImator favicon), which will will be displayed in the menu of your flashcard if the firmwire supports it. Here it is:

You like it?
Also I set up an ASCIImator Wiki, which is pretty empty right now, but should be a good place for information once it's filled up a bit...
Also, I'm thinking you might want to sign up to this blog's RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter (since I have an automatic feed-posting service linked to this blog). It will just save you some time, so it's probably a good thing to do.

[edit]
Also, 1000 frames will be the maximum number. I made a topic on the PAlib forums (which are down now, meaning I'm pretty much on my own when it comes to DS and PAlib-specific stuff) and they said that the DS will be able to handle way more than 100 frames. Via this blog's comments, me and NeonJ decided that 1000 was a sensible maximum amount, so voila!

ASCIImator DS Writeboard

I just made an ASCIImator DS Writeboard for all your suggestions and requests. Please help the project by posting as many ideas as possible, and I'll try to reply to as many as I can.

Just follow this link: http://123.writeboard.com/e3d49d363b252080b
The password is: palindromes

ASCIImator DS - Preview Video

OMG!!!! Windows Movie Maker didn't crash once! If anyone has ever exported a video on there, they deserve a very large pat on the back at least. Anyway, I am pleased to show you a video which should give you an insight into how it will work. This is a great project for me, because although I'm a beginner in C++, all I'm really doing is modifying a massive array of characters using various input and output methods.

Remember to give me feedback. This is as much your program as it is mine!

Font Change! - ASCIImator DS

Just a font update! I found that although Consolas was quite good in 8x8, it wasn't especially great for ASCII art. I found a good font called Amstrad CPC Extended by Ruboku on fontstruct, and with a tiny bit of modification it was perfect! It's under the Creative Commons Attribution liscence, so I just have to give a bit of credit. In my opinion it looks very similar to the Windows command line font, which is great for ASCII art! Please tell me what you think!

ASCIImator DS - Font Preview!

Got the font working. It seems to be alright. If you're wondering why it's so small, it's because the font mode I'm using requires 8x8 tiles for every character. This is good though - it means you can make larger ASCIImations on the DS! I suppose I could change it to 16x16 if necessary, but I think that might be a bit too big. Tell me what you think, and don't forget to look at the post below and comment, it will really come in useful!

ACIImator DS - Deciding the Frame Limit: Please Comment!

Could anyone with some programming experience help me here? So far I can only think of setting a limit to the number of frames you're allowed to include in your ASCIImation. Basically I'm storing all the data in a three dimensional array. Here's how I'm initializing it: char frames[100][24][32];
Where 100 is the number of frames, 24 is the height of the frames, and 32 is the width. I did a bit of research, and as far as I know it's not possible to make a limitless array in C++. So the question is, what do you think is a sensible amount for the number of frames? 100? 200? 300? It all depends on the DS's memory, and I don't really know much about that. So PLEEEEEEEEEASE comment to give me a bit of help. Thanks. :D

ASCIImator DS - development has officially started.......NOW!

Just to let you guys know that I'm working on ASCIImator DS. I'm no expert when it comes to programming, but I'm better at c++ than any other language and thanks to the wonderful PAlib it should be made a bit easier for me. I can't guarantee a release date, but let's say new year.....

I plan to make a very simple engine that will allow anyone to make ASCIImator 3.0 compatable ASCIImations on the go. You will be able to use a limited number of symbols (due to the font limitations) on a 32x24 array of charactes and make ASCIImations up to an unlimited (although this may change) number of frames long. When you're done you will be able to save it as a .txt file and import it to ASCIImator 3.0. The font may not be courier new because it doesn't look very good when minimized to size 8. You can expect a few other little gimmicks to make it half decent, like music and a spash screen etc. I'll relese a demo when I've done a bit. The hardest part will probably be the saving and import/export, but I'll leave that till last...

Twitter Feed?

I hopefully now have blog alerts on Twitter, so when I post to this blog all my followers get alerted. Neat huh? (not that I have that many followers...)

Scribefire Test

Just installed Scribefire for easier blog edition. It looks great, so I hope it works (if you are reading this message then it worked).

Site's Down

Well, my site's down for the moment, and it has been for a while.
When it's back up though, I will have no excuse not to have made it better, so you can expect a redesign, a twitter widget and an RSS feed to this blog (which will both be updated regularly), and a few new pages.