Thought i would share to you this since i've been working on this for a while.

What is the Retrostone ? It's a 150$ handled device that aims at being basically a portable emulation machine.
It competes with the likes of the LDK/RS-97 on the lower end as well as home made projects like Raspberry pis etc...

However, the Retrostone 1 has one major flaw : the screen is composite only due to a Soc hardware limitation.
Another issue i had with the device was the firmware itself RetrOrangePi : it's bad.
It's overly complicated to use, its bulky & bloated, and it's very slow to use too.

This is the reason why after 2 months of working, i've released my Opendingux-like CFW for the Retrostone.
It tries to minimize the scaling when shown on the composite screen (although it still looks crap) and i've made sure to tweak the emulators and port them individually.

You can check out my CFW here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zECS8kWkikE

I also managed to improve the boot times from 1 minute and 30 seconds from RetrOrange Pi to 13 seconds (0.1 was 30 seconds) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCOK3-gZlsA

Project Veritas has released a video on Google and how they seemed to actively change search results.
According to the Insider and one google executive, they did so as to influence the 2020 elections because they were dismayed by the 2016 election results.

The video was originally published on Youtube before Google quickly took notice of it and removed it on privacy complaint grounds.
A few days later, it was also removed from Vimeo... this time on hate speech grounds.
Video is still on bitchute :
https://www.bitchute.com/video/re9Xp6cdkro/

I'll try to summarize what's important but basically on certain search like men can, it will only suggests things like men can cook, get pregnant, have periods.


Sometimes, it will even not suggesting anything for some search results, like Hillary's Clinton lost emails for example.



According to them (the executive & the insider), Google is doing so as to change the narrative and possibly influence the 2020 elections.
The insider proves this by using Google trends and comparing the results with another search result like Donald trump's emails.



Both are now getting low search results yet even then suggestions work for donald trump emails but doesn't for Hillary clinton's emails. (as seen above)
Amazingly enough, Hillary's email controversy is in fact suggested in Google Trends as i noticed myself, just not on Google search.



I've also noticed inconsistencies for search terms myself, even in Google France, as you can see below.
Search for "couple", which also means the same thing in french, gets you this.



However, search for "white couple", or in french "couple blanc", and this happens :



You get a bunch of mixed race or black couples.
You also get similar search results from Duckduckgo and Qwant so it looks like they are taking in full or part of Google's search results.
This does not happen if you search for arabic or black couple, as Google accurately returns back results for those.


What is Project Veritas ?

Project Veritas is a non profit founded by James O'Keefe exposing secrets and doing leaks through undercover work.
The last few weeks, they also covered how Pinterest would put Christian & liveaction and put them in the c blacklist.
The whistleblower got fired from Pinterest for revealing this.
Project Veritas was criticized before in the past for the failed Washington Post sting, where a woman allegedly fed them with false information.

Reception from Google executive and others

The Google executive responded to Project Veritas video by saying that she was just casually talking to a bystander in a cafe and she was being tricked by him.
She also said on the claims that it is ridiculous to suggest that Google would seek to influence the elections and that she was not as important as they thought.

She deleted her twitter and instagram account following the video. (it was all done very quick : I suspect Google must have ordered her to do so)
Oddly enough, she liked a comment on her medium page saying that she was a liar.

Another oddity is that no Republicans, except for two (Cruz and another one), publicly denounced this.



Project veritas reddit account also got banned after they attempted to post a video link.
So far though, most outlets seem to remain silent on the matter.

My opinion on this ?

I'll admit that i strongly dislike the likes of Ben Shapiro among others.
However, i fail to see what Google are going to achieve with this and they hurt a lot of people when they made it pretty much impossible to get monetized on Youtube.
(it's impossible to swear, whereas it was possible to do so before)

I still use Amazon, ebay and watch some other youtube channels like the Quartering among others like the 8-bit guy but i use google search less and less because each time
i'm being set back by inaccurate search results. Even duckduckgo is guilty of this but at least they don't spy on me or sell my personal info.

It's very suspicious they would go out and delete the video as quickly as they did. (they also did the same thing for Pinterest's story, even though both companies are unrelated)
In the video, they showed snippets of internal documents on how they proceed. It would be nice if we could get full copies of these like what happened with Pinterest.

Pretty much the only website where you can talk about it is on Twitter and i guess Discord.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on June 08, 2019, 04:57:25 PMGlad to see this game ported to the CDi. Now you must add the ugliest possible cartoon cutscene ever as the intro, just like those Zelda and Mario games. xd

If only i could do that.... D:

Since last year i'm still waiting on cdifan to do his base library kit but so far nothing so i'm afraid this is as far as it will go for now.

So a few years ago, i had made a post in the Switch thread about the Nintendo's Switch future.
...I'm glad to say that i wasn't fully accurate.

Nintendo did some changes to their policies, which explains why some of my predictions were wrong.
For example :

QuoteIndie devs starts releasing games for it and they also complain about the tedious approval process, which has not changed much.

They did end up smoothing out the process of releasing indie games on their platform, so much in fact that it has become much easier to release an indie game on the Switch than even the Xbox one or now the PS4.
(which i'll talk about it later)

QuoteTo some, Switch's future already becomes predicable.

Even after Nintendo releases games after games, this again does not translate into better third-party sales

To be fair, Nintendo still does this on the Switch and that led to some complains from some people.
But with the new influx of indie games as well as quality games from Nintendo,
this does not really matter even though they still have their tendency to pump out Wii U ports or in some cases 3DS ports to the Switch.
(Looking at the Donkey Kong games, Captain Toad, Yoshi's Wolly World and more)

Quote...only hardcore fans ended up buying it and the Switch sales does not translate into third-party software sales.

AAA developers are already complaining about the lack of power to the device and how poorly the Switch version sold.

It's surprising to see how Nintendo still ended up selling that much Nintendo Switches despite it coming with absolutely no multimedia features and having a still somewhat subpar hardware.
In response to the Switch's success, some developers attempted ports of AAA games like Doom as well as the FIFA games.
While these worked great, it was not always a smooth transition, as Ark Survival Evolved showed.
In the end though, it seems that most people on the Switch are content with the exclusive games on it as well as indie games,
even though they lack some of the AAA games.

QuoteMeanwhile, Sony and Microsoft keeps improving their devices by making VR yet even more cheap than before and bringing it to the masses.

VR is still at its infancy, even now. Sony made a few baby steps with PSVR but that device unfortunately has a lot of drawback and isn't as immersive as the other VR devices.
Microsoft made no real attempt at a consumer VR device for masses yet.
The other VR devices for PC are way too expensive, while the Googles for phones are literally useless and provide no immersion.
So far, it was a huge blunder on my side.

QuoteThe PS4 and Xbox One S were already inexpensive a few months ago (230$ and 250$) and on top of that, they got a huge library of games.

This is true and it's even possible to buy an Xbox One used for less than 100$ if you're lucky.

While they are still popular machines for playing their respective exclusive titles and games like Fortnite, i already feel like they are at the end of their lives.
And this does worry me about the next generation as they will literally bring nothing new of values to consumer.
I hate to say but Nintendo absolutely got it right by going portable, even if they too made questionable decisions.
(Nintendo LABO for me at least. Great marketing gimmick but no real use/value)

QuoteIn addition to that, games suffers from horrible frame-rate drops when the device is undocked.
They are also quick to realize the Switch has a bad battery and it's not practical as a portable device.
The media capabilities are limited and the environment is very closed, making very hard to watch movies easily.
Streaming on the device is disappointing and they are stuck with Netflix at 1080p, no 4K available.
Nintendo also crippled the internal browser so gamers can't play HTML5 games with sound.

The one thing i could predict right, in fact the Nintendo Switch has no internal web browser !

(other than the one that is used for hotspots requiring a password)

There are no way of watching movies locally and not even Netflix is available there.
Sucks for Nintendo as it would make their device even more attractive and they would absolutely destroy Microsoft & Sony should they change their mind.

(It's possible though they are not against it and that legal issues are preventing them to do so across regions)

QuoteHowever, gamers who own the device are quick to point out how disappointing the games look on an HDTV :
games are stuck at 720p and look awful on 1080p/4k Television.

This was another mistake on my part, as i would assume that games/OS would take the cheap route of not allowing resolutions beyond 720p over HDMI out.

In fact, this is not the case and some games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate run at 1080p over HDMI out.
Other games are more conservative and use a wide variety of resolutions, still slightly above 720p.

Quote5 years after the Switch, Switch sold less than expected : 25 millions rather than the 100 millions they expected it would sell.

It sold around 35 millions switches in around 3 years of lifespan, which is not bad.

However, it is still disappointing and they only managed to beat the N64 around the same amount of time.
I'm not even among the buyers though but i still look at what they are doing and it's very tempting to get one.

What happens next though ?

What about the 3DS line ?
Right now, Nintendo is in an awkward position of effectively supporting two, different handleds.
The Switch is better supported but has lousy battery life, while the 3DS is on life support, has subpar hardware but has much better battery life.

That's not to say that the 3DS is bad but given that they have, in my opinion, something better for pretty much everything, this does leave some question.

My guess is that they will streamline everything and just go all out on the switch.
The rumors seem to suggest so, as Nintendo is currently planning on releasing a Slim model as well as a Pro model.
It's possible that Nintendo had managed to increase the battery on the Slim model, to the point that releasing a successor to the 3DS would be pointless.

We can also look back at when they released the Nintendo DS in 2004.
At the time, they said that the NDS was a 3rd pillar along with the GBA and Gamecube.
But what eventually happened is that the NDS took over the GBA and killed it.

In handsight, this made no sense as the NDS had backward compatibility with GBA games. If so, why bother with it ?
On the other hand, it does explain why they would release devices like the Game Boy Micro and the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101.

I believe Nintendo is back to doing the same thing again, and ultimately they will do as works best.

Beyond the Nintendo Switch... ?

What if they indeed decide to drop the 3DS line, go all out on the Switch.
What would they effectively do in the next 5 years in order to sustain themselves ?
I believe this question is more important now than it was 10 years ago.

Nintendo is no longer into making home consoles, they have to compete with not only Sony & Microsoft, but also mobile and PC games and an ever-shifting market
that is over-satured with games, even more so than it was during the Atari 2600 era. We have never seen the likes of it.

Would there be even a console beyond the Nintendo switch ?

Unfortunately, i do not have answers for you.
They did try to experiment with VR (as part as Nintendo LABO), however the reviews are not positive.
They still have a long way to go and it's possible they might encounter an impasse.
For now though, they keep on doing what they do best.

Bump again, and i can pretty much confirm and reaffirm that your device needs to be supported by a Custom ROM, and it's even better if mainline linux supports it.
Sadly for the latter, only a few devices check those boxes. (Mostly the Nexus 5 and some SoCs like the Raspberry Pis)

I still have some of my older phones but i don't even bother with them anymore as they are useless, even for gaming.

Of course old thread but Julian Assange has since been arrested and it's expected he will spend around 1 year or so in prison before being presumably
deported back to the US for 5 more years.
His cat was also given to a shelter some years ago (around 2017 it seems).

Honestly though, they are really being harsh on this guy and his hacking attempt did not even succeed : He had to ask Manning for access.
(And manning got a pardon from Obama)
But US law does not even care if the hack was successfully as they only care for intent, which is a lot of balls.
(I could claim that i want to hack the US military and that alone would be enough for prosecution)

Also, the rape allegations are a lot of balls : his supposed victims said they were not raped and one even said it was a conspiracy by the Sweden Government to deport Assange.
(The previous judge had closed the whole thing for lack of proof)

Just noticed the SMF upgrade as well. I thought you had switched to phpBB instead but this will do nice at least.
I like the new theme too. (Kind of a shame though that it does not use all of my estate screen on a desktop)

EDIT: Unfortunately my profile picture is now gone. Tried to upload a new one but it doesn't work.
It only works if you use an URL link. Uploading an avatar won't work. Permissions errors perhaps ?

Also you guys said that IRC is not working but it definitely is. Something you fixed quickly it seems then.

So i found a somewhat broken Game Gear for 25$ with a game with it.The console displayed something and it did not output anything over headphones (at first, see later) when i tried it at the store.
Ended up buying it and challenged myself to try to get it repaired, especially after i hard modded bitboy for CFW.
So here it is, along with 2 more games i bought (Click on pictures to enlarge) :

As you can see, it's in fairly good shape physically, and it even comes with the two battery cover, an unusual feat.
So when i brought it home, i took a more closer look at it.

I realized the volume slider was not turned all the way up.
After plugging a bunch of headphones and trying another game, i could hear the game playing, though the volume of it was very low.
So this was definitely an issue with dead capacitors, a common issue on those consoles.I bought the caps plus a gamebit to disassemble it and i should get them this 21th.

Here it is together with my other handleds :



(From top left to bottom right : TI Nspire CX, PSP, Arcade Mini RS-07, PAP KIIIS, RS-97, New Bittboy v1, Sega Game Gear and the Ritmix RZX-50.
I will let you know if i can get it to work reliably.

So i'm working on porting an emulator (SMS Plus GX) to using fbdev and i managed to make double buffering work after reading this :http://betteros.org/tut/graphics1.php#doublebuffer
It roughly looks like this (Resolution is 320x240 and bitdepth is 16) :static inline void swap_buffers()
{
    if (vinfo.yoffset == 0)
        vinfo.yoffset = screensize;
    else
        vinfo.yoffset = 0;

    //"Pan" to the back buffer
    ioctl(fbfd, FBIOPAN_DISPLAY, &vinfo);

    //Update the pointer to the back buffer so we don't draw on the front buffer
    uint16_t* restrict tmp = front_buffer;
    front_buffer = back_buffer;
    back_buffer = tmp;
}
static void video_update()
{    //Draw our internal buffer to the back buffer
   upscale_SMS_to_320x240((uint32_t* restrict)back_buffer, (uint32_t* restrict)sms_bitmap, vdp.height);
   swap_buffers();
}

However, double buffering has its issues, as it can halve the framerate if it can't keep up, hence why i want triple buffering.
Wiki says this :

QuoteIn triple buffering the program has two back buffers and can immediately start drawing in the one that is not involved in such copying. The third buffer, the front buffer, is read by the graphics card to display the image on the monitor. Once the image has been sent to the monitor, the front buffer is flipped with (or copied from) the back buffer holding the most recent complete image.

How would this work in my case though, practically speaking ?I've tried to implement it like so :

Quotestatic inline void swap_buffers()
{
    buffer_swap_ready = NOT_READY;
    uint16_t *buffer_ready_tmp = buffer_ready;
    buffer_ready = buffer_render;
    buffer_render = buffer_ready_tmp;
    buffer_swap_ready = READY;
   
    if (buffer_swap_ready == READY)
    {
        if (vinfo.yoffset == 0)
            vinfo.yoffset = screensize;
        else
            vinfo.yoffset = 0;

        //"Pan" to the back buffer
        ioctl(fbfd, FBIOPAN_DISPLAY, &vinfo);

        //Update the pointer to the back buffer so we don't draw on the front buffer
        uint16_t* restrict buffer_screen_tmp = buffer_screen;
        buffer_screen = buffer_ready;
        buffer_ready = buffer_screen_tmp;
    }
}

Obviously it's still wrong... (it's always set to READY)
WalrusRPG was using an interrupt for the buffer swapping.What can i do ? I admit that i'm fairly new to this lol... But i wish to implement it myself.

Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Boric on March 14, 2019, 05:00:46 PM

Quote from: gameblabla on March 14, 2019, 11:25:07 AM
When we will get native dev on it ? D:

Given that the datasheets and firmware source code are freely available, I'd say from day one. I mean, you can even program video games for the NumWorks in Ada for crying out loud! (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21794&p=234603)

Never thought i would see some real use of Ada on a calculator...  But i thought that the games on it were basically firmware on their own right ? (i think it was due to the small internal space)
So yeah, i still prefer the TI Nspire CX, as flawed as it is.

When we will get native dev on it ? D:
Not that it will matter though, i'm done with school.

Just took a look at it and it looks professional.Now you just need to get that .io domain and put a slide of your faces (Who we are ?) and you're good.
Did it take off ? Last update is from February.

It's simple, ok and looks fine for the PICO-8.Hope to see more ambitious projects from you JWinslow23 !(I think i would rather play your 2600 version, given that it's probably a more suitable platform for these kind of games)

Quote from: rowan_futurerave on February 14, 2019, 09:44:16 PM
I'm not sure about assembler, but in C and C++ memory leaks are caused by using the calloc/malloc routines (in C) or the new operator (in C++) without using corresponding calls to free (in C) or delete (in C++).

You can still have RAM leaks without the use of functions like those.For example, if you attempt to access an array out-of-bound, this can easily happen.Or you can simply mess with pointers that are not allocated like this for example :
https://github.com/gameblabla/blockout2-rs97/blob/ec519dbdbe7e86b8b66dc3059ada1ffae258d105/BlockOut/BlockOut.cpp#L143
This is wrong on so many levels and i noticed it while porting blockout to the RS-97. There's no way it will not leak memory.

RAM would definitely be a factor if you want to make well anything on it...Pretty sure something like SMS_SDL could have ran on it (albeit slowly) if it wasn't for the low amount of RAM.And not a lot of people are called calc84maniac on earth. (nor do they have the patience for that)
Even if you somehow manage to have the CPU taken out of the equation, there's still the fact thatyou need to emulate the VDP chip and those are more complex than the good old game boy.