PPCenter :: devblog

The kids are currently on winter holidays, I don't want unexpected and messy task at work before entering new years holidays, so today was spent at movie theater with kids

We went to see Dragon Ball Super - Broly, and it was cool !! I really appreciated the "フリーザー！「カコク」ってなんだ！？" from Goku just after Freezer used "過酷" word in a dramatic scene

So well, it seems it's the good moment to announce a new public section in my homepage, which is about Dragon Ball cards

More than 15 years ago (but it feels like last week ... I'm really getting old !), I spent many afternoons in scanning my collection of Dragon Ball cards, and then put everything on a CD-R ... because internet was paid for each minutes connected, and my maximum transfer speed at that time was around 7KB/s, hence not suitable for uploading hundreds of megabytes of data

All theses limitations are no longer a problem, so please enjoy my digital cards collection

Oh, I forgot to say that everything in more or less in its original state, including the html, so in advance I'm sorry for any reaction to Comic Sans MS font and flashy image background Also, the textual contents are left as-is in omelette du fromage language

My main Saturn project during the last four years was named after watching a Dragon Ball Kai episode on TV, so in a related note, I'm glad to announce a new version of Pseudo Saturn Kai is available

But ... there's currently a bug so I shall re-release it soon

After everything will be fixed and verified, I shall make a proper announcement in this article, so if you don't want to flash your cartridge twice, please keep tuned for one day or two !

Edit (2018/12/31) : version v6.274 was released a couple of a days ago, and so far I didn't received major claims about it, so let's consider this version a stable one ! Please find below an overview of the changes and additions in this release.

Automatic Game Loader

So far in Pseudo Saturn Kai 6.074, user had to choose which game loader to choose before starting a game, but this is now done automatically on Pseudo Saturn Kai side.
There's no magic around this feature : it just uses a list of games not compatible with CWX loader, and decides accordingly

Cheat Codes

That's a big addition for this release. Its development spans around June 2017 to Spring 2018.
The main features for cheat codes are :

• Built-in : don't need to manually enter the cheat codes
• User friendly : just push X button when booting a game, and then select the cheat(s) to enable.
• Maintained by cafe-alpha () : rather than adding an "enter cheat codes by yourself" feature, I plan to continue improving and maintaining the cheat codes list

Disc image selection menu for Rhea/Phoebe ODEs

Back in 2015, I added a stub of alternate rmenu to Pseudo Saturn Kai, but didn't had the technical information regarding Rhea/Phoebe API so the feature was disabled in its unfinished state.
And this summer, an enthusiast friend helped a lot to get this technical information, so that I could finally finish this feature
Development of this feature was an occasion to bring usage of proportional font in image selection menu, thus showing more information on a single screen. Base of menu module was developed around 2010 without any consideration for proportional font, so development of this side feature was a nightmare, but I don't regret for having done it now it is finished

Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager 3

Dezaemon 2 is a shooting game maker application for Saturn. And Save Game Manager is a collection of user games for Dezaemon 2.
By the past, there were two volumes released by Madroms : SGM1 in 2007 and SGM2 in 2008.
And 10 years after that, SGM3 is released and contains some new user games as well as all the games from SGM1 and SGM3 : one SGM to rule them all

Special thanks to Dezaemon DB for gathering a community around Dezaemon 2, and dumping the user games

A stylish logo for Pseudo Saturn Kai

That's maybe a detail, but that was really missing from a long time !
Special thanks to Alien^PDX for the logo, and CyberWarriorX for putting me in touch with him

In-game connectivity for USB dev cart

This uses cheat codes routine, hence requires at least a valid master code to be set. It can do USB connectivity while doing transfer with PC, but that's a bit slow (because of unoptimized C running from cartridge ROM), and consequently may cause glitches on some games.

As a countermeasure, there is another mode who does only USB connectivity (hence no cheat codes) but does it fast since the code for it is written directly in assembly and running in RAM.

That may be cool for game hacking, or looking for new cheat codes ... but I still need to add a proper cheat codes finder feature on SatLink before looking for cheat codes on my favorite games

I stopped USB dev cart support, so this feature is disabled and software on PC side won't be released.

Virtual Memory Cartridge support via USB dev cart

This is similar to "Virtual Memory Cartridge" used in Gamer's Cartridge, but access save data files on PC via USB dev cart instead of SD card.

That's convenient for save data hacking, or testing several saves, but for normal use then using SD card is (in my opinion) a better choice.

As a consequence, full firmware can now be installed on USB dev cart. But cartridges not using SST39SF040 flash chips are not supported (because there's not enough room in flash ROM) and in that case only lite firmware can be installed.

Fixed support for 3D pad

In previous version, using 3D pad would sometimes cause an emergency exit to multiplayer screen when touching analog buttons. This is now fixed, and additionally supports input from analog buttons.

Pseudo Saturn Kai is not a 3D game, so the interest of using analog buttons is a bit questionable, but at least it is supported now

And the most voluminous change is ... :
Fixed many bugs everywhere, added other bugs here and there
Everything should work now ! Trust me, I'm an engineer

Congratulations, you reached the end of this long article

Last but not least, I wish you a Merry Christmas, happy new year 2019 and happy gaming

I was away from keyboard (and fortunately away from shopping malls too) during this Black Friday, so I am a bit late to celebrate this marvelous commercial event.

But any date isn't late to celebrate something, so let's tweak a little the event name and officially open the ...