Fan of benheck? Fan of emulation, homebrew? Fan of the Atari 800?

Then we have a treat for you!
Benheck, purveyor of all things hackable has decided to post a few things from his past in the form of a dump of his programs he did for his atari 800.

When I was young I used to do a lot of BASIC programming on my Atari 800 computer. Many years later I got an SIO2PC cable from eBay, which allows you to use your PC as a virtual disk drive with an old Atari. This allows a person to make disk images of their old stuff. Knowing how fragile the old FM disks were, I was excited to make backups.

Sadly, about 3 minutes after getting the transfer cable my 810 drive conked out. However recently a customer found me a working 1050 drive at a thrift store (how come thrift stores in Wisconsin aren’t that cool?) so once again I can share these old games with the world!

If you ever wondered what the “amazing” Ben Heck was doing at age 11, now you can find out! Though a programmed a lot of stuff, I’m only including what is complete or fairly playable.

Should run on most modern emulators, or a real Atari if you have an SIO2PC cable. Enjoy!

What you waiting for go get it! ...

If you ask me, most wireless keyboards designed to be used with HTPCs are just too big. I have no intentions of touch-typing out a novel while sitting on my couch in front of the TV, so this HTPC remote with its compact Blackberry-esque QWERTY keypad is more than adequate for my needs. It’s wireless thanks to a USB dongle that attaches to the HTPC itself, and besides supporting Windows, Linux and Mac OS, it can apparently also be used with the 360, PS3 and the Wii. Oh and that large area that looks like an LCD display? It’s actually a touchpad saving you from having to juggle a wireless mouse as well. Not bad for just $40 from efo, if it works as advertised of course.

Source Ohgizmo ...

Are older Zune models going the way of the brick? We've received a handful of tips pointing us to the official Zune forums, where reports are coming in that apparently a number of the non-Zune HD units haven't been able to sync with Zune 4.0 software. Although a few people have elaborated on some steps to take (hint: it involves a lot of downgrading and reinstallation of both firmware and Zune software), there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on its effectiveness. Honestly, it's hard to tell from our end if this is really a widespread issue and we haven't seen it ourselves, so we're putting it to you, deer reader: has your Zune device forgotten how to sync with the mothership?
Is your Zune device out of sync with Zune software?

Yes, my older Zune is experiencing a failure to communicate
No, but now that you mention it, my Zune HD doesn't seem to sync
Everything's fine here, captain
I don't have a Zune, but I do have a predilection for pushing buttons

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/p...zune-software/ ...

News via pspita

The coder patpat issue a new update to its PC program CTFtool GUI that allows you to create themes for PSP compatible with CXMB well as allowing you to extract files from themes format. Ctf ready. Among the new features in this release, 3.0, there is the possibility to create themes compatible with fw 5.03 and PSP-3000, was also added support for file pspboot_plugin.prx.
Following the full changelog and the link to download.

Changelog:

Quote:

Note: The following files have been removed dall'arhivio:
- 5:50 Folder: game_plugin.prx, game_plugin.rco, msvideo_main_plugin.rco, music_main_plugin.prx, paf.prx, visualizer_plugin.prx, vshmain.prx
- Folder SUPPORT: common_gui.prx, vshmain.prx, paf.prx

These files have been removed because, for a range of domestic policy of PSP-ITA, are not allowed to post on the forum.
To seek, you must use the PSARDUMPER and extract them from their firmware.

Changelog v3.0:
- Support for pspboot_plugin.prx
- MPS to PMF, you can copy gameboot.mps or pspboot.mps in / vsh / resource
- Support for 5:03 CTF PSP-3000
- E 'can convert the topmenu_plugin.rco
- The "Information Board" of topmenu_icon.rco will use the icon of the "LocationFree Player" or "Online Instruction"
- During the conversion from 5.00 to 5.50, the application will automatically delete the following files:
osk_plugin.prx
osk_plugin_500.prx
osk_utility.rco
satelite.prx
msvideo_main_plugin.prx
sysconf_plugin.prx

Download and Give Feedback via Comments ...

DINGOO GNUBOY
-------------
dingoo gnuboy is a port of gnuboy for the dingoo with some extra options.
It has been ported by joyrider aka willems davy.

how to install ?
----------------
copy GNUBOY.SIM in the A:\\GAME\\ directory, it MUST be placed there and nowhere else !
Once you did this you can copy over roms to any directory you like on the dingoo. The roms
must be unzipped and have either a .gb or .gbc extention.

how to play ?
-------------
Once you copied your games and the sim file just use the "intresting games" menu to browse to the roms
and run them.

The default keys are the same as on the gameboy being:
A : A
B : B
Select : Select
Start : Start
L : QuickSave to selected saveslot
R : QuickLoad from selected saveslot

Y and X does nothing !


The menu?
---------
Holding select+start will bring you to the menu where you can change diffrent options.
like showing the showing fps counter, the screen mode, sound volume, frameskip or save load a state as well as
quiting the emulator.

option notes:
- the frameskip option will skip one out of 2 frames so instead of rendering 60 frames per second it will
only render 30 frames per second, this will speed up certain games at the cost of loosing frames. Experiment with it

- there are 3 screen modes : Aspect FS which stretches the screen but keeping aspect ratio, Stretched full screen
and native. During native mode you will see a frame around the screen this frame can be customized !
by default the emulator will first look for game sepecific frames being .tga if it doesn't find it it will
look for the file name gnuboy.tga in the folder where you loaded the rom from, if it doesn't find that one it will do
a final check in A:\\game\\ for a gnuboy.tga and load that one. If they all fail the default frame will be loaded.

- about frames : The frames have to be a 320x240 uncompressed tga image ! do not try to use another format or another resolution.

- Save State and load state will display a number besides them this is the saveslot which is a number between 1 and 9 so you
can have up to 9 savestates per game (rom).

the rest of the options should be obvious.

FAQ
---
A game doesn't work / load will this game ever work ?
- if the problem is emulation related it won't because i don't know much about emulator programming

I want to have a seperate frame for the original gameboy and color gameboy, is this possible ?
- YES, just put your GBC and GB roms in a seperate directory and place a gnuboy.tga image in each rom dir,
one for gbc games and one for gb games.

Will you port other emulators for the native os ?
- i have no intention to do this at the moment but who knows, time will tell.

Are save the settings from the menu saved ?
- yes they are saved but not per game.

will a save state in Game X work on emulator Y on another machine ?
- i have no clue, just test it although i doubt they'll work.

I want to request a feature, have something added to the emulator, where can i contact you ?
- using my website http://www.willemssoft.be or on the a320.freeforums.org or on irc.freenet.org channel #dingoo-a320

Credits
-------
GnuBoy has been ported by joyrider - willems davy - http://www.willemssoft.be

Thanks to the original author(s) of gnuboy without them this wouldn't have been possible,
flatmush for his excellent minimal lib, Alekmaul for the scaler code and sound threading example,
harteex (and zear) for the testing and Alf for creating the frame(s).

Download Here ...

Two new Xbox-360-related bundles are arriving for the upcoming holidays. And while the Elite will continue going for $300, the Xbox 360 controller bundle balloons the peripheral to $60.

Predicted by Ars, the Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle includes a 360 Elite, Lego Batman: The Videogame and Pure. It's available now for $299.

Meanwhile, for those just looking to score a controller and some games, the $60 Xbox 360 Wireless Controller Game Pack includes a wireless black controller and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, Lumines LIVE!, Bomberman LIVE! and Ms Pac-Man. We're feeling too lazy to look up the price of each title and convert from MS points, but given that a controller only runs about $35, this bundle sounds like a bit of an upsell if you're not going to play each and every title. Also, Jason Chen will just top your Geometry Wars scores, so don't even bother.

Source gizmodo. ...

We at http://www.dcemu.co.uk & http://www.thejoypad.net are passionate about homebrew and gaming and peripherals as much as you are, but sometimes we miss great news and articles that are readers should hear about.

So what could you do about it?

Well apart from saying oi, you missed this, how about posting it in our Submit news forum. Not only will you be the one up on your friends by seeing your name in fancy pixels but with regular posting tidbits maybe even become one of the team!

Go on you know you want to!

Tell us any news bits here! ...

We'll hand it to those Star Wars toy engineers: They've stolen our hearts yet again with another clever Wii/Vader mash-up.

The $50 Darth Vader Nintendo Wii Sensor Bar Holder is essentially a sculpture that holds your sensor bar in the place of a lightsaber. So while you flail away at Wii Sports Resort, onlookers will enjoy the tacit implication that you are not only besting the game but the entire Dark Side of the force. Well, that, or your friends will realize that your fascination with a 30-year-old movie franchise is depleting your bank account and adversely affecting your overall grasp on reality, especially when playing Wii.

Source gizmodo ...

Natal is Microsoft's new controller-free motion sensing tech. It does not have a logo or icons yet — apparently, Microsoft is still in the planning stages for that.

At this year's Tokyo Game Show, Xbox Japan whipped up these icons for the booth to help convey what exactly the heck Natal is and does. Thoughts, opinions about these icons?

Source kotaku ...