Quarn of the demo group Outbreak has released a new 128 byte intro for Dreamcast entitled planes. ...

After months of rumours, a 'soft' launch last October and a barrage of mysterious advertising on television and the internet, it has finally been released. Almost.
Gizmondo goes on sale tomorrow in the UK. Tiger Telematics' pretender to the handheld gaming throne has certainly had an interesting run up to launch, not least because it's been an absolute nightmare for anyone to get their hands on a unit, thus limiting the kind of coverage websites and magazines can give it.

This has led to all sorts of reactions. "It must be rubbish," we've heard, as well as "It could be great...". Add in some of the rumours that have been circulating - including the famous 'Halo coming to Gizmondo' episode - and you've got one of the most enigmatic, if not high-profile, handheld launches ever.

Well, we finally got hands-on with Gizmondo yesterday. It was an extremely interesting experience. Since we won't get a full review unit until after the launch tomorrow we'll hold off on an in-depth dissection of the handheld, but we thought we'd offer some first impressions just in case you've got 229 burning a hole in your pocket.
That's how much a Gizmondo will set you back. It's a difficult pricepoint, especially coming so close after Nintendo's sub-100 DS launch last week. At least you get plenty for your cash: Gizmondo is the classic jack of all trades. As well as playing games on it's 2.8" LCD screen the Giz handles MP3 music and MPEG 4 movie files and comes complete with a digital camera, Global Positioning software, and GPRS and Bluetooth connectivity for email, downloads and wireless multiplayer gaming. SD cards are used to store and transfer data, and there's also a USB connection.

Jack of all trades, but master of... well? It certainly feels nice, and looks much, much better than we expected. It's smaller and thinner than you'd expect, and fits into your hands with a far more ergonomic snugness than Nintendo's DS. The D-pad in particular feels smooth and accurate under your finger, while the face buttons and strangely erect shoulder buttons are as comfortable as you'd hope for portable gaming.

The rubberised exterior is pleasing to hold and also inspires a fair bit of confidence. We wouldn't expect to see the chips, scrapes and flakes afflicting our DS and PSP causing the Gizmondo many problems.

Of course, it's nowhere near as cool looking as the PSP, but it is far more practical if you're chucking it in your bag or lugging it in a pocket populated by spiky keys and coins.

The operating system at Gizmondo's front end is equally surprising. Attractive and easy to use, the Windows CE-powered OS is quick and clear. You can access all your data from this one central hub, and quick SD card switching means you're never more than five seconds from your film, music or game.

Music playback is solid enough, but on first glance it doesn't seem that there's a great deal of features other than pressing play and listening. We're told that Gizmondo has a 20 percent better bit rate than Apple's iPod, which is nice, although you're unlikely to notice the difference unless you've got ears like satellite dishes.

We were pretty impressed by the movie playback. Watching snatches of I, Robot was pleasant enough, even if the screen isn't as impressive as the PSP's. Still, for movies on the move Gizmondo looks like it'll do a functional, if unspectacular, job.

But let's be honest - for Gizmondo, it's the games that will make or break it. While the system seems to be set up quite nicely for playing them, we worry that there won't be enough big or impressive titles available. We had a little pop on Trailblazer (a puzzle/racer hybrid based on an eighties arcade game), a preview version of Richard Burns Rally and the original Sonic The Hedgehog drawn from the Sega Classics Pack. All were fine as far as they go, but it's not Metal Gear Acid or Wario Ware, is it?

One title that does interest us is Colors, a gang-based shooter that draws on the Gizmondo's GPS system (which can also be used to find your position, tell you your nearest, say, hotel, and even alert the authorities if you get yourself snatched). The idea is that you set a GeoFence around your house, and every time someone blunders into that area with a Gizmondo and a copy of Colors you fight them wirelessly. In theory it's a great idea. In practice it sounds a little ambitious. For one thing, it's unlikely we'd drag our arses off the couch to 'invade' someone else's territory, but then it is a portable system.

With a solid game line-up Gizmondo could do alright, but it doesn't have it yet. The launch line-up is especially sparse, with only the Fathammer Classics Pack available tomorrow. That worries us. It's certainly a nice little piece of kit, and much more covetable than we expected, but it needs a lot of things to go its way before it's going to get close to muscling in on DS, PSP or iPod.

Once we get our review unit we'll give you a more detailed account ...

Since Visual Basic is something most coders do not use and it's portability is not very friendly, I thought I would start learning C by converting 1st_read.bin File Checker from VB. It's completly done, although there is no scrambling or unscrambling.

I received a lot of help from JustBurn and GPF on EFnet #dcemu.

Download the binary.
Download the source.

This should be considered BETA since I've only tested NesterDC, which works. So there still is a chance of it not working correctly on all software.

I would love to see this ported to Mac and Linux. ...

Natrium 42 the man behind the Passme device has released his first homebrew game for the Nintendo DS called Battle Ship DS, Check out the Screenshots and download Here http://nintendo-ds.dcemu.co.uk/battleshipds.shtml ...

Hi everyone!

Just a week after the first release, it's time for a new version of my VMU Backup CD!

Version changes:

+ Fixed the unreadable font issue on TV displays.
+ Added support for the analog pad to scroll in the menus.
+ Added some new games and new saves.
+ Cleaned up a bit the source code.

Again, it's a selfboot DiscJuggler 4.1 CDI image, available to download at SourceForge.net:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/vmutool...di.rar?download

For source code & binary files, click here.

Enjoy this release, and post your comments!

c ya! ...

im using games such as mortal kombat 3 on snes station.. is there a way to get the game to run on really low sound setting so it runs smother? or do i just have to turn sounds off.. ?? if anyone has any recommended setting please let me know.. thanks. ...

Quarn has released 2 new 128byte intros for the Dreamcast, more information here --> http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/sho...2274#post22274 ...

Christopher Price sent me this interesting bit of news/rumour

Not sure how "newsworthy" this is, but might be worth something of a news article...

Remember that DC-on-a-chip? Well, I couldn't ever get it out of my head, I mean, really, nobody makes a chipset that specific to a platform without some client that wants to buy it.

Well, doing some research, I found that Sega has handed the dreamcast.com domain name over to the Sega Mobile division, and Sega Mobile has taken their site into a "reconstruction" mode.

What I do know is that running articles with this kind of preliminary info generally does yield results, and technically DC-on-a-chip was doing some emulation, so I would be thrilled to see some article.

After all, a portable Dreamcast with a hard drive and in an iPod like configuration with an iTunes-style content purchasing system could quite well compete with the PSP... but you didn't hear that from me

Interesting eh ...

The gamecube emulator for windows has seen a news update from the official site

Hey all, first bit of news from me, eh? I'm the new Webmaster here and I've just finished Dolwin's new site design.

Either way, hotquik has completed his new input plugin for Dolwin. [Located here in the additional files.] It features controller input and rumble, so enjoy!

Oh, there's a problem with Mozilla's / Firefox's javascript viewing for screenshots. You'll get an error every time you view a screenshot, however it doesn't affect the javascript window. I'm trying to fix it, but I can't find the problem. It works in every other browser I've tried; Netscape, IE, Opera..
Vile324

http://dolwin.emulation64.com/index.php ...