Makaron News

via http://dknute.livejournal.com/39623.html

Hi guys. And gals. Do we have any gals here?

I promised some people that there will be a Christmas release - but as you can see, it didn't happen. There are a few reasons for that but the last nail in the coffin was last Wednesday, when I slipped on ice and fell in a very unlucky way, with both of my hands still in my pockets. I hurt my left arm and probably cracked a rib or two since I still feel pain in my chest and back.

Somehow it seems that 2011 was rather unlucky when it comes to Makaron, I had very little free time this year, especially during the second half of it. I think next year should be a little less busy (though probably not until February, or even March).

I'm feeling a bit better now, can move around almost freely, so I will try to hack together something just to release it before midnight of 31 December. It won't be the T13 version though, I've made it DX11-only and there are still some issues I haven't worked out yet so it just won't be ready.

As always, thanks for your support.

By the way, some people have been asking about my custom JVS I/O and GD emulator. Both projects are now paused, but I haven't abandoned them or anything. I would still very much like to sell both devices to raise some money - software and hardware I need are pretty expensive and I'm stingy. There are 3 main problems with those right now:

1) Neither device is complete (though both are working well enough).
2) I'm still uncertain what features should be included or omitted.
3) How do I go about setting up a shop when I'm done :)

Please provide some input. I need to explain that I'm favouring simple and cheap devices - while even a more advanced ones would be cheap if mass-produced, I really doubt there is a market big enough for that. So, for example, my JVS I/O lacks the ability to daisy-chain it with other I/O boards. It's not really that much of a problem to add more functionality but it's another MCU port tied up, a couple more elements are needed, one more USB socket, more PCB space, etc. It seems like a small thing but the costs do add up. The original idea was to have just enough inputs for one player. A bigger MCU, like ATmega128 could easily support two players with analog inputs as well but it's again more costly. So, what do you guys think, a super-simple I/O or just a cheaper version of a standard two-player one? Because, again, I don't think there is market for both.
Same thing with the GD emulator. It runs off cheap SD cards and has no fancy user interface or anything. I don't really see it as a problem, someone could just code a GUI to run on Dreamcast and boot that as the default image. The device will support disc swapping properly you know. I already said that before but this approach means I can only do about 2MB/s when transferring data, which is just tad bit faster than the original GD drive. There are some games that will break when you transfer the data too slow, or too fast, so I think it's actually best to stay close to original specs. If I were to go for a faster solution the whole thing would need to be re-designed - which is possible but I'd rather not have to do it. Then again, if nobody wants to buy the device as it is now then what's the point, right?

So, talk to me. I'm open for new ideas, I just wanted to make sure you understand that adding things is costly and some of this stuff is actually pretty hard to implement because of various limitations of the hardware I want to use.