The following is the latest happenings regarding the Stella DS. To learn more about what Stella DS actually is and see some nice screenshots, see the About page.

03.05.06 - What you've been waiting for...

I finally got the sound to work by doing away with some of the unnecessary Stella code (like register write queues) and trimming things down. Best enjoyed with E.T. :)

02.09.06 - Tiny "update"

I compiled in the latest version of chism's FAT library. Now StellaDS should support more devices such as the Supercard SD. Tweaked the menu to allow wraparound. Began using Subversion to manage my source code under the suggestion of StoneCydh from #dsdev.

02.03.06 - Flash memory device (GBAMP, et al) support!

I integrated chism's FAT file I/O library into StellaDS to add the much needed support for high capacity flash memory devices. Create a directory called stellads in the root directory of your device and stash all of your ROMs in there. No need to recompile to get new ROMs! The buggy, awkward GBFS approach is no longer in use. Also, the menu now supports a near-infinite amount of ROMs thanks to the wonders of std::vector. Scrolling beyond the list works now as well. Directory traversal has not yet been implemented, however, so don't try selecting the dotted file names at the beginning of the list.

Included in the StellaDS download is a sample stellads ROM directory that you can copy onto your memory card to try out some free, public-domain Atari 2600 ROMs. Report any bugs to me via e-mail, and have fun playing Adventure on your DS once again!

Downloads are uploaded.

9.30.05 - Minor update.

Press START during a game to go back to the menu and play a new ROM.

I replaced the dubious official Atari/Activision ROMs with a collection of homebrew ROMs in the NDS file. If you want different ROMs, compile the emulator with a new set in the arm9 data directory.

9.26.05 - Some progress with sound.

Wrote DS sound code. Seems to output sound but there's no ring buffer, it's slow (due to a loop with a double), and there's no detectable Atari 2600 bleeps in there. I got some bugs fixed, but of course, it's no where near release.

9.23.05 - 0.5 release with ROM Menu!

I got a lot of work done today. I painfully coded in embedded GBFS support. Then, I threw together a menu system. Because of the nature of WMB, you have to compile in the ROMs still, but at least you can choose which one you want to play.

Nothing like spending your Friday night programming.

Note that the (null) ROM is Adventure. Seems like a bug in the gbfs_get_nth_obj function.

9.22.05 - New wifi card.

Finally, got my wireless card. Now I can continue working, provided school does not get in my way.

I plan on rewriting the entire CPU core emulator to use ARM assembly. Then, I am going to add sound and a ROM menu so you do not have to painfully recompile the emulator every time you want to play something else.

Finally, when sgstair is done hacking wireless, expect to be able to play multiplayer Atari 2600 games with the person beside you or on the other side of the world.

Thanks buZz` from #dsdev for the new shot of H.E.R.O. on the About page.

8.29.05 - Preliminary sound work.

Split project into ARM7 and ARM9 parts. Waded through the TIA/SDL sound source code. It's going to be tough.

On the other hand, I added support for the Game Select/Reset switches so that games such as Adventure are playable. Use the L and R buttons respectively to invoke the switches. In addition, the screen is now scaled 1.5x horizontally to almost fill the whole bottom screen.

I've noticed the recent publicity that I have been getting. Thanks for supporting my project! As requested, I am now numbering releases and naming them accordingly. Stella DS 0.41 is the current version. Grab it from the downloads section and enjoy!

8.28.05 - Framebuffer optimized. Version 0.4

The emulator has been quite optimized and plays at a smooth playable speed now thanks to a faster framebuffer drawing routine. I will continue to work on it though and add sound.

I need to order a Wifi card to do more complete experimentation because there's pretty much no hope at all of getting a replacement Neo Flash.

Thanks GPFerror and DesktopMan for some help with the DS graphics code. Feel free to try some optimization of your own! :)

8.28.05 - Controls! Version 0.3

You can actually play ET now!

So as you can see, I got controls working but the framebuffer still needs optimized. I will work on that now. Hopefully, the framebuffer is what's slowing things down. My plan is to only draw the updated portions each frame and to use an extended rotation background on Mode 5 instead of the FB0.

If the emulated processor or the C++ emulator core code are the bottlenecks and the code needs a drastic rewrite, this project will surely grind to a halt. I have no experience whatsoever with optimizing for embedded systems or even with ARM assembly for that matter.

8.28.05 - Framebuffer support added. Version 0.2

Got somebody to test it on their hardware. The framebuffer works! I wish I could do more but it won't work in emulators and Neo Flash won't replace my defective Slim Loader which is a shame because I'll never get to enjoy my work. Guess the community will just have to wait for sound, scaling, optimizations, controls.

Even with it as an extended rotation background instead of a framebuffer it's still not showing up in iDeaS. Dualis crashes and DSEmu won't display anything at all.

8.27.05 - Site launched. Alpha version released.

I am working on a port of the Atari 2600 emulator Stella. So far almost the entire code base has been ported. Download a ROM and put it in the data directory. Name it "pacman.bin" and recompile. The emulator will load, MD5 sum, and execute it.

What's left? I am having problems with the frame buffer so no visuals. It's a problem with the ported emulator code, not the DS framebuffer because I can write to the DS framebuffer fine. The source code is in the zip; perhaps, you could take a look. Namely, the TIA.cpp file is what handles the Atari's framebuffer. I honestly don't know what's the matter, but then again, this is my first real DS project.

Also, sound and controls need to be implemented. Shouldn't be too hard -- at least the controls. I am not going to start on these features until I get framebuffer working though.

I added debug info as well, registers and instructions, just to prove that the dang thing works!