I've read some stuff about being able to program the Nintendo DS in C++ and was wondering if anybody knew anything about this or knows of some good tutorials/emulators/etc.

Yah, theres alot of stuff out there for programming on consoles. Look around for some DS emulators and stuff like that. A lot of the times the site that gives out the emulators will have a forum on programming on it. You would have to do alot I think to put it on something that the DS can read though.

I once tried programming on the PSP and PS2. You use an emulator to play on it.

Use C. Go to gbadev.org's DS dev thread

Use Dualis as your emulator.

Use devkitpro as your C/ASM compiler.

Go this shop and order online the following:

1.) Passcard 3
2.) Supercard or M3 adapter (found under #2 memory card adapter)
3.) if you need a memory card reader, buy one.
4.) if you need a memory card (CompactFlash, SD, or miniSD), buy one.

If you want to develop for GBA instead, you don't need Passcard3, and you can use VBA as your emulator

YOU DO NOT NEED AN EMULATOR. according to 3FG, you can safely crash your DS/GBA. The worst (according to him) that can happen is that your program erases itself from your memory card. Buying the dev hardware is probably the best way to go.

The only reason why I don't do NDS homebrew myself is that I don't have a DS, and current emulators are not very good. Even VBA for GBA doesn't emulate perfectly like the ticalc emus generally do.

Awesome. Thanks for posting that, I was a bit interested in this as well. I used to program for the PS2, PSP, and the GBA, but I lost my links etc.. when my comp crashed and had to wipe it. I am glad that MDR, and also I can get into/back into this

I know a bunch of TI community people were experimenting with z80 ASM for the GB and DS systems; I'd be interested to see what you come up with for this.

Thanks a lot for that info Liazon.

I found some pretty professional-looking tutorials and source code available to download here:

http://dl.qj.net/Introduction-to-Nintendo-DS-Programming-v4.0-Homebrew-Applications-Nintendo-DS/pg/12/fid/11015/catid/220

well anyone who knows more about it than me, correct me if I'm wrong.

afaik, the GBA/NDS use special memory mapped hardware that updates the screen by itself periodically. There are two basic types of screen modes:

1.) bitmap
each two? bytes in the memory map area corresponds to a pixel on the screen.

2.) tile + sprite
the memory map is divided into tile and sprite structures. Simply storing the tile set and a tile map in a certain area will display the map. same w/ sprites, just record a screen position in the structure and the sprite displays. the screen can have up 4 "layers" where things are stacked on top of each other. duno if smooth scrolling can be done through hardware though.

3.) 3D (NDS only)
similar to openGL on computers. dunno much about it though. Only one screen can be in this mode at a time.

the goal is to update the screen (calculate new positions and all that) before each screen update. Special registers tell you what the screen's progress is (whether it's reached the end of a row and is waiting a certain amount of time, or whether it's reached the bottom of the screen and is waiting the amount of time to update a row * iduno the #, before starting at the top again.

just a taste of what's available for GBA/NDS.

perhaps in college I'll order some hardware myself and give this a shot. for now, I've got to finish all my ti calc projects

Thanks from me too for those links. I've been wanting to go into the DS field (I probably wouldn't get far, but it would still be fun).
Also, http://www.divineo.com/cgi-bin/div-us/dd-ds-dsxt4.html for file holding looks good. 4Gb of media and rom hawtness

(EDIT) 4Gb, not 4GB. dirty advertising ftw

so they finally made something that can just go into the DS slot woot

Thats why I like programming on the PSP - you don't need to buy anything

How do you program PSP?

http://ps2dev.org/psp

You need a firmware that can run homebrew, however, which is the trickiest part. The actual compiling is all just C/C++ and GCC (and make). You can run homebrew on firmware all the way up to 2.71 (but no later at this point), although it is best on a 1.5 firmware (1.5 can be run straight from the XMB - the PSP menu, whereas on all newer firmwares you need an eloader to run it)

I got my PSP running a custom firmware that uses the 2.71 and 1.5 kernel. So its a 2.71 system for pretty much everything except for programs that I put into a special GAME folder, which are then run from 1.5 - w00t

Try talking to Thermoman; I believe he's experimented with PSP programming, or at least is more knowledgeable than I am.

I was at Wal-Mart the other day and saw Datel's Max Media Player for Nintendo DS. I've researched it a bit and it says it can play homebrew. Does anyone know anything about this? I would prefer to buy this instead of the other stuff if possible because my parents are really paranoid about buying stuff over the internet and I don't have a credit card.

Research reveals that it's actually a mini 4GB HDD, connectable to a computer via a USB cable, so I don't see why homebrew wouldn't work. Anyone else want to back me up on this?

because the media manager would have to ALLOW you to execute homebrew, which is less likely unless Nintendo gave them the OK. Sony doesn't allow any homebrew whatsoever, hence the hacks to force it to run homebrew. I'm not sure if Nintendo is as paranoid, though....

I know what you mean.

Unfortunately, I think you still need the Passcard3 to overcome the encryption. Some one correct me if I'm wrong. I also heard that that thing is a big buggy for homebrew purposes, although it will work.

No no no, not the Max Media Player!
Or decide for yourself.
4GB is hard to turn down though

After reading that article, I have to at least persuade you to wait on the Max Media Player a bit, if not discard it entirely.

That's kind of disappointing. But that review was posted last May after it was released in Europe, so is it possible that better software is now available? I'll do some more research.

Edit: According to the same site, the successor of the Max Media Player, the Max Media Dock, is also disappointing:
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=25350