DS Lite homebrew

2006-09-05 Games

So recently it was my birthday and I got a Nintendo DS Lite. Some say that I am too old for this kind of thing, but I recently found out that it could be modified to run some homebrew code quite easily, including Linux and I couldn’t help myself. My Xbox modifications have turned it into one of the best things I own, so I wanted to see what this does.

Well that was all I needed to get on the case, so I went into Bergen to get a black DSLite – the new small formfactor model, and I think it looks quite nice even though I probably bought it in the most expensive place in the world for it:

DS Lite

Then I ordered from a site called hopebuy that initially looked quite dodgy, but turned out really well. To get it working you need a gamecard running custom software, then a device to store your homebrew applications on. These usually are based around some kind of flash memory. I decided upon a superkey card, and a supercard lite in black with a 1Gb Micro SD card.

It arrived in about 4 days from Hong Kong. And all worked straight away, I formatted the MicroSD card (which is amazingly small – like a small fingernail), then put in the superkey in the back of the DS Lite, with the supercard lite in the front holding the MicroSD card.

Software is free available on the web from dev-scene.com and here are some highlights:

DS:Linux. A Linux port running on the DS – amazingly small text but I am going to use this for its SSH client I think! With the built in WiFi it becomes fully networked.
DS:DrumMachine: A TR909 and TR808 emulator for the DS. – haven’t got this to work yet but I am sure that I will do soon.
DS:Organize: A palm pilot kinda app.
DSVNC: A VNC client which I haven’t used yet because I don’t run VNC at home.
Moonshell Media player for MP3s, videos etc..
Nitrotracker – an xm tracker for the DS. This is my favourite application so far, its alot of fun, and you can even record from the built in Microphone.

There are emulators, homebrew games and much more, but I haven’t had time to look at them all yet, and so I am going to go and have a play. I will report back!