I never really posted the full list of features in Spark, so I thought it proper to do so now. Features that will definitely be in the application:

• Support for multiple accounts
• Account summary
• Played games statistics
• Achievement statistics
• Message composition/message review
• Friends list
• Friend summary (bio, location, rep)
• Game comparison
• Friend management (add, remove, approve and reject friends)

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Some progress to report: on the PSP front, I have updated fMSX PSP to use the new psplib; remaining are the new virtual keyboard layout, and the changes I detailed earlier – especially better compatibility for saved states.

Work is continuing on Spark as before; a lot of new features have already been added; an update detailing them may follow soon. Regarding login error being reported for gsDroid – everything suggests that this is limited to msn.com accounts, and I should be able to look into it soon, so stay tuned.

Some new developments on the Spark (gsDroid replacement) front – see screenshots below. Specifically, the look of the app has changed to a lighter theme, and a message viewer has been added.

I’m getting a small, but considerable number of reports of logins failing for certain users.This issue is difficult to debug, as it involves people’s usernames/passwords, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with it delicately. If you’re currently experiencing an error with gsDroid and want to help troubleshoot, I’m planning on putting together a testing application to investigate the problem. You will need to run the program and provide credentials. It will write some files to the SD card, which you can then review and forward to me via email.

Because Spark will use the same authentication method as gsDroid, if gsDroid is not fixed, Spark will have the same problems. If you can help with testing, please send me an email, or post a comment here (include your email address if you do).

The successor to gsDroid is coming along nicely. I’ve managed to shear off a significant amount of time in the processing phase of the data fetch by among other things, performing bulk inserts. The end result is a significant reduction in the amount of time needed to populate list of played games – from ~32 seconds down to about 16 (on a 3G connection, with a list of 60 games). This assumes that you’re fetching the list of played games for the first time – for subsequent refreshes, update time is a lot shorter (few seconds).

The other news is that icons for games, achievements, and friends have been added, as you can see in the screen captures below. Of course, they will result in longer fetch times, but they’re optional, and can be disabled.

My XBox Live application for Android has been out for a while now, and while feedback has been mixed, it has been rather encouraging. If you’re interested, you can check it out by using Android’s Barcode Scanner app to snap the image to the right.

As feedback shows, a small percentage of users are understandably wary of providing their email address and password to the application, and completely refuse to use it. Most of the current applications that perform similar functions use the XBox Live proprietary API, which requires only a gamertag to obtain similar information. gsDroid, on the other hand, obtains its information by signing in to the XBox Live site and scanning it for information. The upside of this is that I can generally obtain a lot more information than the (free, but proprietary) API can provide. The downside is that it takes a lot of time to fetch this information, and process it raw. And of course, it requires a user’s full account information – the gamertag alone will not suffice.

To make things worse, shortly before releasing gsDroid, I realized that I went about the application completely wrong. gsDroid schedules itself as a service, and performs a full update every 15 minutes. This means that it must refresh the list of games, achievements and friends at each 15-minute interval. Most users need only an up-to-date friends list, and only occasionally an updated list of games; yet gsDroid’s design does not make it easy to do this. Instead of completely scrapping everything, I decided to release gsDroid as a free application.

That is why shortly after releasing the application, I started working on another version, designed from the ground up to be a lot more flexible, and not fetch information unless necessary. Work is progressing along nicely, and I’m already seeing a lot of improvement over gsDroid’s design – for one thing, the seemingly age-long initial synchronization process is completely gone, and while, say, initial fetch of your game list does take some time, it doesn’t take nearly as much time as with gsDroid. For this reason, gsDroid’s not likely to receive any newer features – most of my spare time is currently going towards the new application.

To keep up with the application’s progress, keep checking this site; I will try to post information on new features as it comes up.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post, so I thought it only fair to update on my recent work.

I considered the requests to write another port of Castaway, and actually began porting two different versions to PSP. Both attempts ended similarly – 4-color mode works, but the 16-color mode sets the emulator in an infinite loop, from which it never exits. My attempts to get in touch with the earlier developer of Castaway (PSP) were unsuccessful, so after about a week of hitting brick walls, I abandoned the work. I may still return to it eventually (VICE PSP was shelved for about 3 months before I got it to work), but I’m not completely certain, and would rather not make any promises I can’t keep.

Other than that, I got a Google Android phone recently, and found myself fascinated with the platform. The idea that one can actually look at the source code of one’s own cellular phone seems almost surreal, yet it’s very much a reality. I’m currently working on an XBox Live Profile viewer, which will be releasing soon – if you’re interested, check back in a while. I’m fairly certain that I will not be porting any emulators to the platform, as its controls are woefully inadequate for proper game enjoyment, and the platform is more or less limited to Java development (read: managed platform; considerable speed limitations).

That said, I’m not abandoning PSP development. But I do feel like I should take a break for a while.

Looks like the PS3 will finally be getting a much-needed price cut (not to mention a slimmer model) very soon. Will I finally have an alternative to my 360? We’ll see…

While I don’t plan on porting anything new anytime soon (although release of VICE PSP has flooded me with requests for an Atari ST emulator ), I do plan to release sporadic updates for the emulators I currently have out. Software development as a hobby is a double-edged sword – not being compelled to program tends to be a good motivator to program anyway, but when the learning ends, so does the desire to program for a particular platform/purpose. Go figure…

fMSX PSP is probably next in line for a revamp – some of you may be aware that it is my personal favorite emulator (as is the system itself). The usual update to psplib is planned, but two things I feel have been long overdue are improved MegaROM autoselection, and even more importantly, a better saved state format. Because of the unpredictability of save states, I lost my SD Snatcher progress mid-way. Grrr…

At some point, Caprice32 will be updated, but no idea when – the emulator hasn’t been updated for years, and my port doesn’t seem to be popular enough to warrant a rewrite.

Since the release of RACE! PSP, I consider NeoPop dead, so it will not receive rewrites unless something magical happens.

This is a little late, but a fellow named Daniele Fiorentini posted an interview with me on maxconsole.net. It’s from 2007, but most of what it contains is still relevant. I came across it again while I was digging through my list of emails.

Almost two years after the last release, Atari800 PSP sees another update today. New in version 2.1.0.1:

• Emulator updated to version 2.1.0
• Added ZIP file support
• PSPLIB updated to latest version: images are now saved under PSP/PHOTOS/ATARI800 PSP; virtual keyboard updated; screenshot previews in file browser

Download

This is just a short post to note that the underlying framework (psplib) for Atari800 has been updated, as you can see from the attached screenshots. As noted in an earlier post, this was the main reason behind the delay of the version upgrade, which should follow in a few days or so. The sound code has been sped up a bit, though alas, probably not enough to run the improved sound engine of Atari800.