The excellent RyanFB has today updated his vintage Sega Genesis Emulator for the DS, adding a few bug fixes and a new experimental 3MB ROM loading module which should allow you to play even more Genesis games on the go.

A lot of fans thought this emulator wasn't being updated anymore since the last time we reported about it was back in August, but there's no stopping RyanFB! If you like to play good old fashioned games when your commuting to work, then this is for you. Here's the changelog:

• Added Max Media Dock FAT support (thanks chishm/Bonic)
• Added EZ4 FAT support (thanks cory1492/Rudolph)
• Reduced memory usage, 3MB ROMs should work again
• Added EXPERIMENTAL support for using the additional RAM on SuperCard SD carts to load ROMs larger than 3MB. This comes with the standard warning that this feature may cause file corruption on your SD card. The SCSD may also keep the Genesis ROM in GBA ROM space after a reboot, causing PicoDriveDS to see it as an appended ROM and crash on startup - to fix this issue simply power down, take the SCSD out, and wait a few seconds.

Remember, take heed of the warning when using the experimental mode which runs ROMs larger than 3MB. Make sure you back up the data on your SD card before using this due to risk of corruption.

Download: [PicoDriveDS 0.1.6]

Influential American writer, journalists and political commentator Walter Lippman once said that "It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf." Relevance with this article? This homebrew application, DSBook-ASCII, concocted by cory1492 is the product of him not being satisfied with M3's "cheesy book reader" and MoonShell.

Only a talented developer could come up with an alternative because it requires wisdom to understand wisdom-- whereas if he doesn't have the skills, he'll most likely not stop ranting about the program and that doesn't make things any better right?

Anyway, cory1492 was kind enough to give us some time in his busy schedule to sit and get something done that the gaming community may like. The DSBook-ASCII is a book reader that is an alternative to other already exisiting programs. This one is strictly compiled with EZ4SD and SuperCard in mind, and if you're the type who can't sleep at night, then maybe a good book oughta do the trick, and a good book needs a good book-reader.

Download: [DSBook-ASCII]

Those of you who were already caught up in the DS homebrew development scene last year, may have remembered one of the active developers then, cory1492. But the brilliant mind of cory1492 has been silent for quite some time and I'm sure most of you who followed his works last year are wondering what has happened. Well, I don't have an answer to that - but I do know that cory1942 is back! Yey!

Updating his website, he gives us some of the new things he has for all DS users out there. First on the list is the EZ4 version of his ETool3.13. This new app from cory1492 will now work with EZ4 as it's pre-patched with .sav file already.

Next for cory1492's new servings is the sixth revision of his simple skinner application EZ4Skin. To change the skin on the EZ4 menus of your handheld Ninty console, just add the latest updates and name it ezfla_up.bin, go into the folders and alter the images, then double click on Skin_it.bat. Remember that it is important to NOT change the image size or depth, or you'll surely encounter some problems.

Last (hopefully just for now) on the cory1492 updates is the DS Book Public Release 2, which includes a pre-patched EZ4 version. Currently, the amazing developer is learning about SDL to add TTF font support and a sort of touch interface in future releases of this application. Meanwhile, he gives us these new things for DSBook:

• Loads the file "book.txt" (can be any text file) from the root dir of the media card.
• Automatically saves current position to SRAM. (supercard users take note - you will have to manually write the SRAM)
• Word wrapping enabled.
• Cleaned up the font a tiny bit.
• Temporarily shows page/line on the bottom of the screen.
• Debug text added on second screen.
• EZ4 SD added from moonshell (read only) to chishm's FAT lib

The DS Book is compiled with Neoflash MK MMC Card support, M3 Perfect CF support, M3 Perfect SD support, Supercard CF support, Supercard SD support, and EZ4 SD support. DSBook has been tested and is working on EZ4SD, SuperCard SD, and M3-SD - although the last one has issues with font renderers on M3.

With these three updates, cory1492 proved that we never unlearn what we know. Hopefully, these updates mean that he's back on the DS development scene for good. Meanwhile, let him know what you think of his comeback - try out his new applications and give your suggestions and constructive criticisms.

Download: [EZ4 version of ETool 3.13]
Download: [EZ4skin R6]
Download: [DSBook Public Release 2]