Hello World DS

A "hello world" homebrew application for the Nindendo DS console family.

Disclaimer

This is the very first homebrew I write and I just started learning about Nintendo DS programming.

Development and Testing

I developed this on an Arch Linux derivative distro, Manjaro (which I love and I've been using happily for a very long time), using the devkitPro ARM suite, which comes with the libnds library.

For more details on how to build this project, refer to the build section.

This homebrew is written in C, but you can use C++, Free Pascal, D and I bet also some other languages, to develop for the Nintendo DS.

I tested the .nds output file using DeSmuME and a Nintendo DS Lite with a R4iSDHC Gold Pro 2020 flashcart. Unfortunately this flashcart has a "time bomb", which makes it soft brick after ~1 year, but it's basically the only one available on the market right now. The "time bomb" is easily fixable though, by using YSMenu - or other kernels - instead of the proprietary suggested kernel. (The purpose of the "time bomb", of course, would be to force you to buy a new flashcart every year or so.)

Resources and Credits

The Makefile I used is a stripped-down version of the Makefile from the Jaeden Amero's Manual source code.

If you want to learn more about DS game programming, I suggest you read Jaeden's manual. It's a bit old (as the time of writing the lastest revision - 6.1x - is dated 2008), but on the other hand the system has not evolved much (if at all) from that time. While the toolchain and the libnds library are still maintained, they should still be compatible with that manual.

Why the Nintendo DS

There's a vast homebrew community around this console family. Though resources are a bit scarce, especially if you want to learn programming for this handheld console. Nonetheless, once you get started I think it's a great platform to get introduced to game deveolpment. At least at a higher level than programming in assembly for an old 6502-based machine (which is still a lot of fun!).

Aside from that, you can easily find used Nintendo DSs for very low prices and often in quite good conditions.

Build

• Install the basic development tools for your system (i.e.: make, etc.);
• Install the devkitPro devkitARM toolchain;
• run make in the root of this repository.

Run

Use your favorite emulator or compatible console to run the file hello-world-ds.nds (if you didn't change the Makefile, that's the output ROM name).

To do

• Add a CI pipeline using the devkitARM Docker image.