Extensible Loader

Vampirics · October 20, 2018, 4:00am

Really keen on seeing where the new loader will be going. But I will wait for a stable release… Maybe even a new gamedisk made for the new loader.

Hanski · October 20, 2018, 4:40pm

Works now! What was the problem?

spinal · October 20, 2018, 5:22pm

It didn’t work

FManga · October 20, 2018, 7:31pm

FS.seekdir was broken. Now the mystery is why did it ever work on some cards?

How is the flashing speed compared to the vanilla loader?
@spinal do you notice a speed difference between your cards?

spinal · October 21, 2018, 9:16am

Looks exactly the same to me…

[edit] vanilla as in original… it feels faster, is it even possible to revert to an earlier loader?

FManga · October 21, 2018, 1:34pm

I think installing start.bin using usb is the easy way, at the moment.
I’ll try to add support for .der files soon, so you’ll be able to simply pick a loader file and install it. Since all the code can be put in RAM it can update itself… theoretically.

So much to do… T_T

spinal · October 21, 2018, 1:53pm

Yup, it worked. Your loader is about twice as fast.

FManga · October 21, 2018, 2:07pm

I guess that means we won’t have minigames in the loading-screen then.

drummyfish · October 21, 2018, 2:19pm

I think minigames on loading screens are patented anyway.

FManga · October 21, 2018, 2:20pm

They were. The patent expired.

spinal · October 21, 2018, 2:29pm

Why was Bandi allowed to patent an ‘idea’ in the 90’s that someone else did in the 80’s?

FManga · October 21, 2018, 2:43pm

Is that loading screen 3 minutes long? o_O

spinal · October 21, 2018, 2:51pm

Did you never own one of the old 8-bits? 3 minutes was easily the average loading time for a game. I remember even having a game called ‘in the beginning’ that warned on the cassette inlay of a 13 minute load time!

FManga · October 21, 2018, 3:07pm

I started off on the NES. No tapes, no loading screens.

Pharap · October 21, 2018, 4:29pm

So much to do, so much to see, so much to do, so much to see…

BigBadHodad · October 22, 2018, 11:33am

They probably shoved a lot of money and hookers at someone.

FManga · October 25, 2018, 4:48am

Today I got the loader to load .der files, so now it can update/uninstall itself.

Now I’ll start working on the tool for making pop files out of bins.

Hanski · October 25, 2018, 6:16am

So we can soon add icons to our bins? That nice!

FManga · October 25, 2018, 10:52am

That’s the idea. I’m thinking of making a github site where you drop the bin in, fill out a form (author name, description, etc) and it gives you a pop.

For those who’d prefer to not use a browser and/or make pop file generation part of the build process, a NodeJS-based command-line tool has already been made.

Hanski · October 25, 2018, 11:06am

Is that available somewhere?