| WWW | https://shonumi.github.io/ |
| GITHUB | https://github.com/shonumi/ |
| XBOX LIVE | Shonumi |
The Advance Movie Adapter is a special GBA cartridge that allowed users to play videos from SmartMedia cards. It's kind of like the GBA Video Cartridges by Majesco, except it arguably has better compression and quality.
Been messing around with improving emulation for it in GBE+ recently. Fun fact, some of the videos are protected from playing on the GB Player for the GameCube (mostly Pokemon videos as far as I know). They have this custom error screen if it detects the GB Player.
Pulled the trigger on this. Bad time to buy during the RAMpocalypse (even for DDR4), but 32GB under $100 USD was too tempting. Thank goodness I had a bunch of gift cards sitting around.
Didn't want to risk my old pair of 8GB sticks going bad with current prices increasing. Hopefully it'll give my 2019 rig some more life until all this AI madness passes.
I don't have any workloads that break 16GB (even gaming), but I figured why not double my current capacity.
Starting off 2026 hot by emulating more exotic DS hardware.
This time it's the Bayer Didget Glucose Meter, essentially a copy+paste job of the earlier Glucoboy on the GBA.
Didn't take much to get it up and running in GBE+. You can now generate in-game points that normally would require a small blood sacrifice (via the glucose meter).
Over the weekend, I added support for the Wave Scanner for Mega Man Starforce 1.
Very similar to the Wantame Card Scanner, but it did have some surprises. The core emulation logic is done, just need to work on GUI and .ini config stuff.
The device sends data via the NDS' microphone and gives users a stat boost for their character + attacks. You can use it right away too, like from the very beginning of the game.
Screenshots (w/ some graphical glitches)
For most of September, I worked on emulating a card scanner for the DS. It's used for a game called Wantame Music Channel: Doko Demo Style.
You basically get to dress up 3D puppies and have them dance in rhythm games.
The scanner itself connects via the DS' microphone and sends short sound pulses as data! It's very similar to the Wave Scanner for Mega Man Star Force.
Managed to reverse-engineer how it works and implemented it in GBE+ recently. Article about it is in the works.
I'm pleased to announce the release of my new book, "Nintendo's Lost Handheld: The Pokémon Mini"
Dive into Nintendo's long forgotten handheld, explore its fascinating history, take a tour of the hardware's capabilities, and browse its full library of games!
Print/Digital version available on Amazon. Digital version also available on Google Play Books. Links + preview below:
https://shonumi.github.io/books.html
📚 #Pokemon #books #videogames ✏️
Also, the EUR release date of Pokemon Tetris is wrong!! It's been said it launched on the same day as the Pokemon Mini (Mar 15, 2002).
Super Juegos #122 (July 2002) says it was an upcoming release for Aug of that year.
Revista Pokemon #25 (July 2002) says it was planned for Sep. I trust this one the most since it was part of Nintendo Acción (aka Revista Oficial Nintendo), and their info was probably straight from the source.
So, the exact release date of the Pokemon Mini in Australia is unknown.
Websites (including Bulbapedia) will tell you it was released anywhere from Oct 3, 2001 to Oct 11, 2002.
Thankfully, the Australian magazine Nintendo Gamer covered it in their 8th issue in April 2002. This points to the true AUS release date being some time in March (magazines lag in news/coverage by 1 month)
That issue was never scanned, but I managed to snag a photo of the article from an ebay listing.
Here's something interesting I discovered today:
Apparently the developers for Pokemon Race Mini used some kind of debug mode or build to capture screenshots for their manual.
You can see this with the time: 9'59"99
Normally after reaching that time, the game will simply crash. Not sure why it's not handled more gracefully (like just stopping the clock). Maybe they never expected anyone to ever be that slow?
