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[Patater]

I present to you, my manual. Version 2.2. It covers the legality of homebrew and the politics behind it, dispaying backgrounds on both screens, sprites, and a bit of game mechanics. It's just the thing to get you started on making homebrew for the DS. I hope you enjoy it!

Comes with source code and a pdf designed for printing.
http://www.patatersoft.info/manual.html

The following is an except from my manual:

You love playing games on your Nintendo DS. Every game you’ve played has been a wonderful experience, each one leaving a lovely aftertaste on your gaming tongue. You may have wondered to yourself what it'd be like to create games, to offer your own software up for licking. You’ve drawn diagrams of games you’d love to make, worlds you want to share with others. But how to go about it? You think and are lost: you are stuck. Where do I start? What's going on inside that pretty little dual-screen box?

This manual is designed to help you get an idea of what's going on inside the Nintendo DS. With a bit of effort and time, you’ll be on your way to creating your own games. Join us, the homebrew community. You’ll have a great time giving others a great time, collaborating on projects, and feeling the rush of intense and under pressure coding for numerous coding competitions.

http://www.patatersoft.info/manual.html

[poffy]

I found Patater's manual very helpful and informative.

It teaches you how to set-up your dev environment AND how to work the DS' 2D system.

It teaches both backgrounds and sprites.

This is a really really good manual for people who want to start developing for the DS.
It's actually even good for the people who just want to brush up on their DS development skills.

[eieio]

Patater's manual got me started in DS programming.  The detail put into the hardware specs is very useful for anyone wanting to write programs for the system.

[monaug5]

it has helped me many times and it has helped me understand ds development more its a must have manual for beginners or masters of the ds development scene

[DisasteR]

It is indeed a very nice concise guide and is great for beginners.

Quite ironic that it is written with such an anti piracy slant yet wins on what is essentially the supercard support site (though unofficial). That’s just an observation rather than criticism btw.

[Patater]

This site is mainly about homebrew, not piracy. Although, it does have a forum dedicated to pirated game compatibility.

I noticed this contest going on, and no other place had done anything like it. I decided the contest was a sure thing for me, so I entered. I'm happy that I could win and am thankful to all those who contributed to the prize table.

[Patater]

Woo. I got my DS Lite today. Thanks for all your support!

Cheers,
Patater

[Scor]

Happy Happy Joy Joy .

[omaemad]

The site doesnt have a piracy compat section it has a self dumped backup compatibility section :wink: that isnt distributed outside your home

[Patater]

In some countries, making a backup copy is illegal. Under US law, and DMCA, I believe it is illegal to make a backup copy. For example, making a back up of a commercial DVD movie to use for home viewing and placing the original on a shelf for safe keeping is no longer fair use under DCMA, so I've heard. I believe that video games fall under that same umbrella as well. However, if you ask Nintendo, regardless of the law, they'll tell you that you aren't allowed. I refer you to read through your game manual (probably near the very back) to get Nintendo's opinion on your right to a back up.

[thehomelymule]

The DMCA, as I understand it, doesn't stop you from making a personal back-up copy under most circumstances. It does, however, make it illegal to circumvent security features in order to copy or gain access to software, making it more targetted toward mod chips than ROMs, though it muddies the waters enough that numerous lawsuits can come of it. It has clauses allowing exceptions for research and education, but still doesn't seem to jive with the principle of being able to do what you like with your own purchased property.

Anyway, I've been pondering tinkering with DS programming for a while now, and a great introduction like this leaves me with little excuse to hold back. You've done an excellent job, and your hard work is appreciated!  

[sandman]

hej i will download the guide as soon as I get home, but I still have one question. Can you also start ds dev. without any programming experience whatsoever?

thx

Sandman

[JEenerio]

and like what are the available libraries out there that we could use? so far im studying how to use PALib, and Lua that also uses devkitpro's ndslib.

[robo]

When I try and compile for the first time I get the error

basename: too many arguments
Try `basename --help' for more information.
make[1]: *** /c/Documents: Invalid request code.  Stop.
make: *** [build] Error 2

how can this be fixed?

[Patater]

A new version with a sound chapter has been released. Enjoy!

http://www.patatersoft.info/manual.html