Praecantatio v1.2 - 36.81 kB
Praecantatio is a magic plugin for craftbukkit for Minecraft. Refer to the official thread at the bukkit forums for more info: http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/fun-rpg-praecantatio-v1-0-a-magic-plugin-based-on-incantatio.24959/.

Praecantatio source code v1.2 - 40.3 kB
This is the source code for praecantatio. Praecantatio is a magic plugin for craftbukkit for Minecraft. Refer to the official thread at the bukkit forums for more info: http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/fun-rpg-praecantatio-v1-0-a-magic-plugin-based-on-incantatio.24959/.

So I coded up this handy app to monitor a device and a program, and only launch the program if the device comes online, and close it after it goes offline.

The program is fully console based, but also provides the means to minimize to the system tray. Use the commands ‘help’ and ‘help set’ to learn its usage, but if you just need to use it for SMS you can just type ‘host playstation2′ where playstation2 is the address of your PS2.

help:
set - Apply a setting. Type help set for more info.
status - Display status of the device and the client.
settings - Display current settings.
hide - Minimizes this program to the system tray.
restart - Restart the program.
exit - Exit the program.

help set:
host - The hostname of the device.
application - The name of the client application WITHOUT '.exe'.
arguments - The arguments of the client. Use %host% to insert host info.
devtimeout - The timeout between device checks.
apptimeout - The timeout between application checks.
maxtries - The maximum number of times to retry if before the device is considered offline.
autorestart - Restart this program if it crashes. Valid values are 'true' or 'false' without the quotes.
autohide - Hide this program on startup. Valid values are 'true' or 'false' without the quotes.

All commands are case sensitive. If you ever need to reset the settings, just delete ‘settings.dat’.
Requires the .NET 3.5 framework.

Included in the download is ps2client for uLe rev 7 by dlanor, so this should be all you need to stream to your PS2.

ps2clmon v0.1 - 44.43 kB
A tool to monitor a ps2 & ps2client. You can also reconfigure it to monitor any program/device combination, as long as simply pinging the device's IP adress is sufficient.

Searching the internet, I found many tools to extract/build binary pspbtcnf files… except none of them would work, not the ones on PC and not the ones on the PSP itself. The available tools usually extracted fine but when rebuilding them, even unchanged, they would simply lock up my PSP on boot. One even made files that made no sense on the Windows port of it. The Linux version produced files that seemed fine, but failed to run on actual hardware.

So I was left with the only other option: code a working alternative. After 3 days of reverse engineering and debugging in my spare time, I present to you btcnfgen, including the full C# source code. There are both Windows version and Linux versions available, the Windows version will need the .NET 3.5 framework, the Linux version has the Mono libraries statically linked and should work as is, and the Mono version should work on both platforms, provided the Mono framework is installed.

NOTE: As always, when dealing with PSP flash memory, caution is advised and having a Pandora battery and magic memory stick on hand wouldn’t hurt either. By using this tool you claim full responsibility for whatever damage it might cause to any hard or software.

btcnfgen v0.1
Usage: btcnfgen [-b | -e | -h] [-v] [-y] source [output]
-b Build a binary file from a plaintext file.
-e Extract a binary file into a plaintext file.
-v Force version (in format #.##).
-c Ask for confirmation to overwrite if output file already exists.
-h Displays this info.

btcnfgen v0.1 - 15.05 kB
A tool to extract and build valid pspbtcnf binaries. Windows and Mono versions, and full C# source code included.

btcnfgen Linux v0.1 - 2.69 MB
A tool to extract and build valid pspbtcnf binaries. Statically linked Linux Mono version.

Basically, this shader will increase pixelation as the depth increases. It can be a great effect for a retro 8-bit graphical look, and is light on both processing and memory.

While the image doesn’t quite do the effect justice, I’m stuck using this until I find time to build a simple demo framework for my post processing effects.

I hope to eventually expand this to a depth of field kind of effect which shouldn’t be hard to implement, but I’m currently preoccupied with another project. When I get around to doing this I’ll post the updated shader.

The current implementation contains both the C# and the HLSL shader source files. It has been designed to run on the TrueVision 3D engine, but it should be very easy to adapt it to whatever suits your needs. And if you’re using the TV3D engine, it’ll be pretty much plug and play, except for the location of the engine components and perhaps you’d like to link to the shader source instead of the compiled ones like I do.

The classes should be pretty self explanatory, but if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post them in the comments.

Feel free to use this shader anyway you’d like as long as you give credit.

PixelDepth shader v0.4 - 1.97 kB
A fullscreen effect that increases pixellation over distance. HLSL source files accompanied with a C# implementation using the TrueVision3D engine.

However, when I added a few terabyte HD’s I found the embedded SiI3114 controller wasn’t so happy with them; The system hung at the controller’s BIOS drive detection.

After a bit of Google-ing I found it could be solved with a simple BIOS update. Phew, saved right? Guess again…

Apparently, the latest BIOS update was only for PCI cards using the SiI3114 chip. The embedded chips have their BIOS integrated into the system’s BIOS. Checking DFI’s support site, it seemed I already had the latest system BIOS.

So I was left with only one option: assemble my own BIOS.

Looking through various forums, I found a nifty utility: CBROM. It allows you to integrate or remove addon BIOS’s from a system BIOS, so after carefully reading up on it, I managed to remove the old SiI3114 controller BIOS and integrating the latest one.

Since the PC in question only had a ‘floppy drive flash’ option, and only a DOS utility for flashing, I created my own boot CD containing DOS 6.22, the modified BIOS and the flash utility. After booting that & flashing, the drives worked perfectly!

All in all, a lot of time went into finding a solution for this problem, but it saved me from having to buy a new motherboard, or an entirely new system. Plus messing around with the BIOS was fun.

For anyone who is interested, I’ve uploaded the files I’ve created here. Remember when booting the image to switch from the RAMdrive to the actual CD or you won’t find the BIOS and the flash utility.

NFII Ultra Infinity custom BIOS v1.0 - 260.11 kB
Custom NFII Ultra Infinity BIOS containing the latest system BIOS and the latest SiI3114 controller BIOS.

NFII Ultra Infinity custom BIOS - boot CD v1.0 - 1.11 MB
The NFII Ultra Infinity custom BIOS containing the latest SiI3114 BIOS, in a handy DOS 6.22 boot CD. Boot from the disk, switch from ramdisk to the CD drive, and execute flash.bat for automatic flashing.

Welcome to version 2.0 of my blog! I’m finally (mostly) satisfied with the CSS and functionality, so now I’ll be mostly adding content. Still don’t like the sidebar though, but at the moment I’m not sure how I’m going to change it.

I’ll be using this blog to report about my personal projects,  application coding progress & releases, code tips & snippets. If you’re interested in game programming, C#, XNA or HLSL you might want to keep an eye (or a RSS reader) on the site. You can also follow my twitter, any new posts will automatically be linked there.

Last but not least, I will soon be releasing the full source code to all my HLSL shaders. So check in soon for some HDR, deferred rendering, spotlight projections, shadows, god rays & more!