We were lucky enough to be granted an interview with Shaun Taylor, the creator of the popular DS homebrew application DSOrganize. For those those few of you that haven’t heard of DSOrganize, it is as the name suggests an organiser application, but it has much more than that including a web browser, an IRC application and an audio player. Another cool little feature is the ability to download from the homebrew database directly onto your DS
We asked Shaun a series of questions, here are his responses. We hope you find this interview as informative and interesting as we did.
“First, a little about me: I am 21 and currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, and have recently transferred to UCLA. I am currently working at ViaSat part time while I go to school, and before that I worked at Best Buy in Mira Mesa on the Geek Squad. DSOrganize is my first major project on a console, but I have had other somewhat large projects on the PC such as YoungMX, a media player I wrote for myself and a few friends.”
What were your motivations behind creating DSOrganize?
“When I started getting into DS homebrew, I really liked the idea of having touch-based inputs on the device itself. It meant that I could design a whole array of applications that used inputs similar to a PC but tuned specifically to a small device. However, I didn’t start with DSOrganize right away. I was rusty on my C and had never developed for a console before, so I started off with libfb, HappyCat Demo, and DrugWars (my only successfully homebrew game). Rolling around to a new semester at school, I thought it would be really neat if I could throw together a really quick organizer-style application that allowed you to take notes down, much like the pocket schedulers they used to give out at middle/high school. I got to work writing a small calendar display app, and then released a small demo that allowed you to save reminders on the GBAMP and SuperCard CF based on a specific day. Most of the application was based around my already-written libfb code that could display word wrapped text and manage a cursor. After that got out, a few people in the scene suggested a day viewer with time slots to schedule your day, and DSOrganize kind-of grew out from there. I never really meant it to get as big as it did, but I keep getting good suggestions and ideas and I am not bored with it yet.”
What are your favourite features?
“My favorite features are probably the Audio Player and the Web Browser. Both of them were very hard to get working, and represent an awful lot of work to get to the finished product. Also, being a geek meant that I felt way cooler walking around school listening to a device that I programmed myself. The web browser is another favorite due to the fact that I can show off what the DS can do with a very limited amount of ram. Other than that, any feature that specifically uses DS hardware, such as the audio recording function, is one of my better-liked features simply due to the novelty.”
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