Check out the finished product here.

Download Source

So far the emulator just supports the 80286 with a few 80386 opcodes, but no plans to fully emulate a 80386 which is understandable, but even a 286 opens up a ton of opportunities for old school gaming. I can now play games such as Elite Plus, Civilization (the original), Warlords, Castles 2, and (hopefully soon) Kings Bounty.

If this is something that interests you theres a compatibility list where users are encouraged to test games to help out the development. Of course youll need some sort of DS card with custom firmware such as the R4 or Cyclo DS (my personal choice).

http://www.mio.k12.mi.us/

The first stored procedure I attempted to write accepted 3 parameters and based on one of them checks a lookup table, and creates a new value in it if the same value does not already exist. Normally I would use an IF NOT EXISTS clause, which in Microsoft SQL would look like this

CREATE PROCEDURE someProc
@SomeParam varchar(50),
AS
BEGIN
	DECLARE @SomeId int

	IF  NOT EXISTS(SELECT (1) FROM lookup_table WHERE someField = @SomeParam )
		BEGIN
			INSERT INTO lookup_table (someField) VALUES(@someParam)
			SELECT @SomeId = @@identity
		END
	ELSE
		BEGIN
			SELECT @SomeId = id FROM lookup_table WHERE someField = @SomeParam
		END

	-- Do some other stuff here with the id you just received and other data
END

The above snippet would take a value, check a table for it, get its id, and if the record doesn’t exist in the database create it and return the id. Then you could continue on and insert that id into another table or what have you.

Accomplishing the same thing with a MySQL stored procedure is a bit different. The code below shows how you would accomplish the same task.

CREATE PROCEDURE 'someProc' (IN 'in_SomeParam' INT)
LANGUAGE SQL
NOT DETERMINISTIC
CONTAINS SQL
SQL SECURITY DEFINER
BEGIN
	DECLARE SomeId int;
	DECLARE CheckExists int;
	SET CheckExists = 0;  

	SELECT count(*) INTO CheckExists from lookup_table WHERE someField = in_SomeParam;   

	IF (CheckExists > 0) THEN
		SELECT id INTO SomeId FROM lookup_table WHERE someField = in_SomeParam;
	ELSE
		INSERT INTO lookup_table (someField ) VALUES(in_SomeParam);
		SELECT SomeId = LAST_INSERT_ID();
	END IF; 

	# Do some other stuff here with the id you just received and other data
END;

I’m sure I will find some more differences in things I am used to doing with stored procedures using T-SQL, and when I do I’ll post them here.

Mario brothers in Minecraft

Stairs to Lava

Don’t let the look of the game fool you, anyone no matter the age group can easily become addicted.

What really peaked my interest are some of the game modes people have put together, such as a zombie mode where you are chased by zombies (other players who have been turned) and you need to either hide, or build your way away from them. Theres also a falling lava mode where lava fills the level and you need to build structures as to not get stuck in it.

What I really wanted to do was create some of my own game modes, but it was pretty hard to even figure out where to begin. I eventually settled on Opencraft, which is an opensource Java server for the game. It looks like development has ceased so I have had to implement a few things already. I plan on releasing any changes I make so others can create some interesting game modes as well.

Download Jquery Snowfall 1.3

Invoking the snow

    $(document).snowfall();
    $('#elementid').snowfall({flakeCount : 100, maxSpeed : 10});
    $('.class').snowfall({flakeCount : 100, maxSpeed : 10});

Snowfall Methods

    // stopping the snow
    $(document).snowfall('clear');
    $('#elementid').snowfall('clear');
    $('.class').snowfall('clear');

Options currently supported with default values

options = {
	flakeCount : 35,		// number
	flakeColor : '#ffffff', // string
	flakeIndex: 999999,		// number
	minSize : 1,			// number
	maxSize : 3,			// number
	minSpeed : 2,			// number
	maxSpeed : 3			// number
};

Example