Mooncore
Bunnyworks

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Recent News

Today's update is brought to you by SuperSakura 0.94.3, now with a ton of new game support plus fixes. I also helped with some Sei Shoujo Sentai Lakers hacking to help along a translation mod. Now I'm actually going to burrow into BunnySynth!

Whoa: déjà vu

I've gotten thus far through the pandemic unscathed, staying reasonably safe and modestly busy. Somehow it's been almost two years since the last site update, but what is time even. Today's update is brought to you by SuperSakura 0.94.1, now with savestates. Now I'm actually going to burrow into BunnySynth!

Got promoted to senior engineer, yay. I've expanded my documentation on the PMD file format and have probably the best PMD to MIDI file converter in the business. Might finally start implementing BunnySynth next, followed by MIDI-based BunnyTracker, since there doesn't seem to be a single really good MIDI tracker in existence yet and I kinda want one.

Site style upgrade for more readability and faster loading. To this end, I got rid of server-side PHP; all pages are pure HTML/CSS, fully generated and pre-gzipped on my own system before uploading. The page generator/minifier is just a little Python script I threw together; existing passive site generators are way more powerful than I need.

Still having a good time. However, my long-time hosting provider kept ratcheting up their prices by 20% a year, so I've hopped the border fence to beautiful Latvia. Note also the new site logo; inspired by old DOS games, post-processed using my own BunComp.

I actually got pretty far rewriting the BunComp algorithm. The new one is way more powerful, but also much slower. I also made a commandline interface so I could run it natively under Linux. SuperSakura continues to see a bunch of work, that's all on Git.

Reading project: the entire Star Trek litverse

Having a good time tinkering with development tools as a software engineer in a company that even contributes to free software to some degree. Meanwhile, rewriting Buncomp's backend for great quality. The music mastering tool still isn't done. But I did overhaul the Maki-chan specification again, and added specs for the Pi format.

SuperSakura and Buncomp are now both on GitLab, due to GitHub's ownership change. I may be just a 2-bit hacker, but I have principles.

Hacker palette: CGA

Relaxation was successful, and I put in a ton of work on SuperSakura, finally finishing the SDL2 conversion, and creating a console port for good measure that shows the game graphics as Ascii art, because what is life without a measure of whimsy. SuperSakura and Buncomp are now both on Github.

Remaining goals for this year: find software automation work perhaps up in Scotland, get the music mastering tool to a working state, remaster and publish at least one song, tinker more with SuperSakura, and read more thousands of pages of manga.

Class change: M (multi-headed programmer, again)

Attended three local demonstrations so far, and quit my job. I'll take some time off before looking for a new position, and intend to use this time both to relax and work really hard on SuperSakura and perhaps the audio tool. In fact, I've just completed a total scripting engine redesign.

Also, reading thousands of pages of manga.

Class change: freeter

Site design update – subtler styling, more mobile-friendliness, more sweet PHP code, and an old DOS font put together by the amazing hacker VileR. I'm now rewriting the SuperSakura scripting engine using a clearer design. Also did a minor chromaticity compressor update while at it.

Skool: faux old

Updated the Maki-chan specification twice. Meanwhile, doing more stuff on SuperSakura, gradually. The SDL2 conversion was pretty easy, but now I'm stuck improving the user input and – sigh – textboxes. Also, the multi-band dynamic compressor I mentioned earlier is now a working prototype. My new, nearly finished chiptune cover of Paganini's Capriccio 24 will benefit from it presently.

Promises: promises

I switched to Linux, and my apartment got flooded (no data loss was incurred). This caused temporary difficulties in getting creative work done, but I've gradually gotten used to a new workflow while learning a lot about how to live with Linux (with XP running in a virtual machine to run important older software). I've done a lot of stuff on SuperSakura, frustrating as it is to have to rewrite a significant chunk of the codebase.

Distro: Arch

I got promoted since the last update. I always wanted to be a programmer, and now I sort of am. Yay for childhood dreams! But it's also keeping me pretty busy. Not that I've been completely useless.

Here's an HD version of Practical Love, my old stick figure scribble. I also hacked together a widescreen tool for Ultima IX, though its usefulness is somewhat limited. There's been a whole bunch of work on SuperSakura, and there's still much to do. I've also worked out most of the maths for writing a multi-band dynamic compressor; that would allow me to remaster all my good songs and finally make them sound professional.

And I went to two comic conventions and upgraded several bits of my computer. Which is funny because despite the 2010's components, I still mainly enjoy old-skool content on it.

Favorite sound: bonk

not so recent news >>

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