libntxm by asiekierka or libmx7 by sverx

For years and years, I've been post-poning the time where I could back-port my changes of the sound player library NTXM into the upstream github... And then in December 2023, I note that the library has been revived by one homebrew developer I'm following since March.

I asked whether they would be interested in a pull request for my effects system and she replied

PRs are always welcome! However, someone has already made merged pull requests to support more XM effects, so you might need to review their changes against your own.

Later on mastodon, she added

 I honestly recommend maxmod or libxm7 for gamedev use...

I know that other package released by Sverx quite a while ago. Since the time I was looking for a module player to replace mikmod, Sverx has decided to open-source it. I still have to code-study it. So no code exchange occured and nothing changed in my own dsgametools repository.

Early this month, she announced an interesting news: 

nrio-usb-disk, a tool to use the DS Linker Writer card to connect your Slot-1 cartridges to a PC as USB mass storage. This acts as an open-source replacement for the DS Linker "uDisk" tool, but this one supports any flashcart.

So she can use it to quick-cycle-develop and rebooted Nitro Tracker over USB (instead of uploading over WiFi as I do with runME). The PC is the USB host and the DS is device (via USB controller chip in Slot-2).

Given how fragile NDS development over WiFi has become with WiFi security ever increasing and the NDS hardware remaining unchanged, I might have to consider getting one such device myself and understand how it works for a safer future.

edit: the linker used isn't exactly new.

trivia: did you know Goodboy Galaxy programmer gecko contributed a few fixes to nitroustracker 0.4.9 ?