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OK, so in part 1 I set up my NDSRS files. Part 2 is where the action begins.

Here’s the Acekard, which includes an microSDHC to USB converter, and the memory card.

So I plugged the microSDHC card to the Acekard, put it in the DS, and fired it up just to see if it worked. And…nothing. Seven blue letters: ‘Loading’…and nothing else. Uh-oh.

After browsing the Engrishalicious Acekard site, I determined that you have to download the firmware to the Acekard before you play it. Thanks for telling me in the manual, guys. Oh wait, it didn’t come with one. So I downloaded version 4.17, which was the latest as of this post, at the top of this page, unzipped it, and stuck that file on the card. Yay! It worked!

Once I was done with that, I downloaded the NDSRS files (along with the .srs file I made before) to the Acekard, fired it up, and was greeted by the beautiful the NDSRS start screen.

Well, it’s not beautiful, but it’s functional, and after all the work earlier, functionality is where I’m aiming.

Using NDSRS
Once you get into NDSRS, there’s not really much here you need to change. You can turn Shuffle off by pressing L, but I’m not sure why you would want to. Y will move all of the cards up by one day, but I’m not sure why you would want to do that either. You can change the backlight using Select at any time within the program. Whatever you do here, press A, B, or Start to continue.

Yay. Here’s an example of the main review screen. With no formatting options possible, I HOPE that you formatted your CARDS like THIS or #this# unlike *myself*. Oops.

I pulled these buttons from the manual and added a few notes:

Buttons:
A: show answer
X: Doodle mode off/on (Very cool! I don’t have to write in the air or grab a sheet of paper!)
Y: card stats
Up/Down: change score (this is in tiny letters in the lower right-hand corner and useful if you want to go without the stylus).
Left/Right: change bottom page (if multiple answers exist). I don’t have any cards with multiple answers, so I couldn’t play with this.
Start: next card
Left+Right +Y: back to Start screen
B: repeat sound (if one exists), otherwise show answer
L+Up/Down: Scroll question up/down
R+Up/Down: Scroll answer up/down
L+Left: Score answer with 0 and go to next card
L+Right: Score answer with 4 and go to next card

You can also use the touch screen menu:

This menu is a little tricky because it’s not sticky, so it will disappear when you lift. You have to press and hold to bring up the menu, then lift off the option you want. If you’re viewing the question, you can press down on the screen and slide to the lightbulb to reveal the answer or to the feather to go to doodle mode.

0-4: scoring (but you can only do this after you reveal the answer!)
left arrow: next answer card left (this doesn’t appear to work on mine)
feather: doodle mode
lamp: display answer
chart: show card stats
right arrow: answer card right (this also doesn’t appear to work on mine)

The user interface takes a little bit of getting used to. I might email the author with a few suggestions, but I wish I could offer some coding help. If any of you are experienced in C++ and Nintendo DS programming, you might pop on over to the author’s page and offer to help.

Bonus cool stuff: Moonshell

Now that you’re rocking with the kanji, how’d you like to be able to take your ドラマ, movies, and music on the go with you? You can, with Moonshell. Now, I wasn’t able to get the version on that page to work, because, per the FAQ, Moonshell v. 2.0 and above doesn’t work on the Acekard 2.

After some research plus trial and error, I had to use the 2.0b5 version here and use the conversion tool from the latest version. Fortunately for you, I’ve zipped both up and placed them on my drop.io page here. Those not using the Acekard 2 might be able to get away with newer versions.

Unzip the archive and copy the moonshl2.nds and moonshl2 directories to your memory card, then pop it into your Acekard 2 or other l33t DS hacking device and run moonshl2.nds. Ignore any startup errors; they don’t appear to affect the program.

Using dpgenc

Want to watch Eden of the East on your Nintendo DS?

Of course you do! To get the video into the DS, you have to convert it to a tiny format that moonshell understands. That’s where dpgenc comes in.

It’s not the sexiest program in the world. But it does what it’s supposed to do: convert video files. Set the output directory, then drag any .avi or .mkv file (other formats may work) to the window and it will convert them for you while you wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It does take a while, usually about half the time of the video file. Drop a 2.5 hour movie on it and it will probably take an hour or more. Is it worth the wait? It is to me!

Once you have the resulting .dpg file, copy it to your memory card, move the card back to your Acekard, open Moonshell, and browse to your movies directory for some awesomeness. mp3s and most anything else that’s not copy-protected will work too.

I hope this little walkthrough helps! Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment or sending me an email.

Edit: @nii87 pointed out a program called BatchDPG that encodes faster and in higher quality. I also might be able to figure out how to put the newer version of Moonshell on my NDS. I’ll add this information in a Part 3 later.

Edit #2: Part 3 added.