dasShiny vs MindSpark

dasShiny is a free Nintendo DS emulator for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The maker describes it as highly experimental and aims it at people familiar with cartridge folders and recent BSNES versions. Its interface looks for a gamefolder.nds/manifest.xml file; a blank manifest directs it to a ROM in gamefolder.nds/rom, which can be up to 1 GB. Setup requires ARM7 and ARM9 BIOS files and firmware, and the maker advises backing up rewritable firmware. The emulator can load homebrew ROMs, but it does not implement DLDI support for FAT access, so software that depends on that access may not work. Games listed as known to run include Super Mario 64, Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing: Wild World, along with several demos. Pokémon Diamond/Pearl is reported to save but crash at the load menu. For 3D, the maker says a high-end Core 2, i5, or i7 is pretty much mandatory in the described context. Windows users are advised to choose XAudio2 over DirectSound.

MindSpark is an open-source mind-mapping app that runs in a browser or can be self-hosted. Its editor combines an infinite canvas with automatic layouts, keyboard-first editing, drag-and-drop reordering, search, presentation mode, and undo and redo. A Markdown outline and the map canvas stay synchronized as users edit either view. Research tools can fill citation details from Crossref using a DOI and export cited nodes as a references list. Users can compile a map branch into a prompt, estimate its tokens, and run it with their own Anthropic or OpenAI API key. MindSpark imports JSON, OPML, Markdown, GitMind, and MindMeister files, and exports PNG, PDF, JSON, Markdown, Word, and Mermaid. Self-hosted mode stores maps in SQLite and requires Node.js 22 or later; browser mode saves maps as private JSON files in a repository on GitHub, Gitea, Forgejo, or GitLab. The app is free with no feature gates or usage limits and is released under the MIT license.