Some notes:

  + It may be a good idea to keep the "linux" directory common to both
    FinalBurn and FinalBurn Alpha ports. This way, improvements to one of
    them will show up in the other, too. (this makes sense since FBA no
    longer supports SEGA games such as After Burner, so there will be
    people wanting to use the old original FinalBurn but still take benefit
    of the enhancements)

Here is a list of things I had planned to do:

  + Make two separate projects: one for the original FinalBurn (Dave's one)
    and one other for FinalBurn Alpha. From version 139 on, fba team started
    writting hihgly incompatible modifications to the code. So, having a
    "universal finalburn patch" to work with all versions is no longer easy.
  + Catch up with latest fba version.
  + Write to fba team asking for support about portability issues. Concrete
    things needed to do are:
       - Restore Dave's idea of the "emulator library": keep the emulator
         core (platform independent) in directory "burn".
       - The "burn" directory should contain all necesary files to compile
         a library without requiring any include or .c file from any other
         directory. (currently this is not true for fba)
       - Also, directory "burn" should be portable C code. No MFC code there,
         no DirectDraw, no nasty code... etc... (I'd say "no __cdecl", too,
         but this can be workarounded easily with a -D__cdecl="")
       - Keep "components" in one place. (eg: you can keep the lowpass filter
         in the platform dependant GUI directory, since it is accesory and
         can be understood as a "GUI add-on" before feeding the sound to the
         apropiate API. But sound interpolation & mixing code should be kept
         in "burn" directory, since this is an esential part of the emulator.
         (currently it's splitted between "burn" and the GUI's directory) )
       - Platform dependant code should be placed outside "burn" directory.
         (currently, there is directory "burner" for the Win32 GUI and
         "linux" for the SDL port. (which works at least under QNX and BeOS
         too, not just linux!) )
       - In assembler modules, double-define all exported symbols: once with
         underscore ("global _FunctionName") and once more without it
         ("global FunctionName"). This way, symbols will be properly handled
         from both Win and non-Win compilers. (it is pretty sad to see MY
         OWN code failing to compile after fba-team's modifications due to
         issues like this)
  + Maybe the project could be joined with FBA. This would likely assure
    portability. Or maybe, once FBA becomes portable, this project could
    be reduced to some makefiles and the "linux" directory, only.
  + Add a GUI. The emulator needs configuration (at least for the inputs).
    I had thought about some zsnes alike menus. This way there is no need
    to add GTK dependencies, making it more portable.
  + Rewrite ALL input code. Currently there is preliminary joystick support,
    but the input code was not designed with anything other than keyboard in
    mind. Also, it wouldn't handle configuration easily. So, a rewrite of
    it seems like a must.
  + In the configuration menu, include an option to calibrate the monitor's
    gamma, so that the built-in gamma correction code I've added can work
    properly and offer a picture as close as possible to the original arcade.
    I had thought of a 3-color separate calibration by succesive refinement.
    (discarding half the posibilities after each step). Mail me at
    comac@comac.darktech.org it you want to know more about this method or
    about gamma calibration.