NES Emulation History

This is an archive of a topic from NESdev BBS, taken in mid-October 2019 before a server upgrade.
View original topic

NES Emulation History
by noattack on 2012-03-16 (#91393)

Not strictly emulation dev-related, but close enough...

I'm researching the history of NES emulation and I thought those of you that actually develop emulators might have a better sense of what came first. On nesworld.com, I found this comment on an outdated page:

Quote:

The first NES emulator ever made was coded by a Russian guy, Alex Krasivsky who let Marat Fayzullin (known for other emulators like Virtual Gameboy, Colem, fMSX) have the source code. Marat "fixed" the code and added a lot of different stuff and released in under the name iNES.

Sound accurate? Did Krasivsky's emulator have a name and was it distributed online?

Did any Famicom emulators appear in Japan prior to Krasivsky's? When did Pasofami appear on the scene?

And would everyone agree that NESticle broke NES emulation into the 'mainstream' and helped standardize the iNES format (even more so than iNES itself)? My research suggests so. I'm also amazed how long NESticle has managed to stick around...

Any info or links are appreciated.

by Nessie on 2012-03-16 (#91394)

Krasivsky's emulator seems to have been called LandyNES, it is mentioned further down on that same nesworld page.

by noattack on 2012-03-16 (#91395)

And here's an interview with Landy himself that predates NESticle's release by a few months. Not much info, though he does mention working with iNES's author (though he doesn't seem to think much of the emulator).

Unfortunately the nesworld links aren't working...

by Bananmos on 2012-03-16 (#91398)

I sure have fond memories of LandyNES... it was the first time I could see SMB1 running on my 486 PC, and even though it was running really slow, it was a definite high.

I actually started writing my first 6502 code for LandyNES using an MS-DOS hex editor due to lacking any 6502 compiler (this was before everybody had internet, and few PC-related BBS:es hosted 6502 assemblers :) I also remember trying hard to debug my failing "flashing screen test" until realizing that the ascii conversion of the C-64 reference manual's CPU instruction section had a typo in it, writing '80' instead of '8D' for the STA Absolute instruction:
http://nesdev.com/6502.txt

Of course, once Nesticle hit the schoolyards, everything changed. Music became the really exciting task for me. Fun fact is that the first version of NerdTracker2 actually supported volume changes on the triangle channel - as they were supported in the Nesticle emulator, due to everyone's limited knowledge about the NES hardware back then.

Those were the days... :)

by noattack on 2012-03-16 (#91399)

NESticle was my 'first', back in 97. Playing online seemed unreal at the time...

I also dredged up an emulator FAQ from 1997 that mentions four current NES emulators: LandyNES, NESA, PasoFami, and iNES. They seem to be the four earliest.

Anyone have early versions of these sitting on a hard drive (or at least Landy and NESA, since the others are technically shareware)? A thread from a few years back requested LandyNES, but nothing came of it.

by tepples on 2012-03-16 (#91400)

Bananmos wrote:
Of course, once Nesticle hit the schoolyards, everything changed. Music became the really exciting task for me. Fun fact is that the first version of NerdTracker2 actually supported volume changes on the triangle channel - as they were supported in the Nesticle emulator, due to everyone's limited knowledge about the NES hardware back then.

I assume you're referring to (incorrectly) treating the linear counter load register $4008 as volume, rather than (correctly) emulating the $4011 nonlinearity that a couple games use. Am I right?

by Bananmos on 2012-03-16 (#91402)

Quote:
I assume you're referring to (incorrectly) treating the linear counter load register $4008 as volume, rather than (correctly) emulating the $4011 nonlinearity that a couple games use. Am I right?

Indeed. You can imagine my disappointment when the next version of Nesticle made lots of the NT2 tunes my musical friend had composed not work any longer. That's when I set out to get myself an EPROM programmer.

Fun facts is that the used EPROM programmer I got was for a C=64, meaning lots of hours spent with an X1541 serial transfer cable, and subsequent hours of using an ancient portable tanning device to erase them (they got really, really hot in the process as I didn't dare to uninstall the heaters). Which did in turn motivate me to build an eprom emulator instead...

by mic_ on 2012-03-16 (#91406)

Pasofami appears to have been release in early december 1996. I've never used Pasofami, so I don't know if DX stands for Deluxe or DirectX (or if that means that there were earlier non-DX versions).

by noattack on 2012-03-16 (#91407)

I think there were earlier versions. This site references both iNES and PasoFami and dates to somewhere between February and August of 1996. The current PasoFami site has a hit counter dating back to August 20, 1996 - not direct proof, but evidence nonetheless.

by ccovell on 2012-03-17 (#91431)

The first NES emulator I ever saw was PasoFami, called PasoWinG in some variants (WinG library?)

by Zepper on 2012-03-17 (#91432)

My first emu was Nesticle, from that good (and blue!) old site "The Dump". I was under the impression that "images" would be like game screens... so I download it and... "What!? Is this a full game!?" Retro!

by MottZilla on 2012-03-17 (#91444)

I remember some site, emudx? Or something like that. My first emulators I used were ZSNES and No$GMB. Followed by RockNES and Nesticle, Callus, and Genecyst a bit later. It was very exciting early on. Had it not been for them, I probably wouldn't have used a PC as much.

by kyuusaku on 2012-03-17 (#91449)

My first emulator was ZSNES 0.400 or something, it didn't have sound yet. I had no idea a computer could interpret another computer so I thought the game (FFV) was ported to the PC yet dependent on the emulator... After downloading other emulators and games I was familiar with it clicked and I thought it was the best thing ever.

Some sites I remember:

Nailbomb
IHOR (International House of Roms)
Plasticman's?
Arcade@Home (still there)
Edge Emulation?
Cherryroms
Backyard Emulation Links

by Zepper on 2012-03-17 (#91450)

The "awesome emulator" was Callus. The idea of playing SF2 in my PC was outstanding... a big "wow".

I miss the Jim Pragit (?) Emunews site.

by tokumaru on 2012-03-17 (#91455)

kyuusaku wrote:
I thought the game (FFV) was ported to the PC yet dependent on the emulator...

I too thought it worked like this. After a friend told me you could run video-games on your PC I went searching for "emulated games" on the internet, without knowing that ROMs were just straight copies of the carts. Genecyst was my first though.

by tepples on 2012-03-17 (#91456)

kyuusaku wrote:
I had no idea a computer could interpret another computer so I thought the game (FFV) was ported to the PC yet dependent on the emulator

As if the emulator were DOS4GW or SDL.dll or the Java VM or something?

by kyuusaku on 2012-03-17 (#91465)

More like a game interpreter since I thought each ROM was a surprisingly elaborate recreation of each game. Since my first ROMs were translations I guess the strange credits may have convinced me it was fan-made, or the lack of sound.

Genecyst really brought home the emulation concept for me--that you're truly playing the literal game. This is kind of funny, but I did a double take because I had remembered Genesis games having a lot more fine detail when I last played one a few years prior (probably RF interference), the clarity of a RGB monitor in whatever screenmode Genecyst used was too "blocky".

by koitsu on 2012-03-18 (#91472)

I still talk with Alex (Landy) on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, usually on IRC. He and I have been friends since the mid-90s. I had the chance of calling him in Moscow back in 1997 -- all I wanted to say to him was "thank you" (in English and Russian) and he couldn't respond since he can't speak English (but can type it fine). It never occurred to me until then that someone could type a language but not speak it. He's also the main reason I learned a little Russian and gained some interest in Russian culture over the years. He and I have a running joke (dating back to something like 1995) about barracudas... ;D

I've pointed him to this thread and I'm absolutely certain it will make him smile and bring a tear to his eye; he's a nostalgic. :-)

If you have any questions for him about LandyNES, etc. let me know and I can ask him, otherwise we might get Shiru to convert the questions from English into Russian so Landy can understand them better. But that said, I'd like to politely request you not ask questions about the LandyNES/iNES ordeal or Alex/Marat friendship -- it's not something he likes talking about for a lot of reasons.

by Zepper on 2012-03-18 (#91476)

koitsu wrote:
It never occurred to me until then that someone could type a language but not speak it.

*raises hand*

I can write in English, around 90%. Since I don't practice chatting with another guy in English, well, I can speak at ~60% and listen ~40%. I just need more practice.

by tepples on 2012-03-18 (#91477)

kyuusaku wrote:
This is kind of funny, but I did a double take because I had remembered Genesis games having a lot more fine detail when I last played one a few years prior (probably RF interference)

The same kind of double take you might do when playing an NES through an LCD TV?

by Bregalad on 2012-03-18 (#91481)

Quote:
*raises hand*

I can write in English, around 90%. Since I don't practice chatting with another guy in English, well, I can speak at ~60% and listen ~40%. I just need more practice.

Same here.

The fact English vowels are completely distorted, and that you don't know how to speak a word even if you write it in this particular language doesn't help.
The good side of english language is the simple grammar and conjugation, and similarity in vocabulary with french.

by tokumaru on 2012-03-18 (#91486)

kyuusaku wrote:
I did a double take because I had remembered Genesis games having a lot more fine detail when I last played one a few years prior (probably RF interference), the clarity of a RGB monitor in whatever screenmode Genecyst used was too "blocky".

Heh, I distinctly remember my father thinking the same thing. We used to play Genesis together all the time, and in 1997, when he first got internet, I found out about emulators and promptly downloaded Genecyst and Sonic 1. Knowing that he was a Sonic fan and that he would enjoy playing it on his computer, I showed it to him, and the first thing he did has ask me if the resolution wasn't higher on the actual console.

Re: NES Emulation History
by thefox on 2014-01-14 (#123822)

Out of curiosity, who designed the iNES format? Was it Alex Krasivsky (for LandyNES) or Marat Fayzullin (for iNES)?

I always thought it was Marat, until recently I saw this thing in the README file of the "NES Image" tool (made by the infamous DiskDude):
Quote:
The .NES format is becoming the standard for images and was designed for the
iNES Nintendo emulator by Alex (Landy). Many people think that Marat wrote it,
however he did not. It was Alex - Marat merely improved and ported the code to
other operating systems (That's not to say Marat didn't do any work!).

Now, it's not exactly a reliable source, but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re: NES Emulation History
by Zepper on 2014-01-14 (#123827)

In my opinion, formerly there's no "iNES format", but a "NES header format" instead. If you take the "iNES format" so you're doing reference to Marat and his emulator iNES.

Re: NES Emulation History
by tepples on 2014-01-14 (#123830)

Then the question becomes "Which emulator was first to use the NES header format?"

Re: NES Emulation History
by Zepper on 2014-01-14 (#123831)

I believe that koitsu may remember something back in 1996... Personally, I remember of the blue "The Dump", Nesticle and Pasofami.

Re:
by Punch on 2014-01-14 (#123859)

Zepper wrote:
koitsu wrote:
It never occurred to me until then that someone could type a language but not speak it.

*raises hand*

I can write in English, around 90%. Since I don't practice chatting with another guy in English, well, I can speak at ~60% and listen ~40%. I just need more practice.

I can read (and of course understand) almost anything, like a true second language, yet I don't write very well and my speaking is abysmal. How did I learn english? With a dictionary and a copy of Resident Evil. Yes, the first one. Of course I was lucky because English is similar and yet much more simple than my 1st language. I have poor speaking skills but at least I can do a decent imitation of all the RE's dialogues. OH MY COD!

Re: NES Emulation History
by Zepper on 2014-01-15 (#123920)

tepples wrote:
Then the question becomes "Which emulator was first to use the NES header format?"

No idea. Well, after thinking a bit, I removed all the "iNES" references in my emulator and docs, since we really have no "iNES" here, but a header of 16 bytes starting by "NES", not "iNES". The "NES header" term is correct. Funny, why I didn't think about it before?