Emulation

Another day, another Nintendo emulator fork drama.

Basically, compatibility layer for modern OS.

"Smartphones are a common topic here on Edge of Emulation. In many ways, older portable gaming consoles like the Game Boy Advance provided the kind of functionality we expect from our modern devices. For example, there were several options for viewing multimedia content on the GBA. From albums full of MP3s to feature-length films, Nintendo's handheld seemed capable of doing anything, with the right peripheral of course. Despite most people mainly using phones as web browsers these days, their original purpose was to talk to other people by calling their number. Believe it or not, the GBA had this covered as well.

In July of 2004, a Japanese company called Digital Act released a specialized cartridge called the Campho Advance. The hardware inside provided the system with a miniature camera along with a telephone modem. It enabled the GBA to make and receive video phone calls via landline connections (POTS), in Japan at least. By connecting to the telephone system, it could dial others and send audio/video data in real-time. The product came with its own microphone earpiece since the GBA lacked any kind of native voice input."

...continue reading the linked article.

"Flashpoint Archive is a community effort to preserve games and animations from the web.

Internet history and culture is important, and the web is evolving at such a rapid pace that what might be commonplace today could be obsolete tomorrow. This project is dedicated to preserving as many experiences from these platforms as possible, so that they aren't lost to time. Since December 2017, over 200,000 games and animations have been preserved across more than a hundred browser plugins and web technologies.

In addition to our preservation efforts, we also provide a highly flexible software package for reliable navigation and playback of preserved content. Among the software that powers Flashpoint is a fully-featured launcher that acts as a frontend for the collection, a proxy that tricks games into thinking they're running on the live web, and a sandbox that allows for secure playback of plugin-enabled content - all of which are open-source software.

The project was originally started by BlueMaxima in an attempt to outrun the disappearance of webgames prior to the death of Flash. It has since evolved into a major undertaking involving hundreds of community contributors from around the world, encompassing both games and animations created for numerous internet plugins, frameworks, and standards.

Flashpoint Archive operates as non-profit with the goal of furthering efforts in the preservation and accessibility of games, animations and other digital interactive experiences from the web. If you wish to support us or find out more about how we're funded and where these funds are spent, please use the Donate button in the left sidebar or visit our Open Collective page."

"This month’s retro news round up includes good news for fledgling homebrew developers, the power of money, and the ultimate victory for Big Brother."

0:11 - The Strange and Unusual

1:10 - Ports and Remakes

2:52 - Hardware and Accessories

3:13 - Homebrew

4:15 - Long Thought Lost

4:56 - Fan Translations

"RetroFab is a new online collection of vintage electronic game simulations that can be played in the browser. I am now releasing in to early access the first (of hopefully many) simulations in this collection."

"News 2025-04-04: ES-DE 3.2.0 is now available for download! This release brings on-screen system status indicators (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular and battery), three new systems (Vircon32, Sega Mark III and PlayStation 4) and support for many more emulators. There's also lots of new theme engine functionality and many other improvements, see the Changelog for all details. Make sure to update your themes regularly in the coming days as theme support for the new systems and 3.2.0 functionality is getting rolled out after the release."

"Following the announcement that all unsupported emulators would be restricted to softcore from April onwards, we have been working tightly together with emulator developers, both old and new, to ensure that they can remain supported and be available to as many people as possible. Today, we would like to spotlight our efforts! As always, make sure you are updated to the latest version possible on these emulators to prevent issues.

Massive thank you to the Admins of RetroAchievements, as well as all the emulator developers for working together to make these possible!"

"The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been announced, and the good news for anyone upgrading is that it will be (mostly) backwards compatible. However, an interview with the developers behind the console revealed that compatibility required a unique solution, and that solution is emulation."

"As a step to strengthen the preservation efforts around the PlayStation 3, today we're releasing the RPCS3 Build Archive. This is a comprehensive collection of every RPCS3 build built by our automated CI, set up 10 years ago, as well as some manually compiled builds that precede CI."

GB Enhanced+ is a DMG/GBC/GBA/Pokemon Mini emulator and experimental NDS emulator. It is the successor to the original GB Enhanced project with a focus on emulating as much of the Game Boy as possible, including various peripherals and accessories.

"MAME 0.276 has arrived just in time for the end of March, and it’s full of emulation goodness! Remember that 64-bit ARMv8 recompiler we added a few months ago? Well now it’s even faster! This release fixes graphical issues in Konami GX arcade games and Philips CD-i software. We’ve added several IGS gambling games, as well as Chinese versions of some Dynax mahjong games. The LinnDrum percussion synthesiser is now working with interactive controls and sound output. And speaking of sound, audio emulation issues in several arcade games have been fixed.

PC-88VA emulation is progressing, with fixes for multiple graphics modes. A few more peripherals for the TI-99 computer family are now supported. There have been a few CPU/DSP fixes that should improve Sega 3D arcade game emulation. Psion hand-helds now correctly detect more memory configurations and give better-looking video output. We’ve also fixed some issues with CHD creation, floppy disk image handling, and XML system information output. Windows users now get an option to have debugger windows appear in the taskbar and window switcher.

As always, you can marvel at all the exciting development this month when you read the whatsnew.txt file. The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages can be found on the download page."

"Friends, I ate a bad sandwich.

I want to love and support all sandwiches — if only we lived in a world where there were no bad sandwiches, only ones that tried and failed but still did their best. Unfortunately, in this reality there's one way a sandwich can be bad down to its soul, and it's by giving me food poisoning for 3 days and counting. Complete and utter betrayal!!

Thankfully it's been "mild" in the pain sense, and I'll spare you the other details, but this issue has mostly come together between naps on Friday night and Saturday, a bit later than ideal. On the bright side, sometimes these things work out, and I've got a fun scoop to share with you; the hot goss on what's going on in the land of N64 recompilations, which is about to heat waaaay up real soon.

We've got a few cool new translations this issue, too, including a dip back into 2000s Japanese phone games for all you Mega Man Legends lovers. Think Capcom will ever revisit that series? Someday, let's hope...

That's all the energy I've got for preamble this week (I'm blaming the lettuce), but the good stuff awaits!"

"Whenever someone wants to make an emulator, they usually start with CHIP-8. With only 35 instructions to implement, it’s possible to write a CHIP-8 interpreter for pretty much anything that can be programmed."

"I hope you weren't expecting some special chocolates for Valentine's, folks, because instead I've got you the same thing I get you every other weekend: a heaping handful of emulation news!

Because I'm selfish, I did get a chocolate for myself the other day — on a short getaway to the scenic northern California coast, I couldn't resist the call of an Angela Lansbury, aka a dark chocolate truffle with orange-infused ganache on the inside. Mmm! Before wrapping up this issue, I disconnected from games for 24 hours to go smell the sea (touching grass for sophisticates) in Mendocino and Fort Bragg, highly recommended as quaint getaways full of cute shops and cuter inns."

"You know those head colds that never really get bad, but leave you just sniffly enough to never get a great night's sleep and feel mildly annoyed that your stupid nose won't just get over it already? That's been my week, which means I'm kinda limping across the finish line with this issue. My no-brainpower-required Saturday night comfort food of choice is Baby Assassins 2, which I can report is A Good Time, if not quite curative."

"Woe to the best laid plans of mice and men who write newsletters about emulation in their spare time — sometimes the hot news lands just as you're about wrapped up with an issue and ready to send it on its way. My least favorite thing is when some news breaks on a Sunday mere hours after I've shipped an issue, but news coming in on a Saturday when I think I'm ahead of the game? Almost as bad, I whine. Hold on, maybe a late morning cup of coffee will jovial me up.

Wooooo romhacking yeaaaaaaaahhhh!!"

Sudachi (Switch emulator) has been updated to v1.0.15

• Added support for XCX:DE by stubbing ssl:s (Currently the menu and a small section of the game has been tested)

• Changed how MoltenVK is obtained for macOS to get newer versions (Artifacts are now used which can now be updated more frequently)

• Changed from SDL2 to SDL3 bringing over its improvements

• Fixed issues related to caps by reverting the rewrite temporarily

• Fixed several compilation errors on macOS

• Updated vcpkg to the latest version

Personally, I love snes & ps2. Those are my favorite consoles and I find a lot of the games really hold up.

The odd time I'll dabble in n64 or arcade purely for nolatalgia. I don't really bother with systems I didn't play prior.

What about you lot?