NES plugin - a proposal

[ComposerDude]

This is a thread for the express purpose of discussing a port of an NES emulator to Rockbox. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or general comments that have to do with positive reinforcement of such a project you are welcome to do so.

Currently I am looking at porting TuxNES (http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/). This emulator was written expressly in C, and so it should make it easier to port. The TuxNES project is an older project, but it was a relatively stable emulator. Last release was in 2001, making it quite dated compared to active projects.

I have only just started the process of examining the code as of July 29. If there are any programmers interested, I would appreciate your posts and assistance, as I am only an amateur programmer.

Thanks, ComposerDude

EDIT: If anyone could provide information on FCE Ultra, i would appreciate it. I chose TuxNES for it's native code on Linux. Both are written in C.

EDIT: As of August 3, 2007 developement status will be posted to the Wiki. Please check for progress under Status.

[brarei200]

Try porting this one. http://www.dridus.com/~nyef/darcnes/
iPod Linux succesfully ported this to the iPod at 95~100% and also supports Gamegear and Genesis. Good Luck!

[linuxstb]

darcnes isn't released under a GPL-compatible license (the readme states a "no commercial use" clause), so it wouldn't be possible to incorporate this into Rockbox.

EDIT: In fact, the readme for darcnes (and the source files) don't state any kind of license at all - apart from "People wishing to maintain a port for another system should contact me beforehand in order to learn the ground rules (and to make sure that no one else is already maintaining a port for that system)."

[ComposerDude]

Thanks linuxstb. You saved me some valuable hours of research looking into its license. I am only interested in GPL'ed code... again, tuxnes seems to be the most portable of my two choices, the other choice being FCE Ultra. I was reading the rockboy source, and it has only one processor thread...

The hard part of these first two days is taking my limited knowledge and trying to apply it to tuxNES. The code seems a bit of a mess, and i'm pulling out my C programming books tomorrow eve after work. Maybe that will help.

ANY interested programmers would be welcome to help me on this venture. Has anyone tried this before?

[brarei200]

Then how did iPodLinux port it.  

[GodEater]

Why not ask them ?

[brarei200]

It would be better to port iDarcNES thus it runs at 100% on iPod Linux. I'll post the source if you change your mind.  

iPod Linux Page-http://ipodlinux.org/Idarcnes
iPod Linux iDarcNES-http://www.ipodlinux.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18245
Source Code-http://scs.ryerson.ca/~sriddle/darcnes.src.tar.gz

Thanks

[Llorean]

We CANNOT, as it is NOT GPL LICENSED. Please, understand that this is a very strict line that will not be crossed as the terms of the software license don't allow it.

[ComposerDude]

brarei200: As far as I have seen, DarcNES is not GPL compatible. The GPL requires that any derivative works remain under the GPL. Since DarcNES would be relying on GPL'ed code to run, Rockbox (a GPL licensed work) would not be able to package it officially, and I would have my doubts as to wether or not it would be an acceptable practice for it to rely on GPL (Closed-source can use LGPL stuff, but not GPL). Hence, unless the author of DarcNES were to release it under the GPL, It will NEVER BE PORTED to Rockbox.

I'll stick with TuxNES til that happens.
Peace out, ComposerDude

[LambdaCalculus]

brare1200: FCE Ultra, on the other hand, IS GPL licensed.

A lot of people have to understand that not just any old emulator can be ported over. GPL software is rather strict about that.

Here's Wikipedia's entry on FCE Ultra, along with a link to the main page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCE_Ultra

Here's FCE Ultra's page:

http://fceultra.sourceforge.net/

[brarei200]

Alright just have good luck porting TuxNES.  

     

[Chronon]

brarei200: As far as I have seen, DarcNES is not GPL compatible. The GPL requires that any derivative works remain under the GPL. Since DarcNES would be relying on GPL'ed code to run, Rockbox (a GPL licensed work) would not be able to package it officially, and I would have my doubts as to wether or not it would be an acceptable practice for it to rely on GPL (Closed-source can use LGPL stuff, but not GPL). Hence, unless the author of DarcNES were to release it under the GPL, It will NEVER BE PORTED to Rockbox.

I'll stick with TuxNES til that happens.
Peace out, ComposerDude

That's also the reason that iDarcNES is not part of the SVN distribution of IPL.  If I understand correctly, it was ported by users and is distributed as a separate binary.  I believe that this is how IPL gets around the GPL issue.  

[TheNewMinistry]

Nestopia is GPL'd and is currently the best NES emulator available (and is still in development):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestopia

Perhaps that should be ported instead.

[LambdaCalculus]

What language is it coded in? If it's C, then that should make it easier to port over.

[GodEater]

But it's written in C++ - which makes porting it to Rockbox even more of a pain in the ass than porting TuxNES.

Also it was originally written for Windows, which means we'd be porting the port to Linux (since linux is closer to Rockbox than windows is API wise), which means there'd be more room for problems.

To be honest, I'd stick with TuxNES.