The History of Activision's Atari 2600 Action Pack

Today we'll talk about Action Pack, the first Atari 2600 emulator, and the first home video game console emulator in history. The video tells the story of its beginnings, the three releases of the collection, and its sequels for Playstation 1 and 2.

 

Activision's Atari 2600 Action Pack (1995)

It was a compilation that began to be developed in June 1994 by Michael Livesay for Activision, to emulate Atari 2600 games. Mike had worked at LTI Gray Matter since its inception in 1992, a division of his gaming company called Livesay Technologies Incorporated, which in turn was created in 1986. Mike had been in the gaming world since 1980, being behind several titles for computers. Later, he also worked with games for consoles. The Action Pack is considered the first functional emulation of a home console. The compilation was released around March 1995 for Windows 3.1. There were two versions of this compilation released for Windows 3.1, then re-released on CD-ROM with improvements for Windows 95, and finally re-released for Windows 3.1, 95 and Macintosh. The third collection was released only for Windows 3.1 and 95. All were released in 1995. The collections were divided into fifteen games in the first edition, containing titles such as Boxing, Crackpots, Freeway, Hero, Pitfall and River Raid, fifteen in the second edition, with titles such as Enduro, Keystone, Ice Hockey and River Raid II, and eleven in the third edition, with titles such as Breakout, Combat and Night Driver. The emulator had pause, reset, difficulty change, keyboard and joypad control, PCM and FM sound and volume, and others. Only Packs 1 and 3 provided sound adjustment, with options for disabled, faster and more precise. The emulator also had Mom mode, which simulated the voice of a mother calling her child. Something to prevent the child from playing for so long. You could adjust between rarely (calling every 10 minutes) and constantly (calling every 30 seconds). In addition, it provided a summary of the game, how to play, tips, scores and the history of how each game was created. The emulator was developed with two internal emulators, the 6507 emulator, which is a cheaper version of the 6502 central processor, and a sound emulator based on the TIA sound library. To use the emulator, a computer with a 486 processor was recommended. A Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card with the latest sound drivers was also recommended. The Action Pack emulator did not allow the loading of external ROMs, only those that came with the CD. However, third parties created the Action Pack Plugin Hack, which allowed the execution of other ROMs in the emulator. This program was only compatible with the Mac version of the emulator.

In 1995, Activision also developed a collection of Commodore 64 games for Windows. In 1996, they re-released all the Atari and Commodore 64 collections on a single CD for Windows. Mike returned to participate in an Atari collection, now not only as an emulator programmer, but also as project manager, in A Collection of Activision Classic Games for the Atari 2600 (i.e., a collection of classic Activision games for A26), this time released for the PSX in 1998, with thirty games in total. The collection came with an intro showing the games it offered. On the selection screen, there was a very interactive interface, with the games on the right side like a tabletop cartridge holder, the TV on the left side showing demos of the games, and on top of the TV, the console that had the tape changed each time you changed games. Mike's last participation in the company was in the release of A Collection of Classic Games From The Intellivision for PSX in September 1999, where he also worked on the development of its emulator. At the time, the Intellivision Packs released in 1997 by Intellivision Productions had already been successful, so Mike's emulator did not appear in other releases. Activision released another Atari 2600 collection, Activision Anthology, in November 2002 for PS2, but without Mike's presence. This version is similar to the PSX version, but with more things on the table next to the TV and game holders, such as a radio, joystick, Activision magazine with the names of the collection's programmers, canned drinks, dial-up telephone and the video game in front of the TV. Another difference is the 80s pop/rock soundtrack that accompanies the games. All of this tries to immerse you in the console's lifespan.

Outside of the Atari 2600 emulation project, Mike has been in the gaming world since 1980, producing games for PCs and Apple IIs, such as Miner 2049er (1982), Ming' Challenge (1982), The Heist (1983), Miner 2049er II (1984), Bruce Lee (1984), and others. Miner 1 and 2 and The Heist were created by Mike's company, Livesay Computer Games, created in 1982. Around 1986, he created Livesay Technologies Incorporated, bringing games such as Security Alert (1990) for Commodore 64, Sid Meier's Civilization II (1999) and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (guécs / guécou) (1999) for PSX, among others. In January 1992, a division of the company was created, called LTI Gray Matter, and it was through it that Mike created the Atari 2600 emulator. It was the company that also took care of the collections A Collection of Classic Games for Atari and Intellivision mentioned above, in 98 and 99, and the production of its own games, such as Gex: Enter The Gecko (1999) for PSX, as well as games with Mike's presence, such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (2000) for PSX, where he worked on production/programming/engineering, and the games Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (2000) and Spider-Man (2000) for PSX, Spider-Man (2002) for PS2, X2: Wolverine's Revenge (2003) for PS2, where Mike participated in programming/engineering, among others. The last game released by the company was Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008) for PS3. 

The History of the Atari 2600 - Its Games, Videogame Crash and Hardware

A little bit of the history of the Atari 2600, telling a little bit of the company's history, its legacy in arcades, its launch, its hardware, the success of arcades on the console, the crash of video games with the game ET and its games.

Atari 2600

The Atari company was founded in 1972, entering the arcades that same year. Its first game was the famous Pong, inspired by the ping-pong game on the Odyssey 100 console, becoming an expression to refer to first-generation games made for arcades and home consoles. The Atari 2600 began to be developed three years later, in 1975, under the name Stella. It was released in 1977 as the Atari VCS (Video Computer System), to compete with its competitor, the VES (Video Entertainment System), the first second-generation console, later known as the Fairchild Channel F. Its sales boom was at Christmas in 1979, when it was the most purchased gift in the USA. In 1976, before the VCS was released, Atari was sold to Warner Communications, heir to the film and TV productions of Warner Bros. Its hardware had a 1.19 MHz MOS 6507 CPU, a cheap version of the 6502 used in Commodore, Apple and even Atari computers, and later used in the Famicom. The sound chip (released exclusively by the company for the console) was the Television Interface Adapter, known as TIA (it was based on the TIASound audio emulation library, created by Ron Fries, which helped several Atari console emulators). The TIA was also used for video, converting it to a television signal, with support for 128 colors, and 16 simultaneously. And finally, it had 128 bytes of RAM.

In 1982, it reigned supreme in the American market, having surpassed its competitors Intellivision and ColecoVision. Also in 1982, with the launch of the Atari 5200, also a second-generation Atari VCS, the Atari VCS was renamed the Atari 2600, to standardize the nomenclature. The excess of games, combined with clones and poorly made games, especially those produced in large quantities, as was the case with the game ET, led to the famous video game crash of 1983, known in Japan as the Atari crash, as the main culprit was the company's console. The market only returned to normal in 1985, with a new version of the Famicom released in Japan and the following year in the USA. In 1984, Warner sold Atari, creating the Atari Corporation, continuing its work in the world of consoles, portables, arcades and computers.

The console had, perhaps, the most popular games in the world, or at least in the West, which are still remembered, continued or cloned, which came from arcade versions and other consoles, such as ColecoVision and Intellivision. Among them are the shmups, such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Megamania, River Raid, Atlantis, Crackpots, Defender, Demon Attack, Moon Patrol, Battlezone, Galaxian, Chopper Command, Sequest, Missile Command, Spider Fighter, Air-Sea Battle, Phoenix and Combat. Classic platform games, such as Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Popeye and Joust. Platform games, such as Pitfall!, HERO, Jungle Hunt, Keystone Kapers, Spider-Man, Smurfs, Halloween, Snoopy, Superman and Sneak'N Peek (the famous Hide and Seek). Adventure/mission games in the same environment, such as Frostbite, Frogger, Freeway, Pressure Cooker and Custer's Revenge. Sports games, such as California Games, Ice Hockey, Boxing, Tennis and Fishing Derby. Racing games, such as Enduro, Motocross, Grand Prix and Pole Position. Maze games, such as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Dig Dug. And puzzle games, such as Breakout and Q*bert. The main games were shmups, the famous spaceship games, followed by adventure, racing and sports games. The console had more than 500 games released, second only to the Famicom at the time. The Atari 2600 was discontinued in 1992, totaling 27.64 million units sold worldwide.

The History of the MAME Emulator

Today we will talk about the history of the MAME emulator, its beginnings, its front-ends, added systems, among others.

MAME (1997)

Created by Nicola Salmoria, the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator, or MAME, began as an emulator for the arcade Pac-Man called MultiPac in December 1996 for MS-DOS. The emulator later ran other Pac-Man games, such as Ms Pac-Man. It is considered such a classic that it even received a port in January 2005 by Franxis for the GP32 handheld. Also in December 1996, the company also created emulators for individual games. Among them were Mr. Do and Lady Bug from Universal, Pengo from Sega and Rally X from Namco, all also for DOS. All four had the name Arcade Machine Emulator in the title. The following month, in January 1997, the company began to merge the emulation cores of its emulators and form MAME. Its individual emulators were updated by the end of January, and MAME was released in February, also for MS-DOS.

At the time, it only ran Pac Man, Ms Pac Man, Crush Roller, Pengo and Lady Bug. In each new version, several new arcade games were added, as was the case in the second version with Mr. Do!, Crazy Climber, Crazy Kong, and so on. The same year also brought Galaga, Super Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Star Wars, Bubble Bobble, Gunsmoke, 1943, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros., Galaxy Wars, Frogger, Centipede, Space Invaders, Super Cobra, Stargate, Defender and many other classic arcade games. Most of them were from companies such as Namco, Sega, Nintendo, Taito, Konami, Atari and Williams. Irem and Data East only arrived in 98. Speaking of 98, very well-known boards that were still successful in arcades at the time started to appear, such as CPS-1, with games like Captain Commando, Final Fight, Strider Hiryu, Ghouls'n Ghosts, and the Street Fighter II franchise from 99 onwards, Neo Geo MVS, with the Metal Slug, KOF, Art of Fighting, Bust a Move franchises, and Sega's System boards, such as System 2, 16, 18 and C-2, with classics like Wonder Boy, Shinobi, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Alien Storm, and Williams/Midway and Midway T boards, bringing Mortal Kombat 1, NBA Jam, Terminator 2 and others. In 1999, Capcom, Data East, Namco and Konami boards appeared, bringing classics such as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, X-Men, The Simpsons, Vendetta, Sunset Riders, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Robocop and others. In 2000, the remarkable Cave 68k arrived with its DoDonPachi's and Power Instinct, followed by Midway Wolf with MK3 and UMK3, and Sega X Board with the two games in the After Burner series. The much-desired CPS-2, which was still in full swing, arrived in January 2001 with Street Fighter Alpha, in a version for MS-DOS, followed by Street Fighter Alpha 2, Vampire Savior, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, and many others. 2002 was the turn of PolyGame Master, the famous Taiwanese arcade game, with Knights of Valour, the Neo Geo 64 with Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, and the Midway V with the sequel Cruis'n USA and Cruis'n World. Capcom's ZN-1 board appeared in 2003 with Battle Arena Toshinden 2, and the following year with the sequel Street Fighter EX, followed by Namco System 11 with Tekken 1 and 2, and Midway Killer Instinct with the two games that give the board its name. In 2004, the Sega Y Board with Power Drift and Rail Chase and Konami Bemani DJ-Main with Beatmania 6 appeared, later bringing the famous Pop n' Music franchise. In 2005, Sega Model 3 games began to play, such as Scude Race and Lost World. We also highlight another version of Konami Bemani, inspired by the PSX, with the music games Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Freaks in 2006. CPS-3 from the SFIII sequel appears with its three titles in 2007. Sega Naomi with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Crazy Taxi appears in 2009 and Capcom's ZN-2 board with the Street Fighter EX2 sequel appears in 2012. Some boards never ran very well in MAME, as is the case for example with the Sega Model and Sega Naomi series, and the Sega Titan, Sega System 32 and Atomiswave boards.

Regarding the number of games, in December 2000, the project was already emulating 1900 ROMs. Five months later, it was already emulating 2883 ROMs. The frequency of games added increased more and more. An interesting fact: MAME was the first emulator to run the game Street Fighter 1, in February 1999. In the same month that the emulator was released, in February 1997, a Windows interface called MAME32 was released, version 0.3, created by Christopher Kirmse, who was not involved in the MAME project. It helped users who had difficulty accessing games via the command line, as the emulator actually worked. Over time, this GUI was improved. Michael Soderstorm began to help Christopher with the development, in addition to other members of the project. In December 2007, it became MAMEUI, which was more improved. At that time, MAME already had its own interface. Despite the innovation of MAME32, one of the most widely used interfaces initially, and which brought greater fame to MAME, was MAME Classic, created in 1999 by Richard A. Insalaco. Both GUIs are still being developed today. When MAME was first released, it provided some screen size options, support for sound and joypad, as well as reset, pause and snapshot. By the end of 1997, it already supported several other screen sizes, FM sound, frameskip, cheats, VSync, among others. The emulator had versions for MS-DOS released until April 2001, when in May it began to support the Windows system, beginning a new cycle of the project from then on. This version is known as MAMEW. It also provided a command line interface. From April 2006, it began to release its emulator compressed no longer in a .ZIP file, but rather in an installable .EXE format. In August 2007, it finally began to bring its own interface, no longer via the command line, but with a front-end/menus, showing a list of games, control configuration and configuration of shortcut keys for functions such as frameskip, pause, snapshot, save state, reset and others. In October 2007, it began to support 64-bit versions. Starting with the February 2016 version, its original front-end was expanded, with directory configuration, such as ROMs, snapshots, cheats and languages, interface configuration, with color and language, video configuration, such as resolution, filters and others, sound configuration, such as sample rates, among others.

Since its inception, MAME has always been an open-source emulator, which has enabled its many hacks, ports, and forks. Its creation relied on Marcel de Kogel's Zilog Z80Em emulator, Shawn Hargreaves' Allegro library, SEAL, Carlos Hasan's sound API library, Robert Schmidt's Tweak tool for changing MS-DOS graphics modes, and Ville Hallik and Michael Cuddy's AY-3-8910 sound circuit emulator. MAME's importance was not only in running many classic arcade games, but also in bringing back to life old boards that were no longer used and would one day disappear completely. Throughout the year of its launch, several programmers joined the project and added new arcades to the platform. In the first year, we highlight Paul Leaman, Mirko Buffoni, Dan Boris (creator and supporter of several emulators for the second generation of home consoles), Mike Coates, Aaron Giles (creator of VGS for PSX), Toninho, Zsolt Vasvari, among others. Several other renowned figures also helped in the project, such as Neil Bradley (creator of the Retrocade for Arcade), Ernesto Corvi (creator of the Virtual Super Wild Card for SNES), David Haywood (creator of the Sega System C2 Emulator), Richter Belmont (creator of Modeler), ElSemi (creator of Nebula), as well as Brad Oliver, who started with the project, among many others. At one point, there were over 100 people contributing to the project. All of this helped in the expansion of the MAME project.

Although the emulator does not focus on console emulation, it begins to add some of them around 2003, as was the case with Atari Jaguar and PS1 (through the Atari CoJag and Capcom Sony ZN-1 arcades), Mega Drive, Game Gear and Master System (both through the MegaTech Arcade coming from MESS), Sega Saturn (through the Sega Titan arcade) and Super Nintendo (through the Nintendo Super System arcade also coming from MESS). From 2004 onwards, they begin to emulate the NES. In 2005, the N64 (through the Seta Aleck64 board). In 2006, PC Engine/TurboGrafx16. In 2007, Atari 2600 (with a better emulator than Stella in some cases) and Dreamcast. In 2009, 32X. In 2010, ColecoVision. In 2011, Intellivision. In 2013, PC Engine CD and Odyssey 2. In 2014, Gameboy and Gameboy Color. In 2015, Sega CD and Xbox. In 2016, Game Boy Advance, SG-1000 and Virtual Boy. And in 2017, PC-FX. Among others. Some systems never worked well on MAME, such as the Sega CD, 32X, Playstation, N64, Dreamcast and Atari Jaguar. Among others. Many of them came because of arcades similar to console hardware, as was the case with the PS1, Mega, SNES, N64, Master, Game Gear, Sega Saturn and others. In 2015, MAME formally merged with MESS, with whom it had been a partner for some years, acquiring its entire programming library. Currently, it runs more than 8,000 games, out of a total of 10,000 listed games (some of which still don't run). The emulator was the one that had the most forks, over 70! Many of them for specific emulations, such as Neo Geo or CPS2, for example. It also works on several operating systems, such as MacOS and MacOS X, Symbian, QNX, BeOS, Linux, Android and iOS, as well as computers such as Amiga and IBM PC, consoles such as Xbox, Dreamcast, PS2 and Nintendo Wii, portable devices such as GP2X and PSP, among many, many others. Today, MAME is the most complete emulator of arcade games, covering the largest number of generations of the genre. Its base served for several other arcade emulator projects. I would venture to say that all of them came after it. As of the end of this article, its last release was in October 2024.

1997: Namco Pac Man with Pac-Man/Puck Man, Rally-X, and New Rally X, Sega Vic Dual with Frogs, Head-On 1 and 2, and Carnival, Sega Z80 with Commando, Pengo, and Bank Panic, SEGA G80 Vector with Space Fury, Zektor, and Star Trek, Nintendo Playchoise 10 with Mario Bros, and Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1998, Ninja Gaiden in 1999, and Duck Hunt in 2000, Taito System SJ with Jungle Hunt and Elevator Action, Taito 8080 with Space Invaders, and Lupin III and Polaris in 1998, Konami Scramble with Crazy Kong and Super Cobra, and Frog in 2003, Williams 6809 Rev.1 with Joust, Stargate, and Defender, Capcom Commando as Gunksmoke and 1943, Capcom Unique with Son Son and Ghosts'n Goblins

1998: Capcom Mitchell, from games like Pang/Super Pang, CPS-1, from the Street Fighter II franchise (which only arrived in 1999), and games like Pnickies, Pang! 3, 1941, Captain Commando, Carrier Air Wing, Final Fight, Strider Hiryu, and Ghouls'n Ghosts, Neo Geo MVS with Metal Slug, The King of Fighters '94, Neo Bomberman, Art of Fighting, and Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move, Sega Space Harrier with Hang-On, and the following year with Space Harrier and Enduro Racer, Sega System 2 with Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and Heavy Metal, Sega System 16B with Shinobi and Tetris, and 16A with Altered Beast and Golden Axe, Sega System 1 with Flicky, and Wonder Boy, and Robocop 2 in 2001, Sega System C-2 with Columns, and Blooxed and Puyo Puyo in 2000, Sega System 18 with Alien Storm, and Shadow Dancer in 1999, and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker in 2009 alone, Williams/Midway with Mortal Kombat, Smash TV, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Midway T with NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat 2 in 2000, and Judge Dredd in 2002

1999: CPS Q Sound, from the games Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Muscle Bomber Duo, and Warriors of Fate, Data East Caveman Ninja with Caveman Ninja and Crude Buster, and Robocop 2 in 2001, Namco System 1 with Quester and Galaga '88, Konami X-Men with The Simpsons, Vendetta, and X-Men, Konami TMNT2 with Sunset Riders, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time in 2006 alone

2000: Taito F3 System, responsible for games such as Arabian Magic, and the Puzzle Bobble/Bubble Bobble franchise, Sega X Board with After Burner I and II, and in 2004 Super Monaco GP, Cave 68k with Uo Poko, Do Donpachi, and Power Instinct, and Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon in 2001, Power Instinct 2 in 2003, Thunder Heroes in 2007, and Gaia Crusaders in 2008, Incredible Technologies 32-Bit with Street Fighter: The Movie and Golden Tee, and World Class Bowling in 2002, Nintendo VS. with VS. Tetris, VS. Super Mario Bros, and Vs Castlevania, Data East Unique with Battle Rangers, and Desert Assault in 2002, and Boogie Wings and Backfire in 2004, Midway Wolf with Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and WWF Wrestlemania

2001: CPS-2, with the game Street Fighter Alpha, along with Vampire Savior, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers, Aliens vs. Predator, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Marvel Super Heroes, Konami Xexex with GI Joe, and Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z 2 Super Battle in 2012 only

2002: PGM with Knights Of Valour, SNK Hyper Neo Geo 64 with Beast Busters, and Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition in 2004, and Samurai Shodown 64 only in 2009, Midway V with Cruis'n USA and Cruis'n World, Data East ARM6 with Captain America and The Avengers, and Night Slashers in 2005

2003: Capcom Sony ZN-1 (based on the PSX), with the games Battle Arena Toshinden 2, and the following year Street Fighter EX and Street Fighter EX Plus, Namco System 22 with Cyber ​​Commando and Ace Driver, and Ridge Racer and Rave Racer 1 and 2 in 2005, Namco System 11 with Tekken 1 and 2 and Soul Edge 1 and 2, Midway Killer Instinct with Killer Instinct 1 and 2

2004: Sega Out Run with Super Hang-On, Turbo Out Run, and in 2006 Out Run, Sega Mega Play (based on the Mega Drive) with Sonic the Hedgehog, Tecmo World Cup, and Golden Axe 2, Sega Y Board with Galaxy Force 2, Power Drift, and Rail Chase, Konami Bemani DJ-Main with beatmania 6th MIX, and Beatmania 3rd MIX and Pop n' Music 7 in 2007

2005: Sega Model 3 with Scude Race and Lost World

2006: Konami Bemani System 573 Analog (based on the PSX) with Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Freaks

2007: CPS-3, with the sequel Street Fighter III, Konami ZR107 with Winding Heat and Midnight Run, and Road Rage only in 2018

2009: Sega Naomi, with the games Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Crazy Taxi,

2012: Capcom Sony ZN-2 (based on the PSX), featuring the games Street Fighter EX2 and Street Fighter EX Plus 2

The History of Sega Genesis Emulators - PicoDrive

Today we will talk about PicoDrive, the best Mega Drive emulator for portable devices. In addition, we will also talk about other lesser-known emulators for the console.

PicoDrive (2004)

The PicoDrive project can be called a leap into the future of emulation. The project was created by Dave in 2004 based on his 68k emulator, the Cyclone 68k, which in turn was created in the same year with the aim of helping to emulate hardware within ARM devices, a new technology contained in processors, and which would later become common in smartphones, tablets and laptops. At the time, ARMs ran on Pocket's PCs, which were large-screen cell phones of the time. A little earlier, in 2003, Dave had received a GP32 from his friend Craig, who knew that he liked to write emulators. And it was for this system that Cyclone was created, and later PicoDrive, to test his 68k emulator. One of the first third-party emulators to use his Cyclone 68k was fGen32, a port of the Genesis Plus emulator also for the GP32 handheld, in July 2004. Dave was passionate about Mega Drive, having created the DGen emulator for Windows in 1999, and in 2004 the GenaDrive projects for XBOX and GigaDrive for the GP32 handheld, a handheld that was a phenomenon at the time in terms of capacity, portability and storage in a handheld. PicoDrive was released in April 2004, and had fifteen versions, the last one being released in September 2005.

 

Before its completion, a fork of the emulator for SymbianOS by Neil Davis appeared in April 2005. This fork was updated until June 2006, and had several updates taken from another fork called PicodriveN. Also in 2005, a port of Dave's emulator for UIQ, a Symbian-derived system for smartphones of the time, such as Sony Ericsson and Motorola, appeared, but due to its many flaws it was soon discontinued. And finally, at the end of 2005, a port for UIQ2 by Notaz appeared called PicodriveN (since Neil's port was already called PicoDrive), with release at the end of the year. Its first released version was in January 2006. Notaz had been taking care of Dave's Cyclone 68k since around August 2005, which he did until 2007. Notaz's fork became the most important of PicoDrive, being in practice the direct continuation of Dave's emulator. The February 2006 version of PicodriveN added the SN76489 emulator, a programmable sound generator and the YM2612 sound chip, both from the MAME project, as well as the DrZ80 emulator from Reesy's Zilog Z80 (who also contributed to Notaz's early version of Cyclone68k), which was also linked to sound emulation, and the emulator began to provide full sound support from then on. Notaz then acquired the GP2X handheld and created a port for that system, with the first version released in September 2006. This version began to adopt the emulator's original name, PicoDrive, since Neil's port (which used that name) was discontinued. In November 2006, he created a port for UIQ3. In August 2007, he released his source code and in September 2007 he created a port for the Gizmondo handheld. In November 2007, he began developing the emulator for the PSP handheld as well. From this version onwards, he began to support the Sega CD and 32X, thanks to the Gens source code released by its creator in May of the previous year. This version has its own 68K emulator, called FAME/C created by Chui, which in turn is based on the C68K of Stephane Dallongeville, creator of the Gens emulator. In this version, PicoDrive also had a new Z80 emulator, called CZ80, created by NJ and based on codes also from the creator of Gens. In other words, the Gens emulator was very important for Notaz in its port for PSP. In March 2008, the GP2X version added support for SVP (Sega Virtua Processor), to run the game Virtual Racing. It is considered the first Mega Drive emulator to run this device 100%. Credit goes to Exophase and Rokas.

 

In May 2008, a single-release version for Windows was created, with all the programming from the PSP version, with Dave's GenaDrive front-end and support for the Sega Pico. It was very simple, with reset, load and four screen resolutions (with the possibility of freely enlarging the screen size, being one of the few SMD emulators for Windows that allows this type of change). In August 2009, it also began supporting the GP2X Wiz handheld. In June 2010, it released its last port, for the Pandora system. We don't know for sure, but it seems that around 2010, the emulator also began supporting SMS. In August 2013, it changed the user interface of the Pandora version to that of the PS1 emulator for ARM, PCSX ReARMed, also written by Notaz, and considered one of the best PS1 emulators of all time. Its last updates were for PSP, Gizmondo and UIQ3 in August 2008, GP2X/Wix in October 2013 and Pandora in October 2017. In January 2019, it released its latest version, being executable on several laptops and smartphones. Notaz's PicoDrive also gained third-party ports, such as for RiscOS by Jeffrey Lee in September 2006, for Nintendo DS by ryanfb in July 2008 and for PS2 by SP193 in September 2013 from version 1.51b of PSP's PicoDrive in August 2008. It also had a fork for iOS created by ZodTTD, called genesis4iphone, also in 2008. Around 2013/2014, it began to be part of the RetroArch emulator, emulating Mega, 32X and Sega CD. Later in the emulator, it only emulates 32X, leaving the other emulations for the Genesis Plus GX. In 2013 it is also part of the OpenEmu multi-emulator for MacOS running 32X. In addition to those already mentioned, there were other people who helped in the Notaz project, such as Charles MacDonald from Genesis Plus for MD information, Mark and Jean-Loup for the Zlib multimedia library, Peter van Sebille from ECompXL and his various Symbian open source projects, and the development team of the Symbian GCC Improvement Project, with various tools for the Symbian system and its derivatives. Some of the people who helped Notaz at the beginning of the project were later with him in the PS1 scene, as was the case of Exophase, who helped Notaz create the PCSX ReARMed emulator. ZodTTD and Chui, on the other hand, were in the PSX4ALL project in 2006.

In addition to the emulators mentioned, we also had other projects, such as St0rm Sega Genesis Emulator (known as SGE) for MS-DOS and Genux for Linux, both in 1998. 

Most of them emulated several Sega systems together, such as AGES (from MD and 32X) in 1997, RetroDrive (from MD and 32X) in 1998, SEGAEmu (from Sega 8 and 16 bits) in 1999, Mimic (from Sega 8 and 16 bits) in 2002, Regen (from Sega 8 and 16 Bits) in 2007 (with a port to Linux in 2009), HazeMD (from MD, 32X and Sega CD, by Haze, from the MAME project) in 2009 and MD.Emu (from Sega 8 and 16 Bits) for Android in 2012.

There were also several projects that did not come to fruition, such as EmulatorX, Moge, Triton (also for Sega CD and 32X) and W95 GenEMU. There was also the Kyoto project, created by Haruki Ikeda, which was not released due to his death in a car accident.

In versions for other devices, we have DrMD for GP32 (by DrZ80 creator Reesy, and with Dave's Gigadrive core and interface) in 2004, jEnesisDS for Nintendo DS in 2008, Gensoid for Android in 2009 and NeoGensPlusGX for Xbox in 2015.

Within multisystem emulators, it worked on MESS in 1998, MAME in 2003, Xe (for Linux) and GuineaPig (for PalmOS) both in 2004, Final Burn Alpha in 2008 and Higan in 2017.

The History of Sega Genesis Emulators - Genital and Genesis Plus

Today we will talk about Genital and Genesis Plus, the latter having had a port for consoles, which was considered the best Mega Drive emulator port for this segment.

Genital (2000)

Genital was developed by Bart Trzynadlowski in late January 2000 and released in April 2000 for MS-DOS. The emulator had no front-end, and was run via the command line. Despite this, it had several functions, all of which were accessed via keyboard shortcuts on the game screen. The first version only emulated the 68k central processor and ran games in .BIN and .SMD formats, as well as supporting game region changes, reset, VSync and frameskip. The second version, also in April, added Neill Corlett's 68k emulator and Richard Mitton's Z80, but without sound support, as well as sprite changes and Genecyst save state loading. The port for Windows appeared in the same month, on top of the second version, under the name Genital32, by Atani Software, the same company that made the Windows version of the Generator emulator for the Mega Drive. In the third version, in May 2000, it added two screen resolutions, activation of Z80 emulation and access to the debugger. In the fourth version, in December 2000, Genital began to provide preliminary support for the Sega CD and 32X, in addition to support for .GEN extension ROMs, black-and-white image function and save state in the GNS (Genital Save States) format, exclusive to the emulator. From this version onwards, Bart's 68k emulator, called Genital68k, also began to be used, which had its name changed in June 2001 to Turbo68k. In the fifth version, in February 2001, it added windowed mode. Several people helped with technical information on the project, such as Dave from DGen, Charles MacDonald from SMS Plus from Master System, Steve Snake from KGen, Joe Groff from DGen/SDL, Atani from Atani Software, who was responsible for the port to Windows, Nyef from Darcnes and Delta from Pretendo, both from NES, and Christian Schiller from the website Eidolon's Inn. The emulator performs best on Pentium 1 computers with 180MHz speed and 8MB of RAM. Despite all the good performance of the emulator, it never had sound support, being one of the few Mega emulators with this deficit. Its last version is dated April 2001, with a total of six versions released. In 2011, Bart became known for the Supermodel emulator of the Sega Model 3 arcade.

Genesis Plus (2002)

Genesis Plus was a project that Charles MacDonald started around 1999/2000. In 2002, he already had the emulator ready, but the person who ended up releasing it first was Richard Bannister for the MacOS system in October 2002. Something quite unexpected to happen. The official release of the emulator was in May 2003 for MS-DOS and Windows/SDL, that is, this last version was already open for ports to other systems. The project had only two versions released, ending in June 2003. The Mac version was updated until 2008, returning in 2018 and having its last update in November 2022. Genesis Plus basically emulates all sound channels, and supports .BIN and .SMD game extensions, including compressed ones. It also supports VSync, frameskip, reset, joypad, screen resolution, video and sound driver specifications, color depth, scanlines, sound rate up to 44,100Hz, among others. Despite all these functions and the emulator being 'sold' as highly accurate with games and with performance very similar to the console's original hardware, there are several problems in its execution. Starting with the Windows version that does not load sound or joypad, and runs basically on Windows XP and Vista, and cannot be loaded on other systems. The DOS version is easily executable, has good gameplay, color, no image bugs and runs joypad and sound (if you run it through DOS-BOX you will not be able to access its sound), however it has a certain acceleration (probably to run better on less powerful computers), does not run games in NTSC, running only games released in Europe, Australia and part of Asia, known as games in Pal/Secam format, and has bugs that change the controller's directional pad. All these flaws must have remained in some way because the emulator had a short development period. Regarding the support from influencers in the scene, the project was very optimistic and was supported by Omar Cornut from the Master System Message project, Christian Schiller, owner of the website Eidolon's Inn, considered at the time the best website about Sega, and Chris MacDonald, Charles' brother, and creator of FAQs known in gamer circles (Chris passed away in 2014). Richard Bannister, creator of the port for Mac, also helped with code corrections and suggestions for the project, as well as Bart Trzynadlowski from Genital, Steve Snake from Fusion, James Ponder from Generator, Sardu from Genecyst, among others. The MAME emulator team was also important in the project. It is from them the Z80 and 68K emulators used in the Genesis Plus, as well as the emulation code for the PSG and YM2612 sound chips of the Mega Drive. And finally the segadev team. The emulator also gains other ports. The first for Sega Dreamcast in 2003 by BlackAura called Genesis Plus DC, which has emulation at almost full speed of the console, surpassing even the original Sega emulator for Mega Drive released for the Dreamcast, the Sega Smash Pack Vol. 1 in 2001.To this day, no other SMD emulator has surpassed Genesis Plus DC on the Dreamcast. In December 2003, Genesis Plus received a port/modification for the GP32 handheld called fGen32, by rlyeh and Robster. In 2004, another Dreamcast port was released, Genesis Plus SDL for the SDL system, by Ian Micheal, who used parts of the BlackAura emulator. In the same year, a GameCube version was released, called GCN GenesisPlus! In 2005, the most important port of the emulator was released, Genesis Plus GX, created by eke-eke for the Nintendo GameCube. Although it was born from the Genesis Plus, it also emulates Master System, Game Gear, SG-1000, Sega CD and Sega Pico. Genesis Plus GX was also ported to Windows in 2007 and Nintendo Wii in 2008 by eke-eke, in 2010 to PS3 by Mr. Anonymous and in 2016 by Reesy for PS Vita. Genesis Plus GX also ran on the multi-emulators OpenEmu in 2009, RetroArch in 2013 and Bizhawk in 2015. The third and final port of Charles' Genesis Plus was for Pocket PC in 2006 by n0p.