The History of Intellivison Emulators - Part 2

Bliss (2000)

Bliss

The first version of the Bliss emulator was released in December 2000 by Kyle Davis, built 100% in Java, tested on Windows and Linux systems, and also allowing the inclusion of additional resources for other operating systems, a novelty for emulators at the time. Despite this, the initial versions came with a binary Windows version, without the need to install Java Runtime Environment. This version became known as BlissJ (or Bliss Pure Java) from 2001 onwards. In January 2001, the BlissJX version was released, bringing a Java version and another binary with DirectX support. The two versions were developed together. The project was open source from the beginning. The story of Bliss began when, after failing twice in emulation, once with Pac-Man and once with Commodore 64, Kyle devoted himself to research, documentation and study before writing any code, unlike other attempts. On November 15, 2000, he began writing the first lines of code for the project.

Bliss (Options)

When the CPU emulation was 80% complete, he sought out Joe Zbiciak from the Intellivision emulator JZINTV, who also ended up helping a lot in the development of the software. The emulator supported the .int, .bin and .zip formats for ROMs. In the second version released, also in December 2000, it moved away from the line code and implemented its own GUI. In January 2001, it introduced more accurate sound emulation. In February 2001, it added save state, pause, reset, PNG screenshots, joystick and joypad support, an option for up to 44 Khz of sound, and an option to translate the emulator. That month, the emulator was also released in French, Spanish and Portuguese, the latter thanks to the Brazilian Leandro Stevanato Alves. Also in February, it began supporting ECS, an add-on that transformed the console into a computer.

BlissJX

BlissJX (Menus)

In March 2001, the Win32 version was released, giving rise to Bliss32. The emulator was now rewritten in C++ code. It was born from the port of the emulator for Windows released on the same date, called Xanadu. The two projects began working together from that moment on. This version also began to support Intellivoice, for voice-controlled games, with the help of Joe Zbiciak, for his reverse engineering and debugging support for this, and added support for the French and German languages. In April 2001, the Bliss Applet version, also known as JWeb (Java Web), was released, which is a Java mini-application that allows the incorporation of console games into web pages. In April, support for Kaillera for the Windows version was also released and the audio mixer was rewritten, providing higher quality sound output. In September 2001, a new GUI was created for the project.

BlissJ

Bliss was a very complete emulator, with 100% emulation in the first year of the project, with 80% emulation of ECS, enough to run the games, and with 100% emulation of Intellivoice, a resource for games using voice. Kyle had some partners in the project, such as Jesse who started contributing and later became part of the team, Atani (from Atani Software, an emulator converter for Windows) and Nephrite who joined in October 2001. At this stage, another version was released, in October 2001. In October 2001, a version for Linux, known as BlissX, ported by Atani, also arrived, and in January 2002 the version for BeOS, by the emulator team, the Bliss Team. From then on, all versions of the emulator were discontinued. A curiosity. In 2001, he developed support for the Atari 5200 console in the emulator, but it was never released. In April 2002, Kyle promised updates for a future version, but without specifying a date. In August 2003, a version for Xbox made by XPort, also called BlissX, was released. In December 2004, Kyle returned with a version for .NET Framework (for Windows) called Bliss .NET, which remained in alpha status.

Bliss32

Bliss32 (Menus)

In 2005, Kyle launched a new Bliss page (previously hosted by Retrogames, now by Kyleblog) and released version 2.0.0 of the emulator in April of the same year. He released four versions in total in April, and a fifth in May, all for Windows. In December 2005, he released a version for the PalmOS 5 system for Palm smartphones, with the last release in April 2006. The last release of the emulator was in May 2006, with support for CGC, a USB accessory that allows real Intellivision controls to be connected. In addition, this version surprisingly added initial support for the Atari 5200, thus attempting to transform the project into a multi-emulator. The site went offline at the end of 2010. In 2015, Bliss was used as part of the OpenEmu multi-system emulator for MacOS to run the console's games.

Xanadu (2001)

Xanadu

Xanadu was a port of Bliss made in March 2001 for Windows by Joseph Zbiciak, or Joe Zbiciak as he is known, creator of the source code that originated Bliss, with another programming language called C++, with bug fixes and a port to Kaillera. It also fixed the support for ECS mode that had been removed in the Bliss version from early March, which was corrected in an update in the following days. In addition, it also rewrote the audio mixer code, improving its quality, and the color palettes. The emulator only worked online, starting with Kaillera to choose a room and a partner for the game, only then did the emulator run. Xanadu had its last version in April 2001, having had four updates in total.

Nostalgia (2002)

Nostalgia

Nostalgia was one of the last great emulators for Intellivision. It was created by Joe Fisher in early 2002 for Windows. Among others who helped him with the emulator is Joe from JZINTV. Among the many features of this emulator, we have already in 2002 an attempt at online gaming via browser, something practically pioneering at the time. Support for ECS, and its keyboard and music keyboard functions were added in May 2002. Sound and video recording in AVI format was already in late 2002. And finally the Intellivoice function in October 2004.

Nostalgia (Interface)

Nostalgia (Options)

The latest version of the emulator was released in August 2008. The emulator has had fifteen releases in total. In 2005, the Pocket Nostalgia version for Pocket PC was released, being, among others, compatible with iPAQ. In the released versions, Intellivoice and save states were not available. 

Other Emulators

IntyOS

Other less important emulators came out, such as IntyOS for MacOS, by Arnauld Chevallier, in partnership with Joe Zbiciak in June 2003. IntelliWare by Valter Prette for Windows, based on the JZINTV emulator. We do not have the date of its release. INTion by 4all in 2010 for Windows. And FreeINTV in 2018 for Windows.

INTion

The console also runs on the multi-system MESS emulators since 2004, multi-system Pantheon since 2005, and multi-arcade MAME since 2011, all with ECS and Intellivoice support.