Emulation Names - Part 9

Chui

Daniel Lancha Garcia, known as Chui, is from Spain. He became known in the emulation world for creating games and emulators for Dreamcast, as well as PSX emulators for portable devices and smartphones. One of Chui's first works in the emulation world was with the Dreamcast console.

Circus Linux! (DC)

NOIZ2SA (DC)

Phoenix (GP32)

He ports the PC game Circus Linux! to the Dreamcast in 2003. Soon after, still in 2003, he takes part in the creation of the main library of the SDL-GP32 project, a tool for developing software for the GP32 portable, which helps him in future projects and ports for the portable. The following year, he creates the Fenix ​​program for creating games for the console, as well as for the GP32 portable. And then, still in 2004, he creates his first game for the console, NOIZ2SA, a simple shooting game. 

AES4LL (NeoGeo AES)

PSX4ALL (PSX)

DCaSTaway (Atari ST)

After that, he began to create console emulators to run on the Dreamcast, such as DCASTAWAY for Atari ST in 2004, UAE4ALL for Amiga500 in 2005 and ZX4ALL for ZX-Spectrum in 2006. In addition to his creations, he also began to create Dreamcast ports of well-known emulators, such as Neo4All for Neo Geo CD (port of NeoCD) (alongside Fox68k) in 2005, SNES4ALL for SNES (port of Snes9x), MAME4ALL for MAME (port of MAME GP32 from Franxis) and AES4ALL for Neo Geo AES and MVS (fork of Neo4All/NeoCD), both in 2006 and Gens4All for Mega Drive, 32X and Sega CD (port of Gens) in 2008.

MAME4ALL (MAME)

NEO4ALL (NeoGeo)

Gens4All (Sega Genesis)

FAME (68k Library)

The Atari ST, Amiga500, Neo Geo CD and Neo Geo AES/MVS emulators also ran on the Dingoo handheld. In 2005, he created documentation for creating Dreamcast games in SDL (implementing the OpenGL function in it from 2008 onwards). In 2006, his partner Fox (Óscar Orallo, known as Fox68k) created the 68K emulator with him, called FAME/C, based on the C68K of Stephane Dallongeville, creator of the Gens emulator.

UAE4ALL (Amiga)

SNES4ALL (SNES)

ZX4ALL (ZX-Spectrum)

His emulator, among others, was used in the Xbox 360 game Final Fight: Double Impact. He then replaced the 68k core of his emulators with Fame, such as the Amiga500, Atari ST, MAME, Neo Geo CD and Neo Geo AES and MVS emulators. In 2007, he returned to creating Dreamcast games. That year, he modified the game Neverball, correcting its audio and video problems.

Dreamedge, port of Free Doom (DC)

Humphrey (DC)

In 2008, he created ports of the games Doom and Darkplaces (a modification of Quake), under the names Dreamedge and Dreamplaces for Dreamcast, and released them in an album called Emuforce 2008, at the Retromadrid games fair, along with other homebrews, all for ZX Spectrum, created by third parties. In the same year, he attempted to modify and port the PS2 game Return To Castle Wolfenstein to run on the Dreamcast and ports the arcade game Humphrey to the Dreamcast.

Websites Chui, SDL4GP32, DCEmu.co.uk, Digital MZX, MZX Wiki and Fenix

In 2009, he stopped updating his Dreamcast emulators. Outside of the Dreamcast project, in 2006 he created the PSX4ALL emulator for platforms such as Zaurus, Linux, GP2X, GP2X Wix, Android, iOS, iPhone and Pandora. The group he was part of also began to create ports of emulators for the iOS/iPhone system, such as PC Engine, SNES, GBA, Mega Drive, NES, GB and GBC, among others.

PCSX4ALL (PSX)

Xenocider (Windows)

In 2009, the project ended, and Chui merged his old emulator PSX4ALL with the fork of the PC emulator, PCSX, called PCSX-Reloaded, and created PCSX4ALL in 2010 for GamePark Wiz and GamePark Caanoo. Outside the world of emulation, Chui has also been part of game creation projects, such as in 2014, as lead programmer of the Linux version of the game Pier Solar and the Great Architects. In 2016, he created a group with six other people, called Retro Samus, to produce the game Xenocider. Interestingly, this is the first game actually produced from scratch by Chui. The game ran a campaign on the Kickstarter website to raise funds for its creation. Xenocider had three demos released in 2016, but was never fully released. At the time of writing, a release in 2022 via Steam was promised.

Flashback: The Quest for Identity (DC)

Baldur's Gate III (Windows) and Full Metal Furies (Windows)

In 2017, he joined JoshProd, where he participated in the Dreamcast ports of the classic Flashback: The Quest for Identity (this one, providing services through Retro Sumus) and Ghost Blade in 2017, and the classic Fade to Black in 2018. In 2018, he joined ElSemi's BlitWorks (another emulator creator), as a software engineer. At the company, he helped port the game Full Metal Furies to Windows in 2018. In 2020, he helped, as a senior programmer, create the game Baldur's Gate III for Windows, by Larian Studios NV. Chui has also presented at some game fairs, such as Retro Madrid from 2008 to 2014 and Retrobarcelona in 2014.

Emulators Created For Dreamcast:

2004: DCASTAWAY

2005: UAE4ALL 

2006: ZX4ALL

Emulators Ported to Dreamcast:

2005: Neo4All

2006: SNES4ALL, MAME4ALL, AES4ALL

2008: Gens4All

Emulators Created:

2006: PSX4ALL

2010: PCSX4ALL

Games Ported to Dreamcast:

2008: Dreamedge, Dreamplaces, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Humphrey

Games Created:

2004: NOIZ2SA (GP32)

2010: Final Fight: Double Impact (Xbox 360)

2014: Pier Solar and the Great Architects (Linux)

2016: Xenocider (Demo) (Windows)

2017: Ghost Blade HD (Windows), Flashback: The Quest for Identity (Dreamcast), Ghost Blade (Dreamcast)

2018: Full Metal Furies (Windows), Fade to Black (Dreamcast)

2020: Baldur's Gate III (Windows)

Exophase

Exophase was born in 1984, and started in the gaming world in 1996, in a game creation forum in ZZT/MZX (short for MegaZeux) on the AOL website, one of the most important dial-up internet portals and dial-up services in the world at the time. The forum later migrated to the IRC program, also famous at the time. He tried to create some RPGs, such as Era's Light, but it was never released either. In 1997, he created the group MZXing, known as New Revolution, also on IRC. A demo called Shades of The Future was going to be released, but it was also never released. After this, Exo left the group and gave up on the MZX IRC community.

Dark Nova

Around 1999, he joined the Digital MZX website, and helped produce some PC games, such as Dark Nova in 1999, Soul Excursion in 2000, Impact in 2001, Trinity in 2002, Distance in 2003, Memory Leak in 2006 and Last Generation in 2007, among others. 

gpSP (GBA)

During the mid-year holidays of 2006, he was away from the MZX community for a while to create the GBA emulator, gpSP, released in 2007 for portable devices such as PSP, 3DS, GP2X (ported by ZodTTD under the name gpSP2X) and others. After that, he entered the world of emulation. The port of Zod from gpSP to GP2X caught the attention of Exophase, who then received a GP2X from his friend Jr2swiss. With knowledge of the portable device, he was able to create a new recompiler for the port of Zod and help with its port. 

Temper (PC Engine) and SVP (Sega Virtua Processor)

After that, he created a new emulator, now exclusively for GP2X, called Temper (Turbografx EMulator PER request for PCE in February 2008. The following month, he helped emulate the Sega Virtua Processor add-on alongside Rokas in the Picodrive emulator, being the first emulator to run this device 100%, being taken in December 2008 to the famous Fusion emulator.

PCSX-Reloaded (PSX)

In 2011, he participated in the creation of the port of the PCSX-Reloaded emulator, PCSX-ReARMed, for laptops and smartphones alongside a group of developers, and was the author of the ARM NEON plug-in, launched in 2012, which produced perfect pixels.

DraStic DS Emulator (NDS)

Finally, he created the NDS emulator DraStic in 2013 for Android, Linux, Pandora and Pyra. In addition to his games and emulators, he also contributed to the emulation scene by making continuous contributions to Daedalus PSP from 2006 to 2007 and helping with jEnesisDS in 2008, among others.

Games:

Dark Nova (1999), Soul Excursion (2000), Impact (2001), Trinity (2002), Distance (2003), Memory Leak (2006), Last Generation (2007)

Emulators:

gpSP (2007), Temper (2008), Sega Virtua Processor (2008), PCSX-ReARMed (2011), DraStic (2013)

Plugins:

ARM NEON (2012)

ZodTTD

ZodTTD was an important porter and creator of games and emulators for portable devices. Benjamin Stark lives in the Tampa area of ​​Florida, USA, and has been working on creating software for cell phones and embedded systems since 2009. It all started around 2005, when he ported the game OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe), an economic simulator released for iOS and others, to the Tapwave Zodiac portable device, which had its system based on PalmOS. It was the merger of Zodiac and OpenTTD that gave rise to the name ZodTTD, which was the name of the port of the game and which ended up becoming the nickname of its creator.

Multiple Versions of OpenTTD

GP2X

The game was also ported by Zod to GP2X, as TTD2X in 2007, to iOS, as OpenTTD.app in 2009, and to GP2X Wiz, as TTDWiz in 2010. It was from there that he began to explore ARM technology, present in PowerPCs (equivalent to today's smartphones) and laptops of the time. One of his first experiences with creating software for laptops came in 2005, when he acquired the GP2X, a Korean laptop. He began studying this system to develop a PSX emulator for it. His first experience was in 2005, with GP2PSX. In the same year, he joined a group to develop a new PSX emulator.

PSX 4 All

GPSP2x (GBA)

This is where the PSX4ALL project was born. The first release took place in 2006 for Linux systems for GP2X and Zaurus for PowerPCs, as psx4gp2x and psx4zaurus. Later it was released for iOS for iPhone as psx4iphone in 2007, for Pandora as psx4pandora in 2008 and for Android as psx4android in 2010. The psx4dc port for Dreamcast was worked on in 2006, but was never released. In 2010, the PSX4ALL team dissolved, and part of it created PCSX4ALL (a name similar to the old project), taking the technology developed in the Zod project. Parallel to PSX4ALL, ported in 2006, also for GP2X, the gpSP GBA emulator for PSP created by Exophase under the name GPSP2x (Exophase has been handling this port since 2007).

Temper 4 iPhone (PC Engine) and MAME 4 iPhone

Genesis 4 iPhone (SMD)

Snes 4 iPhone

N64 4 iPhone

Gameboy 4 iPhone

NES 4 iPhone

Then, Zod begins to port emulators to the iOS system as well, starting in 2008 with snes4iphone from Dr.PocketSNES, followed in 2009 by nes4iphone of his own authorship, gameboy4iphone from the Little John multi-emulator from the PalmOS system, MAME4iphone from the arcade MAME, genesis4iphone from the MD PicoDrive from the GP2X system, temper4iphone from Temper from the PC Engine also created by Exophase and from the GP2X system and n64iphone also of his own authorship.

VLC Player and ruBooks

In 2008, it also ports RuBooks, an ebook reader, and in 2009 it ports VLC Player, named vlc4iphone, which is a player that plays most media files. 

iPhone Doom

Wolf3D iPhone

Quake iPhone

Noiz2SA

In addition to the PSX4ALL project and ports of third-party emulators, he also developed several ports (some with modifications and others without) of games for iOS, including iphonedoom of the game Doom in 2007, quake4iphone of Quake in 2008 and Wolf3D, Noiz2SA, Hex a Hop and Simutrans in 2009, all of which originated on computers. The only game that appears to have been his own creation was Hot Pursuit in 2009. All of the ports he created of emulators and games were of programs already developed for portable devices, such as PSP, iOS, GP2X and others. His iOS ports were made available through the Cydia application, which allowed the installation of applications not authorized by Apple.

Websites

A curious case in this regard occurred in March 2009. John Carmack released an official port of Wolf3D on the Apple Store for $5 and Zod hacked it, releasing it for free download the next day via Cydia. In May 2011, the PlayStore banned Zod from the platform with his port of PSX4ALL for Android, which he was responsible for after the project ended. The disruption he had with user support for the application was so great, combined with the immense work he had on Cydia, that Zod abandoned all projects and his official website, dedicating himself only to his personal life. Zod had a website and forum created in 2008. After leaving the networks, he left a statement summarizing his story, which remained online until 2017, when he took his website offline.

Twisty Six! and Swipe Ninja!

In 2018, two games for iPhone and iPad emerged, allegedly created by ZodTTD LLC, called Swipe Ninja! and Twisty Six! They may be from ZodTTD itself, or from someone who used its brand for this purpose.

GitHub

Gamma - PS 1 Game Emulator and Ad Buster - The Ad Blocker

ZodTTD made his main projects for iPhone available on his GitHub. After some time away, he returned to his projects in 2018, now with AdBuster, posting it on his GitHub, and launching it in 2020. It is an ad blocker for iPad and iPhone, serving for games, browsers, music streaming and others. It was launched in the Apple Store. Along with this, he updated his website again (in 2020), promoting his product. In 2024, he returned with another project in the Apple Store, Gamma, a Playstation 1 emulator also for iPad and iPhone. At this time, he changed the server of his website to that of the WordPress blog.

Games:

ZodTTD (OpenTTD) (2005), iphonedoom (2007), quake4iphone (2008), Wolf3D (2009), Noiz2SA (2009), Hex a Hop (2009), Simutrans (2009), Hot Pursuit (2009)

Emulators:

GP2PSX (2005), psx4gp2x (2006), psx4zaurus (2006), GPSP2x (2006), psx4iphone (2007), psx4pandora (2008), snes4iphone (2009), nes4iphone (2009) genesis4iphone (2009), temper4iphone (2009), n64iphone (2009), psx4android (2010), PCSX4ALL (2010), Gamma (2024)

Programs:

RuBooks (iphone) (2008), vlc4iphone (2009), AdBuster (2020)

Stefano Teso

Stefano Teso (also known as Sthief), graduated from the University of Trento in Italy. He was the creator of the SSE emulator for Sega Saturn. The project began in 2001 and had a single release in 2002. In 2003, he was invited by Bart Trzynadlowski to help him with the Supermodel project, at the time known as Model 3 Emulator.

SSE (Sega Saturn)

Supermodel (Sega Model 3)

In 2004, he helped with the transition from the emulator to MAME. And speaking of MAME, he also helped with the project, having in 2003 helped with the Hitachi SH-2 emulator and the ST-V driver, in 2011 he helped with the Sega Hikaru arcade, successor to the Naomi, and in 2012 he added some technical discoveries also about the Hikaru board. In other projects, he helped with the Saturnin of Sega Saturn in 2003, among others. 

Valkyrie (Sega Hikaru), SH-2 (Sega Saturn) and Supermodel (Sega Model 3) Documentations

In 2011, he created an account on GitHub, where he began posting his projects. The first was in 2012, called Valkyrie, an experimental Sega Hikaru emulator for Linux. The emulator never got past its initial stage, but it served to contribute to the version of Hikaru used in MAME. He developed this project until 2015. In 2015, he created Ocelot, a project that analyzes biological data, helping to predict protein behaviors and allocate this information in data structures for the web. To do this, he uses the Python language for analysis, and RDF for the structure.

GitHub

In the following years, he began to create projects in the area of ​​AI, such as CAIPI in 2018, which implements an interactive explanatory learning structure for AI models, mainly linked to text and images, Calimocho in 2019, which implements learning for AI based on self-explanatory neural networks, working with synthetic color data for models to generate more interactive explanations, and Awesome Explanatory Supervision in 2021, which is a booklet with articles, tools and libraries that help in the development of AI model training.

Emulators:

SSE (2002), Supermodel (2011), Valkyrie (MAME) (2012)

Biological/AI Projects:

Ocelot (2015), CAIPI (2018), Calimocho (2019), AES (2021)