Emulation Names - Part 16

_Demo_

Jean-Francois Thibert, _Demo_ (also known as JF T. and z_demo_z), originally from the Montreal metropolitan area of ​​Canada, was a top-tier emulator developer. He began learning about programming with SWBasic on an IBM XT and a Commodore 64. Around 1996/97, he began developing his own SNES emulator, which was never released. He also made level edits for the NES game Super Mario Bros.

ZSNES

Alongside zsKnight, he began developing the first and most important SNES emulator in history, ZSNES. He joined the project in June 1997. At the time, Knight had already released some non-public versions of the project, first in Pascal language, and later in Assembler. When the language changed to ASM, Demo joined the project. Initially, the project ran on MS-DOS, and after the popularity of Snes9x, its competitor in Windows mode, ZSNES also began to run in that same environment. The project pioneered the emulation of most of the special SNES chips. In 2001, with the departure of zsKnight, Demo continued the project alone with a few more updates throughout the year. There were a few more updates in 2002, and those in 2004 and 2007, with the help of many influencers, including the Snes9x Forum, and ended the project. Despite the competition with Snes9x, he indirectly helped the project numerous times. Among them in 1998 and 2001 with the addition and update of the DSP-1 chip and other help between 2002 and 2003. It also indirectly helped several other emulators, such as NLKE in 1997 and 1998, Raine in 1998, Nemu64 in 1998, Apollo in 2000, Project64 in 2001, among others.

Mario, Zelda and Final Fantasy (NES)

In parallel with ZSNES, he created the programs Mario (1997), Zelda (1998) and Final Fantasy (1998) Improvement, which made improvements to the NES versions of the aforementioned games, among others, editing the levels of the stages and maps. Both were created in 1998. The Mario one was created alongside D]ab-om[B and the other two games alongside Lates and EFX.

SPCPlay and ZSNES Savestate SPC Format

In 1998, he also created SPCPlay alongside zsKnight, a player that plays music from a SNES game save state in .ZS (ZSNES) and .SPC formats. In 2005, he released documentation on the SPC part of the ZSNES save state format, to understand the sound save contained in the format.

ePSXe

While still working on ZSNES, he joined another important project, the ePSXe emulator, alongside Calb and Galtor in 2000. ePSXe became one of the most important PSX emulators in history. It used the same plug-in scheme as PSEmu Pro, expanding on this method over time. It was also the first to have a wide range of games and run the PBP extension. The project had hiatuses between 2003 and 2007 and 2008 and 2012. Its latest version was released in 2016. 

Website SourceForge, ZSNES, ZSNES Message Board!, ZSNES Board Forum, ePSXe and SageTV

About his professional life, between 2000 and 2003, he studied and graduated in computer science and a bachelor of science from McGill University in Quebec, Canada. In 2004, he joined SageTV, helping to develop the SageTV Media Center software, which was a program that tuned into the TV through an image capture card, offering an electronic program guide, video recording in MPEG2, and video conversion compatible with systems such as iPod, PSP, cell phones and other portable devices of the time.

SageTV, Google and Stadia

In June 2011, the company and software were purchased by Google, and Jean remained on the project. He became a Senior Software Developer at Google in 2013, and a Staff Software Developer in 2021. In 2015, he helped create a kernel for games on Google's streaming platform, Stadia, which is a hardware manager and process executor. In 2016, he was part of the LibGEP project, a library used for real-time tasks between clients and servers in programs that use the Google Protocol Buffers protocol, and in conjunction with the implementation of callbacks, which perform tasks in the background, without interfering with other network tasks. In 2023, he was part of the creation of the last game for Google's streaming platform, Stadia, called Worm Game.

Canada Learning Code, LunarG, GPUOpen Drivers and Khronos Group

In the meantime, he provided services to several companies. Among them, Canada Learning Code in 2014, with LLC WordPress Themes FR, a package with WordPress themes related to learning codes in the French language; LunarG in 2016, with Vulkan Samples, a collection of code examples on how to use the Vulkan API; GPUOpen Drivers in 2017, working on the Vulkan® API Layer program, which translates Vulkan commands to PAL, to be read by AMD GPUs, for example; and Khronos Group in 2018, helping to develop tools to work with the Vulcan API, aimed at GPUs.

Emulators:

ZSNES (1997), ePSXe (2000)

Programs:

Mario Improvement (1997), Zelda Improvement (1998), Final Fantasy Improvement (1998), SPCPlay (1998), SageTV Media Center (2004), Kernel (Stadia) (2015), Vulkan® API Layer (2017)

Games:

Worm Game (2023)

Calb

Carlos Alberto Lozano Baides, known as Calb, was born in Madrid, Spain in 1976. He started in the world of emulation in 1996 with the ESNES project, a SNES emulator. At the time he was known as Lord ESNES. His emulator was released in 1997. The project was helped by Gary from Snes9x (at the time Snes97) to finally have sound. This happened in 1997, when Gary managed to make his emulator also have this support.

ESNES

NLKE

In 1998, ESNES and his partner Ishmair joined forces with the creator of NLKSNES to create NLKE, both SNES emulators. Here, the NLKSNES's good speed and the NLKE's sound support and good compatibility are combined. This project is quite advanced, with emulation of several special chips and image filters, among others. The project had the help of the main influencers of the SNES scene. At the time, it was the fastest emulator in existence, but it was soon surpassed by ZSNES. In April 1998, the Xain'D Sleena Emulator was released, an emulator that ran the Solar Warrior games and its bootleg version Xain'D Sleena. The emulator was created by Rob Rosenbrock, and had the help of Calb.

Xain'D Sleena Emulator

MAME Games: Cops 01, Cabal, Xain'D Sleena, Terra Cresta, Formation Z/Aeroboto, Contra/Gryzor, Double Dragon I and II, Blood Bros/West Story

Four months later, in August 1998, Calb and Rob joined the MAME project, where Rob brought some of his emulators, such as Xain'D Sleena, Renegade and Double Dragon I and II, and Calb, alongside Phil Stroffolino, helped him in this process. Calb also brought some of his own games, such as Cops 01, Formation Z/Aeroboto, Terra Cresta and Contra/Gryzor (alongside Phil Stroffolino, Jose Tejada Gomez and Eric Hustvedt). In addition, he also improved the sound of New Zealand Story, among others. In 1999, he added Cabal, Blood Bros/West Story, Armed Formation, Chopper I, Psycho Soldier, Double Dragon 3, UFO Robo Dangar, among others. In total, he added 22 games to the project. Calb worked on the project from 1998 to 2000.

ePSXe

ePSXe For Android

In 2000, he joined forces with his colleague _Demo_ from the ZSNES project, who had previously helped him with his projects, and formed the ePSXe project to emulate PSX. Calb (as he became known in the project) worked for 16 years on ePSXe, which was the largest PSX emulator, with the best plug-ins and the best compatibility. Together with his partners, he formalized the project and created the company ePSXe Software SL in 2012, selling its content, including on mobile devices. In 2002, he also became part of the Wine project, a program that allowed Windows applications and games to run on Linux and MacOS systems without needing emulation. He also indirectly helped other projects, such as AdriPSX for PSX in 2000. Regarding his professional life, Carlos studied Computer Science from 1994 to 2000 at the Carlos III University in Madrid. His final project was on how to emulate a Super Nintendo on a PC (he probably used his NLKE as an example). 

ESNES, NLKE, Xain'D SleenA, ePSXe and ePSXe Android websites

Andago, Coritel and Accenture websites

In 2001, he joined the company Andago, working as a Linux server technician. He later became a project leader for free software for Linux, a Senior Consultant working on migrations from Microsoft software to free software, a Productivity Monitoring Manager, IT Manager, working on architecture and infrastructure for companies, Co-Manager in the area of ​​Internet and mobile applications, and finally Innovation Manager, working on digital platforms for government platforms. He remained with the company until 2012. In 2013, he worked as a project manager at Coritel SA, acting as team leader for mobile applications for banking, energy and city hall companies throughout Spain. He remained with the company until 2015. In 2017, he joined Tecnologica Ecosistemas SA (Accenture), as a project manager, coordinating work on applications for telecommunications, banking and pharmaceutical companies.

Emulators:

ESNES (1997), NLKE (1998), Xain'D Sleena Emulator (1998)

zsKnight

James Saito, known as zsKnight, was born in 1979 in Vancouver, Canada, and despite his short life in emulation, he is considered one of the great names in the scene. Since he was seven years old, he was interested in creating his own games, drawing simple maps on paper. Around the age of eight or nine, he got his first computer, the Amiga 500. At that time, he began to learn programming languages ​​with Amiga Basic. Around 1999, he was studying Computer Science at Simon Fraser University in the city where he lived.

ZSNES

ZSNES Tutorial (Filipe Antonio Marques Falcetta)

In emulation, it all started in 1997, when he decided to emulate the SNES. At the time, he chose his nickname zsKnight. Zs would be the initials of the name of the emulator ZSNES and Knight of Knight. Something like Knight of ZSNES. He chose this console to emulate because it was the one with the most favorite games. His first intention was to create his own game, but that never happened. At the time the project began, some emulators were in their infancy, such as ESNES, NLKSNES, and Snes97, which gained sound support that year.

ZSNES: Homepage and SourceForge

ZSNES v1.337, latest version of zsKnight in the project

In the month of its release, October, Snes97 had already become Snes9x for a month, and it was alongside it that ZSNES competed for space until its completion. Despite the natural competition, Knight's emulator worked in a DOS environment, while Snes9x worked in a Windows environment. Despite the competition, they helped each other, and all of ZSNES's great discoveries, such as the emulation of most special chips, were soon cooperatively implemented in its competitor's emulator. After more than three years of success, in July 2001, Knight's father passed away and he was forced to abandon the project to dedicate himself to supporting his family. The September 2001 version was dedicated to him and his family. After that, the project was run by _Demo_ (his partner since the beginning of the project) and the people from the Snes9x forum.

SPCPlay and ZSNES Savestate SPC Format

In addition to ZSNES, Knight also created SPC Play alongside _Demo_ in 1998, a player that plays music from a SNES game save state in .ZS (ZSNES) and .SPC formats. As a helper on other projects, he helped with the emulators Raine in 1998, NLKE in 1998 and 1999, Sneese in 1998 and 1999, Snes9x in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 and Visual Boy Advance in 2001.

EA Sports Active 1 and 2 (Wii), Armillo (Wii U) and EA Replay and Metal of Honor - Heroes 2 (PSP)

Regarding his professional life, James studied Computer Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver from 1997 to 2003. In 2004, he was hired by Electronic Arts of Canada as a software engineer. Among his projects is the game EA Replay for PSP in 2006, a collection of games released for Mega Drive and SNES between 1990 and 1995, with franchises such as Desert/Jungle Strike, Road Rash/II/3, among others. In it, James was responsible for the emulation part, optimizing the project's CPUs and PPUs, as well as the consoles' audio (68k and SPC700). He converts the 68k and 65c CPUs to the MIPS R400 architecture used in the PSP. In other words, his work on ZSNES emulation is continued in a certain way in this collection. Next came Metal of Honor - Heroes 2 for the Wii and PSP in 2007, where he worked as an optimizer and helped code the PSP version. EA Sports Active followed for the Wii in 2009, where he worked mainly on loading optimizations and helped create the game's initial minigames. EA Sports Active 2 for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox360 was released in 2010, where he wrote drivers, developed custom peripherals, and developed several movement sequences/exercises for the Kinect and Wii.

Websites Electronic Arts, Fuzzy Wuzzy Games, Nine Tail Studios, Roadhouse Interactive, Session Games and Night Garden Studios

In late 2010, he co-founded Fuzzy Wuzzy Games, where he works as a lead software and game design engineer. At the company, he works as a programmer, systems developer, creator of programming languages, game engines, technical designer, game architecture, Unity, 3D Math, iOS and C++ software, among others. At the company, he worked on the game Armillo for Wii U in 2014, as lead programmer and game designer. In parallel, in 2011, he went to work at Nine Tail Studios, Inc., as a software engineer and also with games, working in programming, game engines, data structures, prototypes, optimization, Unity, 3D Math, technical designer, iOS and others. He stayed at the company until 2012. In 2014, he left Fuzzy and went to work at Roadhouse Interactive, also as a software engineer. His performance is not very different from the last two companies he worked at. In 2016, he left Roadhouse and went to work at Session Games, staying until early 2023. In the same year, he went to Night Garden Studios.

Windows: Bud Redhead: The Time Chase (2003)

PSP: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (2006), EA Replay (2006), Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (2007)

Nintendo Wii: Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (2007), EA Sports Active (2009), EA Sports Active 2 (2010)

PS3: EA Sports Active 2 (2010)

Xbox360: EA Sports Active 2 (2010)

Nintendo Wii U: Armillo (2014)