Steve Snake
Steve Snake (2010s and 1990s)
Stephen Palmer, better known as Steve Snake, is an important English programmer born in 1970 in the USA. His interest in emulation began in the mid-1980s, when he began porting the game Jetpac from Spectrum to Amiga. He tried to rewrite the game in the same way it was written for Spectrum. To do this, he ended up emulating the entire Spectrum system, including the Z80 processor. The emulator was never released, as he got a full-time job at the time. Later, using the pseudonym Steve Palmer, he entered the games industry, and one of his first jobs was at Blockbuster in 1987 for Commodore 64, where he helped with the code, art and sound.
Judge Dredd (Atari ST), NBA Jam (MS-DOS), The Lawnmower Man (SMD), Batman Forever (Sega Saturn), Double Dragon 3 (Atari ST) and Firepower 2000 (SNES)
After that, he never stopped. He worked on games for the Atari ST computer, such as Judge Dredd in 1990 and Double Dragon in 1991. For MS-DOS, such as NBA Jam in 1995. And SNES, such as Firepower in 2000. The Mega Drive came into his life in 1993, with the game The Lawnmower Man, followed by Frank Thomas Baseball in 1995. Before starting to emulate the Mega Drive, he worked on two more titles, College Slam and Batman Forever, both in 1996 for the Sega Saturn.
In 1997, he created KGen (Kega Genesis) for MS-DOS. The emulator came very complete, with save states and YM2612 sound emulation. It competed with the all-powerful emulator of the time, Genecyst. It all started when he saw the poor sound emulation of the MD emulator, GenEm, and decided to emulate the sound driver, followed by the Z80, as well as the FM sound. He used some MD ROM drivers to emulate the sound driver. He was discouraged when Genecyst, a great MD emulator of the time, was released along the way. However, its creator said that it was not possible to emulate accurate sound, that is, FM sound.
Despite this, he launches KGen and is happy with the result, as it achieved this precision, becoming the first emulator to play FM sound. Despite having worked in the Mega Drive gaming industry, Steve admitted in an interview that some things helped him create KGen, but that he had forgotten the really important things, developing the emulator through reverse engineering like everyone else. The emulator is launched that same year with only two months of work.
The following year, he released KGen98, a complete overhaul of the previous emulator, with improved performance, support for Game Genie, better image quality and stereo sound. The project ended in 1998. In the year the emulator was closed, he returned to the gaming industry with Test Drive 5 for Windows. At that time, Steve received an offer from Sega to redesign his emulator and use it in the Sega Smash Pack compilation.
Steve accepted, and the collection was released for Windows in 1999, emulating the following games Golden Axe, Shinobi, Phantasy Star II, OutRun, Columns, Sonic Spinball, Altered Beast and Vectorman. Next came Sega Puzzle Pack, with the games Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Columns III and Lose Your Marbles, also in 1999. And finally, Sega Smash Pack II, which contained the games Comix Zone, Flicky, Kid Chameleon, Shining Force, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Super Hang-On and Vectorman 2, in 2000. After that, the subsequent releases of this collection no longer have KGen98, as Sega wanted a new emulator from Steve, and he refused, forcing the company to create its own emulator with the help of third parties.
After that, he also programmed the Dreamcast version of the game Demolition Racer: No Exit in 2000 and Test Drive for PS2 for Windows in 2002. In 2002, he returned to the world of emulation with a new MD emulator, Kega. It was also completely rewritten, only preserving the Z80 and M68k emulations used in KGen98. It came with several differences, Sega CD emulation, greater speed and greater game compatibility. In the last version released, still in 2002, it also added the SMS and GG consoles.
At the end of 2002, he lost the emulator's source codes, keeping only the second version released, forcing him to restart the project from scratch, now called Kega Lazarus. Basically, he improved the SMS/GG emulation and added SG-1000 and SC-3000. The project ended in 2003. After that, he returned to game creation and programmed the game Breed in 2004 for Windows.
That same year, he released his last emulator, Kega Fusion. It was a fusion between Kega and Kega Lazarus with other codes written. At that time, it beat its competitor, Gens, with the highest precision of all emulators, with excellent compatibility and emulation of the 32X. Over time, he also added netplay, image filters and emulation of the Sega Virtua Processor to run Virtua Racing. The project was updated until 2010. Outside of Fusion, he helped directly and indirectly in the projects Snes96 in 1997 and ZSNES in 1998, both bringing sound decompression, Genital in 2000, Gens in 2001 and 2002, PicoDrive in 2005, Regen for Sega 8 and 16 bits in 2007, among others.
In parallel with his work on Fusion, Steve continued working in the gaming industry. In 2006, he was called by Sega of America to emulate the Mega Drive's sound chip, the YM2612, for the release of the Sega Genesis Collection for PS2 and PSP, an emulation that he had developed at the time by KGen in 1997. Among the 28 games released were the Golden Axe, Phantasy Star, Ecco, Sonic, Shinobi and Vectorman franchises, as well as Flick, Ristar and others.
XBox360: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Time Pilot, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Bomberman LIVE
In the same year, he began releasing and adapting games for the Xbox 360. He adapted classic games such as Time Pilot and Contra in 2006, and Ninja Turtles, Sonic 1 and 2, Rush'n Attack and Gyruss in 2007, in addition to the releases Bomberman LIVE in 2007 and Diner Dash in 2009. He also programmed Monster Lab for the Nintendo Wii in 2008. In 2010, the game Pier Solar and the Great Architects was released, and Steve was specially invited to help with the programming, thanks to his work with games and his influence on Mega Drive emulation. His latest games released were Turrican Flashback and Clockwork Aquario, both in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch.
GitHub
In 2015, he created an account on GitHub, where he posted some projects, such as Goldbach Conjecture Tester in 2016, a program that tests Goldbach's Conjecture, which states that every even number greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers, verifying this logic up to the sum of 1 billion, being useful for measuring computer performance, Microcomputer Emulator in 2016, a project started in the 2000s to create an emulator of the Acorn Atom PC, which Steve had as a child, but the project is still a WIP (work in progress), and is not finished, First Person Maze in 2017, an automatically generated maze game in a 3D first-person view, having been written in Python, and uses the Pyglet and OpenGL libraries, Free Flow Toll Reminder in 2019, an Android application that creates a reminder to pay toll fees after using a free-flow toll road, and Generic Testing in 2021, a testing tool above conventional ones, to check errors in Python functions, using a method called Fuzz Testing.
Emulators:
KGen (1997), YM2612 (1997), Z80 (1997), M68K (1997), KGen98 (1997), Kega (2002), Kega Lazarus (2002), Kega Fusion (2004) , Microcomputer Emulator (Acorn Atom) (WIP) (2016)
Testers:
Goldbach Conjecture Tester (2016), Generic Testing (2021)
Applications:
Free Flow Toll Reminder (2019)
Steve Palmer (Game Programmer)
Commodore 64: Blockbuster (1988) (Code, Art and Sound), NARC (1990), SWIV (1991) (Port)
Atari ST: Judge Dredd (1990), Double Dragon 3 (1991), Final Blow (1991) (Samples), Big Run (1992) (Technical Support)
SNES: Firepower 2000 (1992)
Sega Genesis: The Lawnmower Man (1993) (Miscellaneous Aids), Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball (1995), Pier Solar and the Great Architects (2010)
MS-DOS: NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995)
Sega Saturn: College Slam (1996), Batman Forever (1996)
Windows: Test Drive 5 (1998), Sega: PC Smash Pack (1998), Sega PC: Puzzle Pack (1999) (Emulation), Test Drive (2002), Breed (2004), Wings!: Remastered Edition (2014)
Sega Dreamcast: Demolition Racer: No Exit (2000) (Dreamcast Version Programmer)
Xbox 360: Time Pilot (2006) (Adaptation), Contra (2006) (Adaptation), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2007), Sonic the Hedgehog (2007) (YM2612 and SN76489 Sound Emulation), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2007) (YM2612 and SN76489 Sound Emulation), Rush'n Attack (2007) (Adaptation), Gyruss (2007) (Adaptation), Bomberman LIVE (2007), Diner Dash (2009)
PSP: Sega Genesis Collection (2006) (YM2612 Sound Emulation)
Nintendo Wii: Monster Lab (2008)
Python: First Person Maze (2017)
Nintendo Switch: Turrican Flashback (2021), Clockwork Aquario (2021)
Bradford W. Mott
Bradford W. Mott is a native of North Carolina, USA. He graduated from North Carolina State University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. In 1996, he received a Master of Science degree in Computer Science. In 1996, he began his PhD at the University, and also joined the Computer Science department, where he spent two years as a researcher in formal methods and concurrent systems.
In 1998, he joined the IntelliMedia group at the University and began researching AI. In 2006, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence, and his dissertation was based on interactive 3D learning environments. At that time, he also worked with the Liquid Narrative group, also at the University. He remained at the institution from 1994 to 2006.
Regarding his professional life, in 1996, he joined IBM as a senior programmer, staying there until 1999. In 2000, he created his own company, LiveWire Logic, where he was co-founder and vice president of technology, a company that worked in the AI area. The company existed until 2005. In the same year, he worked at Emergent Game Technologies as technical director, creating multiplatform solutions for Xbox and Playstation consoles. In 2008, he left the company and was hired as a senior research scientist at the University of North Carolina, where he spent several years of his life in research and training. He held this position until 2012, when he became a senior research scientist.
In 2015, he also became an assistant professor at the University. He still holds both positions today. In addition to all these professional roles, he has also worked on several projects focused on education through artificial intelligence, game-based learning and entertainment. He created projects that were supported by national foundations and institutes of science, research and technology, as well as the Flora Hewlett and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations.
In the world of emulation, in 1995 he created the Stella emulator, one of the first and best Atari 2600 emulators. It was released in 1996 for Linux, but in the same year it gained a version for MS-DOS, and in 1997 for Windows. Over time, it came to have versions for the main operating systems, consoles and portables, most of them made by third parties. Its name comes from the initial project that originated the Atari 2600. The Stella project exists to this day, today managed by Stephen Anthony and what is called the Stella Team. It is considered one of the oldest emulation projects and the one that has been updated the longest.
In 2002, Contraband Entertainment used Stella as the basis for the release of the Activision Anthology collection for PS2, with 45 Atari games released, including Boxing, Decathlon, Enduro, Freeway, Hero, Grand Prix, Keystone, Pitfall, River Raid, and many others. This would be repeated in 2003, with Activision Anthology: Remix Edition for Windows, now with 76 games released. Also in 2003, Activision Anthology was released for GBA, and in this version (released by Aspyr Media), Bradford made a point of creating a new Atari 2600 emulator.
The collection ran 56 games in total. Also in console releases, he was in Pitfall: The Lost Expedition in 2004, for Xbox, where he works on the original Pitfall emulation, which should appear at some point in the game. In the world of emulation, Bradford helped several other emulators, such as PC Atari Emulator in 1996, Intv in 2000, Emu7800 in 2003, PCSXBox for PSX in 2003, z26 in 2019, among others.
In addition to creating software in the emulation world, he created BSVC, a microprocessor simulator based on the Motorola 68k for learning programming in C++ for Linux, created and developed between 1993 and 1998, the card game Oonsoo in 1994 for Linux, Crystal Island, a 3D software based on the game Half Life 2 for game-based learning, developed between 2005 and 2006, Engage, also for learning through games, in 2012, and Flare, a toolkit for creating games in Unity, using resources from Adobe Flash Professional, developed between 2013 and 2016.
GitHub and Ultimate 1MB 600XL Adapter
In 2021, he created the Ultimate 1MB 600XL Adapter, an adapter for the Ultimate 1MB, which is a memory expansion for the Atari 600XL. This project was made available on his GitHub.
Emulators:
Stella (1996), Atari 2600 Emulator For Activision Anthology (2003)
Games:
Oonsoo (1994), Activision Anthology (PS2) (Emulation) (2002), Activision Anthology: Remix Edition (Windows) (Emulation) (2003), Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (Xbox) (Emulation) (2004)
Programs:
BSVC (1993), Crystal Island (2005), Engage (2012), Flare (2013)
Hardware:
Ultimate 1MB 600XL Adapter (2021)
Nicola Salmoria
Nicola Salmoria was born on May 20, 1970, in the city of Siena, Tuscany, Italy. His first computer was a Commodore 64, where he learned to write in ASM language. In 1987, he got his Amiga, where he learned the C language. At that time, he also used the internet through BBS, which were local servers, mainly through McLink, a server in his region, where he was a moderator of the Amiga forum. He even wrote things for the Amiga.
The most famous was NewIcons in 1993, for the AmigaOS 2 system, which was an extension of files used as icons, and which changed the few four colors of the standard extension used in the Amiga to 32, in addition to making the icons appear more interesting and have some standard size. He also created PrintManager in 1993, for AmigaDOS 2.0, a shareware program that provided various screen formats for printing documents. He also created a software called Extenders in the 2000s, which worked inside a universal remote control called JP1 Remote. This software mainly changed the speed of commands, such as long key presses. He graduated from the University of Siena in 2002 in Mathematics, with a thesis written on his MAME emulator.
Speaking of MAME, it all started in 1996, when he started emulating Pac-Man, in his emulator called MultiPac. Until 97, he emulated and added other versions of the game to the emulator. In 96, he also had emulators for other games, such as Crazy Klimber, Mr. Do, Lady Bug, Pengo and Rally X. With this amount of emulators, he decided to bring them all together and create MAME, Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This happened in 1997. His project started to become bigger than other classics of the time, such as Sparcade! and Retrocade.
On the other hand, over time, several discoveries made in other emulators also began to work in MAME, such as Callus, System 16 Emulator, M72 Arcade Emulator, among others. Some managed to compete with MAME for some time between 1998 and 1999, releasing games before the project, such as JFF, Cage and Shark. Over time, several creators from the scene contributed to the project, such as Neil Bradley, Richard Mitton, Tatsuyuki Satoh, Bart Trzynadlowski and Ernesto Corvi, and some remained for many years, as was the case with David Haywood, Aaron Giles, Charles MacDonald, ElSemi, Brad Oliver and Ville Linde. Nicola continues to contribute to the project.
In the year following its release, his major contributions were to sound, rewriting the audio subsystem of Namco's PacMan, rewriting the SN76496 sound emulator for Sega and Konami arcades, providing sound support for the Taito games Bubble Bobble, Punch Out, Donkey Kong 3, Fire Trap, Silkworm, Yie Ar Kung Fu and Pinball Action and the Capcom Unique board. He also made changes to the AY8910 emulation of Sega, Taito, Data East, Atari and Konami arcades and improvements to the System 8 board driver, both in 1998, and made resolution changes to the Atari System 2 board in 1999. Among other contributions is in 2005 the simulation of the 68705 microprocessor for Taito's Knight Boy game (replacing the emulator also created by Nicola in 1998). Also in 2007, it also emulates the Fujitsu MB8842 microcontroller of the Namco 50xx chip, used in games such as Bosconian and Xevious.
In 2008, he made updates to Alpha Denshi games, improvements to CPS-1 emulation, improvements to Taito F3 graphics, improvements to Konami's Jackal game driver, and shadow improvements to SNK drivers. And in 2009, he made changes to the Oki6295 audio chip on Data East boards and the 6809 disassembler used for arcades from Taito, Konami, Data East, and others. Despite several additions and updates, he was also responsible for the addition of several arcades to the project, such as Tecmo Z80, Midway 8080, Pacman Arcade and Irem M52 in 1997, Sega System 1 and 2 and Taito F2 in 1998, Irem M72 in 1999, Irem M63 and Konami Tactician in 2002, among others. Another area where he worked a lot was decryption, as was the case with Sega Z80 games in 1998.
Docs: Irem M52/72, Sega System 1/2/ Sega Z80 Encryption, CPS-2 Decryption, Data East Custom Ship 102, CPS-2 Encryption and Irem M63
In 2005, Seibu SPI games, the DECO102 CPU, used in games such as Data East Unique's Boogie Wings, the Hitachi FD1089 CPU used in Sega System 16A and 16B arcade games, and the NEC MC-8123B sound CPU used in Sega System 1, 2, 16A and 16B arcade games such as Block Gal, Dakkochan House, Altered Beast and Shinobi. In 2007, he created the decryption code for CPS-2 games alongside Andreas Naive, who broke the encryption algorithm, and is largely responsible for this feat. Nicola helped Andreas decrypt several arcade games. Also in 2007, he simplified the CPS-3 decryption and created the decryption code for the NEC MC-8123 sound CPU, present in some Sega, UPL, Nihon System and Whiteboard games such as Ninja Kids II, Wonder Boy In Monster Land and Fantasy Zone II. And finally, in 2008, he created the Data East GFX decryption, used for graphics in Data East games created from 1991 onwards.
Aaron Home Page, MAME, MAME.net, MAME Blogdrive, MAMEDev, Nicola's MAME Ramblings and Nontrivial Games
The addition of games included mainly CPS-2 games, and some from Sega and Capcom, among others. Among the most famous are Wonder Boy (set 4), Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary, Super Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Alien vs. Predator, and many more. Predator, Marvel Super Heroes, Vampire Hunter, Street Fighter Alpha, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes Vs. SF, Vampire Hunter 2, Vampire Savior, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Gradius 3, Green Beret, SPY, Tora Tora, X-Men, Rollergames, Sega Pengo, Jr Pac-Man, Parodius (1990), Hexion, Snow Brothers, Gotcha, Dig Dug, Rollergames, Sega Pengo, Jr Pac-Man, Parodius (1990), Hexion, Snow Brothers, Gotcha, Dig Dug, Xevious, Galaga, Bosconian, Finalizer, F-1 Grand Prix, Block Hole, Bank Panic, Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - 20 Year Reunion, Mr Do!, Oh My God!, Naname de Magic!, Punch Out, Labyrinth Runner, Shanghai, Time Pilot, Surprise Attack, Super Formula, Hebereke no Popoon, Hot Smash (alongside Mirko Buffoni and Tomasz Slanina), Street Smart (alongside Bryan McPhail and Acho A. Tang), Ikari III - The Rescue (alongside Bryan McPhail and Acho A. Tang) and dozens of other games. A summary of his contributions to MAME are especially fixing and adding sound support, simulating microcontrollers and decrypting games and boards, mainly CPS-2 games.
Outside the world of emulation, he also worked in the gaming industry. Precisely because of his success with MAME, he was invited by Taito to help emulate the company's games in two major collections released by the company for Windows, called Taito Legends. The first, released in 2005, featured games such as Jungle Hunt, Elevator Action, New Zealand Story, The Ninja Kids, Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2, Thunder Fox, Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Zoo Keeper and others, for a total of 29 games. The second, released in 2006 as Taito Legends 2, featured Elevator Action Returns, Pop 'n Pop, Puzzle Bobble 2, Super Space Invaders 91, Growl, Darius Gaiden, Bonze Adventure and others, for a total of 39 games. In 2007, he helped port Double Dragon to Xbox 360.
He also worked on games made for Windows, such as Ford Racing Off Road in 2008 and Idol Hands in 2015. From 2012 onwards, he began creating puzzle games for iOS and selling them through the Apple Store. These were Twin Beams in 2012, and Zen Garden Puzzle and Brain Twirler in 2013. Nicola is still involved in the MAME project to this day.
Emulators:
MultiPac (1996), Crazy Climber Arcade Machine Emulator (1997), Lady Bug Arcade Machine Emulator (1997), Mr. Do! Arcade Machine Emulator (1997), Pengo Arcade Machine Emulator (1997), Rally X Arcade Machine Emulator (1997), MultiPac (1997), MAME (1997)
Programs:
NewIcons (1993), PrintManager (1993), Extenders (2000s)
MAME Drivers
Tecmo Z80 Arcade hardware (1997)
Midway 8080 hardware (1997) [alongside Michael Strutts, Tormod Tjaberg, Mirko Buffoni, Lee Taylor, Valerio Verrando, Marco Cassili, Zsolt Vasvari and others]
Bally Midway Astrocade hardware (1997) [with Mike Coates, Frank Palazzolo, Aaron Giles]
Technos Mysterious Stones hardware / Data East Burger Time hardware (1997)
Gottlieb System hardware (1997) [with Fabrice Frances]
Pacman arcade hardware (1997)
Irem M52 hardware (1997)
Sega System 1 / System 2 (1998) [alongside Jarek Parchanski, Mirko Buffoni]
Taito F2 System hardware (1998) [alongside David Graves, Bryan McPhail, Brad Oliver, Andrew Prime, Brian Troha]
Irem M72 hardware (1999)
Kaneko Galspanic Arcade hardware (1999)
Deniam games (2000)
Dooyong games (2000) [The Last Day, R-Shark]
Irem M63 hardware (2002)
Konami Tactician hardware (2002)
NMK16 arcade hardware (2003) [alongside Mirko Buffoni, Richard Bush, Bryan McPhail, David Haywood and R. Belmont]
Art & Magic hardware (2003) [with Aaron Giles]
Konami Mystic Warrior Based hardware (2003) [R. Belmont, Phil Stroffolino and Acho Tang]
Greyhound Electronics Inc. hardware (2004) [with Pierpaolo Prazzoli and Tomasz Slanina]
Tecmo16 arcade hardware (2004) [with Eisuke Watanabe]
MAME Sound Chip
Chip SN76496 (1997)
Rewrote the SN76496 Chip (1998)
MAME Encryption
Sega Z80 Decryption (1998)
Seibu SPI Decryption (2005)
CPU Decryption Data East Custom Chip 102 (DECO102) (68k) (2005)
Hitachi FD1089A/FD1089B CPU Decryption: Sega System 16A and 16B (2005) [with Charles MacDonald]
NEC MC-8123B (Z80B) Sound CPU Decryption (2005) [with Dave Widel]
CPS-2 Decryption (Encryption Code) (2007)
CPS-3 Decryption (Simplified Function) (2007)
NEC MC-8123 (Z80) Sound CPU Decryption (2007)
Data East GFX Decryption (2008)
MAME Others
68705 Microprocessor Emulator (1998)
68705 Microprocessor Simulator (2005)
Fujitsu MB8842 Microcontroller Emulator of Namco 50xx Chip (2007)
MAME Games
9 Ball Shootout (alongside Aaron Giles), Acrobatic Dog-Fight, Alien vs. Predator, AmeriDarts (Aaron Giles), Bank Panic, Block Hole, Block Out, Bosconian, Bottom of the Ninth, Bubble Bobble (alongside Chris Moore), Commando, Cool Pool (alongside Aaron Giles), Crash Race, Dig Dug, F-1 Grand Prix, Finalizer, Flicky, Galaga, Gals Pinball, Ghosts'n Goblins, Gotcha, Gradius 3, Green Beret, Hebereke no Popoon, Hexion, Hot Pinball, Hot Smash (alongside Mirko Buffoni and Tomasz Slanina), Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary,Ikari III - The Rescue (alongside Bryan McPhail and Acho A. Tang)Ikari Warriors (US), Jr Pac-Man, Labyrinth Runner, Land Sea Air Squad, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Mr Do!, Ms.Pac-Man/Galaga - 20 Year Reunion, Naname de Magic!, Oh My God!, Over Drive, Pacland (set 1), Parodius (1990), Punch Out, Rollergames, SPY, Sega Pengo, Shanghai, Snow Brothers, Some Dynax, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Smart (alongside Bryan McPhail and Acho A. Tang), Super Formula, Super Street Fighter II, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Surprise Attack, Time Pilot, Tokio (alongside Chris Moore), Tora Tora, Vampire Hunter, Vampire Hunter 2, Vampire Savior, Wonder Boy (set 4),Xevious, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, X-Men, X-Men: Children of the Atom
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