April 6th, 2010 - I made a MultiCart program for NES which is available on the HomeBrew page. It lets you put a bunch of games into 1 cartridge and select the one you wish to play via a simple menu.

July 5th, 2009 - It's been awhile since I've been able to work on any programming projects in part because of Windows Vista. Vista doesn't like my Compiler and the newer version of the Compiler won't build my projects. I ended up setting up a Virtual Machine to run Windows XP and it seems to solve my problems. Since I worked that out I decided to add a feature to NESSIM that I think is cool and useful in some games. NESSIM now features overclocking the NES CPU which can eliminate slowdown in games. One good example is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the second sewer if you don't kill any enemys and swing your weapon you notice slowdown and the status bar flickering. When overclocked these problems are eliminated. Also TMNT helped me find out there was a bug in PPU emulation reguarding so called negative scroll values. Apparently TMNT 1 has been broken since the latest renderer was introduced. So some games you might want to try the overclocking feature on to see the effect, TMNT1 is great but also Kirby's Adventure and parts of Mega Man 2. Read the readme.txt file for more information on how to use the overclocking option. I also added keyboard control in the GUI for accessing most options since I realized it's possible you may not have a mouse. (Download NESSIM Build 090705)

January 13th, 2009 - Here is the first release of DMGSIM. Be aware that this is still very early in development. I have been working on it since the last news posting but not as much as I would have liked to work on it. One this is I fixed up the mid-frame effects that some games use for a Status bar (similiar to NES games). This means that Duck Tales and Mega Man 1 as well as others have their status bar now. It also fixed a scrolling flicker issue in Castlevania 2. And speaking of the status bars, I added some quick Window layer support. So now all games seem to have their status bar, such as Kirby and Mega Mans 2 and onward. Anyway you can check out the early build on the project's page. Consider it a beta program.

January 8th, 2009 - I did a bunch of things to DMGSIM. One was a line based renderer. This brought about being able to add rendering status flags. A number of games required these to read back correctly. I also fixed some bugs with the scanline interrupt and the result is another bunch of games working. It also got Mega Man 2 scrolling properly and Mega Man 1 actually gets into the game. So in general there has been progress. There are still plenty of bugs and many games that don't work yet either at all or only work partially or work with bugs. However some games seem to be working alright, like Super Mario Land and Dr. Mario. I'll get around to uploading a build of it soon.

January 6th, 2009 - I realized today that the various documents I was using for Gameboy info varied in their Cycle numbering. Some used "Machine Cycles" while others used "Cpu Cycles". The result was I had the emulator running the CPU at 25% of the speed it was supposed to, which was the cause of various games not running. The CPU timing is fixed now and several other games are now working properly. I also added sound emulation with Blargg's Gameboy APU library. I also added some scrolling to the graphics display. Still the main focus is the CPU core being debugged and then I'll worry a bit more about the Gameboy hardware emulation.

January 5th, 2009 - Progress continues on DMGSIM. I've got many more games showing some action on the basic graphics display. Among them are Kirby's Dreamland, Super Mario Land, Tetris, Duck Tales, Contra, and more. I've been busy filling out the rest of the opcodes in the cpu core and fixing some that were flawwed or broken. One area was the Rotate opcodes where uncear in the documents I'd seen before but I fixed them and it had be improvements on games such as Kirby which when the Rotates were bad, Kirby had no level map collision and fell to his death. Similar things happened in other games. So I'm still working on the CPU emulation. I did add Input emulation and basic Sprite emulation to actually play some of the games a bit more than before. I'll upload a binary of DMGSIM when the CPU core is more complete and it's actually work using to play a game.

January 1st, 2009 - A few days ago I started work on a Gameboy emulator I'm calling DMGSIM which has a page now. It's in the early stages right now. Some CPU emulation, some graphics display, basic MBC-1 mapper support. It's got to have the CPU core debugged and fully filled out and then I can work on graphics rendering and sound support. So far Tetris and Super Mario Land seem to be performing best. Asteroids may be working well too but due to extensive use of sprites it is hard to tell what is going on.

November 23rd, 2008 - Some few refinements to NESSIM and probably most important is the support for loading roms from ZIP files.

September 26th, 2008 - I decided to finally sort out MMC-6 support for NESSIM. MMC-6 is the slightly different MMC-3 used by the two Startropics games. I also realized that Player 2's input wasn't hooked up so it is now. No FDS saving support yet, though that is on the todo list. The new version is on the NESSIM page.

August 17th, 2008 - Releasing a new mapper hack today that has been done for awhile but was still in testing. Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa! by Konami. This is ofcourse the cartridge version by Konami using the VRC-4 patched to use the MMC-5. You can grab it on the Mapper Ports page. I've also been working some more on NESSIM, adding some support for some more random mappers and such. I'll post anew version when I get time to do so.

August 11th, 2008 - Bug fix for NESSIM. Fixes a FDS bug so now games like Kid Icarus and Zelda should work though without saving support. Also fixed an issue when loading a ROM with a bad header containing the "DiskDude!" tag. The emulator now trys to load games with these tags as a regular iNES headered ROM and not an iNES extended headered ROM.

August 11th, 2008 - Updated the Mapper Ports page with Saiyuuki World 2 - Tenjoukai no Majin and Kid Niki 3.

August 11th, 2008 - I've finished some more improvements to NESSIM. All mappers have been rewritten now, with the latest things being fixes to MMC-2, MMC-4, and MMC-5. Castlevania 3 now appears to be fully functional as one last IRQ issue was sorted out that was causing vertical scrolling areas not to scroll in increments less than 8. MMC2/MMC4 more accurately emulates the graphics bankswitching. All games uses those 2 mappers seem fine now. Also a bug with the palette memory was fixed which fixes some strange palette problems with MT's Punch-Out. Other mappers have had their code rewritten as well. Save States should work in all mappers now too. You can get the latest version from the NESSIM page..

August 8th, 2008 - NESSIM Update. All of the previously mentioned refinements and additions are here. Mapper #068 and #075 which are VRC-1 and Sunsoft4. I've rewritten some mappers, including Nintendo MMC-1. It now supports SUROM however not SOROM or SXROM yet. Most MMC-1 games should work fine now. The Save States work with more mappers now though not all mappers. But most important is accurate sprite priority. Sprites are now drawn with correct priority in relation to eachother and the background which is important for some clipping effects. Super Mario Bros 3 uses this for masking sprites going into pipes so they appear behind them, as well as mushrooms coming out of blocks. Castlevania also used this for secret bonus point items coming out of the floor. You can get the latest version on the NESSIM page.

August 6th, 2008 - NESSIM WIP Update. I've been busy refining some things and adding more mappers. Mapper #068 used in Afterburner was added as well as mapper #075 which is Konami VRC-1. I've also been working on the QSV (Save State) feature as it hasn't been updated in awhile. Many newer mappers don't support it yet. I've been changing how I deal with state states and mappers in general making things more organized. I'm going through and cleaning up each mapper's emulation code and making sure save states work properly. Another recent fix was a bug in the CPU core with the BRK instruction which was part of why Dragon Warrior 3 isn't working, but also the only reason why the Kid Dracula translation wasn't working. That's all I can think of to mention for now. I'll upload a new version once I get a few more things done.

August 4th, 2008 - NESSIM Update. I've been working some more on the emulator. One new feature is Konami VRC-3 support which as far as I can tell is only used in Salamander. I've also added configuration menus for Video and Input so now those options in the GUI are useful. I moved the Disk option above Quit, and renamed it to Disk System. I've been refining other little things here and there. You can set your own image as a wall paper when no game is loaded. Just name it 'bgpic.pcx' or 'bgpic.bmp'. I've also added all of the VRC-4 and VRC-2 games to a small database so all of those games should run with the proper settings. I plan to add support for more mappers, improve FDS emulation, and see about adding sprite clipping that is used by Super Mario Bros 3, Castlevania, and Almana no Kiseki I think. The new build is available on the NESSIM page.

August 3rd, 2008 - NESSIM Update. After fixing SMB3, I took a look at trying to fix what was wrong with Castlevania 3 which was requiring a hack to run and not crash. I managed to remove the need for the hack. There is still an issue in vertical scrolling areas where it doesn't scroll quite right. It will be looked into. I also took another look at MMC4 and Fire Emblem which wasn't working. I got it to run and then fixed some graphics issues so it is playable now. Finally, I decided I wanted to add Konami VRC4 mapper support. I actually managed to get it all working in one night. This makes games like Gryzor (japanese Contra with superior graphics and cutscenes), Gradius II, Wai Wai World, Akumajou Special (Kid Dracula), and Crisis Force playable. There is a problem though, the iNES mapper number VRC4 uses is not specific enough about which version of VRC4 is used. I've added some detection for the games I'm aware of but if you try to play one I haven't added detection for it will attempt to use default settings which may fail. If they do you'll have the wrong tile graphics but the game should still play.

August 2nd, 2008 - I was bothered by the fact that Super Mario Bros 3 didn't work in NESSIM so I finally decided to investigate what was up with it. Other MMC3 games worked just fine. Turns out I forgot to stop counting with the scanline counter when the screen was disabled. It seems that Nintendo just turned off the screen but didn't bother to disable the IRQs. Every other developer apparently did. Atleast all the games that worked before did as they didn't crash. Anyway, an updated version of NESSIM has been uploaded.

July 31st, 2008 - I've been working on several different things lately. One project which is in the later stages of testing is a mapper port of Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa. There are 3 versions of this game, the Disk System, the Cartridge re-release, and a pirate hack cartridge of the FDS version. This mapper port is of the official cartridge version which used VRC-4. The game was originally planned to be hacked to MMC-3 but that failed because the game fetches sprites from the background table side and screws up the scanline counter which the game needs for the status bar. So the game was instead hacked to MMC-5.

NESSIM also received a minor update today. It adds IRQ support to the FDS games. Bio Miracle for FDS I believe uses it as well as some other games. You'll find the updated NESSIM on it's section here. Sometime I'll get around to fixing up NESSIM some more. 

July 23rd, 2008 - New mapper hack today. It's a hack of Quattro Arcade. It patches "Quattro Arcade (Unl) (U) [h1]" to run on UxROM (iNes mapper #002) as well as removes the old multi-cart menu making Go! Dizzy Go! look like a stand-alone game. You'll find it on the mapper ports page. Saiyuuki World 2 and Kid Niki 3 ports are still being tested to ensure they work properly.

July 19th, 2008 - I have uploaded a recent build of my NESSIM emulator for anyone to check out. It is not polished and certain features like the configuration menu in the GUI doesn't work. Read the readme for details on how to configure it. I haven't actually worked on the emulator in quite awhile as I have alot of projects and I felt that I accomplished what I was going for with it already. The original goal was not that big, just to run simlpe NROM games like Donkey Kong. When you check it out you'll see it went way beyond that.

July 19th, 2008 - I have rewritten the Splatter House MMC-3 patcher program. This is the third but final change to the patch package. Previously it consisted of an IPS patch file you had to apply and a BlitzPlus program that moved CHR data around, then it was updated to have an integrated IPS patcher. Now I've dumped BlitzPlus as it's bloated and unneeded. I rewrote the patcher in C++ and now the package is a fraction of the size it was before. That is pretty much the primary benefit.

July 18th, 2008 - Changed the website from a single page to one of many pages. Created seperate and new pages for everything. Upcoming mapper ports include Saiyuuki World 2 - Tenjoukai no Majin and Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3 - Taiketsu! Zouringen also known as Kid Niki 3. I'm not sure when they will be released but they are in the testing stage now.