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Neo Slim 3000 handheld promises game emulation and more

by Donald Melanson posted Nov 9th 2009 at 8:34PM

It's not quite as sleek as some homebrew-minded handhelds, or as full-featured as some others, but anything that hearkens back to the days when videos games were measured in bits gets a few points in our book, and this new Neo Slim 3000 looks to have things well covered on that front. While complete details are still a bit light, this one is said to pack a 3.5-inch 320 x 240 display, 2GB of built-in memory, an SD card slot for expansion, a full range of PMP features and, most importantly, support for NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy Advance emulation right out of the box -- with other options presumably also available depending on the device's capabilities. Still no word on a price just yet, but the folks at Neoflash say this one is "coming soon."

[Via Console-Hacking.com, thanks Craig]

RIM posts new BlackBerry widget APIs, dev kit

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Oct 9th 2009 at 1:26PM

We know you love widgets, so feast your eyes on this: RIM has just announced a software development kit for creating web-based widgets on the BlackBerry platform. With new APIs that allow access to a everything from email and calendar applications to the GPS, media player, files and documents stored on the smartphone, the handset's push technology and more, hot-to-trot software developers such as yourself can build all kinds of crazy apps for OS 5. What are you waiting for? Hit the read link for everything you need -- including the Smartphone Simulator and BlackBerry Widget SDK beta. And be sure you drop us a line after creating some award-winning apps. PR after the break.

[Via PhoneArena]

Continue reading RIM posts new BlackBerry widget APIs, dev kit

Pandora rolls into production this month, emulates Dreamcast now

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Oct 2nd 2009 at 1:57PM

The OpenPandora kids have dropped us a line to say that yes, finally, "after a lot of serious tweaking," it looks like Pandora is ready to roll. And as an added bonus, they've given us a little demonstration of the open source game platform rocking a Dreamcast emulator. Not that you'll be able to play The House of The Dead 2 flawlessly on the thing -- apparently the CPU suffers from some sort of floating point unit problem and a great many texture / blending modes are not supported. So don't abandon that Dreamcast Tablet just yet. As far as getting your hands on the handheld yourself, here's the skinny: of the four thousand devices in the initial lot, there are about a hundred units unspoken for and still available for pre-order. Priced at $330 each, if you're interested you'd better jump now -- there won't be another batch until 2010. In the meantime, you can see that Dreamcast emulator we told you about in action after the break.

[Thanks, Devon]

Continue reading Pandora rolls into production this month, emulates Dreamcast now

Video: WODE module allows disc-free, wide-open, heavy metal Wii gaming

by Tim Stevens posted Sep 23rd 2009 at 8:41AM

What you see above is not a Tibetan sky burial for a dearly departed console, nor an attempt at extremely modern art. It's a Wii that has been... augmented with a Linux-running module called the Wii Optical Disc Emulator, or WODE. It clips onto the system board where the machine's optical drive should go and allows it to read Wii and GameCube ISOs directly from USB storage devices. It sports a small LCD and four-way joystick for setting options and scrolling through your assuredly legally acquired game images, while a future iteration is said to allow for direct-to-device torrent downloads -- a feature that we won't even bother to say could be used for anything other than piracy. There's no mention of availability or price for the thing, but we're guessing it won't be showing up in retail storefronts. Oh, and while the Sisters of Mercy track accompanying the video after the break is totally awesome, it is rather unsafe for work. So, put on those headphones before clicking through.

Continue reading Video: WODE module allows disc-free, wide-open, heavy metal Wii gaming

Apple pulls C64 App after Manomio shenanigans revealed

by Thomas Ricker posted Sep 8th 2009 at 7:52AM

Come on Manomio, what did you expect? Did you really think Apple would leave your C64 emulator in the App Store after it was revealed that the BASIC interpreter was still in your software, exposed with a little up, up, down, down, left, right trickery? That's a clear breach of the SDK and well, downright sneaky. In a blog post to its site, Manomio claims that it had "no intention of tricking basic into the app" and only left the code in to be remotely activated later should Apple change its policy. Of course, with so much money left on the table, Manomio promptly submitted a new, presumably BASIC-free app for approval. Something we're sure Apple will get right on.

[Via The iPhone blog]

Read -- Enable BASIC in C64 hack
Read -- Manomio's plea for mercy

Apple approves officially-licensed Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone

by Donald Melanson posted Sep 7th 2009 at 12:11PM

Well, it's almost certainly not a signal that Apple is opening the door to emulators of all sorts on the iPhone, but the newly (and finally) approved Commodore 64 emulator is still a fairly notable first for the platform -- representing not only the first officially-available emulator, but perhaps the first app that actually runs code (even if it is a couple of decades old). In this case, that first bit apparently wasn't too big a point of contention for Apple, considering that the app had all the necessary licensing rights lined up, but the second issue was, and ran right up against a clause in the iPhone 2.0 SDK that prevented apps from containing their own executable runtimes. As it happens, the key to bridging that divide around that was none other than iPhone 3.0, which contains a new feature for in-app purchases that the C64 emulator will take advantage of to let folks purchase additional games, rather than load arbitrary game code downloads. Interestingly, while this newly-approved version of the emulator also no longer exposes a BASIC interpreter, Manomio has added a note to the app that it "should be resolved in a future update," although it's not quite clear if that's just wishful thinking or not. In the meantime, you can grab the app right now with five bundled games for $4.99.

iJoyPad demoed on iPhone 3GS, full screen PSX games looking rather sweet

by Laura June posted Aug 1st 2009 at 10:09AM

The iJoyPad has been floating around for a bit now, but we've never seen a full demo of the add-on gamepad. Well, it's back in a video demoing its performance on an iPhone 3GS, using the psx4iphone emulator in full screen glory. The demo shows off Wipeout XL and Ridge Racer performing quite quickly and smoothly, and the iJoyPad itself seems totally functional -- and while it's a tiny bit clunky looking as far as we're concerned, we'd still like to swipe one for ourselves. Hit the read link for the video.

Sony patents new Cell-based PS2 emulator

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jun 30th 2009 at 12:38PM

At first glance, we thought this all sounded a little too familiar: as you know, some PS3s had software-based PS2 emulation way back in 2007. So it was a little bit of a surprise when Siliconera unearthed patent docs dated last December (and only published by the patent office late last week) for the technology to decode and recompile software written for the PS2's Emotion Engine on the current device's Cell Processor. There's been some speculation that this functionality might be included in the rumored slim PS3 at some point -- either in the form of support for your old school PS2 discs or for digital downloads. Who knows? You might be playing your old copy of Shrek: Super Party! on your PS3 sooner than you think.

[Via Joystiq]

iPhone 3GS PlayStation, Game Boy Advance emulators demoed on video

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 25th 2009 at 10:46AM

A final iPhone 3GS jailbreak hasn't been released yet, but that isn't stopping enterprising hackers from trying to get at all that extra horsepower, and some of the first notable hacks we've seen are these updated PlayStation 1 and Game Boy Advance emulator ports, which run way faster than the versions for the original and 3G. The revved up hardware in Apple's latest is apparently capable of running either of these at 150 - 225fps with zero frameskipping, which is pretty impressive. Of course, we'll be way more impressed when the Dev Team releases a 3GS jailbreak and we can hit these up ourselves, but in the meantime there are plenty of videos to with which to while away the time at the read links.

Read - Emulator videos
Read - ZodTTD blog post with more info

Probably-fake video roundup: 24-inch iPhone OS, PS1 emulation on the Pre

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 15th 2009 at 1:27AM

This video of iPhone OS 2.x running on a 24-inch multitouch monitor from Swedish design firm Dreamfield is almost certainly fake, but hey -- it's Sunday night, nothing's going on, and we were thinking about how well touch-specific systems would work on a larger screen after seeing those CrunchPad videos anyway, so we thought we'd get some conversation going. We'd be willing to bet that a future Apple tablet has more in common with the experience shown in this video than with what we currently think of as OS X, but we're not so certain we're seeing anything here that makes us want to throw our mouse or keyboard away -- or spend the entire day with gorilla arm. So -- artfully mocked-up glimpse of the future, or just a pipe dream?

Keeping with the likely-fake theme, there's also a probably-fake video of SNES and PS1 emulators running on the Pre, controlled by a Bluetooth gamepad. Yes, it's incredibly awesome -- and undoubtedly possible -- but until we see some evidence of how things are loaded up and connected with the gamepad we're sticking it in the fake category as well.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Probably-fake video roundup: 24-inch iPhone OS, PS1 emulation on the Pre

Pre gets NES emulation in Linux; our thumbs are in for a world of hurt

by Paul Miller posted Jun 14th 2009 at 7:04AM

Sure, once you get Doom onto a device there isn't much stopping you in the homebrew department, but we thought the implementation of an NES emulator on webOS outside of the Classic environment was worth noting -- even if it happens to be astoundingly easy to pull off. All it requires is a quick trip to root on the device a compile of the FCEUltra NES emulator for Linux and bam, it's good to go. Hit up the read link for instructions (we're sure we're simplifying things just a tad) -- and no, the incredible appropriateness of using a Contra ROM to kick things off hasn't escaped us.

Plethora of Palm Pre interface videos emerge from leaked emulator

by Ross Miller posted May 24th 2009 at 1:48PM

Palm Pre secrets? That's very quickly becoming a thing of the past. After getting some pretty good shots of webOS last week, the "invisible man" from PalmPreForum.org has uploaded an absolute ton of videos -- fifteen in all, at last count -- showcasing the interface from a leaked emulator given out to early developers (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, in case you were wondering). Browser, tasks, memos, YouTube, Google Maps, backup, settings, copy and paste -- frankly, we're still wrapping our heads around all of them, and while it's a shame we can't see any multitouch gesture since he's limited to a mouseclick, we're not gonna be choosy here. Clear your afternoon schedule and check out the video playlist we've embedded after the break -- and not to worry, the audio clears up right around the 9th video.

Read - YouTube channel
Read - PalmPreForum.org

[Thanks, Michael]

Continue reading Plethora of Palm Pre interface videos emerge from leaked emulator

Video: GP2X emulation goes down on T-Mobile G1

by Darren Murph posted May 21st 2009 at 9:21AM

We never really pegged the HTC-sourced T-Mobile G1 as a hardcore gaming handheld, but obviously it handles the stresses of Ghosts 'N Goblins and Samurai Showdown admirably. Have a peek at a "pre-alpha" demonstration video just past the break, and feel free to let your hopes and expectations reach new heights.

Continue reading Video: GP2X emulation goes down on T-Mobile G1

Students create CRT emulator, hope to recapture that analog gaming vibe of yesteryear

by Ross Miller posted May 4th 2009 at 6:15AM

The retro gaming insurgence seems as strong as vinyl these days, but you don't see as many people looking for a CRT monitor to complete the set. More likely, they're playing a HD remake or the original title on a digital screen in more detail than the developers ever anticipated or intended. A group of Georgia Tech students are looking to change all that by modifying open-source Atari 2600 VCS emulator Stella to give players that good ole fashion analog vibe. As highlighted by associate professor Ian Bogost, key attributes such as color bleed, "burned" afterimage, RF-engendered signal noise, and texture created by the phosphor glow have been imitated here in recreating the effect. Hit up the gallery below for pictorial examples while we wait anxiously for video and / or the mod itself to rear its blurry head.