The story so far...

[Tinnus]

Just wrote that as a comment in LJP's website and thought it could be interesting to post here. Quite informative

-------------------- Brief History of Little John --------------------

Back in 1999, yoyofr wrote a NES emulator for the PC, called Little John NG (dunno what the NG stands for though).

In June 2003, he released Little John GP32 or LJGP32 for short, which was a NES emulator for the GP32. He added more features along the way, both from him and from other emulators (namely new mappers).

In March 2004, he released the first alpha of Little John Zodiac or LJZ, a NES emulator for the Tapwave Zodiac based on LJGP32.

In April 2004, he merged OS9XZ (SNES emulator) with LJZ, making LJZ a NES + SNES emulator. Also added GB/GBC emulation.

In May 2004 he added Genesis. Later, added NGP and WS.

In September 2004 the first public version (ie: signed) of LJZ was available. That could be considered the biggest BOMB day of LJ's history so far (I'd say the next one is coming with LJZ).

In December 2004 he announced he would be porting LJZ to all Palm OS 5. In January 2005 he started to release the first alphas of Little John Palm OS to a closed mailing list.

I (Tinnus) was in that mailing list since day one, testing the crap out of my T|E. I was also interested in adding stuff since the beginning.

In March 2005, I added the 2x filters for GB... and yoyofr merged them with the official sources (my first role in the development!). In late March yoyofr slowed down the updates a lot. However, I still wanted to improve stuff so I simply grabbed the code and started to play with it.

In April 2005, I released LJP 0.9T with SMS/GG support. I released 2 more versions this month, ending with 0.9.2T.

Time passed, and the main code wasn't being updated at all. Still, I wanted to do stuff. And so I did. Until, around July, I synced with yoyo and LJP 1.0RC1 started to be planned.

In August 8, 2005 this website was launched. In late August, LJP 1.0 RC1 and 1.0 RC2 were released, with MAJOR updates for both general Palm OS and the Tapwave Zodiac, in a combined effort between myself and yoyofr.

When I started to notice... it had gotten a long, long way to its current state. It started as a NES emulator for the GP32 and now WTF? It turned into a massive multi-emulator for the Palm OS platform!

I knew it had to be re-designed... the more I read and edited the code, the more I noticed how confusing, complex and messy it was (not on anyone's fault; it was due to LJ's history itself).

In Thursday, February 02, 2006, I decided. I'm re-coding LJ from the scratch. The right way. Modularly. Portably. Widely open-ended. Easy to work with. Easy to change the code. Easy to use. FAST. AVAILABLE FOR A VARIETY OF SYSTEMS.

Current small goal: getting a NES emulator to run in Palm OS 5, Tapwave Zodiac and Windows (SDL).

Current big goal: getting NES, SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, SMS, GG, NGP, WS, Atari 2600 and Colecovision to run in Palm OS 5, Tapwave Zodiac, GP2X, PSP and Windows (SDL).

Ultimate goal: getting the ultimate multi-emulator, with NES, SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, SMS, GG, NGP, WS, Atari 2600, Colecovision, Atari 800, Atari 5200, TG16, PS1 and *** to run in Palm OS 5, Tapwave Zodiac, GP2X, PSP, Windows Mobile, Windows (SDL), Linux (SDL) and any desktop OS supporting SDL fully.

-------------------- The End --------------------

Sources:

- yoyofr.fr.st
- www.google.com
- My head

Special thanks:

- ProBoards (for the spell checking)
- You (for reading this)
- yoyofr (for starting this wonderful snowball!)

[JJesusfreak01]

Cool! Cool? Cool...

So, if I read it correctly, your small goal in your LJ rewrite is to completely rewrite the NES emulator as portable code? Then, move on to the other modules, and then add some more? Sounds like TCPMP...

[angel]

So you'r starting from scratch by writting the nes part again then ongoing all the LjP history ?

You took the long way to code everything again with your own experience... i hope you'll succeed in with no concession in the code stability. But that, is the true hard way...

Obviously, everything looks to work (even if bugged) right now, but your big deal will be with ps1 and ***, but i guess you already know that

[veggie]

Do u have any clue as to what module *** is?

[_Em]

Seems obvious... it has to be MSX
Actually, that's not that bad a guess, considering what part of the world Tinnus lives in

[arbrandes]

Good guess!

[firelord901]

i think its kinda obvious DUH! ***=PS2 LOL wouldnt that b awesome

[Tinnus]

Hmm seems like you got the NES part wrong. I'm not rewriting the NES emulator, I'm just going to start with it. All the emulator cores will be kept; the stability problems are not in the emulators themselves but in the framework. THAT will be re-written.

Also, do not ask me what *** is. Just think a little and keep the conclusion to yourself.

[JJesusfreak01]

tinnus said:

Hmm seems like you got the NES part wrong. I'm not rewriting the NES emulator, I'm just going to start with it. All the emulator cores will be kept; the stability problems are not in the emulators themselves but in the framework. THAT will be re-written.

Also, do not ask me what *** is. Just think a little and keep the conclusion to yourself.

Thanks for clearing that up. So in otherwords the next version of the LJ emulator will simply start with a perfectly stabile framework and the NES emulator, and then you will add the others...

oh, and I figured out the new module...PS3!

[mavsman4457]

so when is this new little john projected to be released?

[Tinnus]

Who can know? I'm working on it but I don't have a clue when it will be finished. And don't complain because I will *not* release it until it's good.

In other words, maybe it will take a while at the cost of its final greatness

[JeremySmith]

Good luck with the rewrite. I'm sure it will be great when it's donw.

[dodgygeezer]

Hi Tinnus..Great work with LJP so far...Is there any possibility of putting Atari 800 from Ultimate Goal to Current Big Goal cos an Atari 800 emulator would be awesome mate..

I am sure that others as well as i would donate financial rewards upon you for such an emulator!!!!

[Tinnus]

Current big goal is porting the current emulators ;D

[JJesusfreak01]

tinnus said:

Who can know? I'm working on it but I don't have a clue when it will be finished. And don't complain because I will *not* release it until it's good.

In other words, maybe it will take a while at the cost of its final greatness

Do understand that this will get you alot of grief. You will be bugged to death without any interim releases, even if I am not doing it.

[Tinnus]

Better than being bugged to death about buggy releases. I will decide along the way if it's worth it or not to release something.

(and I said * I * will decide. So please no asking "release an alpha" or "send me the code". None of these will happen unless I solely decide to do so. Hence, do not message me with stuff like that as you're (you = generally, not you JJF) likely to not get an answer.)

[mavsman4457]

can you make a very rough estimate on when it will be done like within the next year, month, 2 years?

[Tinnus]

I'd like to get something useful out in a month or two, but I'm starting college in 2 weeks and I'm not sure if that will help it much. To sum up, my XP installation just went BOOM and I need to reinstall it (I'm running from 2k which doesn't have anything useful instlaled, including CodeWarrior).

[pavla]

Ah tinnus, that sucks, format C:, run codewarrior setup and off you go I wish you good luck and myself lots of patience

[javispedro]

Isn't modularity going to kill speed ?

[_Em]

No; and the reason why is that you aren't going to be accessing multiple modules at the same time; you might find there's a second or so lag when switching between modules, but each one should be just as zippy (and easier to maintain/make faster) as if it was a monolithic app.

[tgwaste]

hi, sorry if this is off topic but there seems to be a problem with the LJP website.

I get the following when I go there:

Page Not Found
We're Sorry.
The page you are looking for cannot be found

[SebT3]

tinnus said:

Current big goal is porting the current emulators ;D

Do U meens the framework is almost ready ?
Realy good news

I'm looking forward to get the *** on my handheld.
Anyway may you release the RC3 AS-IS, please

[Tinnus]

I will release RC3. I'm just finishing implementing the new stuff. Since the launcher's good again, I can release it. But next release will be LJR, no doubt.

[tgwaste]

so, the web site is gone then, coming back.. or what?

any eta on RC3? will RC3 support the Game Genie codes? The is the only thing keeping me from
switching to JLP (over NesEM).

Do you think the new LJR will run the SNES faster? I mean its ALMOST there.. with all the mods
it runs pretty good, but still a little choppy. Is this the best possible speed or with the new version
give us that extra umph to make it rule?

Thanks for reading.. l8

[Tinnus]

1) I'm trying to find out what happened with the website, you can see that gp32z was updated and that seemes to take mine down. I'm trying to contact the admin.

2) ETA on RC3 is when the website is back up + when my WinXP installation is back running + some days to finish it.

3) LJR should run everything faster. And better.

[tgwaste]

kewl thanks for the replies.
if you need free reliable web-space, let me know, I work at a very big ISP.
you should have my email in this forum db...

take care and thanks for all your hard work

[mrpropre]

Keep up the great work tinnus

[tgwaste]

Any kind of guess on RC3 release? *big smile*

I think I know what *** is and I want to say something REAL bad.
But out of respect for the T-Man Ill keep my big mouth shut.

-tgwaste

[zeroknight83]

Any news about the release of the RC3?

Im waiting every day with my Zod. Visiting this website everyday..........

Anyway, many thanks to the great job done by Yoyo & Tinnus for the great Little John app. It was the reason I brought the Zod.