3 ms·

I wonder, are all those NES which can be played there public domain?

by albertzeyer 16y ago

zebra 16y ago
Are they licensable? If not - in my world they become public domain.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rufo 16y ago
  You can buy many of those games on Nintendo's Virtual Console service, so yes, they are licensable.
phoboslab 16y ago
No. They aren't "abandonware" either, as many of them can still be bought for the Wii's virtual console. The Emulator is pretty impressive, though. Especially the sound emulation/output - iirc the JavaScript Audio API has no "direct" way to play arbitrary wave forms. I guess it uses the data URL scheme and a simple WAV header!?
- chipsy 16y ago
  It says on the site that it uses Flash for dynamic sound. I looked into this a while ago and dynamic playback in <audio> is being prototyped by at least a few people, so maybe someday soon it'll hit the mainstream.
- kj12345 16y ago
  Actually it uses a small Flash app to generate the sound (see the News section at the bottom of the page). I wonder if data URLs could be used like that though?
  - bfirsh 16y ago
    I tried that, but unfortunately data URLs are far too slow. Firefox 3.7 has some exciting audio APIs though: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API I've been meaning to write a JSNES prototype for them.
    - kj12345 16y ago
      Thanks, looks like a very useful API. In addition to synthesizing audio it also has the ability to do spectrum analysis: http://vimeo.com/8525101 http://vimeo.com/8525101
  - phoboslab 16y ago
    This demo seems to do just that: http://acko.net/files/audiosynth/index.html http://acko.net/files/audiosynth/index.html Edit: It's not exactly as "dynamic" as I thought. The different samples are generated once and then played in a loop. So the audio data is not generated in real time, but it is generated.
dRother 16y ago
Many games are essentially open at this point, in that Nintendo and other publishers haven't asked that the roms not be distributed. The ones they really care about they have an ESA request on. See http://www.romnation.net/srv/page/esa.html http://www.romnation.net/srv/page/esa.html (WARNING : horrible flashing ads). This includes all Mario games, Zelda, and so on.

I wonder, are all those NES which can be played there public domain?

zebra 16y ago

Are they licensable? If not - in my world they become public domain.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rufo 16y ago
You can buy many of those games on Nintendo's Virtual Console service, so yes, they are licensable.

phoboslab 16y ago

No. They aren't "abandonware" either, as many of them can still be bought for the Wii's virtual console. The Emulator is pretty impressive, though. Especially the sound emulation/output - iirc the JavaScript Audio API has no "direct" way to play arbitrary wave forms. I guess it uses the data URL scheme and a simple WAV header!?

chipsy 16y ago
It says on the site that it uses Flash for dynamic sound. I looked into this a while ago and dynamic playback in <audio> is being prototyped by at least a few people, so maybe someday soon it'll hit the mainstream.
kj12345 16y ago
Actually it uses a small Flash app to generate the sound (see the News section at the bottom of the page). I wonder if data URLs could be used like that though?
- bfirsh 16y ago
  I tried that, but unfortunately data URLs are far too slow. Firefox 3.7 has some exciting audio APIs though: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API I've been meaning to write a JSNES prototype for them.
  - kj12345 16y ago
    Thanks, looks like a very useful API. In addition to synthesizing audio it also has the ability to do spectrum analysis: http://vimeo.com/8525101 http://vimeo.com/8525101
- phoboslab 16y ago
  This demo seems to do just that: http://acko.net/files/audiosynth/index.html http://acko.net/files/audiosynth/index.html Edit: It's not exactly as "dynamic" as I thought. The different samples are generated once and then played in a loop. So the audio data is not generated in real time, but it is generated.

dRother 16y ago

Many games are essentially open at this point, in that Nintendo and other publishers haven't asked that the roms not be distributed. The ones they really care about they have an ESA request on. See http://www.romnation.net/srv/page/esa.html http://www.romnation.net/srv/page/esa.html (WARNING : horrible flashing ads). This includes all Mario games, Zelda, and so on.