VNES

vNES (also known as VirtualNES) is an Nintendo Entertainment System emulator written in Java designed to run within a Java-capable web browser. vNES utilizes the Java Sound API to produce artifact-free sound on systems which meet the system requirements ().

History

vNES began as a project to occupy the time of Jamie Sanders, who was at the time "suffering from severe boredom." On October 1st 2006, vNES was posted to Digg, after which its popularity skyrocketed.

On November 19th 2006, vNES was shut down by hosting company Dreamhost on the reason that the online emulation of ROM files was illegal. Despite Nintendo's insistence that emulators are illegal, Sanders argues that the online emulation is legal, as people do not download the ROM files, arguably providing an alternative to people illegally downloading NES games. Shortly thereafter, vNES was moved to a different host. It is of note that Nintendo was not the initial cause of this issue, rather, Dreamhost polices the sites they host.

On January 5th 2007, vNES was again taken offline due to a server crash after having been mentioned on www.wimp.com the day before; the server was under considerable strain, causing the host to lock it until an agreement could be reached.

vNES 3.0 debuted on July 1, 2007. A new component of vNES 3.0 is the "UPLiNK" system, which distributes requests to servers around the globe and provides protection against unexpected downtime.

Compatibility

Microsoft Java Virtual Machine

Although non-VM versions of Java is perfectly compatible with vNES on Microsoft operating systems, vNES is not currently compatible with the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine. Sanders has indicated that compatibility with the Microsoft JVM will "likely never happen".

Linux

Due to the configuration of the Java Virtual Machine on some Linux platforms, vNES may not run properly on Linux.

Macintosh

vNES has been confirmed to work on PowerPC Macintoshes with Mac OS X.

Consoles

vNES will not run on any or consoles due to restrictions caused by proprietary architecture and design as well as other compatibility issues. Reportedly, vNES has been run on a PlayStation 3 running Linux, although not Nintendo's Wii Opera browser (Java is not supported in it).

System requirements

To run efficiently, Sanders recommends the following:

*Intel Pentium III or equivalent
*128 MB RAM
*Java Runtime Environment 1.50 or later

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See Also

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