JAPE WIP

[Robert]

07-27-2006 - JAPE

I am currently working on JAPE 0.8.

There are now 25 supported games and only one game with issues compared to the MAME equivalent version (Mr. Do).

 

For people who start asking what is the aim of purposes of JAPE and if it is really a valuable project:

 

As far I am concerned, this is a rather fun project to do and a good way to understand the innerworkings of MAME from scratch. What is more, trying to port all MAME versions from the very beginning helps to solve porting issues little by little, enables to add new cpu cores or drivers as they are needed. Also, I can define precise objectives and have a good number of working games for every release.

Despite all my previous efforts trying to create generic arcade emulators (CottAGE, PotatoArcade...), I failed to create something easily maintainable and that people can easily contribute to. Rewriting and porting MAME in Java means you have the most comprehensive arcade machine emulator and only to focus on rewriting/porting issues (and most of this work is already done).

In the future, JAPE could be a good Java counterpart to MAME. This project is a good source of information on the software and hardware of many arcade games. You now have a fully-featured Java version to play with. If you are not familiar with C or the complex MAME compilation, you can use the Java version instead, try to write new drivers or experiment with the emulator and built-in debugger, etc.

The project itself may serve as a base for many other Java-related arcade projects: statically or dynamically compiled arcade games, other specific or generic arcade games emulators. Since MAME is pure C, my work tends to have the same approach but it could be a good opportunity to create a more C++ish or real Object-Oriented version from JAPE.

Java means we can think of possible versions for mobile phones or PDAs (Java Mobile Edition) or even on Windows Media Center for the too-much protected XBox 360...

An online version (applet or Java Web Start), coupled to a good Web site offering interesting features could be very valuable. You could try or play online your legally owned arcade games from virtually anywhere (well on every Java-enabled platform), keep traces of your configurations, savings, share your hiscores and the like...

With the legal issue put aside, websites offering INP movies from MAME to show off skills or hiscores from players could turn their site into a repository of online playable intros or movies for arcade games.

... Now, I am pretty sure you have certainly other interesting ideas to share on how to make good use of JAPE...

 

 

Here are supported changes from MAME 0.7/0.8:

Program:

- The ROM copyright notice is displayed in the main emulation screen.

 

 

Following changes provided by Mirko Buffoni:

- You can view the game graphics pressing F4. Use cursor keys to change graphics set/color, F4 to return to the game.

- Better colors in Amidar and Frogger.

- Support for:

 

Super Cobra (version running on a modified Scramble board)

 

Pooyan (wrong colors, no sound)

 

Phoenix/Pleiades (no sound)

Source:

- Long-awaited function clearbitmap(), which correctly initializes a bitmap using background_pen. Note for people porting MAME to other systems: osd_create_bitmap() must call this function, the video drivers rely on that.

- Scramble has 100% correct colors. The same palette is used by Super Cobra, but it doesn't look right.