Nostalgia embedded on a web page

January 24, 2012 2:35 PM

A complete playable Nintendo Gameboy Color system, emulated in JavaScript and HTML5, with Super Mario Land, Zelda, Megaman, Final Fantasy, Tetris and more.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (39 comments total)

Er, Namco?
posted by capnsue at 2:37 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Man...I'm supposed to be working a research project this week, not playing with a pretty snazzy Gameboy Color emulator.

Also, I echo capnsue's confusion about why this is referenced as being a Namco Gameboy rather than Nintendo.
posted by asnider at 2:39 PM on January 24, 2012

Will one of the mods please adjust the bunny ears on the server? We're getting leakage from Universe-B again.

(This is sweet.)
posted by griphus at 2:40 PM on January 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

"Namco" should really be "Nintendo."
posted by JHarris at 2:43 PM on January 24, 2012

Honestly, all these faster CPUs do nowadays is make Javascript work as fast as compiled languages.
posted by smackfu at 2:45 PM on January 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

(And HTML5 Canvas just lets Javascript work as well as QuickBasic.)
posted by smackfu at 2:45 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Works on my Andoid phone (when paired with a Bluetooth mini-keyboard)!
posted by Burhanistan at 2:47 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nomco.
posted by phenylphenol at 2:49 PM on January 24, 2012

[Universal integrity re-established with minimal blowback. Only change in reality is that the original SMB now allows you to continue from the last major world you reached if you hold down A when you start your next game. Carry on.]
posted by cortex at 2:52 PM on January 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

That some pretty impressive coding there. All the source is linked and peruseable, unobfuscated.
posted by phenylphenol at 2:55 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh well, didn't really expect it to work on the iPad. I guess I'll have to fire up the behemoth( kind of odd I think of a laptop as large enough to be burdensome)
posted by Ad hominem at 3:00 PM on January 24, 2012

Just in case anyone is in doubt, there is definitely a clause in the DMCA that makes it's OK to ignore copyright on games more than 10 years old, but only if you're doing it in HTML5 and JavaScript.
posted by rh at 3:00 PM on January 24, 2012 [15 favorites]

Because the presence of this website is preventing so many purchases of Metroid II for Gameboy Color today. Once this website is shutdown by the DMCA, Nintendo's gonna be rolling in cash, man.
posted by Jimbob at 3:09 PM on January 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

What the hell happened to holding onto this stuff until Flash Friday? Now it's looking like Termination Tuesday if my boss walks in.
posted by resurrexit at 3:13 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Did you know that there are non-Gameboy flash versions of both Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog? I was never very good at the originals (my brother always hogged the controller), but to my eyes, they're pretty good facsimilies and I've enjoyed messing around with both of them.
posted by colfax at 3:16 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cool, it has the LSDJ. Now I can compose music noise like I do on real instruments.
posted by hot_monster at 3:47 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

phenylphenol: "That some pretty impressive coding there. All the source is linked and peruseable, unobfuscated."

Yes it's good reading - here's the core hardware emulator, including the Sharp CPU and audio chip.
posted by vanar sena at 3:51 PM on January 24, 2012

There are non-Gameboy flash versions of lots of games online. I was going to point to TheSmartass.info, but it's currently down, and their sporadic twitter feed has been quiet for a while, but they were only the largest collection, and you can find most by searching for play [x] online. Specify the gaming system and you're more likely to get a half-decent emulation, or you might end up with weird clones.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:23 PM on January 24, 2012

You can either select a game from a list, or drag and drop a .gb or .gbc file into the emulator.

OMG.
posted by odinsdream at 5:02 PM on January 24, 2012

Oh man the comments on the source code are great:

GameBoyCore.prototype.GBCBOOTROM = [	//GBC BOOT ROM (Thanks to Costis for the binary dump that I converted to this):
	//This way of loading in the BOOT ROM reminds me of when people had to punchcard the data in. :P
	0x31, 0xfe, 0xff, 0x3e, 0x02, 0xc3, 0x7c, 0x00, 	0xd3, 0x00, 0x98, 0xa0, 0x12, 0xd3, 0x00, 0x80, 
	0x00, 0x40, 0x1e, 0x53, 0xd0, 0x00, 0x1f, 0x42, 	0x1c, 0x00, 0x14, 0x2a, 0x4d, 0x19, 0x8c, 0x7e, 
	0x00, 0x7c, 0x31, 0x6e, 0x4a, 0x45, 0x52, 0x4a, 	0x00, 0x00, 0xff, 0x53, 0x1f, 0x7c, 0xff, 0x03, 

posted by odinsdream at 5:03 PM on January 24, 2012

This code is not unit tested!
posted by geoff. at 5:03 PM on January 24, 2012

Metafilter is not being its best when we link to warez, which is exactly what this is. I'll bet a week's pay that the games on that site are not there legally. Hell, I'll bet a month's pay.

Yes, HTML5 GBC emulator, awesome. But the games on the site are not there legally. This FPP should be deleted.
posted by andreaazure at 6:36 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Because the presence of this website is preventing so many purchases of Metroid II for Gameboy Color today

C'mon, you know that copyright doesn't work like that. There's no implicit right to copy an original work after 20 years just because nobody is currently buying it. This isn't even a case of fair use for parody or homage - others have already noted that there's ROM dumps in the source.

And for what it's worth, Metroid II is still being sold by Nintendo for $3.99 directly from the 3DS Virtual Console since November 2011. Metroid is hugely valuable IP to Nintendo, both in content and in trademarks. You can bet they would go after this.
posted by rh at 6:38 PM on January 24, 2012

And for what it's worth, Metroid II is still being sold by Nintendo for $3.99 directly from the 3DS Virtual Console since November 2011.

Yes, but it's important to note that the $3.99 is almost meaningless. What matters is that you have to buy a $169.99 3DS to play it. If I had a 3DS I'd probably buy it, but I don't, and I can't afford one. A lot of other people feel the same way.
posted by JHarris at 6:57 PM on January 24, 2012

In the future, our children will only have nostalgia for arguing over copyright.
posted by lubujackson at 6:58 PM on January 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Am I the only one who finds it essentially impossible to play a Nintendo emulator where you jump/run with your left hand and change directions with your right? My motor neurons, myelinized during many long hours of playing Gameboy and Nintendo, cannot handle this kind of change.
posted by enlarged to show texture at 6:58 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

This FPP should be deleted.

Hold on there, SOPA didn't pass. The attraction to this post isn't the games but the Javascript emulator.
posted by JHarris at 6:59 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

The site now has a clip from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the title, NO GAMEBOY FOR YOU.
posted by codacorolla at 7:24 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

That's lame, the Github repo is here.
posted by geoff. at 7:36 PM on January 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well at least I beat Kirby's Dreamland one last time before Wonka dropped the kibosh on that shit
posted by Jibuzaemon at 8:12 PM on January 24, 2012

"Online JavaScript GameBoy Color taken down in permanent protest of SOPA and PIPA bills.

This site cannot maintain an online game console emulator without the threat of possible DMCA requests and takedowns, so this page was taken down preemptively by the author himself and not due to any threats."
posted by ShawnStruck at 9:22 PM on January 24, 2012

Well, fun's over.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:36 PM on January 24, 2012

So, he sabotaged his own site to annoy his users? Okay, NOW I have nothing against deleting this FPP, and never linking to this asshole ever again.
posted by JHarris at 9:38 PM on January 24, 2012

Take down? It runs in browser, with Javascript. I have a mac, with a built-in Apache Web browser and any server-based scripting language that could possible be needed. And the source:

https://github.com/grantgalitz/GameBoy-Online
posted by alex_skazat at 10:26 PM on January 24, 2012

It's a good thing that this was taken down because it was killing sales of used Gameboy cartridges at my flea market stall.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:30 PM on January 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can bet they would go after this.

Then let 'em. I'll play it until they do.
posted by Jimbob at 11:05 PM on January 24, 2012

From a link on that page, you can still access the emulator directly, no need to run your own webserver or anything. You need to provide your own ROMs though.

For the folks interested in the emulation, I recommend Imran Nazar's series of articles on emulating GBC hardware, based on his own emulator.
posted by vanar sena at 1:03 AM on January 25, 2012

Well, I sent a msg. to the developer, but he/she sounded harried. (I don't want to upset anyone's applecart.)

Here is my msg and the reply:

Error msg's I got earlier today:

(Am running Chrome under Windows XP--pretty much the latest versions...)

Cheers,
Peter

PS, this is no big deal, so, if you're busy with other things, don't worry about it.


Grant Galitz [e-mail]
1:54 AM (23 hours ago)

to pjmoy
That's not an error, it's a debug log. I did take down the site though.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:52 AM, P J Moy wrote:

> (Am running Chrome under Windows XP--pretty much the latest versions...)
>
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> PS, this is no big deal, so, if you're busy with other things, don't worry about it.
>
>

So, I'm not sure what to say, except that this doesn't work on Chrome under Windows XP. Again, no big deal, although I am curious as to why, and whether other people have seen this. But, if there are DMCA implications or complications--no problem. I can wait until the dust settles.

DMCA doesn't matter to me, and it shouldn't to you, either. ;-)

Cheers,
Peter
posted by pjmoy at 1:45 AM on January 26, 2012

PS, link to the debug log:

http://www.diigo.com/item/image/7jhs/930n
posted by pjmoy at 1:51 AM on January 26, 2012