The NES dedeu in 1983(4), (around the same time that the Apple II's came out.) It was the first major game console to provide raster (sprite) based graphics instead of the vector based graphics like the Vertex, and had a higher output resolution abolsihing the blocky graphics of systems like the Atari 2600.
It had a (now modest) 32 color palatte,( 4 per sprite at a time.) This game system was the first system to bring arcade games to the homes of many gamers.
Its popularity (unlike that of the Apple II's) lasted over 10 years! This spured development of a redesigned version of the NES with a newer NES. IT had a sleek design with a SNESish look. It included a more confortable controller, thanks to its a rounded edges. The NES's popularity pretty much died in the mid 1990's, thanks to the arrival of 32-bit game systems, like the Sega Saturn.

Other related info: [Assesories]

(Translation patch avalible.) The emulator is not multitasking friendly, but most important of all, the emulator uses a split cartrage format, meaning the Rom image of a cartrage is split into 4 files, instead of a logical one file. This is a major problem, if you consider the fact that the files can be as small as a few kbytes. Putting block sizes into perspective, a small 64k rom can take up as much as 300k of disk space! Seriously
For Windows 3.1+

NESA by Paul Robson Last Version: 0.17

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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Nesa (not NASA,) is a DOS based NES emulator that uses the .NES cart format. It runs some games fine, but it has a sloppy graphics control for others. Metriod and Zelda are the only games that run good on this emulator. (Note, the older version of the emulator had a bad color pattle translation, meaning the colors where all screwed up. Its fixed now.)
For DOS

TNES by Paul Robson Last Version: 0.1

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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The author, Paul Robson, first wrote NESA. Then stopped production and released the source code to the public, which was used to create Lord-Nes. Now Paul is at it again, except this time, with a more complete emuluation. This emulator has the goodies, like sound support, joystick support, Game Genie support, and SnapShot (game save) support. And it Nestical's farfected humor does not humor you, then read what the author had to say about it in his emulator. "It doesn't contain any references to Satan either, or blooded hands or anything like that, for those that worry about such things." Gee!
For DOS

Nesticle by BloodLust Software Last Version: 0.43

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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It's feeding time and this emulator will have you licking your plate clean! The best NES emulator hands down! Has great graphical and sound emulation, though a bit buggyat times. It also supports "game state save " to preserve a point it the game for later playing or as a tacticle procedure to repeat a challenging part in a game until you get it right. Another neat feature is the NES movie capturing ability to pretty much "record" what you are seeing on screen to a file. You will need the ROM to play the movie clip and there is no support to convert it to a .AVI format video clip. It is, however a good way to inspect your playing style to improve it or record the endings of video games. Also in this emulator are Game Genie Cheat support where the codes can be saved to file for later use, joystick, gamepad and Gravis(c) GRiP(c) controller support. New to the emulator in it's latest release is better sound emulation; most noticeablly is it's ability to not longer treat all notes as quarter notes. This allowing notes to be "held", giving us sound emulation. Also added is a State Display, allow you to see what "slots" are occupied and which ones are not, making the accidental overwriting of some save states more fool-proof.
The Windows 95 version supports gameplay over the net!
Please note that the lastest version of Nesticle (Version 0.43) is a bit screwy. I was not able to get it to play sound AT ALL! You've been warned!
For DOS and Windows 95

Lord NES by ChEcK Last Version: 0.55

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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No info yet.
For DOS

PCNES by Jim Geffre Last Version: 0.12b

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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A speed emulator optimized with pure 32-bit assembly code. I havn't played aound with this emulator much as of yet. The emulator lacks a menuing system but it has sound support and it even has support for joysticks.
For DOS

XNes by ChEcK Last Version: 0.45

[Homepage] | [ScreenShot]

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This emulator is just getting started. Currently, it lacks sound support.
For Dos, Linux, and MacOs.


[Screen shot comparisson of all emulators.] Back to top

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Games, Downloads & Links:

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The NES is the most popular game system ever. With this fact in mind,it is not hard to understand that there are about 1,000 games avalible for this system. With this quanity, there are bound to be quite a few cheap and crappy game avalible. So, what game should you look into and get? Get only the classics, and be picky about what games you get. Don't bother with unpopular games, otherwise you'll be wasteing you time with some crappy game that probally sold for $5 due to it's crapyness!

Games

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Mario Deluxe - A hacked rom of Super Mario Brothers by Razor BroZ. A.R.
Sorry? - Another hacked rom of Super Mario Brothers by Razor BroZ. A.R.
Blaster Master - Coming soon.
Double Dragon 1Provided by Lunatic
Dragon Warrior 3Provided by Lunatic
BattleToadsProvided by Lunatic
Check out my Request page for more ROMs.

Game Sites

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NES roms site - Not sure if its up.
Sonic's NES Games - Many classic are avalible here.
Tenchi's Rom Site
Rom City
FF3 Translated into english
Blood Sucker's Rom site - Many ROMs here.

Utilites

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[FAMCONV] - converts Pasofami formated ROMs to .FAM format. I don't know why you would want this but....
[NesImage] - It joins, it splits and it converts Nintendo ROMs into most known formats. Tips on how to use this at the bottom of the page. (Joy.)
[NES to FAM] - Converts .NES format ROMs to .FAM format, (including large ROMs).
A header utility that removes faulty data from header. This program may be needed for some NES games.
[NES-Ripper] - Lets you view the graphics within a NES ROM image.
[ROMEDIT] - A program that lets you edit the text within games.
Currently, ROMEDIT supports NES, SNES and Gameboys ROMS and claims to even work for Genesis and TG16 ROMS.
[Mario Improvment] A Super Mario Brothers ROM hacking utility.
[Zelda and Final Fantsy 1 improvment] Another ROM hacking utility to edit Zelda and Final Fantisy 1.

Front Ends:

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If remembering the commands to run a emulator is too confusing for you, try a program called a Front End. It's basically a little menuing system that assists you by helping you select what options you want to have when you run the emulator. It may help you out.

Surface - A front end for Callus, KGen, Nesticle, Magic Engine and SNES9X.
[Star Launch V.1.01] - A Front end for not only for NESTicle, (like it really needs one,) but also for GenEm, Genecyst, SNES9X, ESNES, Nlksnes, and Virtual Gameboy.
[FWNFE] - FWNes frontend for Win95.
[Game Menu] - A universal front end for DOS based emulators.
[Ultimenu]- Another universal front end for DOS based emulators.
[EmuRunner97] - A universal front end for Win95.
[Star Launch] a Front end for GenEm, Genecyst, SNES9X, ESNES, Nlksnes, NESTicle and Virtual Gameboy.
[RMENU] - Universal Front end for all systems.

Related Links

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Not a ROM site, but a Nesticle format Game Genie Patches
flipino's NESticle savegame site
A Nesticle NES movie site.(No longer avalible.)
Another Movie archive. MoreE movies in here.
Tecmo Bowl editor
FF3 translation patch site
NEScript - A C like programing language to create your own NES games.
Dragon Quest 4 Translation Patch site
Rom traslation to Portuguese site. [Portuguese Version of previous site]
NES technical info
FF2 US to Thai Language translation project
Portuguese translation project
NES game creation site
Samuri Pizza Cats Translation
Hudson's Adventure Island 4 Translation Page
Mario/ Zelda and FF Impreovemtn - Edit these games to your liking with this utility.
A NES hacking utility that allows you to edit text in a game simply and easily.
Final Fantisy II traslation
Version Jap-to-English translation here - Including Kid Niki 2 and Pocket Monsters

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PC Equivilents:

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While it may be some time until the emulators run games proberly, 100% working versions for the PC exist. In mainly cases, your better off buying the PC version then screwing around with an emulator that bearly works. Heres a list games that are avalible on the PC. Please note: if the title of the game is underlined, then it can be downloaded.

Bomber Man - Game play is not that bad. It even comes with the Qbasic source code, so it is not problem to find a way to cheat!

Castlevania - I received a copy from Alan (thanks!). Though the PC version uses the 16 color EGA mode, the graphics, colorwise, seem inferior to the NES version that uses only 4 colors from a pallete of 32. Why, I don't know. The sound (assuming the adlib worked without all that hissing) sounds ok.
Get it now while you can.

Double Dragon 2 - Ha Ha ha ha. You call this a game?

Double Dragon 3 - I played games from the Double Dragon series, and let me tell you something, this game is no game from the Double Dragon Series.

Mario Brothers - A good VGA version of an arcade classic, but not a perfect duplicate of the NES version. Still good though.

Mario PC - A recreation of the popular "Super Mario Brothers" game with high color graphics and unique game control.

Mega Man 1 - This Pc version is NOT like the NES version. It has only 4 robots to fight, and they're not from the ones from Mega Man 1 for the NES. The Sprite for megaman looks screwy, as if he gained weight! There's no adlib sound, but it does have VGA graphics.
(Remeber, F3 and F4 increase or decrease game speed. Just hold the key down for like 5 seconds.)

Mega Man 3 - (Big thanks to all that emailed me a copy.) This PC version has more robots to fight, but still, not Adlib or Sound Blaster sound, and worst of all NO VGA GRAPHICS!! And the sprite of MegaMan still looks screwy.

Ninja Gaiden 2 - The VGA graphics makes it look better then the NES counter part, but the sprite sizes are laughablely small.

Street Fighter 1 P-U-R-E C-R-A-P. Don't even think about getting it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles 1 - (Big thanks to all that upload the game to me!) The frame rate is half of the NES's frame rate, (15 compared to 30), makeing the animations choppy. There's Adlib sound, but I was not able to test it, but what sucks is the same color pallete. This works in two ways. In one way, it makes the some monstors look better, on the other hand, some monsters look worse. The sprites for the Turtles are a little smaller then their NES counter part. But, the best thing of all is the fact that you can save you game! If anyone has a saved game, please E-MAIL me a copy.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Compared to the NES ver., it's has choppy moment, and does a poor job of utilizing the PC's full graphical potential for that time. Just like TMNT 1.

Know of any others??? Email me!

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Operation Tips:

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1. SPEED!
   If the game runs too slow, try decreasing the screen size (iNES, Nesticle and PAS26b only) or increase the number of frames to skip. As for Nesticle, go under SETTINGS/TIMING and increase the Virtual Frames Per Sec (FPS) to a higher number. It won't speed-up the emulator for all cases, but its an easy and quick way of speeding things up. If it is STILL to slow, tinker around with your computer hardware by over clocking you CPU by switching the jumpers on your mother board to fool it into thinking you have a faster CPU then you really do, or eliminate as may wait states as possible. ONLY TRY THIS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING or you may permanitly screw-up your PC. If all else fails, get a new PC. Not 100% brand new, but a new mother board and CPU. This will cost you about $500, depending on what chip you will be using. I'd go for the K6 for price/performance.
   
   
2. It sounds weird.
   If the sound is too weird, try changing the instrument the emulator is sending the Fm instructions to. (PAS26b only)
   If your using Nesticle, you can change sound timing, etc. under SETTINGS/NES SOUND. Otherwise, bare it.
   Just remember, there is no NES emulator out yet that has near perfect sound emulation.
   
   
3. No joystick?
   As I said before, if you want perfect gamepad support, get the "Rockfire" controller. It tames even the worst keyboard layouts. Or, you can get the console cable. This device allows you to use you SNES, Genesis, etc. controller on you PC! Fully programable!
   If the game does not have joystick support or if the joystick support is lame (2-buttons), these are your only real alternatives.
   
   
4. They say it will run, but I been having no luck. :(
   Is the image legitimate?
   Try converting it to another format and try it on ther other emulators. If it fails to convert, try passing the ROM though the Head REmove Utility avalible eariler on in the page. If all else fail, get an exact copy of the image that everyone else is using.
   
   
5. I want to try to using it on another emulator, but I can't convert the image. :(
   Format conversion tips and utilities. The best one I have seen is NESImage. I have been emailed on how to use it. Here are so tips to answer most of your questions. Just one thing before we continue, in this example, we are converting a ROM called "mario2". And the word "NESImage" does not have to be in borken up upper-case and lower-case.
   
   .NES to Pas Convertion: Just type:
   NESImage s mario2
   That's it! No extension needed for the Mario2 Rom. Just make sure it has the .nes extension on it though.
   
   Pas to .NES - Just type:
   NESImage j mario2
   Just make sure all the files related to that rom has the same name. The compiler will look for the other files needed to create the iNES image.
   Remember, for all of these to work, don't use an extension, and do NOt switch the order of the switches (the s and the j) with the filename, or you will get an error. And one last note, your pas files may be broken up into the same number of files as your other pas type files or maybe contain a few less files. Don't panic! This is perfectly ok, because not all the games where created the same.
   

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Emulation Zone

Comments? Corrections? E-mail me! Thanks to Peter Coolings for some corrections and GAMECENTER.COM for NES popularity info.