This forum is for discussion pertaining to homebrew and indie software for the Dreamcast, such as homebrew games, emulators/interpreters, and other homebrew software/applications. Porting requests and developmental ideas are not to be made here; you can make those here. If you need any help burning discs for homebrew software, this is the place to ask as well.
If some of you have not heard which seems to be the case emulating any Nintendo portable system is now illegal
Nintendo Patents GBA Emulation
Date: 29th Apr 2004 | Console: Nintendo | Posted by: Steven Rodriguez | Site: Planet GameCube
Nintendo has recently been awarded a patent for "a software emulator...emulating a handheld video game platform," or in English, any and all Game Boy emulators. Those listed in the patent give the examples of cell phones, PDAs and the video screens found in airplane seats, but in effect, the patent refers to just about anything that duplicates or enhances the Game Boy line's hardware via emulation.
Visit Planet GameCube To view the full Article
Now this really sucks
Dude your purple.
Because every Dreamcast you see takes your breathe away.
In order to be infringing, an emulator would have to be doing everything mentioned in the patent, in exactly the same way. No well-known PC-based GBA emulator works the same way, mostly because they don't need to work on low capability hardware.
Yeah--as far as I could understand it, Nintendo's patent specifically refers to emulators that auto-switch emulation of various system components on and off depending on a ROM image's needs, in order to conserve resources for a platform that may be incapable of processing the entire system at once.
Patents are filed YEARS in advance of being published for all to see -- well before the GBA emulator in question (which, BTW, apparently isn't full-speed and doesn't have sound).
Based on the date of the patent, the emulator hadn't even been started when Nintendo filed.
