Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – Data storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-28
2004-01-06
O'Neill, Michael (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
Data storage or retrieval
C703S026000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06672963
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to systems, methods, techniques, data structures, and other features for running software applications including but not limited to video games on platforms different from the ones the software is intended or designed to run on.
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Nintendo's GAME BOY® hand-held video game platforms have been extraordinarily successful. Nintendo released the first GAME BOY® in the late 1980s. Since then, this product and its successors (GAME BOY COLOR® and GAME BOY ADVANCE®) have captured the imaginations of millions of video game players throughout the world.
A wide number of different software applications (including but not limited to video games) have been designed to run on these platforms. People throughout the world enjoy these applications every day. One can see them being used on subways, at sports arenas, after school, and in a number of other contexts. See FIG.
1
A.
Nintendo's GAME BOY®, GAME BOY COLOR® and GAME BOY ADVANCE® are examples of platforms having specialized hardware that is optimized for low cost, excellent performance and good graphics. These devices are not really general purpose computers; rather, they are special-purpose devices with specialized capabilities particularly adapted to video game play. These special capabilities provide low cost and exciting video game play action with good graphics and sound.
While GAME BOY® platforms are inexpensive and have long battery life, there may be situations in which it would be desirable to play or use applications developed for GAME BOY® on other platforms. For example, an airline, train or other vehicle passenger might want to play video games during a long journey. As shown in
FIG. 1B
, airlines are installing seat-back computer displays into the backs of airline seats. Such seat-back displays may provide a low cost personal computer including a processor, random access memory, liquid crystal display and input device(s). Similar displays could be installed in other vehicles (e.g., trains, ships, vans, cars, etc.) or in other contexts (e.g., at walk-up kiosks, within hotel rooms, etc.). It would be desirable under certain circumstances to allow users to execute all sorts of different applications including GAME BOY® video games and other applications using the general-purpose computer capabilities of such seat-back or similar display devices.
Personal computers have also proliferated throughout the world and are now available at relatively low cost. A trend has shifted some entertainment from the home television set to the home personal computer, where children and adults can view interesting web pages and play downloaded video games and other applications. In some circumstances, it may be desirable to allow users to play GAME BOY® video games on their home personal computers (see FIG.
1
C).
A wide variety of so-called personal digital assistants (PDA's) have become available in recent years. Such devices now comprise an entire miniature computer within a package small enough to fit into your pocket. Mobile cellular telephones are also becoming increasingly computationally-intensive and have better displays so they can access the World Wide Web and perform a variety of downloaded applications. In some circumstances, it may be desirable to enable people to play GAME BOY® video games and other GAME BOY® applications on a personal digital assistant, cellular telephone or other such device (see FIG.
1
D).
The special-purpose sound and graphics circuitry provided by the GAME BOY® platforms is not generally found in the various other platforms shown in
FIGS. 1B
,
1
C and
1
D. Providing these missing capabilities is one of the challenges to running a GAME BOY® video game (or other GAME BOY® application) on these other target platforms.
Another challenge relates to instruction set compatibility. Nintendo's GAME BOY® is based on an older, relatively inexpensive microprocessor (the Zilog Z80) that is no longer being used in most modern general purpose computer systems such as personal computers, seat-back displays and personal digital assistants. The Z80 instruction set (the language in which all GAME BOY® games and other GAME BOY® applications are written in) is not directly understood by the more modern Intel microprocessors (e.g., the 8086, 80286, 80386, Pentium and other processors in the Intel family) that are now widely used and found in most personal computers, seat-back displays, personal digital assistants, and the like. While it is possible to “port” certain GAME BOY® games or other applications to different microprocessor families (e.g., by cross-compiling the source code to a different target microprocessor), there may be an advantage in certain contexts to being able to play or execute the same binary images stored in GAME BOY® cartridges on target platforms other than GAME BOY®.
One way to provide a cross-platform capability is to provide a GAME BOY® software emulator on the target platform. Generally, a software emulator is a computer program that executes on a desired target platform (e.g., a seat-back display device, a personal computer or a personal digital assistant shown in
FIGS. 1B-1D
) and uses software to supply native platform capabilities that are missing from the target platform. For example, a software emulator may perform some or all of GAME BOY®'s specialized graphics functions in software, and may interface with whatever graphics resources are available on the target platform to display resulting images. A software emulator may translate or interpret Z80instructions so the microprocessor of the target platform can perform the functions that GAME BOY® would perform if presented with the same instructions. The software emulator may include software code that emulates hardware capabilities within the GAME BOY® circuitry (e.g., audio and/or graphics processing) and/or translate associated GAME BOY® application requests into requests that can be handled by the hardware resources available on the target platform. For example, the target platform may include a graphics adapter and associated display that is incompatible with GAME BOY®'s graphics hardware but which can perform some of the basic graphics functions required to display GAME BOY® graphics on a display.
A number of GAME BOY® emulators have been written for a variety of different platforms ranging from personal digital assistants to personal computers. However, further improvements are possible and desirable.
One area of needed improvement relates to obtaining acceptable speed performance and high quality sound and graphics on a low-capability platform. A low-capability platform (e.g., a seat-back display or a personal digital assistant) may not have enough processing power to readily provide acceptable speed performance. Unless the software emulator is carefully designed and carefully optimized, it will not be able to maintain real time speed performance when running on a slower or less highly capable processor. Slow-downs in game performance are generally unacceptable if the average user can notice them since they immediately affect and degrade the fun and excitement of the game playing experience.
Performance problems are exacerbated by the penchant of some video game developers to squeeze the last bit of performance out of the GAME BOY® platform. Performance tricks and optimizations within a GAME BOY® application may place additional demands on any emulator running the application. Some prior art emulators provide acceptable results when running certain games but unacceptable results (or do not work at all) for other games. An ideal emulator provides acceptable results across a wide range of different games and other applications such that the emulator can run virtually any game or other application developed for the original platform.
Another challenge to designing a good software emulator relates to maintaining excellent image and sound quality. Ideally, the software emulator running on the target platform should be able to p
Nintendo Co. Ltd.
O'Neill Michael
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