Javascript Mess

The JAVASCRIPT MESS project is a porting of the MESS emulator, a program that emulates hundreds of machine types, into the Javascript language. The MESS program can emulate (or begin to emulate) a majority of home computers, and continues to be improved frequently. By porting this program into the standardized and cross-platform Javascript language, it will be possible to turn computer history and experience into the same embeddable object as movies, documents, and audio.

We have a long way to go, but this open beta is now available.

Functioning Demonstrations

The main JSMESS site has some classic software demos guaranteed to work. The JSMESS home page links to every system which MESS v0.142u6 supports, although not all systems have their required ROM files and game files in the right place yet, so some of them just spin the disk loader icon forever.

The latest versions of Chrome and Firefox run JSMESS emulators the best. IE10 might work. It will have spotty performance elsewhere.

More Information and Source Code

Information on how to build JSMESS, the status of JSMESS, and the future of JSMESS can be found out on its GitHub Wiki. The source code can be found on its GitHub page.

If you have a problem building JSMESS or have a feature suggestion, feel free to open up an issue on our issue tracker.

Manifesto

• The goal is to provide a ubiquitous, flexible, comprehensive-as-possible emulator that will appear in as many browsers as possible without installing a plugin or runtime. While a number of emulation solutions exist that allow much of what is wanted, they nearly all require plugins and most are directed towards a single machine or small sets of machines.

• Currently, the most flexible runtime is current versions of Javascript, a horribly named runtime that utilizes a Turing-complete programming language to provide all manner of applications, effects and trickery to the browsing public. All major browsers support Javascript, and the language also allows support for cleanly informing end-users what is going on if something goes wrong.

• MESS and MAME were started over a decade ago to provide ubiquitous, universal emulation of arcade/gaming machines (MAME) and general computer hardware (MESS). While specific emulation implementations exist that do specific machines better than MAME/MESS, no other project has the comprehensiveness and modularity. Modifications are consistently coming in, and emulation breadth and quality increases over time. In the case of MAME, pages exist listing machines it does not emulate. [1]

• The dream/goal is to provide access to computer software and artwork that would otherwise require the user to have the original hardware and software at hand to bring into existence. While nothing beats having vintage, well-maintained computer hardware to show what software "was", it requires advocacy and often physical presence to do so. Games like Pac-Man' or Super Mario have been re-done many times and provided in all manner of online and offline presentations... not so much examples of Wordperfect, Peachtree Accounting, or the Atari TOS. By providing this method of calling in software, historians and academics and the merely curious can get near-instantaneous access to the gist of these early programming works. As a side benefit, people with collections of old software will be more inclined to share or donate their piles of materials knowing that universal access will come shortly after.

Communication Channels

Currently, most communication is done in the #jsmess channel on the EFNet IRC network. If you don't use IRC or just have questions, please mail jsmess@textfiles.com to inquire.

References

• A team of Google engineers launched a project to port MAME to their own plugin runtime, NaCL (Native Client, or pronounced "Salt"). The report is here. High level summary: They did it in 4 days of work, pulled out parts that were too intense or time-involved, but still could emulate 75% of the games. The diff was 1200 lines of code. The report is useful for understanding MAME's unique structure.

• Javascript Converter Emscripten.

• GitHub collection of Javascript MESS Code: https://github.com/jsmess/jsmess

• Issue 131 on Emscripten issue tracker - Now closed. Further issues will have to be opened as needed.

• http://www.progettoemma.net/mess/ - An excellent MESS information site.

• http://www.progettoemma.net/mess/sysset.php/ - List of supported systems mapped to drivers, from above.

Posts by Jason Scott about the Project

• October 2011: Javascript Hero: Change Computer History Forever - Original Blog Post
• March 2012: Javascript Hero: A Hero Appears - Cosmo Fighter 2 on Colecovision works
• May 1, 2012: Javascript Hero: Success/Your Big Moment - Smurfs: Rescue from Gargamel's Castle works
• May 3, 2012: Javascript Hero: Well, That Was Fast - Odyssey 2 Emulation Appears
• September 2012: Javascript Hero: The New Batch - Call for more Coders
• October 2012: JSMESS Breakthroughs - Progress on a handful of systems
• January 2013: The Javascript MESS Enters Beta - A public-facing site and playable demos for those systems
• August 14, 2013: The Javascript MESS Plays Atari Today - Atari 800 works
• August 15, 2013: The Javascript MESS Plays Commodore 64, Commodore PET, and Apple IIc - Three more major systems
• August 16, 2013: More JSMESS: Little Help Here - Call for help creating makefiles for new systems
• August 19, 2013: One Last Bit on JSMESS for a While - The possible future for JSMESS
• September 2013: The JSMESS Triumph - Public site relaunch because every system compiles now
• October 2013: JSMESS and the Big Day - JSMESS debuts at the Internet Archive Historical Software Collection, and its future
• November 20, 2013: JSMESS Now Supports USB Joypads. Sort of. - Browser support for gamepads is a little finicky, but works
• November 22, 2013: JSMESS Makes a Little Noise - Fairly reasonable audio support is now in place
• December 2013: The JSMESS Endgame - Thoughts on the totality of the JSMESS project
• January 2014: Let a Thousand Cartridges Play - A thousand playable cartridges on the Internet Archive
• May 2014: Three Times the Consoles, Three Times the Carts, Three Times the Library - Console Living Room call for patrons
• July 2014: The JSMESS Sound Emergency - A call for critical help with Web Audio
• August 2014: The Need for JSMESS Speed - A call for performance and optimization help
• September 2014: OASIS at SXSW: An Asking Thing - Vote for Jason Scott to present at SXSW
• October 13, 2014: Making Historic Software Eternal - Vying for a grant to support JSMESS
• October 29, 2014: The Software Library - 24,000 vintage computer software titles
• November 1, 2014: The Internet Arcade - Announcing the Internet Arcade, built on MAME
• November 3, 2014: So, You Found the Internet Arcade - Some notes on the Internet Arcade
• November 4, 2014: The Internet Arcade: And Where Are You? - Please help with the Internet Arcade
• November 6, 2014: Before It All Arrives - The Internet Arcade continues to receive a lot of attention
• November 11, 2014: Gamepads! - Using joysticks with JSMESS
• December 2014: Each New Boot a Miracle - JSMESS is joined by EM-DOSBOX
• January 5, 2015: The MS-DOS Showcase (And The Ascension of Version 2) Announcing 2,500 MS-DOS games on the Internet Archive
• January 7, 2015: The MS-DOS Flood (And the High Flight of V2) - Everyone's playing MS-DOS games now
• January 10, 2015: That Whole Thing With Sound in In-Browser Emulation - The state of web audio APIs
• January 13, 2015: The Digital Nostalgia Heat Differential - The state of these emulation projects
• January 23, 2015: The Emularity - Browsing the web from a browser in an operating system in JavaScript in a browser
• February 2015: Embed-able Computers are a Thing - Shareable, embeddable emulators
• April 2015: Behold the Emularity - The JavaScript wrapper for JSMESS and EM-DOSBOX gets its own project
• May 2015: MAME and the New Emulation Reality - A call to support MAME development
• November 2015: JSMESS Achieves a Hero’s Death - JavaScript cross-compilation now supported directly by MAME