USOO8795.090B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 8,795,090 B2 Link (45) Date of Patent: Aug. 5, 2014 (54) HAND-HELD VIDEO GAME PLATFORM 4,628,304. A 12/1986 Bottiau EMULATION 4,756,528 A 7, 1988 Umashankar 4,771,279 A 9, 1988 Hannah (75) Inventor: Patrick J. Link, Carnation, WA (US) is: A s ingo et al. 4,922,420 A 5/1990 Nakagawa et al. (73) Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd., Kyoto (JP) 4,924.413 A 5/1990 Suwannukul (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this (Continued) patent is extended or adjusted under 35 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days. EP O96O 637 T 2000 (21) Appl. No.: 13/439,770 JP 63-242293 10, 1988 (22) Filed: Apr. 4, 2012 (Continued) OTHER PUBLICATIONS (65) Prior Publication Data Readme.txt “Gameboy 98” v0.05c online. Jan. 9, 1999 retrieved on US 2013/OO95922 A1 Apr. 18, 2013 Jun. 26, 2013). Retrieved from the internet: <URL:http://www. Zophar.net/gb/gameboy98.html>.* Related U.S. Application Data (Continued) (60) Continuation of application No. 10/690,818, filed on Oct. 23, 2003, now Pat. No. 8,157,654, which is a Primary Examiner — Dmitry Suhol s S.applys N.sy asC.3.32. filed on Nov. Assistant(74) Attorney, Examiner Agent, orDavid Firm Duty — Nixon & Vanderhye, P.C. (60) Provisional application No. 60/233,622, filed on Sep. 18, 2000. (57) ABSTRACT A Software emulator for emulating a handheld video game (51) Int. Cl. platform such as GAME BOYR, GAME BOY COLOR(R) A63F 9/24 (2006.01) and/or GAME BOY ADVANCE(R) on a low-capability target (52) U.S. Cl. platform (e.g., a seat-back display for airline or train use, a USPC ...................... 463/43: 463/1: 463/44; 463/45 personal digital assistant, a cell phone) uses a number of (58) Field of Classification Search features and optimizations to provide high quality graphics USPC ............................... 463/1, 43–45: 703/23, 26 and Sound that nearly duplicates the game playing experience See application file for complete search history. on the native platform. Some exemplary features include use of bit BLITing, graphics character reformatting, modeling of (56) References Cited a native platform liquid crystal display controller using a sequential state machine, and selective skipping of frame U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS display updates if the game play falls behind what would 4,481,529 A 1 1/1984 Kerling occur on the native platform. 4,516,777 A 5, 1985 Nikora 4,542,903. A 9, 1985 Yokoi et al. 14 Claims, 33 Drawing Sheets EXAMPLE WRUAC CONTRORSAEMAC-NE ASEARC 26(2):52 cycle OAXFE 47 (42):34 cycles res 8-3Avi 56(51.12 cycle lies 44.54 258 WBANK (HBLANK OAM ; transfer) US 8,795,090 B2 Page 2 (56) References Cited “NOSGMB version 2.5, nocash gameboy emulator/debugger for dos?windows' HTTP://www.work.de/nocash/gmb.htm. 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