This is a special version of Gens Re-Recording that does two things; increase the CPU cycles to 100Mhz, and more importantly, emulates extended RAM. This is useful for documenting (usually debug) routines that write to this area of memory, as on a regular Genesis (and most emulators), $FEXXXX mirrors the RAM at $FFXXXX. Download
Gens is GPLv2-licensed software, so the source code needs to be provided in addition to the executable. It can be hosted on GitHub or just provided in a ZIP file along with the EXE, whatever works.
I am not the original uploader of the MediaFire fire. I got the link from a user on Discord, and through searching, the earliest upload of this seems to be Razor & Zenon's old run of Sonic Spinball from 2011. However, the file itself dates to months before the video. As a result, I am unsure if it was created by them, or someone else; regardless, the best I am able to provide is the source for v11 here. If need be, take down this thread.
I doubt you'll find the author -- most of these people have moved on with more important things to do in my experience. But honestly, I don't think anyone is going to care if the source is available or not. This thing is so old now. Everyone knows who the original creator of Gens is. I understand sticking up for people and their work, but I don't think this one is particularly bothersome.
Is it just an extra 64kB of RAM? If as the filename suggests there's 2Mb (256kB) of RAM, where is the rest of it mapped to? The idea of "enhanced" emulators is pretty interesting. I believe there's another one that has widescreen support. Are there any others?
I believe some hacked versions of emulators support 10 MB Genesis ROMs. Theoretically, this is the biggest a Genesis game can be without resorting to bankswitching, but it requires addresses $400000 to $9FFFFF to be properly cleared first and makes the usage of any extra hardware (Sega CD, 32X, SVP, etc.) unusable; as a result, most emulators don't recognize non-bankswitched ROMs above 4 MB. Also, while not emulators specifically, Famiclone hardware tends to be enhanced from an original NES (which makes them difficult to emulate elsewhere, FCEUX doesn't support VT09 hardware).
That's not really the point of the GPL. It requires that the author of any GPL program or modifications of it must release the source code of any binaries they distribute. And that means the source for those specific binaries, you can't for instance just release the 1.05 version source of something if you've released a 1.04 binary but haven't provided 1.04's source code. It's not about crediting people's work, it doesn't matter how old something is. If someone downloads the source of a GPL program and distributes a modified fork, the author of those modifications is bound by the GPL to release the whole source including the modifications, and that exact source, not just some "close enough variant". And it doesn't matter whether or not it's something simple or can be easily recreated, the source that was used to compile that binary must be provided. This isn't Alex Field's fault, but rather whoever created this custom version and never provided the source with it. This sort of thing is especially a problem if the author is unavailable in some way. It's a matter of historical preservation as well, countless sources for programs have been lost because of this kind of thing. I don't think writing the GPL off as unimportant is wise.
I don't want to argue. You're entitled to your opinion, but just to add clarity to my initial post: the point I'm making here is I doubt Stef is broken up about it. Maybe he kind of cares? Maybe he doesn't really care at all. I'm not in his head, but I bet he's not losing sleep over this. So I'm just not going to make an issue of it. The source isn't available in this particular instance. My opinion: so what? If someone else makes a change, they should absolutely release the source, I agree with that. But this one doesn't have code. What's done is done. Meanwhile, most of us have hacked Sonic games. We've committed far greater crimes than this, and we've always been willing to turn a blind eye to it. Let me say, regarding the program, I think it's great. I could see it being useful in specific cases. Though what I would *really* like to see is proper 32X H32 and DMA-driven PWM support. I don't know if anyone active around here has the knowledge to add those things or not, but it'd be great, and I'd advertise it to anyone still insisting on using Gens to run things. Chilly Willy wrote the DMA-driven PWM support for Gens/GS, but it never made it into the program.
