EmulationStation History

es-history.md

EmulationStation is a graphical and themeable emulator front-end created by Aloshi around 2012. Their original work has been the foundation for the UX of many of our favorite gaming focused projects over the last decade and this document aims to capture a small bit of that history. If you see any errors please let me know in the comments below and I will gladly update this document.

History:

References:

• Aloshi's first public commit: https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/commit/c0e9683f4537fd3e7fea69ec01ba88c1d3039408
• Retropie's first Readme change (approximate moment when their fork occured): https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/commit/3d215a1f2f83e0a45f9fa08000584e46ae9a5d60
• Recalbox's first Readme change (approximate moment when their fork occured): https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-emulationstation/commit/b5c99454f6f3ea9f14b54d30d7700153f1205694
• FCAMOD first Readme change (approximate moment when their fork occured): https://github.com/fabricecaruso/old-EmulationStation-fork---see-batocera-emulationstation-instead/commit/f3e51f2ff30849371b31d89921e5938115853df8
• "The Big Merge" (approximate start of Batocera's fork): https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera-emulationstation/commit/8d7fb7b3e843bfc9218833ec01e8f74da6537219
• ES-DE's first public commit: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/commit/fcfbbd3f2bf9fbaf2f61e8ef0023c675df6cc4a2

Projects:

Note

Below are links to the projects referenced above. All use a variant of EmulationStation as the foundation for their UX.

• Original source by Aloshi ARCHIVED (NOT ACTIVE)
  • Website: https://emulationstation.org/
  • Git: https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation
• RetroPie
  • Website: https://retropie.org.uk/
  • Git: https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation
• RecalBox
  • Website: https://www.recalbox.com/
  • Git: https://gitlab.com/recalbox/recalbox-emulationstation
• FCAMOD ARCHIVED (NOT ACTIVE)
  • Git: https://github.com/fabricecaruso/old-EmulationStation-fork---see-batocera-emulationstation-instead
  • Notable Forks
    • ArkOS: https://github.com/christianhaitian/EmulationStation-fcamod
• Batocera
  • Website: https://batocera.org/
  • Git: https://github.com/batocera-linux/batocera-emulationstation
  • Notable Forks
    • RetroBat: https://github.com/RetroBat-Official/emulationstation
    • AmberELEC: https://github.com/AmberELEC/emulationstation
    • JELOS: https://github.com/JustEnoughLinuxOS/emulationstation
    • RockNIX: https://github.com/ROCKNIX/emulationstation
• ES-DE
  • Website: https://es-de.org/
  • Git: https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de

In the Sx05RE project, Shanti Gilbert states this (perhaps in 2018): "... Sx05RE An emulation (retro) fork for Sx05 devices. Most of the code is from Kszaq's LE and Lakka. I just combine them with some changes, add EmulationStation and some standalone emulators (Advancemame, PPSSPP, Reicast, and others). ..." Sx05RE evolved into EmuELEC before 2019! I think @shantigilbert should be included in this timeline!

In the Sx05RE project, Shanti Gilbert states this (perhaps in 2018): "... Sx05RE An emulation (retro) fork for Sx05 devices. Most of the code is from Kszaq's LE and Lakka. I just combine them with some changes, add EmulationStation and some standalone emulators (Advancemame, PPSSPP, Reicast, and others). ..." Sx05RE evolved into EmuELEC before 2019! I think @shantigilbert should be included in this timeline!

Thank you @josemarprete for the mention.

Just to clear things up.

Sx05RE was using the Retropie version of ES initially in 2017 (to be exact February 10, 2017 was the first public release) https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/4785-sx05re-v1-8-6-emulationstation-lakka-kodi/

Then moved to using a forked version of Batocera-emulationstation with many custom changes for EmuELEC: https://github.com/EmuELEC/emuelec-emulationstation
but in general EmuELEC is more close to CoreELEC/LibreELEC than it is to Batocera or Retropie. AmberELEC and Jelos started as EmuELEC forks, now their own thing with many differences.

I also want to add that while EmuELEC is its own thing now, we still keep our Sx05RE/EmuELEC projects as "Forked" to show where the base originally came from. Many scripts have kept their original name in EmuELEC as gratitude from where they came from, even though they do not contain the same script/information anymore (besides copyright notes on top), this includes scripts adapted from Batocera and Retropie (Wifi scripts, wrappers, etc), to show our appreciation for the original creators.

Thank you!

thank you @shantigilbert for the details!

I'd like to thank @anthonycaccese for this great background information and @shantigilbert for the clarifications and the excellent EmuELEC!

I'm just a curious layman!I'm thinking of publishing an amateur video on YouTube in Portuguese talking about ES-DE and testing it on PC and Android (on two handhelds and a TV Box!). In the videos, I usually mention some details about the origin of what I show, and if I publish the video, I will include this background information about ES-DE!