The History of NES Emulators - iNes, NESA and Famicom.exe

In the second part of the history of NES emulators, we will talk about the primary Famicom Emulator, the prototype LandyNes, the renowned iNes, the beginner NESA and the classic Famicom.exe.

Famicom Emulator (1996)

In 1996, another Famicom emulator was released in Japan, the Famicom Emulator, also known as DirectX Famicom Emulator, created by M. Kami. Its first known version was released in May 1996, version 2.4 for Windows 3.1 and 95. The emulator included some demos and only ran ROMs in PRG/CHR formats, extensions used in Pasofami, but it had low compatibility. There was a 50% English translation patch for this version made by Acey. A version 3.0 was released, but it required version 2.4a to work. We do not know if DirectX support began at the beginning or the following year.

There is almost no information about this emulator. In May 1996, M. Kami also released an emulator for Super Famicom called Super Famicom Emulator for MS-DOS, with only version 1.01 being known.

LandyNes (1996)

was created by Alex Krasivsky, who released a beta version (a prototype in fact) on September 8, 1996 for MS-DOS, which ran only simple, slow games with no sound, and was also known as DC NES. An official version of LandyNes was never actually released. The project was left aside, and ended up helping the creation of Marat Fayzullin's iNes emulator. Alex actually gave up on the project in 1997, with the release of NESticle.

iNes (1996) (InterNes)

The project actually started in 1996, with Russian Alex Krasivsky, who found some Famicom programming information on the internet and wrote the original code (it remains to be seen whether this leak was from the original Famicom hardware programming, or from the hacking that Pasofami suffered. Who knows?). As the project progressed, Alex lost interest in it, and Marat rewrote the code for him. Meanwhile, Marat encouraged Alex to copy features of the original Famicom hardware to transform into support for various cartridges, and add-ons for the emulator.

Its first version was released on September 9, 1996 for Windows, titled 0.5. Marat also brought versions for FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris and other UNIX systems. John Stiles and Marcel de Kogel made ports respectively for Macintosh and Linux. All these versions in the year of release. Initially the emulator already supported 85% of the console's games, which in fact makes it the first playable NES emulator. But this came at a price, US$ 35 dollars. Only the Windows version was paid. The MS-DOS version is reported to be under development between 1996 and 1997. It is not known when it was released, but from 2005 it was reported on Marat's website that it came with the Windows version. Around June 1997, it gained an online version on the Kagi website, also shareware.

The emulator also had its own game format, .NES, which became the standard format used to this day. Due to piracy, Marat decided not to release the source code or freeware versions for MS-DOS and Windows, releasing only versions for the UNIX system. The Macintosh version was also freeware. Marat did not like Windows programs, as his origins were always with Macintosh. In addition, he had become frustrated with the piracy that had occurred just a few hours after the emulator was first released.

Over time, the price of the DOS and Windows versions dropped, reaching $25 in 2006, $19.99 in 2008, and finally becoming free in 2015. The last MS-DOS version came out in 2014. From 2015 onwards, it simultaneously released versions for Windows and Linux. Its latest emulator version was released in March 2021.

In 2011, he launched iNes-Android for smartphones. In 2019, he integrated iNes-Android into his multi-system emulator also for Android, called VGBAnext, which ran all three Gameboys. Marat already had classic emulators for these systems, and the well-known VGBA from which the multi-emulator originated.

NESA (1996)

Also in 1996, NESA (Nintendo Entertainment System In Assembler) was developed by Paul Robson, the same creator of the A26 for Atari 2600, using the same base to develop NESA. The project was launched in September 1996 for MS-DOS, and its beta version was released in the same month. The difference with iNES was that, in addition to being free, it released the source code to help other developers in the field. NESA had no sound, joypad support and little game compatibility, but promised all of this in future versions. The emulator also ran slowly. It was a very early project, even though it was already in beta. It ran on very simple PCs, such as 386 with 640kbs of RAM. In 1997, the project was discontinued and migrated to TNES, which was an emulator with more robust tools and resources than the old emulator. The sources of its programming survived and provided the basis for several subsequent emulators. The project was officially closed on January 1, 1998.

An interesting fact. Paul said in an interview that CPU power was so limited that the first emulators reduced games from 60 to 10 frames per second. Imagine how difficult it would be to play something like that? Another interesting fact that Paul mentioned is that some Gameboy emulators hacked the PC's VGA card, that is, the video card of the time, to achieve a resolution similar to the portable one, without a drop in quality or frames like in the first NES emulation projects, such was the scarcity of virtual resources.

Famicom (Fami/Famicom.exe) (1997)

The Famicom emulator, known simply as Fami or Famicom.exe, was released in February 1997 by Japanese developers Taka2 and Nori for Windows. Its first version required the execution of ROMs in its own format, FAM, which required a converter from the NES format. This converter (called NEStoFAM) was developed by Matt Conte. In version 2 of the emulator, the FAM format was modified, becoming the emulator's default from then on. Only a few FAM format games from the first version were executed.

The emulator came with real NES sound and competed with NESA in the freeware category. It had two advantages: speed and sound quality. Its first version was in Japanese, but from the second version onwards SoM2Freak, Zofo and VmprHntrD created EFamicom, which replaced the executable with an English version, which was used in subsequent versions. These modified versions were known as FamiE. In version 3, it began to support the joypad, as well as changes to the color palettes. In version 4, Famicom Disk System games began to work. From version 4.01e in October 1998, the authors began to include the English version in the original emulator, and to develop one in parallel with the help of MEGABYTE. After a few more versions in English and Japanese, they released their own version, 100% in English and the last of the emulator, 4.04, in November 1998.

Fami ran smoothly on a Pentium 1 100MhZ with 32 MB of memory. Despite the emulator's advantages, one of its main problems was the impossibility of 85% of ROMs with sizes above 64Kb being executed.

An erratum. Initially this emulator erroneously credited Seil as its creator, something that was denied in the emulator's own readme in later releases by the project's creators.