The History of Super Nintendo Emulators - Part 6

BSNES (2004)

BSNES

The last emulator on the list is BSNES, also released in October 2004 for Windows, by Byuu/Near. In October 2005, it was ported to MacOS X by Richard Bannister and maintained until November 2022. What sets this emulator apart from the others is its precision in emulation, which requires more robust machines to run it. It also has 100% game compatibility. Another difference is the execution of games from the MSU-1 chip, a virtual chip for modified Super Nintendo ROMs created by Byuu himself, and developed between 2000 and 2007, which allows the reading of a large flow of information with 4 Gb of storage, in addition to CD-quality music, and full-motion videos. Practically a Sega CD version of the Super Nintendo. Some everdrivers can emulate this chip and make these modified games run on the console itself. In August 2006, it already supported the SA-1, Super FX, SPC7110, DSP-3, DSP-4, ST-010, ST-011 and ST-018 chips, as well as the Super Game Boy, Sufami Turbo and Satellaview peripherals.

BSNES (Menus/Super Puyo Puyo Tsu)

In parallel, in 2010, he developed a fundraising campaign to decompress SNES cartridge coprocessors to extract their firmware (hardware instructions), and thus made BSNES the first emulator to have 100% compatibility with games. An interesting fact. The code of the sound emulator he developed for BSNES, the NEC uPD7720, was used by the late Stephen Hawkins' team to produce a more portable version of the voice program he used. Returning to BSNES, in January 2011, he began releasing his 64-bit versions. In October 2011, he began supporting the Game Boy and the NES. After that, they added support for GBC in November 2011, GBA in April 2012 and NDS in August 2012. All of these added emulators were developed by Byuu for the project, under the names bgb, bnes, bgbc and bgba, with the exception of Nintendo DS support which comes from Cydrak's dasShiny emulator, developed in 2006.

Higan

In January 2013, the emulator changed its name to Higan, with the last version as BSNES released in August 2012. This version comes without NDS support, maintaining all other BSNES systems. Over time, several systems were included. Among them, WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color in April 2016, Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive and PC Engine in January 2017, SuperGrafx in June 2017 and Pocket Challenge V2 in April 2018. In May 2018, the idea of ​​resurrecting the original BNES project arose, which recovered it from the 2009 stage when it only ran SNES.

Higan (Menus)

The team began to call itself the BSNES Team. From then on, BSNES also began to support Lior Halphon's emulator, Sameboy, which is known as the most accurate emulator for GB and GBC emulation. The new BSNES project has parts of an experimental emulation project by Byuu called csnes. Within this new BSNES, a way to improve video rendering was also developed. This allowed programmer DerKoun to change the pixel quality, managing to increase a game with a resolution of 256x240 to 3840x2160, thus transforming the games into HD.

Higan v115 (Interface/Menus)

This gave rise to the BSNES fork, called BSNES-HD, created in May 2019 for Windows and MacOS, and in June for Linux. At the same time, Byuu and the Higan Team continue the development of Higan. Some members work on the team for both emulators, such as Screwtapello. In 2019 onwards, Higan has new additions, such as FDS in November 2019 and ColecoVision, SG-1000, SC-3000, MSX, MSX2, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Sega CD and SwanCrystal in December 2019. Also in December, it modifies its front-end, leaving the selection of consoles and portables at the bottom of it.

Higan (SNES/Wrecking Crew 98')

Higan (GBA/Bomberman Max 2)

In February 2020, Byuu was released, a fork of Higan, with the intention of adding other systems, such as PSX and N64, which cannot be run on Higan, due to its continuous cycle emulation model. It came with the proposal of having the precision of Higan and the ease of use of BSNES. The emulators were the same, with the exception of SC-3000 and SwanCrystal, which were exclusive to Higan. Byuu was updated until March 2020. Also in March, BSNES and Higan had their last update made by Byuu, being taken care of from then on by the BSNES Team and Higan Team. This latest version of Higan also comes with ports for MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD.

Ares

Still in March, he began his newest project, Ares, named after the character from the game Lunar: The Silver Star, and is a continuation of the work of the Byuu project, and automatically a direct continuation of Higan. The main purpose of the project was to emulate PC Engine CD and Nintendo 64. In May, he actually announced the project. From March to June, Ares had four releases only as source code. It was released in June, with support for PC Engine CD. The project was launched until July 2020, having been developed privately from August 2020 onwards. In February 2021, he released new versions of the emulator again, and from this version onwards with support for PSX. He released versions until May 2021. On June 27, 2021, Near was unfortunately found dead at his home. He had taken medication for pain and hyperactivity and committed suicide. A friend who did not want to be identified was on the phone with Near when the suicide happened.

Ares (32X/Virtua Fighter)

He fell silent and 30 minutes later he played the song Les Voyages De L'âme by the band Alcest, which means The Journey of the Soul. Later, his friend found out that Dear had committed suicide at that time. This friend also says that Near had been severely abused as a child and had suffered trauma from it, and recently he had been suffering abuse on the internet because of a forum called Kiwi Farms, dedicated to harassing those they considered eccentric and abnormal on the internet. This affected Near more severely when they started harassing friends close to him. It is not known if they had any secrets about Near or if they threatened the lives of those closest to him, but even with psychiatric medication Near could not withstand these virtual threats. We also do not know if, in addition to psychological problems, Near had other more serious problems that led him to this. The latest versions of his emulators released were March 2020 for BSNES and Higan and May 2021 for Ares.

Ares (PSX/Tokimeki Memorial Tokkaedama)

From October 2020 to October 2021, a BSNES update was created, called BSNES Nightly, but it was not updated by Byuu, but by the project team, the BSNES Team. The same happened with Higan, with updates from November 2020 to August 2021, called Higan Nightly, and updated by the Higan Team. At the launch of both, versions are released for Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu. After his death, Ares returns in July 2021, with Screwtapello in charge, who was part of the current BSNES and Higan teams. He did not leave his name in the credits, but rather the Ares Team. The project becomes the continuation of Byuu's legacy. This July version comes with the executable named Lucia, we are not sure why. Perhaps some tribute to Byuu with the name of a character or important person in her life (just my speculation).

Ares (Menus)

The name Lúcia returns in other versions. Sometimes in the name of the executable, sometimes in the title of the emulator. In February 2021, the emulator starts supporting PSX. In July 2021, it starts supporting Nintendo 64 (thanks to The Mainster's ParaLLEl-RDP graphics renderer from the RetroArch project), 32X, Neo Geo MVS and AES. The curious fact about The Mainster is that his RetroArch emulator was inspired by Byuu's BSNES. He also left a note on his website libretro.com about his colleague's death. The addition of his graphics renderer ported especially for N64 emulation in Ares, which is the continuation of Byuu's work and legacy, carries a lot of meaning. For me, it is a thank you and fulfillment of one of Byuu's last wishes, which was to emulate this console. Also in July, Englishman Luke Usher joins the project and becomes a permanent member in August, replacing Screwtapello. Screwtapello will definitely leave the project in September.

Ares (WonderSwan Color/Dragon Ball)

In November, it was the turn of American Stephanie Gawroriski to join the team. In March 2022, the project gained its own website. In June 2022, versions for MacOS also began to be released. Ares is still being developed to this day. BSNES influenced the creation of the RetroArch emulator in 2010. Later, several ports were created for the multi-emulator inspired by the BSNES core, such as Beetle BSNES in 2012 (a port of Mednafen's BSNES) and BSNES2014 in 2013. In 2010, BSNES became part of the Mednafen multi-emulator. In 2012, it was the turn of the BizHawk multi-emulator to be integrated. The first versions of BSNES used in these multi-emulators were 0.58 in Mednafen and 0.87 in BizHawk. There was also a fork of Higan made by Rex-USR around June 2017 called nSide. And about Byuu or Near, he was also known in the emuscene for having translated the game Dragon Quest V from Japanese to English in 2001. He has been in the emulation scene helping to program Super Nintendo emulators since 1997. Near was one of the great minds of emulation, fixing hardware problems, translating games, being a pioneer with his MSU-1 chip and the inspiration of the greatest multi-emulator of all time which was RetroArch. His work and his memory will forever be in the lives of Super Nintendo fans.

Jeremy Chadwick “Y0SHi” (1996)

Jeremy Chadwick

In addition to all the names already mentioned in previous SNES projects, one name that cannot be left out is that of Jeremy Chadwick, or simply Y0SHi. Originally from Corvallis, Oregon, USA and born on January 24, 1977, Yoshi (pseudonym of Jeremy D. Chadwick), also known at the time as Jer and Myriad, is a programmer, and was initially responsible for the TRaCER disassembler in 1996. Disassemblers are nothing more than programs that read machine code (such as processors, for example), and convert it to assembly language.

TRaCER

TRaCER disassembled the 65c02 processors (a popular and bug-corrected version of the 6502), found in consoles such as the NES, Atari Lynx and PC Engine, and the 65816 and 65c816, found in the Super Nintendo (in this case a version based on this processor called the Ricoh 5A22). These processors are also found in computers. At the time, it became the most popular disassembler for PCs and PC processors. It then managed to emulate the 6502, which helped it in its later written NES emulator, qNES. The program has helped several developers in the field. The Brain of the SNES emulator, VSMC, for example, used TRaCER to help in the development of its emulator. With his tool, Yoshi already imagined running possible SNES emulators on 386 computers, which ZSNES ended up doing two years later in 1998, most likely thanks to Yoshi's help.

NES and SNES Docs

Another of his great achievements was the creation of the SNES Document in 1994, known as snes.txt, which is nothing more than information about the hardware mapping of the device, understanding registers, sprites and sound chip. The repercussion of this was so great that Nintendo itself in America approached Yoshi for making company secrets freely available, when Yoshi only understood its hardware. Remember that this documentation was based on documents passed on by the programmer Dax, but that it was of little help to Yoshi's research. Yoshi's documentation helped in the creation in 1997 of the emulators ESNES, NLKSNES, NLKE, ZSNES and others. Yoshi also did something similar for the NES from 1997 onwards, with his documentation being used by emulators such as LandyNes, Nesticle and DarcNES. This documentation was called nestech.txt and was based on Marat Fayzullin's documentation, called nes.doc, which was the first NES documentation in the emulation world.

Jeremy Chadwick (2022)

Later, Marat himself shared Yoshi's version with people in the field. This is a leaner and easier-to-understand version, especially for programmers from generations after Marat's. Between 1996/97, Yoshi was also part of some project groups in the emulation world, such as Damaged Cybernetics, DAC, MTDS and OldSkoOL. Around 1997/98, he also contributed information to the websites EMUNews and Archaic Ruins. And regarding emulators, his first project was in late 1996, which he developed with his roommate, Mr. Snazz, called VeNES. Since he thought programming in another language would be more appropriate, he left the project around October/November 1996, and created the qNES project, alongside Riff's (pseudonym of Mike Perry). In April 1997, he left the project due to the prominence of NESticle in the emu scene.

Kid Ikarus (SNES)

He later joined the Super Kid Ikarus project, developing a homebrew of the game Kid Ikarus for the Super Nintendo, alongside VileWrath, and even releasing an alpha version. Around 1998, he moved away from the emulation world for a while. At the time, he deleted the yoshi.parodius.com page that he hosted on his portal, Parodius Networking, which provided network and security services in the region where he lived. Outside of the emulation world, he also provided work for companies such as E-ZNet, Electronic Arts, Full Market and Johnson & Associates. In July 1999, he returned to the emulation scene, now under the nickname Memblers/koitsu, revamping his Parodius Networking website solely for the emulation world and returning it as a portal. Within it, he hosts the Nesdev website, launched in December of the same year.

NesDev

Nesdev was intended to gather all technical content involving the NES and SNES consoles, including information on the 6502 processor that Yoshi disassembled and emulated for the QuickNES and the complete documentation of the SNES and NES consoles. The group that maintained the site with Yoshi was called NES Freaks, and over the course of 11 years, the emulators Tony Young, Ian Bell, Tennessee Carmel-Veilleux, Chris Covell, abonetochew, Quietust, Sergey Ryumik, among others, passed through it. They continued to work on the site until 2010.

Parodius Network/Parodious

He was also a columnist on the Parodius Networking portal from October 1999, posting about the world of emulation and signing as JDC (the acronym for his real name). He alternated his nicknames over the years between JDC until the end of 2000, Yoshi until the end of 2002 and koitsu until 2010, and again JDC from 2010 until August 2012, when he closed the portal. The portal also hosted websites of emulator creators and content creators of the genre, such as Genecyst, Nesticle, Demiforce, Nesworld, Archaic Ruins, among others. After that, in 2012, he created the Nesdev Wikipedia, making 729 articles about NES available in an easy and practical way. From 2017 onwards, he no longer updates the virtual encyclopedia. From 2001 until around 2005, he also had a website on the Crystalis portal. In 2018, he offered to help Bradley Smith of Infinite NES Lives in the creation of the NES game Lizard, also released for other systems, such as MS-DOS, Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

GitHub

Yoshi also had a GitHub page. Among his projects, we have NSF Info in 2016, a data reader for NES/Famicom sound files, known by the .NSF extension, IPS.PL in 2016, a utility for creating and applying IPS patches based on the Perl programming language, hdmademo.smc in 2019, a demo created for the SNES in 1993, which he modified to work in new assemblers, among others. He also developed some programs for FreeBSD, a UNIX system for which he worked several times. Among the programs, we have Fortune Mod FreeBSD Classic in 2017, a tool that saves the classic files contained in the 'fortune' command used in FreeBSD and UNIX versions prior to 2017, which contained phases of humor, wisdom and historical reflections, to be used in recent versions of these systems, and BSDHwMon in 2018, a hardware monitoring program, such as temperature, ventilation and voltage. Yoshi also had some projects (authored and forked) related to the 6502, but nothing that was developed. He published 13 projects in total on his GitHub.

Corvallis High School and Oregon State University

Regarding his academic and professional life, he attended Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Oregon, from 1991 to 1994. There, he completed basic Mandarin and Chinese courses and computer science. His first job was as a volunteer at CSOS, the computer science extension services at Oregon State University, as an assistant UNIX systems administrator from 1991 to 1995. In 1995, he moved to San Francisco, California. His first paid job was as a technical support and administrative assistant for UNIX systems at MediaCity, between 1995 and 1996, in Palo Alto, California, near San Francisco. In 1999, he joined Surfsoft Consulting as a temporary employee in UNIX systems administration (once again working with this system), in Mountain View, California. One of the clients he works with is Verio, a company he joined that same year, also in Mountain View, and also as a UNIX systems administrator.

MediaCity, Surfsoft Consulting, Verio, CompuCom, Microsoft, Insight Global and Animoto

In 2001, he left the company and in 2002 he went to CompuCom in Mountain View, working with network and cyber security, providing services for Microsoft's Hotmail (e-mail) and WebTV Division (internet via TV). He left the company in 2003. As happened at Surfsoft, which provided services for Verio and was hired by the same company, he was hired in 2004 by Microsoft, where he provided services for CompuCom. Now, he works as an operations engineer, providing services for Tellme Networks, a company that offered automated response services in call centers, and was one of the largest in the US at the time. Unlike Jeremy's previous jobs, where he joined one company to provide services for another, and then was hired by that other company, in this case Microsoft bought Tellme in 2007, so Jeremy did not leave the company to work for the company he provided services for (laughs). He stayed at Microsoft until 2012, also in Mountain View. 

Demiforce, SmugMug and Proofpoint

In 2013, he joined Insight Global as a devops engineer, whose role is to integrate software development and IT teams to work together. He worked remotely, working for the customer service company [24]7 Inc. Insight is based in Campbell, California. In 2014, he joined the online video maker Animoto as a technical operations engineer, working remotely. The company is based in New York City. Demiforce followed in 2015, as a systems administrator and architect, working remotely, at a company based in San Francisco. The company managed the Trism app for iOS. In 2018, he got another remote job, this time at the photography company SmugMug in Mountain View, as an operations engineer. He left the company in 2021 and joined the cybersecurity company Proofpoint in 2022, in Sunnyvale, California, also working remotely, as a senior devops engineer, working on the infrastructure of a laboratory. At the time of writing, he was still working at the company.

Teriyaki Bento

In addition, he volunteered from 2008 to 2011 at Bento Teriyaki, a Japanese bento restaurant. He was friends with the restaurant's owners, the Yang family, so he helped them out on weekends in the kitchen, preparing food and doing general chores. It was during this time that he learned basic Korean during his weekly meetings. He currently lives in Mountain View, California, USA.

Dismantlers

TRaCER (65C816/6502) (1996)

Documentation:

Snes.txt (1994), Nestech.txt (1997)

Emulators:

6502 (1996), quickNES (1996)

Games:

Super Kid Ikarus (SNES) (1997)

Programs:

NSFInfo (2016), IPS.PL (2016), Fortune Mod FreeBSD Classic (2017), BSDHwMon (2018)

Demo Games:

hdmademo.smc (SNES) (2019)

Other Emulators

TheSE, SNEqr, no$sns and CHAMPI

In addition to the emulators already mentioned, there were Sim SNEX, SnesMe!, SNESLite, RSRSNES, S-NESystem, The SNES Emulator (known as TheSE), SNES Professional, TrepSNES, GrimSNES, CHAMPI, no$sns, SNem, SNEqr, USNES, SMYNES, as well as versions for MacOS, such as Silhouette, for Amiga, such as AmiSNESE, WarpSNES, MySNES, among others.

Yes SNEX (MS-DOS)

Regarding unreleased emulators, we had the XNES for the UNIX system, which was canceled in its development due to pressure from Nintendo. There were also the PCNintendo projects in 1997 and SNeOS in 1999 that were never released.

PocketSNES (Pocket PC)

As for versions for other devices, we have SNES Emu for Gamepark 32 in 2002, PocketSNES for Pocket PC in 2003, PocketSNES/SNES Advance for GBA in 2004, SnesDS for NDS in 2005, SnezziDS for NDS in 2006, PocketSNES for Windows Phone and snes4iphone for iPhone both in 2008, PocketSNES Wiz for Gamepark 2x and jSNES for Java both in 2009, DSTWO for NDS in 2010, SNesoid and TigerSNES both for Android in 2012, XNES (based on Snes9x) for Java Script in 2013 and BlargSnes for N3DS in 2014.

SNES Professional

In multisystem emulators, in addition to those already mentioned for RetroArch, Mednafen and BizHawk, we had Virtual Nintendo in 1997 (for NES), Yame in 2001 (for NES, GB and TG16), MESS in 2002 and Mesen-S in 2016 (for GB, GBC and GBA).