"Near" - prolific emulator author and contributor has passed away

[Roswell]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I feel like it's pretty significant. Feel free to move it if necessary.

 

"Near" is the author behind the popular (and super notably cycle accurate) Bsnes/Higan/Ares emulators and contributed code to just about every modern emulator covering the 8-16 bit era. Chances are if you use an emulator to play retro games, you're running some of their code.

 

They started off with a goal to completely reverse engineer the SNES down to the clock cycle and eventually succeeded, minus some negligible weirdness with the sound chip. That alone is wild and unheard of in the emulation scene, but they ended up developing the same ideas for just about every other console/handheld from the 8-16bit era with Higan and later Ares. They also helped and contributed to countless other (even competing) projects just to further the state of emulation. As I said previously, if you use emulators for Nintendo/Sega/etc, you're almost certainly running this person’s code. Their code was even used with/by Stephen Hawking in an effort to preserve his voice after passing.

 

Seems like their death was related to relentless targeted harassment and mental health issues which is sad and unfortunate. They were a colossal force in emulation and will be missed.

 

https://kotaku.com/the-brilliant-snes-emulator-creator-known-as-near-has-d-1847182851

https://www.pcgamer.com/near-creator-of-the-higan-and-bsnes-emulators-has-died/

 

 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

RIP. _{Seems like Tech News personally.}

 

[tkitch]

RIP.

 

I just installed 8 and 16 bit emulators onto my 3DS today.

[Roswell]

1 minute ago, tkitch said:

RIP.

 

I just installed 8 and 16 bit emulators onto my 3DS today.

If you’re using SNES9X, that’s one of the ones he contributed a good bit to. I wasn’t aware until I read comments from their team about it today.

[tkitch]

2 minutes ago, Roswell said:

If you’re using SNES9X, that’s one of the ones he contributed a good bit to. I wasn’t aware until I read comments from their team about it today.

two different branches, actually.  Apparently some work better than others, depending on the game.

 

[Quackers101]

on the topic of emulation and piracy or legit ones.

those are some big contributions.

 

May his work be valued, hopefully not taken down with DMCA.

[Ben17]

Wow 

That's sad to hear tbh 

I'm sorry for his family's loss