Part 1: 1990 to 1993 —The Dinosaurs Wake
Part 2: 1994 to 1996 — The Spark Catches Fire
Part 3: 1997 to 1999 — The Wild West

(These are the opening three sections in a six-part history of emulation series, and they are still very much a work in progress. Tracking down reliable sources for material that has long since disappeared is not always easy, so the record here will continue to grow and improve over time. I also plan to add more images, screenshots, quotes, and other material as this project develops, so feel free to check back periodically for updates. If you have additions, corrections, comments, or insights to share, please reach out—your contributions are welcome and will be included as this project evolves.)

Game Emulation History Part 1: 1990 to 1993 — The Dinosaurs Wake

By the early 1990s video games had already crossed the boundary from passing amusement into a cultural foundation. In Japan the Family Computer, known as the Famicom, had dominated households for nearly a decade and was regarded as the crown jewel of Nintendo’s empire. In the West the Nintendo Entertainment System was more than a machine, it was the symbol of a new golden age of home gaming, the device that had resurrected a nearly collapsed industry after the video game crash of 1983. Children and teenagers grew up with stacks of gray cartridges, each one a small portal to another world, each one reinforcing the authority of the little red and gray box under the television. At the same time Sega’s Mega Drive, called the Genesis in North America, was mounting a ferocious challenge, building an identity around speed, attitude, and arcade authenticity. NEC’s PC Engine dazzled early adopters with vibrant colors and compact design, while arcades themselves were still booming, filling cities with light and noise. To most players these systems were self contained miracles, mysterious and untouchable. You placed the cartridge in the slot, pressed power, and the screen came alive. What happened inside was invisible and secret, designed by engineers who rarely spoke and protected by companies that jealously guarded their proprietary chips.

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Yet in hidden corners of computing culture a different thought was beginning to form. What if these closed boxes were not truly closed? What if the programs burned into cartridges could be coaxed into running on entirely different machines? Could a Nintendo game live on a personal computer screen, tricked into believing it was still at home in its familiar hardware? This idea was not entirely alien. The word emulation already had a long history in computer science, defined simply as a host system imitating the functions of another system (Emulator definition). Researchers had been building emulators for decades, but until then such work had lived in academic or industrial settings far removed from the playful chaos of video games. The leap from one mainframe pretending to be another into a PC pretending to be a Famicom was radical. It was also intoxicating. To suggest that Super Mario Bros. might run on something other than a Nintendo console was a form of heresy, especially during an era when Nintendo and Sega were locked in an all out corporate war for the hearts and wallets of players.

The reason that heresy could become reality was the sudden surge in computing power available to consumers at the dawn of the 1990s. In Japan especially, companies were producing machines that looked like they had been shipped back in time from the future. The Fujitsu FM Towns, released in 1989, was one such marvel. It came standard with a built in CD ROM drive, a powerful Intel 386 processor, and full 256 color graphics, a multimedia leap ahead of what most Western PCs offered at the time (FM Towns history). To own one was to step years ahead of the global hardware curve. Then there was the Sharp X68000, legendary not only among hobbyists but also professional developers. Its architecture was so close to arcade hardware that companies like Capcom used it to test or port games like Street Fighter II with near perfect accuracy (Sharp X68000). Even on the Western side, high end DOS machines were gaining newfound power through VGA graphics and Sound Blaster audio cards (Sound Blaster). For the first time, consumer PCs were no longer a joke in console territory. They had the raw processing ability and graphical muscle to attempt the impossible. They could try to fake a console.

The earliest attempts were rough and ugly but unmistakably alive. When enthusiasts saw Donkey Kong’s familiar barrel throwing antics on a screen where no console was attached, they felt the ground shift. Performance was slow. Scrolling barely worked. Sprite layers bled into one another. Sound was entirely absent. And yet, the undeniable fact remained: it worked. A Nintendo game had run on a personal computer. That single achievement cracked the wall of impossibility. What was once unthinkable was now a matter of persistence and ingenuity. In that moment, emulation leapt from theoretical possibility into lived experience.

Between 1990 and 1993 four names would define this strange new frontier. Haruhisa Udagawa, a professional developer with credits at Namco, KAZe, and later Sonic Team, stunned the underground when he released the Family Computer Emulator v0.35 for the FM Towns in December 1990, the very first documented Famicom emulator, and followed up with v0.45 in March 1991. Despite being primitive, written in assembly, lacking sound, and constrained by ROM size and separate graphic file formats, it could boot games such as Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Xevious, Famicom Tennis, and Space Invaders (Family Computer Emulator). Then in 1991, Yuji Naka, the legendary programmer behind Sonic the Hedgehog, reportedly built a Famicom emulator that ran on the Mega Drive, not for release but as a private experiment, proving that even rival hardware could impersonate Nintendo under the right code. In 1993 Nobuaki Andou released Pasofami, the first commercial NES emulator, initially for FM Towns and later Windows. It was fast for its time and infamous for its aggressive copy protection routines, so aggressive that it could erase a Windows directory if piracy was detected. His passing in 2018 was confirmed by his son, closing a dramatic chapter in emulation’s early history (NESDev forum thread). At the same time, Marat Fayzullin began work on fMSX, a portable MSX emulator built in clean C code, designed to be cross platform and ultimately inspiring the .NES iNES header format that many still use today (RetroReversing on NES emulation).

These four pioneers were the dinosaurs of a digital new world, awkward and glitch ridden yet undeniably foundational. Every emulator that came later, from NESticle to Dolphin to RPCS3, owes its existence to the stubby and stubborn steps of these early figures.

Their story is not simply about code but about daring. They lived in a time when the internet was still fragmented, where knowledge moved via shareware discs and bulletin board systems rather than open repositories. They worked on exotic, often Japan only platforms that many in the West never encountered. They endured technical absurdities like splitting game data into program and character files because no universal ROM format existed (iNES format history). And they did all this largely in secret, without credit, often under the threat of legal or corporate backlash. They were not seeking recognition. They were seeking possibility. And by opening that door, they changed the way we understand games, hardware, and digital preservation.

Haruhisa Udagawa and the Birth of Console Emulation

When the story of emulation is told, the name most often credited as the spark is Haruhisa Udagawa. His reputation in the Japanese game industry was already notable: a programmer and designer who had worked with Namco, contributed at KAZe, and later crossed paths with Sonic Team. He was not some bedroom hobbyist tinkering with machines in secret but a professional with roots in the business. That makes his role even more remarkable, because in December of 1990 he unveiled something that seemed almost impossible at the time. He released the very first documented console emulator for a personal computer: the Family Computer Emulator v0.35, designed to run on Fujitsu’s futuristic FM Towns line (Emulation General Wiki).

The choice of platform was no accident. The FM Towns was one of the most advanced consumer computers of its era, released in Japan in 1989 with technology that felt years ahead of what Western PC owners could access. It came standard with a 386 processor, a CD-ROM drive, high-resolution 256-color graphics, and PCM audio, a set of specifications that made it both a multimedia showcase and a developer’s dream (Illusion City FM Towns overview). In many ways the FM Towns provided the perfect laboratory for experiments that pushed the boundaries of what software could do. And in Udagawa’s hands it became the cradle of console emulation.

Version 0.35 of the Family Computer Emulator was released on December 12, 1990, and though primitive by later standards it represented a revolution. The emulator was able to boot and play a small set of NES games including Donkey Kong, Xevious, Mario Bros., Famicom Tennis, and Space Invaders. These choices were not random. They were relatively early titles that relied less on the advanced mappers and complex chips that would characterize later cartridges. Even so, to see them appear on a screen powered only by the FM Towns and a disk file rather than a cartridge slot was extraordinary (RetroReversing: NES Emulation Beginnings).

But the limitations were glaring. The emulator lacked sound entirely. Sprites were restricted to simple 8×8 pixel blocks. Vertical scrolling was implemented, but horizontal scrolling was either broken or inconsistent. ROM sizes were capped to a small threshold. Most damning for players, many games simply would not run at all. Yet for programmers and historians, the miracle was that anything worked at all. The wall between closed console and general purpose computer had been breached.

Three months later, in March 1991, Udagawa followed up with version 0.45, which improved on performance and compatibility. This version became famous in preservation circles because it was distributed as freeware on the FM Towns Freeware Collection 3 CD, a compilation that has since been archived and made available through the Internet Archive (FM Towns Freeware 3 Archive). Thanks to that distribution, modern researchers and enthusiasts can still experience the earliest days of console emulation with the original binaries. It is a rare case where not only the documentation but the actual files from the dawn of the scene have survived intact.

The technical design of Udagawa’s emulator also reveals the infancy of emulation standards. At the time there was no unified format like the later iNES header system that would become the norm. Instead, games were stored in two separate files, splitting program code from character data. This was an echo of the way cartridge chips were structured but made distribution and compatibility a nightmare. Different emulators would sometimes adopt entirely different file formats, creating a fragmented ecosystem. The lack of standardization also meant that ROM images had to be specifically prepared for Udagawa’s emulator, limiting its usefulness outside of controlled circles (NESDev: iNES format). Still, these limitations highlight just how early and experimental the work was.

Udagawa himself is a somewhat mysterious figure. Unlike later emulation developers who cultivated public personas, he largely disappeared into professional development circles. His credits at Namco, KAZe, and later Sonic Team suggest a career focused on the industry rather than the hobbyist underground. This dual identity may explain why his work never gained the cult notoriety of later figures like Bloodlust Software’s Sardu, who released NESticle in 1997. Where Sardu embraced irreverence and counterculture, Udagawa was a working developer who happened to open the first door to a new frontier.

The release of the Family Computer Emulator had ripple effects even if only a small community knew of it at the time. It demonstrated that the concept of console emulation was possible, and it provided a proof of concept for others to build on. Without Udagawa, it is difficult to imagine the sudden burst of experimentation in the early 1990s that followed. By showing that even a proprietary, closed console like the Famicom could be partially recreated on a personal computer, he legitimized the idea that consoles were not unassailable black boxes but simply machines governed by logic that could be understood and imitated.

This shift in perception mattered enormously. Before 1990 the idea of running console software outside its intended hardware was closer to science fiction than to hobbyist experimentation. After Udagawa’s release it became a field of inquiry. Programmers in Japan and beyond began to wonder if their own machines could attempt the same trick. Bulletin board systems, shareware compilations, and eventually fledgling online communities began to spread the word. A vocabulary started to form around ROM images, around accuracy, and around compatibility. In many ways, the release of Family Computer Emulator created the language of emulation itself (Emulation Fandom Wiki).

It also placed the FM Towns in a unique position. Though never widely adopted outside Japan, the machine became a proving ground for software experiments that would not have been possible on less advanced Western PCs. Its inclusion of a CD drive made distributing larger files practical. Its advanced graphics hardware provided the horsepower needed to attempt to recreate the NES’s picture processing unit. For this reason, many historians now point to the FM Towns not only as a multimedia pioneer but as the silent partner in the birth of console emulation.

Preservationists today regard Udagawa’s work with particular reverence because so much of it has survived. The inclusion of Family Computer Emulator v0.45 on the FM Towns freeware CD means that we can still run the program and see exactly what users in 1991 saw. In the world of emulation, where many early experiments have been lost to time, that survival is rare and invaluable. It provides a direct link to the origins of the movement, allowing modern enthusiasts to experience the thrill of those first crude experiments.

The truth is that without Udagawa’s willingness to attempt something that seemed almost heretical, the history of emulation might have been very different. Later developers would have undoubtedly discovered ways to mimic consoles, but the timing and influence of Family Computer Emulator accelerated the process. By 1993 other projects like Pasofami and fMSX were already building on the conceptual ground he had cleared. In retrospect, Udagawa’s work appears as the spark that lit the fire.

Today, when powerful emulators can run PlayStation 3 games at near full speed on consumer hardware, it is easy to forget how fragile and improbable the beginnings were. In 1990, the ability to make Donkey Kong’s pixelated barrels roll across a screen without a Nintendo console in sight was a revelation. It may have lacked polish, but it did not lack significance. Haruhisa Udagawa had proved that the console was not an untouchable fortress. It was a system of circuits and logic that could be understood, and therefore it could be recreated.

In that sense, he was the true father of console emulation. His work was awkward, glitch ridden, incomplete, and yet utterly groundbreaking. More than thirty years later, the files remain, preserved on archival discs and digital repositories, a fossil record of emulation’s birth. And just like the dinosaurs whose lumbering steps reshaped the world, Udagawa’s heavy code carved a path for every emulator that followed.

Yuji Naka and the Secret Mega Drive Famicom Emulator

When discussing the dawn of emulation, most roads point to the FM Towns and Haruhisa Udagawa’s Family Computer Emulator in 1990. But there is another, more secretive tale whispered in the community—one that involves Yuji Naka, the programmer who gave the world Sonic the Hedgehog and whose technical wizardry defined Sega’s most iconic era. Unlike Udagawa, who released his code to the public, Naka’s experiment was private, almost mythical, and yet it confirmed something profound: even in the heat of the console wars, engineers were crossing forbidden boundaries.

In the early 1990s, Sega and Nintendo were locked in combat. The Mega Drive (Genesis in the West) had launched in 1988 in Japan and 1989 in North America, positioning Sega as a true rival to Nintendo’s dominance (Ars Technica). With Sonic’s arrival in 1991, Sega gained its mascot and its edge. Yuji Naka, the lead programmer behind Sonic, became one of Sega’s rising stars, celebrated for his ability to squeeze every ounce of speed and smoothness out of the Mega Drive’s hardware. Yet buried beneath this triumph was a lesser known experiment: Naka himself confirmed that he had written a Famicom emulator for the Mega Drive, a project never meant for public release but significant nonetheless (The Next Level interview).

According to his own words in that interview, Naka admitted with a laugh that he had indeed created a working Famicom emulator. It reportedly ran titles like Dr. Mario, though imperfectly, and demonstrated the ability of Sega’s 16-bit console to mimic Nintendo’s aging 8-bit machine. The irony was delicious: while Sega and Nintendo’s marketing teams launched commercials attacking each other, one of Sega’s own programmers had secretly made Nintendo games run on Sega hardware. It was never released to the public, never meant as a consumer product, but its very existence showed how porous the line between platforms could be when engineers let curiosity guide them.

To appreciate the audacity of Naka’s project, one must remember the culture of the time. In 1991, the idea of a Famicom emulator was still virtually unknown outside of Japan’s niche FM Towns community. Emulation had not yet become the global underground hobby it would later be with NESticle or ZSNES. Nintendo and Sega were bitter rivals, and the notion of a Sega engineer deliberately writing code to run Nintendo games on Sega’s own console would have been considered corporate blasphemy. In fact, it is not hard to imagine that if executives had known, they would have buried the experiment immediately.

And yet, that secrecy is precisely what makes the project so fascinating. Unlike Udagawa, who distributed his binaries through shareware CDs, Naka’s emulator remained hidden, mentioned only in retrospect years later when his career had already moved beyond Sonic. What makes it credible is the direct source: Naka himself confirmed it in a published interview, lending weight to what otherwise might have been dismissed as folklore (AssemblerGames archived discussion).

Technically speaking, it makes sense that the Mega Drive could handle a Famicom emulator, at least partially. The Mega Drive’s Motorola 68000 CPU ran at 7.67 MHz in NTSC regions, far faster than the Ricoh 2A03 CPU of the Famicom at 1.79 MHz. The Mega Drive also had a dedicated Zilog Z80 processor often used for sound but capable of additional duties. On paper, there was enough overhead to simulate the logic of an NES, even if graphics and sound accuracy would have been limited. That Naka chose Dr. Mario as a test case makes sense too—it was a simpler puzzle game compared to more mapper-heavy titles.

Although the project never left his desk, the symbolism resonates deeply. Naka’s work demonstrated that emulation was not only a hobbyist pursuit but also something professional engineers were curious about. It blurred the boundaries of loyalty in the console wars, showing that at the technical level, developers often admired or dissected rival platforms even as their marketing departments painted them as enemies. It also foreshadowed a future where emulation would become the backbone of preservation, development, and even official rereleases. Today, when companies like Nintendo and Sega both rely on emulators to sell classic games in digital storefronts, it is easy to forget that the roots of that practice may trace back to projects like this one.

The emulation community still speculates on whether any binaries of Naka’s emulator survive. To date, no ROM or dump has surfaced, and given its unofficial nature, it may never have been saved. Some forum users on NESDev and Emulation General have debated whether it was simply a proof of concept or a more fleshed out emulator, but without code, only Naka’s word stands as evidence (Emulation Fandom Wiki). Yet in emulation history, testimony matters. Many early projects were never widely distributed, and stories passed down by their authors form part of the folklore of the scene.

In historical context, the existence of this Mega Drive Famicom emulator underscores how quickly the idea of cross-platform gaming was taking root. Within the span of just three years—from Udagawa’s Family Computer Emulator in 1990 to Naka’s experiment in 1991 to Nobuaki Andou’s commercial Pasofami in 1993—the concept of running console games outside their intended hardware leapt from obscure Japanese freeware to mainstream controversy.

For Yuji Naka, the emulator is only a footnote in a career defined by speed and Sonic. But for the history of emulation, it is a tantalizing chapter that proves the idea was compelling even to those inside the industry. It was not just underground hobbyists chasing the impossible. It was also the industry’s brightest programmers, testing the boundaries in secret, proving to themselves that no machine was sacred.

In retrospect, this hidden project carries symbolic weight. It shows that emulation was inevitable. If even a Sega engineer at the height of the 16-bit console war was tempted to make Nintendo games run on Sega hardware, then the genie was already out of the bottle. The walls between closed platforms were destined to fall.

Nobuaki Andou and the Rise of Pasofami

By 1993, the word emulation was just beginning to circulate in small Japanese computing circles. Haruhisa Udagawa had cracked open the door in 1990 with his Family Computer Emulator, and Yuji Naka had privately shown that a Famicom could run on Sega’s Mega Drive. Yet these projects were either primitive proofs of concept or hidden curiosities. Emulation was still not something that an average computer user could easily access. That changed with the arrival of Pasofami, a program that became the first widely known commercial Nintendo emulator. Its creator, Nobuaki Andou, would go on to shape not only the software itself but also the very debate about the legality, ethics, and risks of emulation.

Pasofami first appeared in 1993 on Japan’s FM Towns, the same advanced platform that had hosted Udagawa’s early experiment. The program’s name itself was a play on “Personal Computer” and “Family Computer,” a nod to its intent: to bring Famicom games onto personal hardware. But unlike Udagawa’s freeware releases, Andou made a bold decision. He marketed and sold Pasofami as a shareware and eventually a commercial product (Emulation General Wiki). This immediately set him apart and made Pasofami a lightning rod for attention.

The Experience of Pasofami

For users in 1993, running Pasofami was a revelation. It supported many early NES and Famicom titles, offered smoother graphics than Udagawa’s emulator, and most importantly, it was accessible. Andou designed it to run not only on FM Towns but eventually on MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 as well, vastly expanding its reach (RetroReversing overview). Players could, for the first time, load a ROM image and experience a Nintendo game without touching Nintendo hardware.

But Pasofami was not without quirks. Its compatibility list was patchy. Later NES games with complex mappers often failed to run. Sound emulation was crude, sometimes missing entirely. And ROM images had to be carefully prepared. Like Udagawa’s emulator, Pasofami predated the iNES format, meaning ROM dumps often needed to be split or modified. Even so, the program was a step forward in usability. It came with a Japanese interface, menus for loading files, and instructions—elements that made it feel less like a hacker’s tool and more like a legitimate piece of software.

Controversy: Copy Protection and Risk

Pasofami is remembered as much for its copy protection as for its emulation. Andou embedded code in certain versions that would delete key Windows directories if the program detected unauthorized use. Community members on NESDev forums recall with a mix of horror and fascination that users who tampered with the protection found their C:\WINDOWS folder erased, effectively crippling their machines (NESDev discussion of Pasofami). While this tactic may have protected his work from piracy, it also gave Pasofami a reputation as dangerous software, something to be approached with caution. In the small but growing emulation community, that notoriety stuck.

This aggressive stance reflected Andou’s unusual position. He was not an underground coder releasing freeware anonymously. He was selling his emulator, attaching his real name, and taking a stand that his software was a legitimate product. At a time when Nintendo was famously protective of its intellectual property, this was a bold, even reckless move. Some saw him as a pioneer who brought emulation to the masses; others saw him as a provocateur who invited legal fire.

Andou’s Legacy

Despite its controversy, Pasofami’s impact cannot be overstated. It became the entry point for many Japanese users into the world of emulation. Where Udagawa had provided a proof of concept, Andou provided a product. He normalized the idea of loading ROM images into an emulator, of treating console software as files that could be archived, shared, and replayed.

Andou continued to develop Pasofami throughout the 1990s, refining its compatibility and expanding its platform support. While it was eventually overshadowed by more advanced emulators such as NESticle (1997), which offered superior speed, graphics, and even network play, Pasofami retains its place as a foundational project. It proved that there was a market for emulation, even if that market was controversial.

In 2018, the emulation community learned of Nobuaki Andou’s passing, confirmed by his son and noted on preservation accounts such as GDRI. Forum threads at NESDev paid tribute to him, remembering both the excitement of Pasofami and the fear of its copy protection routines (NESDev obituary thread). His death closed the book on a figure who had been at the heart of emulation’s first wave.

Why Pasofami Matters

Pasofami’s importance lies not just in what it did but in what it represented. It was the first emulator to go commercial, to stake a claim that emulation could be software worth selling. That stance brought both legitimacy and backlash. On the one hand, it made emulation more accessible to ordinary users who might never have found or compiled freeware tools. On the other hand, it raised legal and ethical questions that continue to this day.

The program also shaped how communities formed around emulation. Shareware distribution, online bulletin boards, and later emulation news sites carried stories about Pasofami, debating its value and its dangers. In doing so, they built the first layer of global emulation culture, one that balanced innovation, preservation, and legality in a delicate dance.

A Step Toward the Future

Looking back, Pasofami feels like a bridge between two eras. On one side stands the experimental work of Udagawa, hidden in freeware discs and limited to technical pioneers. On the other side stands the explosion of emulation in the mid-1990s, when programs like NESticle, ZSNES, and Snes9x spread worldwide through the internet. Pasofami is the middle link, the program that carried the idea from proof of concept to accessible product.

For modern enthusiasts, the program is preserved not only in memory but also in archives. Old versions of Pasofami still circulate on Japanese sites, and documentation remains accessible through wikis and community write-ups. Like Udagawa’s emulator, it serves as a fossil record of emulation’s birth, capturing the moment when the impossible became marketable.

And at the center of it all is Nobuaki Andou, a man who dared to turn emulation into a business before the world was ready, who embedded lethal protection in his software to guard it, and who nonetheless opened the door for countless players to experience Nintendo’s history in a new way. His story is one of risk, controversy, and innovation—the essential ingredients of emulation’s early years.

Marat Fayzullin and the Portability of Emulation

By 1993, the idea of emulation had begun to crawl out of the shadows. Haruhisa Udagawa had stunned the FM Towns world with his pioneering Family Computer Emulator in 1990. Yuji Naka had quietly proven that even Sega’s own Mega Drive could impersonate the Famicom, if only behind closed doors. Nobuaki Andou had made emulation a product with Pasofami, offering it as a shareware tool that flirted with commercial legitimacy. These early projects were glitchy, fragmented, and tied to their specific machines, but they collectively proved that console emulation was real. What was still missing was a design philosophy that could take emulation out of its narrow niches and point toward the future. That missing piece came from Marat Fayzullin, a Russian-born developer who introduced fMSX in 1993.

Where Udagawa’s and Andou’s emulators were confined to specific platforms—FM Towns, DOS, or early Windows builds—Fayzullin’s approach was radically different. He wrote fMSX in clean ANSI C, carefully avoiding platform-specific hacks, so that it could be compiled and run on a wide variety of systems. From the very beginning, he designed it not just as an emulator but as a portable emulator, something that could travel across operating systems with minimal modification (fms.komkon.org official page). This single design decision became a turning point in emulation history. It foreshadowed the way projects like MAME and Dolphin would later prioritize portability and accuracy, ensuring that emulation was not tied forever to one machine but could survive as technology marched forward.

The MSX Legacy

To understand why Fayzullin chose the MSX, one must first appreciate what the MSX standard represented. Conceived in 1983 as a hardware specification spearheaded by Microsoft Japan and ASCII Corporation, the MSX aimed to unify the fragmented Japanese home computer market. It found moderate success in Japan, the Netherlands, Brazil, Spain, and parts of the Middle East. While it never conquered North America, it was beloved in regions where Konami, Compile, and other developers released groundbreaking titles such as Metal Gear, Vampire Killer, and Aleste (MSX.org community history). By 1993, the MSX hardware was aging, but its legacy mattered to enthusiasts who wanted to preserve its library. Fayzullin’s fMSX offered exactly that: a way to keep the MSX alive across platforms.

The Birth of fMSX

Fayzullin began writing fMSX in 1993, initially targeting UNIX-based systems like DEC Alpha workstations. Very quickly, thanks to its portable design, it spread to MS-DOS, Windows, Amiga, Macintosh, and other environments (Emulation General Wiki). This was groundbreaking. Instead of being locked to a single exotic Japanese computer like FM Towns, fMSX could be compiled on whatever the user had access to. That portability gave it longevity. Over the years, fMSX was ported to dozens of platforms, from early Linux distributions to handheld devices and even mobile phones.

From the outset, Fayzullin emphasized the educational and preservationist value of his emulator. On his official site, he notes that fMSX was meant to demonstrate emulation principles, encourage experimentation, and provide a consistent MSX environment across machines (fms.komkon.org). Unlike Andou’s commercial approach, Fayzullin distributed his emulator as shareware and encouraged feedback from a global community. This open attitude made fMSX a central reference point for aspiring emulator coders, many of whom dissected his source code to learn how to structure their own projects.

Technical Achievements

fMSX was not the most accurate emulator by modern standards, but it was innovative in scope. It supported the MSX1 and MSX2 architectures, cartridge loading, sound synthesis, and disk emulation. The fact that it could run commercial games like Metal Gear or Knightmare across platforms was itself astonishing in the early 1990s. Most importantly, it showed that a single emulator project could exist independently of the quirks of its host machine. This portability was the seed from which modern cross-platform emulation grew.

At a time when most emulators used their own quirky ROM formats, Fayzullin also contributed significantly to standardization. His documentation of the .NES iNES file header format in 1996, though separate from fMSX, demonstrated his commitment to building infrastructure for the emulation scene (RetroReversing: NES Emulation History). The iNES header provided a common way to label mapper types and ROM sizes, solving the fragmentation problem that had plagued earlier projects. Although iNES is more closely tied to NES emulation, its widespread adoption cemented Fayzullin’s influence far beyond the MSX community.

Community Impact

Unlike Udagawa, who remained a shadowy figure, or Andou, whose aggressive copy protection gave him a controversial reputation, Fayzullin engaged with the community openly. His site, fms.komkon.org, became a hub not just for emulator downloads but for documentation, FAQs, and status updates. Enthusiasts from around the world could follow the project’s progress, send bug reports, and suggest features. On forums such as EmuTalk and Zophar’s Domain, users frequently cited fMSX as one of the most reliable and widely available emulators of its day.

Preservationists also appreciated fMSX’s role in keeping the MSX alive in regions where the hardware was already scarce. In Brazil and the Netherlands, fMSX became a tool for rediscovering Konami’s MSX exclusives. It gave students and hobbyists a chance to study a computer standard that had been overlooked in the United States but carried huge historical importance elsewhere.

The Contrast with Pasofami

When placed side by side with Pasofami, the contrast is striking. Andou’s emulator was aggressive, commercial, and risky, with built-in copy protection that could delete directories if triggered. Fayzullin’s emulator, by comparison, was careful, educational, and open. Andou’s approach led to notoriety; Fayzullin’s approach led to influence. Where Andou created a product for immediate use, Fayzullin created a foundation for the future.

This divergence highlights one of the most important themes in early emulation history: the balance between accessibility, legality, and preservation. Andou made emulation controversial by selling it. Fayzullin made emulation credible by treating it as software infrastructure. Both approaches shaped the culture, but Fayzullin’s portability-first vision set the stage for the emulation projects that dominate today.

Longevity and Modern Relevance

Remarkably, fMSX is still maintained. Decades after its first release, new versions continue to appear on Fayzullin’s official site, supporting modern operating systems and even Android devices (fms.komkon.org downloads). This longevity is unmatched by most emulators of its era. While many first-generation projects fell into obscurity or broke as hardware advanced, fMSX adapted and survived. Its continued presence makes it both a historical artifact and a living project, bridging the past and present of emulation.

Why fMSX Matters

The importance of fMSX lies in its philosophy. By writing in portable C, Fayzullin ensured that his emulator could migrate across systems, preserving access to the MSX library as computing technology evolved. He demonstrated that emulators should not be tied to one machine but should be treated as adaptable software frameworks. In doing so, he paved the way for projects like MAME, whose mission is not just to play games but to archive entire hardware ecosystems across platforms.

Just as Udagawa cracked open the door and Andou sold the concept, Fayzullin gave emulation its legs. His focus on portability and preservation made emulation durable, sustainable, and global. For this reason, he is often cited not just as the father of MSX emulation but as one of the architects of emulation culture itself.

Conclusion: The Dinosaurs Roar

Between 1990 and 1993, the world of video games changed in ways that few outside of tiny circles could have imagined. For most players, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Mega Drive, the PC Engine, and the bustling arcades were the only realities that mattered. Cartridges were sacred, consoles were untouchable, and the hardware wars between Nintendo and Sega defined playground debates and advertising campaigns alike. Yet beneath this surface, in labs, offices, and obscure corners of the computing underground, a handful of individuals were quietly redrawing the boundaries of possibility. Their names—Haruhisa Udagawa, Yuji Naka, Nobuaki Andou, and Marat Fayzullin—would become the first constellation in the history of emulation.

The First Generation

The breakthroughs of these four pioneers each carried their own flavor, but together they formed the DNA of emulation’s first age. Haruhisa Udagawa provided the breach with his Family Computer Emulator in 1990, proving that a PC could impersonate the Famicom and leaving a preserved fossil on the FM Towns Freeware 3 CD (Internet Archive). Yuji Naka, in 1991, shocked even himself by writing a Famicom emulator for the Mega Drive, confirming in later interviews that he had Nintendo games like Dr. Mario secretly running on Sega’s own hardware (The Next Level interview). In 1993, Nobuaki Andou released Pasofami, the first commercial NES emulator, bringing emulation into shareware catalogs but also embedding infamous copy protection that could erase Windows directories, a fact still remembered in threads on NESDev (NESDev forum). And finally, Marat Fayzullin gave emulation legs with fMSX, written in portable ANSI C so that it could run on UNIX workstations, DOS PCs, Amigas, Macs, and more. His later contribution to the iNES header format provided the first real standard for ROM distribution (fMSX official page, RetroReversing).

The Shared DNA of the Dinosaurs

Together, these figures represented four directions of a single impulse: Udagawa showed it was possible, Naka proved rival walls could fall, Andou brought it to users, and Fayzullin made it portable and durable. They were pioneers fumbling in the dark, their code clumsy and their goals sometimes contradictory, but together they established the pillars of everything that followed.

Their work also reflected the contradictions of the era. Emulation was both preservation and provocation, both innovation and risk. It existed in tension with the very companies that had built the consoles being emulated. It thrived in an underground that was not yet the internet but still global, carried on bulletin boards, shareware discs, and whispers in computer magazines. The seeds planted in these years would bloom in the mid-1990s into projects like NESticle, ZSNES, and Snes9x, which would take emulation from niche obscurity to mainstream notoriety.

The Significance of 1990–1993

Looking back, the years 1990 to 1993 stand as the prehistoric era of emulation. Like dinosaurs, these early emulators were awkward, lumbering, and often incomplete, but they reshaped the landscape forever. What began as a technical curiosity became a cultural force. The first ROM images, the first standards, the first commercial experiments—all emerged in these years. Preservationists now regard this period as sacred ground, the fossil bed from which all modern emulation descends.

It is also striking how international this moment was. Udagawa in Japan, Naka in Sega’s corporate halls, Andou selling his software to Japanese users, Fayzullin coding in Russia—emulation was never the work of one place or one culture. It was a global impulse, born simultaneously in different corners of the world, unified by a shared sense that hardware was not a wall but a puzzle to be solved.

From Fossils to Framework

Today, when emulators like RPCS3 can boot PlayStation 3 titles, or when Nintendo itself ships official emulators inside the Switch’s Online service, it is easy to take emulation for granted. But the roots lie in those fragile first steps between 1990 and 1993. Each glitchy screen, each silent sprite, each line of portable C code was a roar in the darkness, echoing forward to the thriving ecosystem we know today.

These pioneers did not set out to create a cultural revolution. They wanted to see if it could be done. And in proving that it could, they forever altered the way games would be played, preserved, and remembered.

In the end, Udagawa, Naka, Andou, and Fayzullin were not just coders—they were explorers, archaeologists, and heretics all at once. Their work forms the bedrock of emulation history. They are the dinosaurs whose steps still shake the ground we walk on.

Next: Part 2: 1994 to 1996 — The Spark Catches Fire