, 10 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
So, this past week saw the "official" release of the lifted source code for NESticle, a top-flight Nintendo Entertainment System emulator. I only say "official" because it was promoted in an article, as opposed to the .zip file that has been floating around for 22 years.
It's a great emulator! Used it myself, way back when. Has all sorts of neat approaches to the problem, includes a mouse interface (with bloody dripping hand) and ways to change how the games were rendered. Worked in DOS and Windows 95.
In 1997, the source code bundle was grabbed from an open Samba share and then distributed around, causing the developer, Bloodlust Software, to abandon the project completely. It was a huge dramatic explosion, back then. You're forgiven for not experiencing/remembering it.
For some reason it was finally, "bravely" released by @forestillusion this past week, and done in a way that Motherboard reported on it. motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/…
And it was released on the Internet Archive! Hooray! Let's go see what it looks like...
What the heck. 22 years later, this big reveal, and it's a decontextualized, scant-info mess. That's not how you do a splash; you want to explain why this is important, what's in it, and leave lines for people who want to do more research to take the next steps.
So, I re-uploaded it. archive.org/details/nestic… - I added some context, links to articles (in the Wayback) related to the story, and a way to browse some of the contents of the .ZIP file online. I also call it what it is, and not just KRONKSRC.
Metadata's important. If the information is floating around to give context and meaning to what's being added to a place like the Archive's stacks, take a few extra minutes to do so, ESPECIALLY if it's meant to be a "flourish" release that's more attention-getting than history.
There's still work to be done with this, by the way - I don't know my source code, and it looks like this archive contains earlier versions of NESticle gathered up in .ZIP files within the .ZIP file - what does it mean, where's the analysis, where's the discoveries, the teaching?
Let's do the best we can - especially when you have decades to do it.
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