The DCEmu Interview - Question 4 - What Got you Interested in Homebrew/Emulation ?

[wraggster]

http://interviews.dcemu.co.uk/dcemu2008.gif

A feature i did a few years ago and one im going to repeat now is the DCEmu Interview, a unique idea in which questions are asked by me to the Whole DCEmu Community its a way to learn more about each others and find out what our interests are and much more

Todays Question is What Got you Interested in Homebrew/Emulation ?

Give your Answer via Comments.

Remember to check out our DCEmu Interview Site (http://interviews.dcemu.co.uk/) to catch up on previous DCEmu Interview Questions

The DCEmu Interview - Question 1 - What Consoles Do You Own ? (http://interviews.dcemu.co.uk/the-dcemu-interview-question-1-what-consoles-do-you-own--82867.html)
The DCEmu Interview - Question 2 - Whats Your Favourite Console Of All Time (http://interviews.dcemu.co.uk/the-dcemu-interview-question-2-whats-your-favourite-console-of-all-time-83029.html)
The DCEmu Interview - Question 3 - Whats Your New Years Resolution ? (http://interviews.dcemu.co.uk/the-dcemu-interview-question-3-whats-your-new-years-resolution--83130.html)

[wraggster]

To answer my own question i would have to go back to approx1995 and a site called Daves Video Game Classics it was there i first discovered emulators and since then i became hooked.

The first homebrew i was interested in was on the Dreamcast a system where you didnt have to modchip it to play emulators and homebrew games.

The good memorys from them still hold strong today.

[JKKDARK]

It started with my Dreamcast. I was interested with these Genesis and SNES emulators. I think it was in 2003.

[cal360]

When I first got my PSP I was interested in what it could do and I saw on google a picture of someone playing the NES mario on the PSP. I was realy interested in playing my original NES games on the go on my PSP. I typed in PSP emulation on google and this was the first site that appeared and ironically it was two weeks later when I actual got a NES emulator on my PSP, I was too interested in the homebrew games and applications

[booradley1212]

It all started with Zophar's domain. I read an issue of Gamepro way back when and they mentioned being able to play old SNES and Arcade games on the PC. Since I'd sold my SNES long ago of course I was excited. The games played beautifully but I really didn't take to playing on the PC. I always said it would be super cool if someone built this into a console.
I bought a Dreamcast solely to play emulation. It was great, but if anyone like me had a disk FILLED with games, the Dreamcast loaded each one separately, and it took forever. I still played but it kind of sucked.
Then I bought a Tapwave Zodiac. That system was promising but the lack of popularity hurt the amount of people working on the system.
Today, the original Xbox and the PSP reign in the emulation department. If you could tell me I'd have a system with pretty much ALL my classic favorites, with fast forward functions and save states...I would have given my right nut to have it!
The only way they could improve the PSP at this point is with full speed N64 emulation (my current dream!) and some onboard memory (oh...I think 100 gb would do it! :) )
It took me like a year to warm up to the PSP but now I'm quite the fan...its just amazing!

[SSaxdude]

I first remember playing NES games on my computer using an online emulator called ONE. About 5 months after I bought my PSP, I remember finding sites dealing with PSP homebrew. I loved the NES emulator, so I learned more about it and used more homebrew on my PSP.

[Shrygue]

I went with the homebrew scene in 2006 when I went to my local WHSmiths and had a quick look in the computer magazines. I picked up one and it mentioned the PSP was capable of running a Sega Genesis emulator. Surprised with my discovery, I went home and got online, searched Sega Genesis emulators and the first site to appear on top of the Google search come across was DCEmu UK. I saw all manner of great homebrew just waiting for the taking. Unfortunately, I was not able to put it on until the 2.71 downgrader was released but the 4 month wait was worth it.

[mike_jmg]

My first contact with emulators, was the snes9x on the first computer I got, in 2000

I really liked the idea of being able to replay my old games, and some more I didn't played much back when I had a snes, cause I didn't owned the cartridges :p

Snes9x was sometimes dissapointing cause some games would not work properly, and all that got fixed with zsnes wich worked perfectly. Then I got a GB emu, GBA emu, Nes emu and N64 emu. All this for my PC

I bought a PSP, cause I wanted to be able to play snes on the go, Imagine my anger when I got it and it had FW 1.51, when I needed 1.50 (it was so darn close), Back then I used 2.00 downgrader to get things working

edit: ohh, I just remembered something else, I had a CPS1, CPS2 and Neogeo emus and I became more skilled on the keyboard than on the actual arcade machine LOL

[Sonicboy 101]

When I first found out about genesis emulators for my PSP really. I found out about it here.
I first used homebrew and emulation on the DC, but I never knew it.

[Anonymous D]

i had homebrew on my DC, as i heard aboutt he divx player for it, but as it was bought from ebay, as usual with ebay electronics. it died. so a buit later i got my psp, which has been running homebrew ever since i got it.

[____anders____]

for me, it started when i got 621 nes games on a cd for my playstation 1..

it's fun to play games on a console that weren't meant to play those games on it.. hehe

[the_eternal_dark]

I got interested in emulation back when snes9x got big on the PC. A neighbor in my old neighborhood ripped my Super Mario World for me and the rest is history.

First time I got into homebrew was probably the game NetHack for PC. The Dreamcast was the first console that I played homebrew on. Now both of my Xbox's and both of my PSP's play homebrew as well.

[sm1988]

I am no 30 years old and I remember how exited I was to play phantasy star on a game gear with a master gear converter. since then I have always had an interest in handhelds and got into emulation for the reasons of playing my favorite stuff on the go. naturaly I got a psp and l never realized how capable that it was it is so bad ass.

[NoQuarter]

Seeing snes on a psp via swaploit

[sroon]

playin Secret of Mana on the go was a dream cum true:)
(O )( O);)

[mcdougall57]

funny enough it was on a pop up of "the top 50 emulation sites" i started uout with the gba

[Iceman^2]

I first read about an emulator in a magazine- I can't remember which. I tried getting MAME to work on my old pc with no luck. A few years ago when I got my new PC I started researching emulators so I could play old NES games on my PC. When I started playing those old games, the obsession grew stronger. I learned about the PSP and what it could do later on. My friend eventually sold me his PSP and that was when I started using this site because it had the tutorials to get homebrew running and I learned just about everything from this site. I now check up on emulation on a semi-daily basis to see if there is something new and improved from what I have.

[Brainy142]

When i saw ds tower defence i had to get it :P

[Veskgar]

When I first got my PSP I was interested in what it could do and I saw on google a picture of someone playing the NES mario on the PSP. I was realy interested in playing my original NES games on the go on my PSP.

Same here. I never bothered to pay attention to any of the emulation scenes. But I was so into the PSP that when I started seeing pictures of NES and SNES being played on the PSP it seemed too good to be true. Digging a little deeper however, I soon saw it was indeed true. And so started my PSP homebrew addiction. I had upgraded to 2.00 for the web browser and used the MPH tiff exploit downgrader to get the coveted 1.50 back.

The rest as they say, is history...

I would like to thank all of the hard working coders and homebrew developers who have made the PSP homebrew scene the most exciting thing to be a part of.

Forever grateful,

- Veskgar

[Video_freak]

I was very interested in the PSP ever since it's unveiling sometime in 2004 (man time flies). Shortly after the Japanese release (December 2004 I believe), coders figured out how to run homebrew on their Japanese, firmware 1.0 PSPs. I was fascinated mostly by the emulators, and bought a PSP as soon as I could. I was looking for a web site for steady news, so I Googled "PSP news", and I joined this site to download emulators and finally be able to view pictures in posts.

[armyStrong]

I got into emulation years ago...I was having a terrible time finding a cart of Secret of Mana...I ended up with a mountain of roms and emulators.

I got into homebrew on the Xbox while I was away at school two years ago through a few ECE friends.

I picked up a PSP specifically because I heard about the possibility of emulation on it...I figured it would be much easier to lug around while I'm in the military rather than carry multiple systems like I used to do in college.

[VexnadFett]

psp did it to me!

[Zin0099]

emus on pc started it, but finding out that the dream cast could play roms from a guy at gamecrazy i thought why not the ps2 and now i know everything about softmod/emu/videoplayer to hd loader and more plus homebrew was the main reason i got the psp although it was
hard to get custom firmware until datel make their pandora battery called"TOOL" now i'm ready to look into other systems
to hack and play roms and emus although a pc would be nice if i was mine and not family's

[kcajblue]

i got into homebrew/emulation when i saw my cousins playing a dragonball z fighting game on their computer.

they told me they were using an emulator, and i figured out how to use one. i liked it, so i kept on doing it.

[Jayenkai]

I've been coding piddly little games since I had an Amstrad CPC, way back when I was around 7. It was fun to play about with "Keywords" and see what they did. Slowly but surely it all came to me.

Console wise, I played about with other people's Dreamcast Homebrew, thanks indeed to this very site, but I never bothered to try it myself.. Mostly because I'm a cheap git, and couldn't be bothered burning 100s of CD's to get a game "Just Right".
Once the DS was opened up, JNKPlat DS was my first homebrew, closely followed by Stringy Things.

Some piddly little games. (http://jayenkai.socoder.net/?p=38)

[kojiro7]

My first contact with emulators was with an Amiga 500,in 1996.
I remember there was a programm which would emulate Atari St on Amiga!!It wasnt good though,maybe it was fake.After that I tried Spectrum Zx emulator on Amiga 500 again which was really working,very slow though.In 1998 on an Amiga 1200 with 68030 extra processor,8MB extra fast ram,2GB HDD and CD-ROM drive,I was able to play NES,GB,Master System,GameGear,Spectrum,Commodore 64,MSX and some other emulators.In 1999-2000,I saw on PC working and almost fullspeed SNES and Megadrive emulators which forced me to buy my first PC:D
I hated PC until that time:o

[telnaur]

for me it was definitely the snes and the gb emulators that started it all for me

[ian h]

i got into emulation around 4 to 5 years ago. i brought a cd off a friend wich had snes emulator and gba emulator on with tons of games for the pc. i never new emulatos could be played on consoles til i got my psp. PSP is the best console ive ever had because of the emulators.I will keep my psp for years to come and wouldnt even consider buying a new console without knowing it could play emulators first.

[Fr0sTy]

computer class in 8th grade. my teacher let us play jnes on the pc's once the work was done. mike tysons punch out was the best back then, still enjoy it on my psp. from there i found a lot of emulators for the pc, few good ones for the ps2, and all the greatest for psp.

[Gunnex]

It was mainly an accident. My friend was over (when I was younger) and we were running around on the internet unsupervised. I tripped across Gens and thought "I've always wanted a Genesis!" and downloaded it with a few pd games. Later, after buying a GBAMP v1 from a local import shop, I found out emulation was possible on GBA. I went back to the internet and found out it was all over. It soon became NDS Homebrew, DC Homebrew, PSP Homebrew, and the more recent addition of PS2 Homebrew. I'm thinking of joining the DC scene as a programmer to get started on home development.

[ojdon]

Funny enough, I stumbled upon this place that first got me into the homebrew scene. When I first got my PSP, I was looking for a few "fan games" so I did a quick search using google and this was the most relevant place, so now I have kept to this site daily looking at the latest news in the PSP Homebrew scene. *ding*

I also found emulators for my psp too so instead of playing all of my favourite old classics on my computer or on the original console, I can now take them anywhere! Plus the odd Sonic Rom Hack. :P

[Mini Moose]

It all stared when I was Googling Super Metroid.

I saw a really neat screenshot and it said in bold letters "Play Super Metroid on your PC!!". And of course I clicked on it, and the instructions said I needed to download this "emulator" in order to play it. I went absolutely nuts when it worked.

[Aryn]

Searching a few web sites for a place where I could find decent Dreamcast games eventually led me to a few sites dealing with Dreamcast homebrew, from there I quickly became intrigued by the concept and later began to appreciate homebrew as an art form. When I purchased a PSP and started browsing web sites for PSP homebrew, I began to realize how much homebrew can expand a console or portable system's capabilities and quickly developed a stronger interest in it.

[robman84]

A Mac emulator (I forget which one) for the Amiga - about 1989 I think. Oh, I also got a BBC micro emulator for it probably a similar time. Then onto JPP, a spectrum emulator for the Amiga in, maybe, 1991?
Been emulating ever since :o)

Homebrew? I guess my first real attempt at writing a game was in 1979 on an Apple computer of some sort (I know it had a green screen). It worked too - you could move and shoot the other player.

[MK2k]

My first contact with emulation was 1997'ish with emulation of the Sega Master System on my DOS machine. I know back then I needed the awfully slow internet connection of my school back then and brought some diskettes with me ;P

My homebrew coding began in 1995, with some simple stuff written in basic on the C64.

[Atari]

Dave Spicer's Sparcade, back in '96. I almost cried when the original arcade Pac-Man booted up on my p133 :)

I ended up doing some MAME work (one driver) and dumped a ton of romsets for the MAME Team. I also maintained the history database for a few years (now run by Alexis at arcade-history.com after I handed it over to him) and helped both the MAME and Retrocade teams with hardware and other support.

Now I'm writing my own game to play in my MAME cabinet and will probably continue to do so. My Dreamcast homebrew coding ended with my game Encounter Zone. Using Fenix on the Dreamcast couldn't do it justice and I've cancelled it. But I may try another game for the DC in the future, in C next time.

[ninja9393]

Well i got my psp and i was googleing other stuff to do with the psp cause i was bored with my games and i saw RIN (gb emulator for psp) and i looked at it and it had a link to dcemu then there you go

but i knew about emulators on the PC before that but i didnt know it could be on a consle or a handheld

[bah]

I guess it was doom mods if they count as homebrew, then emulators on the PC.

I think the first console I used any homebrew on was the ps1 and a NES emu.

Then a modded xbox, gba with a flash cart and now the PSP. :)

[аlex]

It started with my Dreamcast with snes emu called DreamSnes 0.9.3

[psp411]

my interest came when I found out that psp could do more than play umd games, play music and watch videos. This is when I started to search for other uses and... BANG... Ive found myself here. My first psp homebrew app i used was choice(eboot loader by fanjita and ditlew) way back in the 2.0 days. I played super mario world on the super nintendo emulator for hours on end.(good old times :D :cool: )

[hdofu]

Probably pocket nes for the gba and a website featuring info on the flashcards, also I had a portable famicom player in my room somewhere I got to play games but it was never reliab le and I had prior thought to myself, "There has got to be a better way"

[JaseDaMase]

I was always a computer gamer (speccy,c64) and always kept everything I owned, I had so much stuff I couldnt take it with me when I left home so I kept it all at my grans where I lived since I was 12. A few years back I went to my Grans and decided I was going to take some of my precious retro gear only to find some dumb schmuck (an aunties boyfriend) was helping my Gran clear out some 'junk' and told her all my stuff was just that!

As i was craving some retro gaming I started looking into getting emulators on PC and then of course on consoles so it all began then.

[Savadahoo]

i think it was 1997 or 1998 and i saw my neighbour playing california games on a genesis emulator....that was it....as for homebrew it was the original Quake on Dreamcast....

[Mr. Shizzy]

Yeah, I think I saw a magazine article that was talking about emulation on PSP. I think the article was called "The PSP SONY Doesn't Want You To Have". It showed super Mario World on a PSP screen.

I was like - Whoa ! I totally blew my mind.
I starting doing some research, determined to be able to play Mario on my PSP.

Sadly, even though I had boughten PSP on launch day with 1.50 firmware, I had updated it , not knowing it would eventually screw me out of homebrew...

There was however, a 2.0 downgrader available. So I traded in my old PSP, (couldn't find a used 1.5) and got a Firmware 2.0.

I took it home, somewhat scared of bricking it.
But i did it. I downgraded to 1.5 firmware - and it's been one hell of a ride ever since. :D

I've since done some tinkering on

-Dreamcast
-PC
-PS2
-PS3


But to this day, PSP remains my favorite. :)

[Eviltaco64]

When I first saw a NES Emulator in 2001, followed by Project64 v1.0

Then in 2005, I saw a picture of Mario World on PSP, and that made me interested in Console Homebrew.

[jeegee]

PSP got me into HB scene. Had other things long ago like backup systems for my carts and had modded ps and xbox, but PSP was the console that made me get into homebrew and all it aspects.

[badwog69]

so i can play different types of games on my psp. and Iso's

[Eviltaco64]

Yeah, I think I saw a magazine article that was talking about emulation on PSP. I think the article was called "The PSP SONY Doesn't Want You To Have". It showed super Mario World on a PSP screen.

I was like - Whoa ! I totally blew my mind.
I starting doing some research, determined to be able to play Mario on my PSP.

Sadly, even though I had boughten PSP on launch day with 1.50 firmware, I had updated it , not knowing it would eventually screw me out of homebrew...

There was however, a 2.0 downgrader available. So I traded in my old PSP, (couldn't find a used 1.5) and got a Firmware 2.0.

I took it home, somewhat scared of bricking it.
But i did it. I downgraded to 1.5 firmware - and it's been one hell of a ride ever since. :D

I've since done some tinkering on

-Dreamcast
-PC
-PS2
-PS3


But to this day, PSP remains my favorite. :)

Holy crap, we both got interested in PSP Homebrew the same way (by seeing a picture of Mario World on a PSP)!

[VampDude]

I got interested in Homebrew back in 1999 when I got a demo disc with Yaroze games on it on the cover of Playstation Magazine, emulation on the other hand I got into I believe around 1997 with some early (and not that great) 8-bit emulators.

[ubersk8kid]

Once I saw DSDOOM, I wanted more...

[headcasephil]

i fist got i to emulation when i wanted to play some of the classic arcade games for as cheap as possible which got me finding mame back in 1998 since then i have used many programs and currently playing with mame,snesx9 on my asus eee

[aznflameboy]

My original 1.5 PSP got me into homebrew. I knew that it could pirate games but better yet, it has tons of homebrew and emulators. Thats when i started researching on PSP homebrew and found my 2 main sites for information on it. This site and another one that shall not be named. lol

[Basil Zero]

My first contact with the emulators and emulation was back in 1999, when i first played Pokemon Red on my pc =)

What revolutionized my interest was the PSP =)

[Zense]

Started with it in first/second grade. I was introduced by my bro. I found out more gradually afterwards

[alanparker05]

the pc got me interested with the epsxe ps1 and pj64 n64 emulators and then the xbox got of really interested because it took the complication away from playing emulators and now i own almost every cartridge game ever made for them

[alexzander]

No good games for the PSP got me in to homebrew...

[MHentai]

I started with emulation with a friend of mine showing a 1st version of a nes emulator. even without sound it was wonderful for me. I got a PC only to play this emulator... and afer became nesticle and genecyst.

for me xbox is the best emulator plataform nowdaws... who knows if ps3 with the linux don´t overpass it.

[Amaweks]

For Emulation: Back in the 1997, with Mame, Snes97, Nesticle, Callus, Genecyst, and others, in sites like Daves Classics and The Dump (remember been so excited with the Dracula X project, something that looks almost impossible in that time)
For Home Brew: My Dreamcast.

Sorry, my english is bad.

[alentris]

Long story, here goes...

It all started during the Super Bowl 2008. I don't like football (unless you consider soccer to be football, in which case, go you), so I was on the internet. my little brother was complaining about not being able to play nintendo while the game was on, so i decided to see if i could find something I could do for him, so i looked up a way to see if it could be done on the psp. And then, after some digging, I found out about Daedelus for the psp. I put it on, but got an error message. So then, I decided to look in to that. In this research I heard about a "pandora's battery" that could be made. Well, by this time it was 11:00, and I went to bed. the next morning, I woke up and kept up the research until I found out how to get one of these "pandora's battery", but the downfall was, no homebrew-enabled psp. So, I ordered, one, converted my 1 gb mem stick into a Magic Memory Stick, plopped it into my psp, and wham! a fresh 1.50 fw psp, soon upgraded to 3.71 m33, and then to 3.80 m33, and now I'm lovin' it. one side note:

psp full bricks: 8
psp semi-bricks:2
psp "unrecoverable" bricks: 1 (took me 4 hrs to fix)...

[Memento]

To get off weed

[nyrol]

Ability to play console and handheld games on my computer.

[tavueni]

Seeing a guy at Uni running Sonic the Hedgehog on a PC nearly flawlessly

[Scoe]

I got intrested in the Homebrew/Emulation scene back in 2001 when I only had a computer and no consoles to speak of. I had gotten sick of playing PC games and was surfing the internet looking for a new game to play. I randomy typed in a old arcade console game name "Mario Brothers" and found a link to a Emulation site(emulationworld I think). I imediately fell in love with MAME and SNES9x. These days you will find me in front of the tv in my room glued to my dreamcast playing mostly homebrew (like 85% of my DC collection is homebrew) games or game collections. I am addicted to Law56ker's nxdoom collection currently. My interest in coding has been piqued again thanks to the homebrew comunity and I may try my hand at doing a port of a game or completely writing a new one.

[patgan598]

I buyed a flashcart to my nds right when it was released, and i found out that it existed fun, free and legal games on the internet to download!!