Pasofami '99
by Nobuaki Andou
Andou's PasoFami was the first Nintendo emulator to appear on the emulation
scene. Using unorthodox priority handling with Win32 and Windows itself and
being in Japanese, PasoFami has always been a strange emulator. When released
on the emulation scene, EFX of the late Damaged Cybernetics began ROM hacking
and releasing PasoFami specific ROMs, while Chris Hickman, m0oc0w, and a few
others translated different versions into English.
Speed on PasoFami was unmatched until NESticle debuted due to PasoFami not
using full screen updates, but rather, single sprite updating. Sound emulation
was early, but strangely enough, midi was used to emulate sound. While
interesting, sound was most certainly incorrect due to only one midi instrument
being used for each sound channel, and no special instrument sets being
available. Later versions also suffered due to the five minute demo being
put into effect. Eventually, Andou overcame hackers and PasoFami became
untranslatable, unhackable, and unusable to English users.
Since mid-October of 1997, PasoFami has received three updates, quite a few
more than have usually been issued. PCM sound has apparently been emulated
through DirectSound, unfortunately, I, among others, have been unable to
succeed in using this feature. PasoFami is quite obsolete as far as English
users are concerned.
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