The lead programmer of ZSNES didn’t realize how popular the emulator was before his interview at EA
PC users from the 90s may remember the days when you could get emulators and play classic games on their personal computers. Back then, there were two methods to do this: either use Nesticles, a free-to-use NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) emulator that let you play games from the 80s and early 90s, or later, ZSNES. This faster, much more optimized emulator could play newer games without issues.
These and other emulators were hosted on public sites, back when the internet was much safer, at least when it came to digital takedown notices. Zophar’s Domain was one of these sites, and Zophar himself had the opportunity to sit down and speak with ZSKnight about his time on the emulator and after.
After a brief chuckle at their different pronunciations of the letter Z (Zee or Zed), ZSKnight tells Zophar about how it all began. "When I was 16 years old, I started learning assembly, and I got so fascinated with optimization, making everything as fast as possible," ZSKnight said. He explained how the project started because the best emulator at the time was running at 10 fps and with no sound, and he thought he could do better.
"I started coding everything in pure assembly—until the Windows port, there was not a single line of C code in there," he stated. "It's optimized to the brim. When I first started it, I wanted a Super Nintendo emulator that could play at full speed on my computer, but I actually did not expect to meet that goal," he added modestly. Turns out his emulator became one of the most popular and widely used ones, though its creator had no idea just how popular.
Knight would often get emails from people thanking him for this work, about a couple dozen or so a day, and recalled:
I got that hint that it is kind of popular, but I really did not know how popular it was,". It was around that time that someone at the publisher reached out to him and "kind of asked me, 'Hey, you want to work for EA?'" As his work with EA continued, so did his realization of the impact his work had on his now colleagues. "I thought, 'Oh sure.' So I went there, and everyone who interviewed me knew me as zsKnight. That was the first time in the office. Everyone here knows me, and everyone here wants me to work here. I've had one person there tell me that, 'Oh, I'm here because of you.' I'd say 'wow, that's amazing.
ZSKnight, after his time in the big studios, has also made his own game, Retro Endurance 8-bit. It’s a collection of 48 8-bit games that you can enjoy in local multiplayer and various game modes, currently in early access for $3.99.
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