I was reminiscing about the Wildcard DX that I used to own so long ago (must be over 15 years ago) and I remember how impressed I was by the whole thing (we called it a copy box). Not just owning so many games (in fact that got old really quick) but the idea of having the games on disks, the whole process of loading, the Wildcard menu system, the info it displayed about the ROMs. I didn't understand half of it, but maybe that feeling is what made me decide to become a programmer many years later. And so today for the first time I wondered about the teams that wrote the software for these systems (and built the hardware of course). There must be some good stories there. Like how did they work, were they working from official documents/specifications or just reverse engineering, what hardware did they have to start with, did they have any moral objectives to what they were doing, was it a good business to be in, did they make a career in console development after the era of cartridge systems? Are any of those developers still active in the current home brew/hardware mod scene? Can we find one of them and ask the to do a kind of AMA style thread here? Edit: all I can remember is that the Wildcard was a product from a company called Front Far East, I think they were from Taiwan.
Front Fareast is still around, they make PC games now. Maybe I should say made, since they haven't updated their site in over 6 years. JSI, the man behind the backup hardware and BIOS code doesn't seem to have anything to do with the current business and he wouldn't respond to his email address I was given 10 years ago so I really doubt he would today. They don't sell or support their old hardware anymore. Another FFE employee actually was active in the homebrew/emulation scene and developed a popular NES emulator, FwNES, but he seems to have disappeared in 1999/2000. Bung was sued and officially closed around 2000, but in reality went on to become Visoly and Flash2Advance. They might still be in business making DS SD adapters or peripherals, I dunno since it's so low-key. I can't speak for the companies, but I'm sure the consoles were reverse engineered and the "teams" are really just one or two people, possibly contractors. Rumor has it that Bung had one engineer (!), pretty amazing considering Bung's technical feats. Eventually official SNES documentation was leaked to the BBS scene and sceners helped JSI with the menus for the SWC DX and SWC DX2 hence their style. The Magicom was released before the docs were leaked so clearly JSI had to reverse engineer the system as he had for the Magic Drive and Magic Griffin.
Oh right, "JSI" was on the splash screen of the first copy box I got (a 16 meg Super Wildcard, before the DX series). Amazing thing he achieved, especially if it was just the one guy. If he should ever read this: thanks for a great product!
more reading here http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=5828&sid=4ead62131e825f41e8f4472828c01b6c someone with the knowledge should document this stuff so it's not forgotten (plus i find it interesting)
@drewmerc Thanks for the link, I love this kind of history. I'd also like to know how Bung was like in those days. On the tototek forum someone writes: "JSI isn't around anymore and can't be contacted, FFE gave me his email 4 years ago but he never responded. (Same with Fanwen Yang, another FFE employee) If you want to learn a little more about him, look through the SNES scene's few magazine ROMs, one of them has an interview with him. " Does anyone here know a) what a SNES scene magazine ROM is, b) where to find them and c) which one has the JSI interview? Thanks in advance!
Also, maybe these guys are on Facebook nowadays? Bits of information here: http://www.cherryroms.co.uk/forums/copier-and-hardware-forum/6m-ffe-famicom-copiers.html http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?p=5111&sid=edd61fae6acb46849bb24cc2a687ebc1 http://www.cherryroms.co.uk/forums/...x2-new-300-shipped-6m-magic-card-famicom.html http://cherryroms.co.uk/forums/copier-and-hardware-forum/i-went-ffe-again-morning.html
Thanks! Boy, that ROM really hurt my eyes. I had no idea these type of things existed, I only got a bunch of diskettes back in the day, and we didn't have internet so I never got onto a BBS. PS. There's some offensive questions in the other interviews in that magazine which have nothing to do with SNES or games programming...
