[btrask]

(For those who don't know, Byuu is a member here and will likely see comments in this thread.)

Hi Byuu. You don't know me, but I've been a fan of your work since the early days of bsnes. I've also seen at least some of your "detractors'" criticisms, while lurking. (My "favorite" was that you don't know enough math to emulate the 3D graphics of the N64, because you didn't stay in school. I didn't know they taught how to write SNES emulators in school either... Maybe I was sick that day.)

Anyway... Please don't be too hard on yourself. I think you're more mature than most(?) of your critics, and more importantly, you've made several comments and actions that make me think you have a genuine desire to self-improve.

Social graces seem to come more naturally to some people than others. The rest of us have to work it out for ourselves. You're a smart person, so I know you can do this if you devote the time to it. Of course, thinking of yourself as smart tends to be an obstacle, and the journey tends to start where you least expect it.

If you'll allow me to give a word of caution, avoid distractions. Spend some time by yourself pulling back from people online, and not writing code either. There are problems in life that no amount of code can help. If you really want to solve this, don't get too caught up in exploring Tokyo either. :)

I'm sorry if bsnes/higan hasn't made you happy, but if you still have some energy left, I know you can find a way to get what you really want out of life.

Thanks for your incredible effort, and godspeed.

[byuu]

Working on bsnes and higan were the things that made me most happy. Well, bug hunting was of course stressful but the joy of fixing a bug and seeing new games running was always well worth it! I'm definitely going to miss it a lot.

It was everything else that was a problem. If I could have just been left alone to code in peace and without all these pesky health and work issues, I'd be very happy to continue.

I think I still have a ways to go on the self-improvement, but it's hit a point where I think I need a few months' break to go at it offline, and maybe let my hands rest a while from typing so much. I ended up coming back to things the last two bouts of depression, so we'll see.

Thanks for the kind words, take care as well!

[derefr]

> Working on bsnes and higan were the things that made me most happy.

What about this work made you happy? What was the reward? You might be able to capture it in a different way.

I don’t get the sense that it was something to do with making the people who used your emulators happy, per se, so probably “solving someone’s problem and seeing them light up” isn’t going to do it for you.

I’d guess that helping to conserve other artistic expressions [to ensure people can experience them the same way they did on the original hardware, long after you’re gone] would make you happy? Especially if you could use your specialized knowledge and experience to do so, in a way where it’s not necessarily true that anyone else would have come along to do the same thing if you hadn’t done it.

Perhaps you could volunteer in a consulting/advisory capacity for some of the Archive.org software-library preservation projects? Not so much programming, as pointing out the pitfalls in the architectural decisions of what other people are programming. Like a software security consultant, but for “ensuring the original work is conserved and reproduced with 100% fidelity” instead of “ensuring nobody can exploit the software.”

[byuu]

> What about this work made you happy? What was the reward?

It's like a really complicated puzzle. I have this game that's not working, and I have this 2 GiB trace log of millions of lines of CPU instructions and registers. I have to sort through it to understand where things went wrong. Sometimes it's obvious and takes five minutes, sometimes it takes two weeks and is mind-bending (like a loop reading from a non-existent I/O register that only breaks because eventually a DMA transfer occurs in between cycle instructions that fetches the correct value onto the data bus, which stays persistent through to the next cycle that compares the value read to finally break said loop.)

I really enjoyed over-architecting the code, and I would build these massively elaborate (read: slow) designs to handle the most ridiculous edge cases (like stacking Game Genie cartridges one after another recursively. It's an incredibly inefficient way of getting more cheat code slots, but you can do it on real hardware, and so I wanted to preserve that experience.)

> I don’t get the sense that it was something to do with making the people who used your emulators happy

That of course brought me joy as well. The tone of the farewell post aside, 98% of people throughout my time in emulation have been absolutely wonderfully supportive. It's meant the world to me.

> in a way where it’s not necessarily true that anyone else would have come along to do the same thing if you hadn’t done it.

I'm under no delusions of granduer, these were "just video games", but I definitely had the sense that if I didn't do this, no one else would. The SNES was a large part of my childhood, and I had the skill and time to do this, so I went for it.

[bityard]

> Working on bsnes and higan were the things that made me most happy. .... I'm definitely going to miss it a lot.

> I'd be very happy to continue.

I would guess that the new maintainers of your projects stand a fair chance of considering your pull requests!

[advance512]

> . If you really want to solve this, don't get too caught up in exploring Tokyo either. :)

Why?

The way I see it, detaching yourself from your routine environment for a while, disconnecting from everything toxic or anchoring, and instead rediscovering who you are and what you want - in an environment that has no preconceptions or preconceived expectations of you - is a great way to find what matters to you and who you can be, how you can express who you are and how you feel.

Not to mention that working abroad is a great opportunity that is very much different depending on age and personal status, so I do hope he makes the best of it, and really discovers the beauty of Japan and its culture and people.

[btrask]

"If you really want to solve this". Exploring Tokyo is awsome and something I want to do at some point in my own life, but like anything else it can also be a form of escapism.

[raphlinus]

Just want to say the same. Take care of yourself, and illegitemi non carborundum.