RIP Near. :'(

[badvision]

https://kotaku.com/the-brilliant-snes-e ... 1847182851

Just remember folks, we're all people. We all are equally capable of love, hatred, joy, and pain. We're all trapped together on this blue marble hurtling through the cosmos. Please be kind.

-B

[Chris23235]

Sad.

[MostroW]

i've read the story and had a look at the online document and then looked up that website that was claimed to be harassing him but it seemingly was under a ddos attack and i got served a custom error page where the owner explained his version of the story.

can't say what's what and what actually transcended to make someone kill himself like that, but nonetheless i saw Byuu as a big player in the emulator scene.

can only hope he's at rest now, from what i've gathered, life hit him pretty hard and nasty a few times.

R.I.P. Byuu

[rhester72]

OMFG. Byuu. I had no idea.

RIP.

[TomDeHugo]

I think it's worth noting that Near was the inventor of the MSU-1 expansion chip. That was one of the many contributions they made to retro gaming, but specifically relevant to the SNES .

[badvision]

I can say with certainty that folks like Byuu and Blargg inspired a lot of the work I did on making color and cycle-accurate emulation a thing in my Apple // emulation. I can't really take any credit for the same features in other Apple emulators, nor would I deserve it, but I feel like the ongoing conversation among myself and like-minded authors of the other projects had something to do with it. The point is that directly or indirectly we all have a tangible effect on each other, even if we don't see it right away. I feel poorly for folks who are on shaky ground and sometimes don't get that feedback as their oxygen to keep going when coping with other things like depression or other forms of mental/emotional trauma. All the rest of us can do is just live by the virtues of our two great ones: "Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes." Also if you have a moment to say thank you to someone that made a difference in your day, say thank you. It does so much more than you might know when you'd least expect it.

[Nemesis2k]

Currently it’s all alleged as hinted by the kotaku article. There is only one Twitter source who said they phoned the Japanese police and they confirmed it to him? That’s a bit odd. Near has always been extremely anonymous. Hopefully this is the death of a persona and not a real life suicide. *crosses fingers*

[aberu]

I have a lot of hope that Near is okay, but I suspect their not okay. Even if they are alive, what happened to them these past 3+ years is the work of terrorist monsters. The extreme social isolation inflicted on them by these demons in the form of harassing their friends to the point of their friends feeling like they can't even talk to Near anymore is disgusting.

But I don't believe Near is okay, unfortunately.

Near was an absolute titan of contribution to the emulation scene. The summary of their work on their website https://near.sh/ doesn't even tell 1/100th of the story. The amount of people that came forward on Twitter who recalled stories of Near going out of their way to help them with their reverse engineering questions and projects is astounding. The amount of people who got into programming and other adjacent fields because they were inspired by Near is incredible.

I followed Near since before bsnes development, played on their translation patches they worked on way back in the day, and followed their blog posts, comments on the internet, tweets, just so I could learn more and more. What happened is a gigantic loss to the emulation scene. It's an even bigger loss to Near's friends and family.

[Captain FPGA]

Dammit! I hate it when people die.

At least his work will live on.

[PikWik]

yeah, this is entirely F'd up and sad.
i was also a fan, or at least knew about them, since the early 2000s and have been casually following their work ever since.

their contributions to the retro emulation scene will solidify their history as a legend, and i truly hope they are at peace now

[Captain FPGA]

He's alright in my book.