NES, SNES, Genesis, VirtualBoy, and PSX | A journey with AI and Recompilation
1379.tech · 1379.tech · 2026-05-21
A retrospective on the first multi-console wave of recompilers and the role AI played in crossing unfamiliar technical territory.
This retrospective connects the early NES, SNES, Genesis, Virtual Boy, and PlayStation projects as one learning process. Each architecture required different translation and runtime choices, but every successful game fed experience back into the next framework.
Matt also describes the practical role of AI in that work: useful for navigating unfamiliar code and sustaining parallel experiments, but dependent on comparison, testing, and a developer who could decide when the generated explanation was wrong.
For Retro Porting Toolkit, the article provides the origin story behind a collection that can otherwise look as though all of its platforms appeared at once.
Read Matt's full retrospective on 1379.tech →
Related: NES, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Virtual Boy, and PlayStation.