Best Little Emulator Ever Made!

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Ahhhh... Bleem!

It was a nightmare to run.

It had backward (and ironic) copy protection that required CD-swapping.

It barely even worked.

And it's one of the key reasons we are here today.

I will always admire the sheer boldness behind Bleem! — lead programmer Randy Linden and his team knew exactly what they were doing when they launched this whole project, but it almost feels unreal.

I mean, coding a PlayStation emulator during the height of the system's popularity while it was still being sold would be one thing, but putting that emulator on store shelves right next to the very PS games that it was supposed to run, and then charging through the nose for it, was a different beast entirely.

As expected, Sony didn't take too kindly to that (culminating in a shouting match that almost came to blows during E3 1999) and took Bleem! to court over and over again, surprisingly losing every step of the way but bankrupting the company nonetheless due to the enormous legal fees the whole process entailed.

Bleem! is an interesting point in history because its demise proved to young programmers everywhere that they simply weren't safe testing the emulation waters and should not try to capitalize on their products, a belief that stood for decades but seems to have reverted since, with many modern emulators offering "Pro" versions in lieu of relying on donations.

As for Randy Linden... he sort of got the last laugh when Sony hired him to figure out PS1 and PS2 emulation for their PS Classics line of games.

What are your memories of Bleem!? Ever get to use the Best Little Emulator Ever Made?

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

What are your memories of Bleem!?

None because that whole thing went down before I was even a concept

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

None because that whole thing went down before I was even a concept

Babyyyyy >:D

 

[JustLooking123]

When i was a kid, i found the Bleem! emulator on a random cd!
However, i had no idea what it is at all! not to mention that i never had a PlayStation console, nor its games! and as a result, i never used it!

Years later, when i got into emulation, already better emulators were available... and as a result, i never used it (2x)!

 

[G.L.a.D.O.S.]

I vaguely remember seeing these sold at Walmart ages ago. I never bothered with them, honestly, they seemed like malware discs to me at the time. I didn't know it was a "legitimate" let's call it, product.

I do remember reading about Bleemcast, however, that would let you play PS1 games on your Dreamcast.

 

[Graw]

I remember bleem but I never used it. My first psx emulator was epsxe the year it came out. I remember seeing bleem listed on sites like zophar's domain and I may have tried downloading it at some point. I remember that yellow screen but I don't know if I was ever able to play games on it. I know I never used it to play any games anyway.

 

[Kremiso]

i discovered much later that same name beyond some technical miracles from the past, Randy Linden.

Dragon's Lair on Amiga, Doom on Snes and that 500k on Dreamcast :)

Never reached to use the PC version here, but i have used quite a lot both the beta and the official boot disks on Dreamcast. A good bunch of games runned great and with the DC gfx boost.
Impressive for the time, Sony had to do something to avoid the nuke to explode :)

 

[RetroPixelLizard]

Fun fact, SEGA supported Bleem on Dreamcast In secret to avoid Sony's wrath.

 

[dr grim]

It was one of my first experience in emulation.. and yes it didn't worked very well..

To make it short, i had a PS1, wanted to chip it to play burned games, my father tried to do it and.. broke my ps1 in the process ..

To make up for it, he bought me my first pc.. and a few months later the bleem! Emulator

 

[NotReallyHere]

The Virtual Game Station for Mac OS 8 / 9 was actually a damn good commercial PS1 emulator! It released around the same time as Bleem - possibly even earlier? I still use it to play PS1 games on my vintage iMac, for when I feel like running them on a CRT. It works better than it has any right to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectix_Virtual_Game_Station