The Cyanotic bytes

About

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Orfeo, a software engineer with a soft spot for elegant systems, weird technical rabbit holes, and code that doesn’t make future-me angry.

I take software engineering seriously: architecture, maintainability, performance, good abstractions, boring reliability […] the usual things nobody notices when they work.

I just don’t think we need to be serious about ourselves all the time.

This blog is where I write about software, technology, ideas I’m exploring, and the occasional nerdy detour that seemed like a good use of an evening at the time.

Kassette goes Multiplatform

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:30:00 +0000

From the beginning, I wanted Kassette to be multiplatform. An emulator seemed like a suitably unreasonable way to test that idea.

So far, though, Kassette has been JVM-only. And an emulator is not exactly the easiest application to make multiplatform: it needs sound, GPU rendering, UI, keyboard input, controller support, and all sorts of platform-specific integrations. So, could Kassette actually run across platforms?

I decided to find out by targeting desktop and WebAssembly. WASM was particularly interesting because, if it worked, Kassette could run directly in the browser. No installation, no setup, no executable downloaded from some random person on the internet. Just open a page and play.

The Post-MVP of Kassette

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:30:00 +0000

In the previous post, I covered how I got the MVP up and running. Now it was time to iterate. I tested a few other simple games that use the same hardware setup as Super Mario Bros., and they seemed to work just fine (or at least they looked fine to the naked eye).

Still, an NES emulator doesn’t feel quite right without sound effects, iconic soundtracks, and, most importantly, a gamepad. Playing Mario with a keyboard can only take you so far.

A plumber, two prompts and 3000 lines of Kotlin

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:30:00 +0000

In this article, I’d like to explain how I built the MVP of Kassette (in case you’ve missed it, there is the first article). But before diving into the story, we need to cover one small detail: what an emulator actually is.

Nerd Context - feel free to skip this Link to heading

The next few sections get a little technical. You do not need to understand all of this to follow the rest of the article, so feel free to skip ahead if buses, memory addresses, and CPU instructions are not your idea of a good time.

Announcing Kassette: a Kotlin Multiplatform NES Emulator

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:30:00 +0000

The passion Link to heading

I’ve always had a passion for technology, and like many children of my generation, it probably started with video games.

I still remember unboxing our NES on Christmas morning and watching my dad connect it to the big TV in the living room. A few minutes later, the whole family was playing Super Mario Bros. We kept going for about four hours straight.