Oh god, this thread is just tragic. This whole minefield is why non-open software/hardware sucks.
To be honest if I had paid for the interface and not received it for this long, I would just make the damn thing myself its pretty simple, and the only barrier up until now has been the availability of the genesis 'firmware'. (ie, the rom). The hardware side is basically just an arduino connected to the joystick port, guides for which are already available for the sms i think, on littlescales blog.
I never ordered one when they were on sale so I would feel kinda weird just building it, knowing that little-scale explicitly never intended for it to be diy/open source. Aside from this bullshit incident he's contributed a lot to the chiptune community. I really wouldn't wanna 'rip him off' or like step on anyone's toes, cause he seems like a cool guy who maybe just didn't organise his business well or something.
I think the best thing that would happen now is if little-scale just did a lsdj-style license where he asks for a donation in return for all the compiled code, and leaves it to the user to get it onto the console. Or just opens up the source properly like trash80 did with arduinoboy?
Also until he at least says his opinion on people dl-ing the firmware and making it themselves (let alone an apology/explanation) i guess this project is abandonware, no?
Fuck it, maybe someone should just 'reverse engineer' and open-source version of the project... And then at least the peeps that ordered one could discuss and build it themselves without being made to feel like a pirate.