In 1999, Cyan Helkaraxe wanted to stir up more interest in Sonic 1 among the Sonic community. He decided to do something which had never been done at that time: create a ROM hack. The resulting hack would become known as the Sonic 1 Beta Hoax.
Cyan set to work on the Sonic 1 REV00 ROM, researching its internal workings primarily by a trial and error process, since there was absolutely no documentation on Sonic 1 available at the time. His goal was to create a hoax prototype a game that mimicked the behavior of a "genuine" Sonic 1 prototype.
In May 1999, Cyan released his hack to Simon Wai's Sonic 2 Beta page. The ROM was deliberately not listed as a hoax; rather, it was released under the title "Sonic 1 beta?".
The release of the hoax prototype stirred up more interest in Sonic 1, and when it was identified as a hoax, Andy Wolan invited Cyan to the Sonic Stuff Research Group for his work in creating the ROM hack.
