Universal emulator being developed in Portsmouth University

[Fort Apocalypse]

Was in slashdot a few days ago and I missed it, but if you missed it too:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/uk-un...emulator-528487

 

I'm guessing that it will be like mame + mess + every other emulator built-in to one?

 

Computer historians and researchers at Portsmouth University in the UK are developing a software emulator that will recognise and play all types of videogames and computer files from the 1970s through to the present day.

[telengard]

Was in slashdot a few days ago and I missed it, but if you missed it too:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/uk-un...emulator-528487

 

I'm guessing that it will be like mame + mess + every other emulator built-in to one?

 

Computer historians and researchers at Portsmouth University in the UK are developing a software emulator that will recognise and play all types of videogames and computer files from the 1970s through to the present day.

 

I read this too the other day and was trying to figure out exactly how they were going to do this. Mess and Mame already cover most systems. Seems they are also interesting in preserving the media too which is great. The more the better...

 

~telengard

[S1500]

If they could make MESS with a better interface without the disclaimer screens......

[Fort Apocalypse]

Seems they are also interesting in preserving the media too which is great. The more the better...

 

Yes, I definitely support their efforts. But things I think are missing from the description of the project and will require many more resources will be to gather and preserve the game documentation (critical for loading older games, playing some older games that were not self-documented, or that relied on documentation for play (for keys/codes)) and more importantly to record all of the old guys that wrote the game, distributed it, sold it, used to play the game, and record what it was like to slip the cassette in, load the game, or listen to the disk drive sounds as the game slowly loaded (in HD from two cameras, so that it could be played back in the future in 3D). I've thought about it more as I've gotten older how many of these guys and computers are getting old, and it makes me really sad thinking of all of the information that will be lost about the early age of microcomputers and earlier. Generations from now, historians and students are going to be pissed that we had the technology to keep and organize all of this information for future generations, and we didn't. The same goes for old VHS tapes of family just sitting up on a shelf collecting dust. A family member years from now would be bummed to find out that a lot of videorecording was done in the 80s, but no one cared enough about it to continue preserving it. I know I'm being hypocritical because I have those tapes sitting up on a shelf, but I at least feel guilty about it and wish I had the cash and/or time to spend on preserving them.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Fort Apocalypse

[Fort Apocalypse]

Something else I wonder is why the U.S. national archives, Internet Archive ( http://www.archive.org/index.php, ), Smithsonian, etc. don't work together and pool resources. Basically it is all about recording all of our history into a single "life museum" and then spreading that information across the earth (and the universe) so that there is less likelihood of it getting lost or destroyed. It is a lame excuse to say "well, its because we only got a grant for recording platypus sounds". So what? There is no reason people can't join together and get organized.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Fort Apocalypse

[sack-c0s]

I'm impressed because I wrote an ARM CPU emulation (and half an acorn archimedes) for my comp sci final project in university last year and I wrote a few pages discussing the potential for a 'digital dark age' where big chunks of knowledge would be lost to undocumented hardware, filesystems and formats and proposed that something similar to this ought to be done.

 

Good to see I wasn't *completely* crazy with that idea

[awace]

Replying to that i say dont worry i still have 5¼ floppys w atari800 dos

dos3 dos 5 and dos6 win95 dos cdtech.sys /d:cd and I actaully got the compaq

portable suitcase 286 to use a nokia 3589i 3.6v battery and got a 2g western digital hard drive to load up to 259M bytes this was a pain but since i could boot to usb drive on my big machine i decided to just remove the whole floppy rack then boot to the usb drive then sys a: b: a:{being the usb faking a:} then format /q/s then i stole the compaq c-mos setup.exe then booted from the floppy then once the floppy let me into the c-mos w the fully charged nokia 3.6v battery soldered to the motherboard where the dead dead c-mos battery went I was able to choose a drive type witch allowed 259M then once booted to floppy i had win98 dos on it but decided to change it back to dos5 since you cant do anything w out a memmory card i loaded dos5 from usb stick to a: then sys a: c: and pop it booted to the western digital drive!!!!! i was like no way so i got bowling basica and adv.exe yes you want instructions and reincarnated Yes and feed bear.

ps.

I figured out if you have a sio cable for atari800/400 you can use ape and ultra copy to use virtual drives and copy from it self to it self just copy disk w atari on hooked to computer emulation mode then copy it once then take copy and leave write hole off then just copy it again then it fills the cache on the second virtual drive so on ultra copy you would just do a 1:1 not 1:2 from disk 1 to disk1 w out f for format cause you dont have to format a atr file I once got a image into atari800 once then had to reload xp but it was fun. I also have some win98 machines and I yes still have a machine witch boots to a seagate mfm 225 some times i turn it on w out keyboard or screen to lul me to sleep. I also still have a working atari800 810 I hope it still works but have faith in it .