Do you remember the day you discover atari emulation ?

[khryssun]

One of the first thing I've done when I've had access to the web, was to search about the Atari 2600. I don't searched for something special, I was just curious to know if there was some pages dedicated to the VCS. I didn't know the world of emulation at this time.

 

I though to find some infos about the games I've never owned.....

....and it was like a miracle for me when I discovered the first VCS emulators. I think there was A26 and the first version of PCAE.....

 

At this time it wasn't really easy to find a lot of rom files... but not impossible

 

I was so exited... I'd talk of that to my girlfriend for about one week endless LOL. All the games I've dreamed to play when I was young were available... and a lot of more I've never heard talking about till then.

 

That was my first step in the world of emulation.

 

That will remain one of my best WEB memories.

 

And what about you fellows ?

[+Random Terrain]

When I first got a PC and went on-line in December of 1999, I was glad that there was another way to play emulated games with a quality emulator.

 

Activision's emulated game packages suck! Thank God emulation from other sources isn't illegal yet.

 

D.A.H. from the F of i

[popeal]

I think when I first got my computer in 1996 - a friend of mine talked about Colecovision games being emulated... I asked him about Atari, and he said yeah, and then, a week later, I was on-line looking!

 

Al www.blowoutmagazine.com

[Wntermute]

I remember I first got into emulation through MAME. But then I found the Activision Atari 2600 packs, so I got them (unfortunately at the time, my computer wasn't up to the system requirements.. the installer even refused to install the games!)

 

Now, I have almost a complete collection of every emulator on the Mac (there's a couple I won't get like the Vax simulator and a couple obscure computers). ^_^

[Mindfield]

Actually, my path to discovering 2600 emulation was quite indirect. I first learned about emulation on the Atari ST way back in the early-mid 90s, starting with a Sinclair ZX-81 emulator, which I found intriguing. Having discovered the concept of emulation, I searched high and low for an Atari 8-bit emulator, since the 8-bit was my first computer. I found Derek Mihoka's ST-XFormer, which was a nice idea, but was pretty early -- no P/M graphics or ability to run binary programs; just BASIC stuff, which was mostly useless. Then I discovered a Sinclair Spectrum emulator called Speccy!, which was quite fantastic. I never owned or even saw a Spectrum; they never really made it out of Europe, certainly not to Canada. So it was a lot of fun learning and using this machine through emulation.

 

Then when I got my first PC about 4 years ago, I naturally looked up anything emulation-related I could, starting with the machines I used to own. (Colecovision, Atari 2600, various Atari computers, etc.) I was in heaven, and I've been collecting ever since. Now I've managed to amass virtually every emulator in existence, and learning of those myriad machines I'd never even heard of and yet existed along side the "big 3" back in the day (Apple, Atari, Commodore) has been a wonderful and enlightening experience.

 

'course, back then I would have disparaged anything that wasn't Atari, but having bit the bullet and bought a PC, it's given me a certain perspective that lets me evaluate each machine on its own merits, and appreciate it for what it was, and the following it had.

[Bob Bytchin]

I've been on the internet since late '93/early '94, and at the time, there was barely even graphics (html) at the time. Back in late '95/early '96 a friend of mine told me about two sites...one was called "StellaX" (I think that was it) and the other was "Dave's Video Game Classics." Those two sites started me on my quest for emuls and ROMS. Around the beginning of '96 I found a site that had the 2600 ROMS broken up into 10 or so packs. A few months later a ColecoVision emul came around and I collected those ROMs as well. Before long "Nesticle" appeared and I was soon hunting down the elusive and "possibly illegal" NES ROMs. MAME started around this time also, and I got every game for it that I could possibly find. Then emuls just came out of the woodwork.

 

As it stands now, I have over 1,400 ROMs for the 2600, All the 5200 ROMs (all dumped ones), All the 7800 ROMs (all dumped ones), 185 ColecoVision ROMs, 500+ Gameboy ROMs, 400+ Gameboy Color ROMs, 400+ Genesis ROMs, 500+ NES ROMs, 97 Lynx ROMs, 200 Intellivision ROMs, 1200 MAME ROMs, 350+ SNES ROMs, 500+ C-64 Games, and 100+ N64 ROMs.

 

I have an emul fever I guess. LOL. I have even gotten NES, SNES, and Genesis emuls to work on my DreamCast. My wife is in the Army and when she has duty, she shows up with the DC and three CD's. One guy was laughing at her saying "Only 3 CD's?"...then she shows them that on those 3 CD's are over 1000 games. LOL I'm just waiting on a 2600 emul and MAME on the DC now. LOL.

 

* on a sidenote...MAME is already up and working for the X-box. In just the debug/alpha stage the emul is already running at 66fps.

[Alex]

Yeah, I saw that X-Box port (or maybe there's more than one), it looks pretty sweet. That's the only reason my interest was ever peaked about Indrema, having a closed architecture system that would support Emu's (specifically MAME), but it looks like the mainstream consoles are being hacked that direction anyway.

 

P.S. - is your wife at Fort Hood? I've done some programming out there recently, and on my first trip I stopped at the visitor center to get a map and there were a couple soldiers playing some game system in the little back room. Man that base is huge.

[Bob Bytchin]

Well, no, she's stationed at Ft Bliss. But we are both from Killeen originally. Yes, Ft Hood is HUGE, but Ft Bliss is even bigger

 

My wife is trying to become a permanent recruiter, and if she gets it, she will get to choose where she wants to live. So by later this year (if things go well) we will be back in the area. Going there for two weeks in August also (family and friends). I'll keep you posted.

 

Yes, it seems that the X-Box will be a good system to purchase for the emul nuts like me. Of course that means I have to buy two systems this fall then LOL

[NE146]

Yeah I remember when I discovered 2600 emulation. Basically in like 1995 or so after scouring the web for anything 2600/5200 related.. I found the new classic game "remake" and eventually the emulation pages. It wasn't shortly after that the new 2600 emulators started to come out.. I forget but I think pc26 (i think that was the name) and stella came out.

 

To make a long story short. I tried running one.. got a little 2600 looking "dot" on the top left hand side of my monitor... and I about wet my pants.. (Hey, it was a start)

[davidbrit2]

The first Atari emulator I had really tried was the Activision pack. Of course, this was the first edition, back when we had a 20 MHz 486. Needless to say, it wasn't that spectacular. When we got a new computer, it worked great, and I got the other two packs. Naturally, it wasn't long after when I had figured out how to swap out the roms that the emulator came with. I even made a batch file that would pad the rom to 16 KB, put it in the right place, and then all I had to do was run the emulator. It was pretty cool, but it didn't run a huge number of games. Once PC Atari came out, I was in heaven, and now I use Stella on my Mac(s).

[liquid_sky]

i too first discovered emulation through the activision action packs. one day i was doing a search on stampede and i found a like to z26. ever since then my computer has made my room feel more 80's-ish

[dollopx]

Let me see...

 

I believe it was shortly after my younger brother scored a gameboy emulator and some roms. I went looking for other emulators and roms for the gameboy, only to discover that the good ol' atari was emulated. I downloaded a26 and a couple dozen roms, only to discover that a26 was a piece of shit (excuse the language but it is!!!). I was a little taken back at this point, and thought that emulation was only in its infant stages, only to discover z26. z26 runs like a charm on my 486 (about 90%) and the games play just like I remember them.

 

Today, I have around 500 roms, and ver 1.43 of z26.

 

Thanks guys, without you, what would we do.

[DanBoris]

Here's a perspective on discovering atari 2600 emulation from the other side of the fence. I discovered emulation in mid '95 when I discovered Marat F's Gameboy emulator. I played around with the source code and that got me interested in emulation programming. I had also discovered the Stella docs around this time and tried to do my own 2600 emulator which didn't go anywhere. I then discovered the 2600 emulator x2600 by Alex Hornby. I took the source for this and produced a DOS port called Virtual VCS. VVCS became the first non-commercial (Activision Action Pack where already out) 2600 emualtor for DOS! Another DOS 2600 emualtor (Stella 96 I beleive) came out with a few weeks, ultimatly to be followed by quite a few more.

 

I also distinctly remeber some heated debate shortly after the Action Pack came out as to whether it was an emulator or not.

 

Dan

[NE146]

GAAH YEAH! I totally forgot about the Activision Action pack.. not to mention the pc version of Williams Arcade classics around the same time. Anyway, I bought that sucker (I rarely bought computer software) and played it and wasn't too impressed. However, eventually I (like everyone) else started placing other rom images into there by altering the file size and renaming them accordingly. It was confusing after a while but seemed to work ok..

 

However, alternate 2600 emus were just around the corner.. aaah the good old days picking at a bone....

[MattyXB]

I have hear from people at my work. They have make a CD with many Emulators and Games. And Atari 2600 VCS was one of them.

 

And years later I have search for more games and more Emulators.

 

Matthias

[utamav91]

Originally posted by utamav91:

[QB]A friend of mine e-mailed me some info about the NESticle. It worked great. My favorite video game of all-time is Baseball Stars, where you could set up your own league, trade players, upgrade their abilities, etc...

 

Once I found out about the NES about 2 years ago, I promptly searched and found the Atari emulator. Too bad the 5200 and 7800 emulators aren't as advanced or as easy to use. I'd love to see a version where you could just point and click from Windows, select a game and play, instead of having to mess with DOS (a real pain...especially if you never learned it or don't use it very often). However, my previous PC didn't like the 2600 emulator I downloaded (can't remember which one) and for some reason it seemed like my PC was never quite the same afterward. Maybe a bug, a configuration error on my part, etc...

[Marco(2)]

"Emulation is like an inflatable doll"

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Marco

[dollopx]

quote:

---

Originally posted by utamav91:

Originally posted by utamav91:

[QB]I'd love to see a version where you could just point and click from Windows, select a game and play, instead of having to mess with DOS (a real pain...especially if you never learned it or don't use it very often).

 

I don't want to be irritating or anything, but what I do is associate the rom carts (whatever extension they may be *.bin, *.nes etc) with the appropriate emulaotr. Usually, what you'd do is when you first get an emualtor and some roms, try to open the roms from windows. Windows will give you that dialog about "open with". Click the "other" button, and navigate to your new emulator. When you are back in the Open With dialog, make sure "always use this program to open this file" is checked. Name the file type at the top (eg. NES Cartridge or Atari 2600 Rom) and now you should be away. To change the icon, you'll have to go into Folder Options in Explorer (is use a little mario for nes roms, a little sonic for sms roms, and a text icon for vcs roms). After you have done all this, your roms should now launch from windows (even if your emualtor is dos based).

[Joel D. Park]

Even though Emulation is free, it still costs me alot of money.

 

Every time I play an emulated atari game I don't have, it makes me want the cart!!

 

Mangia looks awesome after emulating it, but I doubt I'll ever find it.

[Guest]

Ahhhh' those were the day's hunting out roms

or carts since 1997