Emulation commentary

[Keatah]

Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.

 

What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.

 

Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.

 

Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.

 

I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...

 

In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.

 

With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be treaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!

 

 

My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer

My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980

My second computer Apple II (still have)

My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)

My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978

My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?

 

At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.

 

Assault

Gyruss

Tempest

Missile Command

Defender

Tac/Scan

Zaxxon

Road Blasters

I,Robot

Liberator

Timepilot

Discs of Tron

 

..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.

 

oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:

 

"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...

 

I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.

 

Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??

 

You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?

 

Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.

 

Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?

 

With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."