C/Net Central's Feature on Arcade Emulators
- Lady Announcer
- Ya know, retro 70's wasn't good enough. Now 80's nostalgia
is back with a vengeance.
- Richard
- Tell me about, my Lionel Richie collection I have finally
transfered to digital audio tape.
- Lady Announcer
- Well, Richard, your not the only one caught up in 80's
nostalgia. I mean god knows I love my bow wow wow albums,
and game programmers figured out how to play the old arcade
games, like Pacman, Asteroids, and a slew of others on the PC.
- Desmond Crisis
- Pacman, Frogger, and of course -- Donkey Kong!
Remember these arcade games? The arcade games you wasted
countless hours and your hard earned allowance on? Well you've
probably noticed they died with the 80's. But thanks to an
emerging trend in arcade emulation, there being ressurected for
the 90's on your PC. And the first thing you'll need to play
these is an emulator. So how do they work? Well an emulator is
something that plays on a PC and allows it to behave exactly like
the arcade. Micheal Cuddy is the programmer responsible for
reviving games like Journey, Tapper, and Tron for the PC.
- Mike Cuddy
- The companies have long, you know, tossed these machines in the
dumpster. It's only the emulator scene that is bringing them back.
- D.Crisis
- And for Cuddy, emulating old arcade games is more like a labor of
love.
- M.Cuddy
- I feel this is sorta my omage to the... uh... original arcade
authors. They gave me a great piece of my childhood, wasting away
in the arcades.
- D.Crisis
- Now an emulator won't work on it's own, just like a PC nothing
gonna happen without some software. Well a few ingenious souls
have figured out how to copy the software out of these old arcade
machines and posted some of those files on the net...
And the internet is where you'll find the most popular emulator,
MAME. MAME supports over 140 games, games like Asteroids, Bomb Jack,
Mario Bros, Zaxxon, Millipede, Centipede, Mr. Do, Kangaroo, Rally X,
Galaga, Ms. PacMan, Pengo...
... And according to Cuddy, playing these games on a PC sure beats
trying to dig up an old arcade machine.
Cuddy uncovers his neat arcade machine collection...
- D.Crisis
- Wow!
- M.Cuddy
- If i had room on the house they'd be inside.
- D.Crisis
- Well the funny part is, these are the real machines, they live in
your garage.
- M.Cuddy
- yes
- D.Crisis
- The emulations live on your desktop
- M.Cuddy
- These take up most of the room *Cuddy points to arcade machines*,
and the emulation doesn't take up any space other than the computer I
already have to have.
- D.Crisis
- But it can't be that easy. All the Burgertime you could ever want,
for free? No quarters, no questions asked? Well there is one question,
one of legality. Techinally, Playing these games with an emulator does
infringe on the original owners copyright. But Gamecenter's John
Marrin says game companies are not too concerned.
- J.Marrin
- This is a small, relativily small, number of people compared to the
rest of the gaming industry. So theres's no economic threat there,
since it's free.
- D.Crisis
- Instead, Marrin says, game companies are more worried of emulators that
could some day simulate games for the Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, and
the Nintendo 64. But that's ok, because it's the classics that many in
the emulating community long for anyway.
- J.Marrin
- This is really a way to keep the nostalgia going. Sure there's hundred
of games coming out every year but people really want to play the old
stuff, because the old stuff was just as fun to play as alot of the new
stuff.
*Back to the show*
- Richard
- You know that Desmond Crisis is the prince of the joystick around
here at C/NET, he has the old computers, he doesn't have to emulate, he
has the old Commodores. He's quite a guy.
- Richard
- To find out how to learn more on emulators and games, go to our web
site at www.cnetcentral.com.
Anyhow, the only website they really showed was Atmospherical Heights,
and a newsgroup posting about "Sega Saturn Emulator", but other than that
it was for those who have never heard of emulation before :) On the C/NET
central website they link to
Atmospherical Heights
and Dave's Video Game Classics.
gvosti@slonet.org
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If you've ever wanted to write a journalistic article about emulation,
interview an author of an emulator, or write an editorial expressing
new insights on the emulation scene, then perhaps you should submit an
article to Archaic Ruins!
The criteria for having your work published is that your work must show
effort. Interviews must contain at the minimum, 10 questions. Editorials
must be at least 2 to 3 pages and quotations from multiple sources to support
your views and opinions. Humorous writings are also accepted!
- The Archaic Ruins Staff
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