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If you want to frame the debate as style vs. realism (which is incorrect), give me style any day. If I wanted realism, I'd get a life.

Seriously though, the point of videogames is as escapist fare, like movies. Sure there are movies about ordinary people doing ordinary things, but they are only critically acclaimed, not popular. Some of the most fun video games are unrealistic or just flat out absurd. (see Katamari Damacy)

Besides, a good style is a form of visual branding. People don't forget the earliest Mario games, partly because everyone remembers what they looked like.

It has been done before, however. The 16-bit Super Nintendo system had no compatibility at all to the 8-bit NES. This lead to the an SNES game that contained all 3 of the NES Super Mario Bros. game titles, and a bonus called "the lost levels" which is what was released under the title Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. (Nobody can exactly figure out why Mario characters were stuffed into Doki Doki Panic for the US sequel.)

That was Final Fantasy 6!
For the SUPER FAMICOM!!!!

What, do you think they just jumped from 3 to 7? Give me a break. NO ONE refers to it as 3 anymore. Because there was a 3 back on the Nintendo... not popular, but it exists.

Space War had a high-resolution dot display (not raster pixels, not vectors - dots). You can play it if you download a copy of MESS. It wasn't a prototype or experiment - it was a very popular game, with a tournament league and ongoing development.

Space War wasn't actually the first video game either, though - that's believed to have been a Pong-like game played on an oscilloscope display. The first actual Pong game was Baer's, playable on a TV set with the Odyssey - Bushnell just commissioned an arcade version (from you know who). I'm not particularly sure if Bushnell is the "father" of anything (what's people's obsession with identifying one originator, anyway? Plain old hero worship?), but he obviously did a lot to popularise coinop video games. Mixed blessing though that is. ;)

Just like to point out a site i found a few months back that has been on my "daily" visiting list. Mess is similar to mame in that it tries to emulate old classic computers,and there is a few obscure ones there. Try it out,revel in the old school basics.

...with emulation of course :) MESS Website This emulator is based on MAME:
MESS is an emulator; the acronym stands for Multiple Emulator Super System. An emulator in this sense is a computer program that imitates exactly the behavior of another computer or game system, so that its software can be run on systems other than itself. With emulators you can do things like run C64 programs on your PC, Atari 2600 games on your Mac, whatever. MESS' mission is to preserve historical computer programs (mostly games), most of which are no longer sold, so that future generations can enjoy them long after the machines themselves have stopped working. Being able to use them now is just a nice side effect.

Problem is, Mac OS 10.1 breaks MacMAME. It still runs, but most of the settings tabs are now inaccessible, and full-screen OpenGL smoothed video has stopped working for lots of people. This is supposedly due to bugs in 10.1 which will most likely be fixed in 10.1.1.

The classic open source example is MESS, but there are lots of other emulators out there.

Windows and Unix users should check Retrogames and Zophar, and Mac users should check emulation.net.

• A list of links for arcade cabinents, especially about building your own.
• A M.A.M.E cocktale project, looks closely like the machine I want.
• Another build-your-own cabinet page (using consoles, not M.A.M.E)
• A great faq on how to build an arcade console, a must read for anyone thinking about it. Includes stuff like the problem of keyboard ghosting and encoders.
• Another build-a-cabinet page, with pics and diagrams
• Diagrams for a dual keyboard circuit and automatic joystick switch + other fun stuff. Another must read.
• Keyboard Matrix Help
• Happ Controls, the source of arcade quality joysticks, buttons, and other controls. They also sell keyboard encoders and other neat stuff. If you look around on the web page, you can find a place to order a free catalog, which can give you an idea of prices. (Please though, only ask for a catalog if you're interested, I hate to see the /. effect decend on this nice company)
• A source for emulators, and emulator news.
• An emulator front-end.
• English translations for NES & SNES. The reason why I became interested in emulation in the first place.

MAME will probably never run Windows, for the simple reason that it exists to emulate arcade games. However, MESS, a console/computer emulator based on MAME, might do it someday; it already emulates a PC with CGA or MDA graphics.

MAME will probably never run Windows, for the simple reason that it exists to emulate arcade games. However, MESS, a console/computer emulator based on MAME, might do it someday; it already emulates a PC with CGA or MDA graphics.

MAME will probably never run Windows, for the simple reason that it exists to emulate arcade games. However, MESS, a console/computer emulator based on MAME, might do it someday; it already emulates a PC with CGA or MDA graphics.

There's always xmame/xmess ;)

http://x.mame.net/

Oh, and here's a link to the official mess site here http://mess.emuverse.com

Oh, and for all you DOS'sers, MESS 37beta8 is well on it's way, with a few little surprises in store ;)

lpopman

hehe, I am in Coventry, just down the road from Birmingham, and we've got DSL :)

Trouble is to get connected, you've got to wait up to 8 weeks for an engineer to come out and install. It's a hundred quid all-in, and nice ;)

BTW if you are into retro-gaming/vintage video game systems then Birmingham market is the place to go. I picked up a big pile (50+) VCS2600 carts for 20 quid the other week. Gotta love that TIA chip ;)

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LollypopMan (n): 1. An emulator coder with awesome insight and an uncanny ability with all things binary.

2. A geek with a strange sense of humour with a slight smell of urine.

&nbsp3. Bringer of the funk.

http://mess.emuverse.com is a very nice place to visit for that warm and fuzzy feeling

If you can figure out how to make the bankswitching work, it shouldn't be that hard.
See Here for details.

Failing that you could always use a Starpath Supercharger to run 2/4k images.

Oh, yes and I am also in the progress of writing an Atari 2600 emulator for MESS a multiple machine emulator based on MAME, but emulating gaming consoles and computers and anything else with a CPU really ;)

As a side note, why hasn't this emulator had an editorial. MAME seems to have had a few Editorials on slashdot, but I would have thought that MESS would have been right up slashdot's street, emulating some truly geeky machines and all that ;)

Now, I do know that there are one or two MESS'ers who will probably read this, so how's about submitting an editorial or two eh? (I'm looking at you Spirilis amongst others ;)

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lpopman posting as AC because he can't get to his account right now

Dunno if this is just trollin', but, if so I'll bite with a real response here...

Actually, MAME is supported on quite a few different platforms already. Various platforms of Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc. It's there already - MAME is a voluntere effort, so if you need it for a different platform, compile it there. It should compile very nicely after a couple of system-dependant changes (MAME is written to be portable.)

As for the other machines - MAME is a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Apple II, C64, etc. arent arcade machines. HOWEVER - check out MESS which handles: Acorn Atom, AdventureVision, Amiga (NTSC), Amstrad CPC (464, 664, 6128), Apple I, Apple II (6 varieties), Atari 400, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari 800, Bally Astrocade, BEACA, Colour Genie 2000, Coco 3, Colecovision, Color Computer, Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Commodore 64gs, Commodore 65, Commodore 128, Commodore 2000, Commodore 3000, Commodore 4000, Commodore 8000, Commodore B Series, Commodore Max, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore Vic 20, CP400, CPS Changer, Dragon 32, Enterprise 128K, IBM PC/XT, Inves Spectrum 48K+, Jupiter Ace, Kaypro 2x, KC Compact, KC85/4, KIM-1, Laser (110, 200, 210, 310, 350, 500, 700, TX8000), Macintosh Plus, Memotech MTX512, MicroBee, MSX, Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Gameboy, Oric 1/Oric Atmos, PC Engine, PDP/1 (SpaceWar!), Philips P2090T/M, Sam Coupe, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive/Genesis, Spectrum Plus 2, Spectrum Plus 3, Spectrum Plus 4, TI99/4A Home Computer, Tandy 1000TX, Tandy MC-10, Timex Computer 2048, Timex Sinclair 2068, TK90x Color Computer, TRS-80 Model 1, Vectrex, VZ200/VZ300, ZX Spectrum 48K, ZX80/81. (I know: Information overload there...) If it resides in someone's closet now, there's a good chance it's emulated, or being worked on adding to the emulation now. MESS is pretty much as cool as MAME - just think of it as MAME for Consoles and Computers. Plus, it's somewhat portable, IIRC.

There are lots of TI emulators, though not as many as there are for other platforms. A place to start looking for anything TI-related is at http://99er.hispeed.com. There's also TI-99/4A support in the multi-emulator MESS, at http://mess.emuverse.com.

You do need the system ROMs to run the emulator and the cartridge ROMs to play the games. There's PC software to do the dumps, and I'm sure that somewhere out there you can find already-dumped ROMS, but I have no idea where.

...its here.