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UK University Making Universal Game Emulator
Techradar reports that researchers at the University of Portsmouth in England are working on a project to create a game emulator that will "recognise and play all types of videogames and computer files from the 1970s through to the present day." One of the major goals of the project is to preserve software from early in the computer age. David Anderson of the Humanities Computing Group said, "Early hardware, like games consoles and computers, are already found in museums. But if you can't show visitors what they did, by playing the software on them, it would be much the same as putting musical instruments on display but throwing away all the music. ... Games particularly tend not to be archived because they are seen as disposable, pulp cultural artefacts, but they represent a really important part of our recent cultural history. Games are one of the biggest media formats on the planet and we must preserve them for future generations."
Sometimes, I'm still blown away by the music in early 1990s LucasArts and Sierra games.
Monkey Island 1 and 2 ... and so on.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Leisure Suit Larry 5
They're making music sound good on a Yamaha OPL3 FM chip.
What? You guys are just gonna mash up a bunch of emulators? That's so stupid!!
I could just download a bunch of different ones doing a bunch of research and do it that way!!
I hate that you guys are just putting all that together for me, cause I could just do it myself!!
That's why you can't have nice things assholes, you don't appreciate it.
Why do people have a problem with this?
Wrong. Dolphin is already playing two or three Wii games perfectly.
It's more like Mame and MESS together.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
How are you going to play the games?
What is pong without the rotary control?
Imagine (in 50 years time) playing Wii bowling without the wiimote.
How are you going to get a light gun to work without a screen that does a full refresh.
etc.
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MAME is a system of emulation for valid historic archive purposes. Its whole purpose is to preserve classic video games with the greatest accuracy possible. If these guys don't leverage the MAME team's work, they have no chance of success because systems like the CPS-2 or DECO Cassette System will have degraded out of existence while they spend 10 years reinventing the wheel.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.