Most folks already know about game emulators, so this article won’t be too revolutionary for you—the constant reader and 31337 hax0r. In any case, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately returning to my computer gaming roots. When I was a kid, I spent countless hours playing with my Apple //c and my friend’s Atari (between the long, frozen uphill walks to school, each way). I also slid hundreds of dollars in quarters into some of my favorite arcade games: Spy Hunter, Crossbow, Gauntlet, X-men, Space Gun and S.T.U.N. Runner.

All of those games (and more) have been perfectly recreated and can be played today on your PC. Modern technology now allows us to use antiquated technology. Wonderful people all over the world have created software that emulates Atari, Apple //, Nintendo, Game Boy and arcade machines. Since the original hardware was underpowered, the emulators will run on almost any PC of recent vintage. Once you have the emulator, the next step is to download ROM files of the desired games. Most are perfect recreations of the original games, as people that own the games have read the physical ROM chips from the games in hardware ROM readers. Technically, you should only download games that you own, but it is generally accepted that game manufacturers don’t care much about copyright violations on things that they haven’t been selling for ten or fifteen years.

So where do you find these magnificent emulator programs and games?

www.mame.net ( multiple arcade machine emulator )
mame ROM’s
www.mame.dk ( the ROM’s are not distributed with the ROMS, to avoid copyright problems )

Atari emulators
people.ne.mediaone.net/asmolar/atari8/
www.classicgaming.com/pcae/ ( I like PCAE )

Atari ROM’s
www.classicgaming.com/vault/2600roms-AD.shtml

Apple //e emulator
www.jantzer-schmidt.de/applewin/ ( I’ve been playing with this one for the last couple of weeks )
geta.life.uiuc.edu/~badger/apple2.html

Apple //e ROM’s
www.classicgaming.com/vault/appleiiroms-AM.shtml

There is also some software available to make ROM’s out of those old apple disks that you have lying around.

I guess it is commendable that classicgaming.com has ROM’s for lots of stuff, but their site isn’t that special other than having good downloads. They also make you wait before downloading each ROM, when their site is busy.

Happy gaming!