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.

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.

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.

gvosti@slonet.org