Travel back in your mind, if you can, to the mid-80s. Travel back to your local mall, and enter the arcade. Crowded, noisy, maybe smoky? Filled with flashing lights and sounds of primitive audio processors? I am filled with a rush of nostalgia whenever I think of the classic arcade; 20 or more cabinets of wood, plastic and glass, free-standing (upright) or those you sat at (cocktail) in one sizable but not too large room. The heat of the many CPUs would be oppressive if not for the air conditioning keeping it at bay. And that’s not even counting the several games of skill and/or chance I tried out; mini-hoops, the crane game, skee-ball…
Just filling my mind with these memories of yesteryear is pleasurable to me; I apologize for my brief reverie. And yet it threatens to return to me as I consider my subject of discussion: emulators!
These utilities are intended, in the most general sense, to imitate the workings of one computer upon another. Their focus in the public eye is generally relegated to gaming, which suits me just fine. With them, I may revisit my youth in those hallowed halls, popping shiny quarter after quarter in those slots, to play those games which seemed designed to take more and more of my money (and they were!); thank goodness that depending on where you get them, they’re totally free.
I realize that emulators exist such as the Wii’s Virtual Console, and the myriad partially-reprogrammed emulations on other platforms, but today I would like to speak on the foremost emulation project for the PC and related platforms: MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.
This program attempts to recreate, as closely as possible, the inner workings of every arcade system known, whether they’re from the mid-70s and using discrete circuits (and thus the emulator becomes a simulator in this case), or from the late 70s and onward using actual CPUs (central processing units) and ROM PCBs (read only memory printed circuit boards). The result is near-total accuracy of emulation, when you run specific games. The list of perfectly emulated games consists of many, if not all A-list (very well-known ones, like Pac-Man, Centipede, Asteroids, Galaga and others), and many B-list (lesser known ones like Mr. Do!, Bomb Jack, Galaxian, Scramble, and others).
Of course, those I listed are the most classic of the classic games, and your definitions of A- and B-list will undoubtedly vary from mine. I’m only relating what I saw in my local arcades in my youth. Also, take note that MAME will not only emulate super-old games like these, but those from the 90s onward, including many supported by that strange, incredibly pricey arcade/console hybrid, SNK’s NEO GEO.
That’s right, there was a $600 console before the PlayStation 3, and for that hefty chunk of change you could play honest-to-goodness arcade quality games in your home. But those same games, with a flip of a “DIP switch” (dual in-line package, a toggle, either hardware or software-based, to influence basic game functions) could be made to function in arcade machines as well. And so, games like Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Metal Slug, and many, many more became available to both the rich and those looking for a quick game fix.
Unfortunately, it seems that classic arcades have become a thing of the past; literally a year ago existed one in local Cordova Mall, but that was closed. To my profound chagrin, people no longer seem to care about old games anymore, and seem focused on photo-realistic graphics, stunning sound and truly epic game play. Sure, there’s a place for that, but there’s also a place for recognizing your roots. And our social paradigm today probably would not be the same if it were not for classic arcades, and the games that populated them.
Thankfully, we do have emulators so we may relive those glory days. And while the stale smell of beer or popcorn may, perhaps, never be imitated, at least we can experience those sounds and graphics as we did when we were young. And the experience is still glorious.