Old, DOS based games were real gem*

Old is Gold

Do you wanna remember your good ol’ days when you had joyously (and expensively, Re. 1/- for a three minutes of play in those days!) played video games on Video Game Parlors in 1970’s? Some of you lucky ones may have played those on your TV through your personal Atari – the earlier video game console players. Those were the days when games are pure fun, easy to play and without any bells and whistles. Compare today’s Computer games that releases in two-three CD-ROMs, require Pentium 4 class machines with 3D FX type graphics cards to those earlier Video Games having a few hundred bytes and require a little processing power. Yet the older games delivered more fun in that era and capable to attract interest even today.

If you really miss those old, pure fun days, or just want to refresh those old days, but you do not have those Video Game Players any more. Loose no heart and feel lucky. There are emulators available for practically every game system from ages to latest one (Yes, there is a working emulator for Sony’s latest Playstation 2 that is known to have run some latest game flawlessly in PC) that you can run in your PC and play those video games. Similarly, there are game ROM (game software earlier released on cartridges and now on CDs) available for practically every kind of video games system and most of the console games that had released so far!

In early 1970’s Video arcade games were released commercially and Atari was among the first game console sold across the world which makes video games so popular. Atari’s video game ‘Pong’ becomes smash hit and since then Video Game Consol had traveled a long way with Nintendo, SEGA etc… and recently had attracted big players like Microsoft (XBox) and Sony (Playstation range) alike.

Game Emulators

To play old video games on your Computer, you need game emulator, a piece of software that emulates Video Game Console Processor on your Computer. You also need either emulation or original game ROM that released on cartridges earlier and in CDs presently. While using emulators of game or game console does not violates any copy right infringements, using original game ROME unless you have not purchased that game prohibit you to do so. However, you can try some original game ROM for a period of less than 24 hours if you want to have a look at these.

Game console emulators are either executable file for DOS / Windows platform and occasionally for Linux / UNIX platform. You simply need to execute the binary and define the directory where game ROM for particular emulator is stored and choose from the available list to play them. You can play your favorite pre-historic games in your Computer through these emulators. Some application tools even let you connect game pad of your old Video Game System to your computer through serial port.

Finding Emulators:

There are a handful of sites across Internet through which you can find nearly all kinds of Video Game Console emulators and game ROMS for computers. Beware that some porn sites camouflage as game ROM sites and will be quite disgusting while searching for games and emulators. For example, http://www.freeroms.com is a true game site where you can find many game ROM and emulators, and if you mistype it as singular, it will hijack you to adult sites. You can find most of the Video Game Console emulators from http://www.emuunlim.com . You can find quite a large number of Emulators for a particular Video Game system. For example, for Nintendo, the most popular game system of 1990’s, you can find three dozen emulators from various sources and you have to find a stable one for your smooth fun else your computer may crash frequently during playing games.

Using game ROM

A particular game released for a particular Game System, and hence cannot used in other systems. For example, a game for Nintendo will not run in Atari and the game for Xbox is incompatible for Playstation. Further, there were many versions of Atari (Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800 etc…) and Nintendo (Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System etc…) game system and accordingly, you need to choose emulators. Emulators generally can run on low-end machines, but some windows based emulators need powerful machine; especially powerful graphic card with support of DirectX or OpenGL. It is better idea to read carefully the documents supplied with Emulators and Game ROM to avoid errors in running these. Some hobbyists are still developing new games now and then for old game system that you can play in theses emulators.

This summer, refresh yourself with some real oldies and show the young ones how the old stuff were pure fun capable to entertain generations to come!

Screen Shot descriptions:

1. Old01.jpg Atari game – Elk Attack that reminds earlier PC game PacMan.
2. Old02.jpg Another Atari game ROM running on PC through Atari game emulator Stella.
3. Old03.jpg This Planet Sucks – one of the popular Video game from Atari Running in PC through Emulator.
4. Old04.jpg Asterix and Obelix – the Nintendo game running in PC through Nintendo game system emulator.
5. Old05.jpg SEGA game system that re-defines Video games distribution running in PC through emulation.
6. Old06.jpg Video game of 1990’s – Pure Fun!
7. Old07.jpg With not so realistic graphics, the older games have story lines that made base for today’s games.
8. Old08.jpg StellaX – The Atari game system Emulator.
9. Old09.jpg Nemu64- The popular Nintendo 64 game system emulator, known to run most of the Nintendo 64 Game ROM without trouble.