Re: A Tale of Two Apples

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...

>Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
> 
>> In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...
>> 
>> >And for your information--although they serve a need for many people, I
>> >dislike emulators.  Any kind.  I believe in using the real thing, where
>> >possible.  So I won't be one of the people using any kind of IIgs
>> >emulator on a PowerMac.
>> 
>>     True, the real thing is almost always better, though I still very
>> much like the concept myself. It isn't every day your 486 or Pentium
>> monitor displays "Welcome to the IIGS", plays a game of Task Force
>> or outputs MIDIsynth music sequences. :) If platform consoles aren't
>> your cup of tea, you might want to look at arcade emulators for the
>> PC and Mac such as MAME 0.29 or System 16. They're very faithful to
>> the original stand up arcade machines in every sense, and obviously
>> your not going to have much room to put one of those beasts in your
>> living room now, are you? :-)
> 
>I've tried several of the arcade emulators you mention; a friend of mine
>is heavily involved in arcade emulator work; in fact you might want to
>have a look at his web page:  www.zws.com.  He has many sound files and
>screen shots there for you to look at as well.  And I've tried the MAME
>and System 16 and a whole bunch of other ones on the Mac & PC.  The main
>reasons for my dislike are that the home console emulators are usually
>(but not always) silent.  This is a very bad feature to me because all
>the current home video game consoles have had good stereo sound ever
>since the Sega Genesis & Turbografix-16.  Second, very few of these
>emulators play with joysticks, let along the high quality arcade-style
>joysticks you can buy for home use now.  They make you play with the
>keyboard, which is totally unnatural to me.  If they improve in that
>regard, I may give them a second look--but I'd still prefer the real
>thing, any day.

    I'm not familiar with the Macintosh ports of MAME and System 16,
however the PC version does support full sound and music in most of 
the games it emulates (some of my favorites, which bring back lots 
of memories are: Ms.Pac-Man, Moon Patrol, Galaga, Tron, Spy Hunter,
and Tapper. Especially since the Apple II ports of these games, while 
very close, never quite had the exact same feel as the originals. Too
bad the Mockingboard didn't have greater support, many of those arcade
machines used the same chipset to produce music and sound effects).

    As for controls, the PC versions also supports mouse, trackball,
joystick and gamepads. I suppose the Macintosh port is limited to 
what you can plug into the ADB port. Back on topic here, I'm still
looking forward to seeing that Gameboy emulator released for the
IIgs, even if it doesn't support sound yet. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca