UK university develops massive games emulator

[Demon Cleaner]

Just read the article here.

[Harrison]

Great article. However as usual the "scientists" and "researchers" seem to be way behind the times. The retro community has been trying to do this for years already, and we have first hand experience of how hard it is to actually achieve collecting all files and games released for just one platform; the Amiga. Therefore to attempt to collect all files from all systems is going to be a nightmare to undertake.

At least they do have all of the retro collectors existing archives to utilise if they so wished. However I bet they will instead try to do this from scratch and waste loads of time on things that have already been achieved in the rom collecting community.

As for the emulator. It would be brilliant to have a universal emulator like MAME is to the arcade world, but instead for all systems. Achieving that is probably just as large a task as trying to collect the software. Each hardware platform is unique, as it much of the file formats they use. That is a near impossible task based on how long it takes people working on just a single emulator, before it works well.

This project could take so long that we lose some data before it catches up. However if they do utilise the existing emulators and existing rom collections they would have a huge head start in such a project.

However, as mentioned in the comments posted on that page, there would be a huge amount of legal issues even emulating every system every made. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft etc have all kicked up a huge fuss in the past when their systems are emulated, and I can't see it being any different here. And then there are the software publishers, their copyright, and the intellectual properties.

However if they get this project under way it would be really cool. And I only live a short distance from Portsmouth! Maybe I could get in on it!

[Demon Cleaner]

It's a bit like the MESS frontend, it emulates over 100 systems, but not as well as a dedicated emulator for one system only.

[Harrison]

Does the emulator already exist then?

If so, what it is named? And do you have any links to it?

[Demon Cleaner]

Nope, I just wanted to mention MESS