Special thanks go to the following individuals for answering questions about the various emulators: Mike Wagstaff at PocketGamer.Org; Hayes
Haugen, developer of PalmGB; TechMaster, developer of MameCE; Domenico Dato, developer of the Commodore 64 emulator for Windows CE; Marat Fayzullin, original developer of a number of emulators.
Do you remember plunking down 25 cents a game, over and over again, to play Pac-Man, Donkey Kong or Frogger? Twenty years ago these arcade pioneers consumed quarters faster than they could be minted. Things got a little better when companies like Atari and Sega introduced consumer gaming systems. The up front expense was higher, but once you owned the system and the game cartridge, you could play to your heart's content, at home, without going through a pocket full of quarters. Of course, you kept buying more and more game cartridges.
Video game graphics are a lot better today. But the arcade classics still provide plenty of excitement and challenge. Best of all, you can
"play them again, Sam," right on your Pocket, Palm-size or Handheld PC, with the help of a game system "emulator."
What is an emulator?
Video games and other software programs are written for specific hardware and specific operating systems. A game written for one system
(e.g., Sony PlayStation) will not run on another system (e.g., Atari Dreamcast). Sometimes, a company will release versions of a popular game for several computer operating systems. For example, many games written to play on Windows desktop PCs are also released for the Macintosh.
Another approach is to create an emulator program, which allows one computer system to emulate another. The advantage of this approach is
that you only have to create one software program, the emulator, to be able to play hundreds of otherwise unusable programs. However, game and operating system software is written to take advantage of specific hardware. So, the disadvantage of the emulator approach is that when you transplant games via an emulator onto another hardware system, the results are not always elegant and problem-free.
You need a "ROM image!"
The early arcade games written for systems like the Atari were installed using a game cartridge. The game software was stored in Read Only Memory (ROM) that could not be modified, erased, or easily copied. There was no downloading or uploading of files. If you wanted to play a game, you bought that particular cartridge and slipped it into a slot on the game system. If you wanted to loan a game to a friend, you had to loan the cartridge.
Of course, you can't slip an old Atari cartridge into a Pocket PC. But devices have been created that physically connect to a particular type of game cartridge and create a copy of the software on the cartridge. You
can then use this copy, with the appropriate emulator, to play the game. Since the original software was stored in ROM, the copy is sometimes called a "ROM image." To use any of the emulators described below, except Pocket-DOS, you have to create or get your hands on a ROM image of the desired game.
Game emulators for Windows CE
We published the first issue of our magazine (originally titled Handheld PC Magazine) in the fall of 1997. One of the first e-mails I
received was from a reader who wanted to run DOS games on a Windows CE Handheld PC. Remember MS DOS, Microsoft's original desktop PC operating system? Tens of thousands of programs were written to run on the DOS operating system, and this reader had some favorite games that he wanted to use on his H/PC. At that time it was not possible to run DOS programs on a Windows CE Handheld PC.
Things are different now. Not only are DOS emulators available for Windows CE, but there are a number of game emulators as well. Below are a few of the emulators available for Windows CE devices. Others are in
development and we'll report on them as they become available.
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