WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How Video Game Emulators Work 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.920 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.319 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio, and how the tech 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.959 are you? It's time for a tech Stuff classic episode. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.479 This episode originally published March first, twenty seventeen. It is 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:33.080 titled how Video Game Emulators Work. And I've often thought 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:39.120 about getting like an Arcade setup running a video game emulator. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.640 Never done it because while most of those titles that 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.800 I would want to play are not really available through 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:52.159 any legitimate means, I can't reconcile the fact that a 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:57.160 lot of video game emulator solutions involve essentially just kind 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:02.720 of stealing intellectual property. But let's listen to this classic episode. 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:05.880 Just letting you guys know, in case you're wondering, like, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.319 whys Jonathan sound so weird, or rather more weird than 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.559 he normally sounds, is because I am recovering from said cold, 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.360 and my voice is probably somewhere between eighty and ninety 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:18.240 percent back. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:20.720 So got that out of the way. 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.360 Today's episode is actually coming to us courtesy of a 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:28.840 little listener male or actually it's from a listener tweet Now, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.160 remember the tech stuff Twitter handle is tech Stuff HSW 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.960 so if you tweet me there, I will see it. 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.800 And this one comes from Dan who says I'd love 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.720 to hear a show on how video game emulators work. 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.959 So today we're going to explore what an emulator is, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.800 why they're necessary, in how they work. Now, first of all, 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:51.280 I should say there are a lot of different types 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.440 of emulators. It's not just for the video game world, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.320 but I'm going to focus specifically on video games. And 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.520 you might wonder our, right, So what is an emulator? Well, 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.640 it does what it sounds like. It emulates some other technology, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.120 which means it's attempting to replicate how another technology works 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.399 or what it does. Now, sometimes the emulator does this 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.080 in a very different way than the original technology did. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.440 And more often than not, an emulator relies on software 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.320 at least partly to replicate a particular piece of a 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.359 hardware's functionality. So you can think of emulators as being 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:32.160 at least partly a virtual machine. Some of the components 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:37.320 may actually be physical parts that are original to whatever 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.320 the technology you're trying to emulate was. Other components are 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.359 going to be purely software, and it's helpful to use 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.080 a little analogy here to understand what an emulator tries 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:48.480 to do. 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.600 So let's say you got two people. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.960 And you know what, let's give them some random name. So, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:55.440 just picking out of the air, I'm going to go 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.320 with Josh and Chuck. Now, both Josh and Chuck are 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.320 in a jungle, but they are separated, so they're each 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:07.480 individually in a jungle. Both are running from something. Let's 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.480 say they're being chased by aggressive badgers. So both of 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.400 them have managed to put some distance between themselves and 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.400 the fur balls of fury chasing them. And then each 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.519 of them individually comes to the edge of a pit 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.600 two different pits. So Josh is at one pit, Chuck 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.400 is at a different pit. There's no way around the pits. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.120 There's too much overgrowth on either side, so you have 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.560 to go over it somehow, but you can't go around. 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:32.880 They each have a short amount of time to figure 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.440 out a way around, or rather over. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:36.560 Their respective pits. 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.560 So Josh decides what he's going to do is fashion 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.600 a makeshift bridge out of some branches on the ground 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.760 and some vines, and so he binds them together and 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.400 he lays the bridge across the pit he crosses gingerly across, 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.040 because we know that Josh's sense of balance is somewhat 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.960 precarious under the best of circumstances. He gets to the 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.040 other side and then he kicks the bridge back into 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.800 the pit so that the badgers can't just follow him across, 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.160 and then he continues on his merry way. Meanwhile, Chuck, 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.120 on the other hand, uses a vine to tie it 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.280 to a branch and use that as kind of a 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.720 grappling hook. He tosses it up into the limbs overhead 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.320 and it catches, and so then he swings Tarzan like, 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.000 bellowing the whole time, and he gets to the other side. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.240 Then he jerks the vine and dislodges the branch so 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.080 that it falls down and throws that into the pit 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.880 just in case. Badgers can also swing across pits. But 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.160 that's because he has not yet read how badgers work 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.560 on HowStuffWorks dot com. So both Josh and Chuck got 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.880 across their respective pits, but they both did so in 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.599 very different ways. The end result was the same, but 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.039 the pathway was different. That's sort of what emulators do. 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.760 They're meant to produce a result that's identical to another technology, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.919 even if the pathway to get there is very different. 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.040 A video game emulator is really meant to replicate how 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.640 a specific machine works so that you can play the 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.400 games that were designed for that machine, typically on a 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.200 computer a PC. So an emulator could be a specific 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.400 arcade game emulator, like for a very specific title, or 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.480 it could be a video game console emulator, which means 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.920 it could act like a video game console virtually and 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.040 you could play the games made for that console on 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.000 your computer. The end result is that you can play 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.440 those games meant for one device on a totally different device, 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.599 and as I said before, typically we're talking about a 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:36.479 personal computer. Now, emulators are not the same thing as ports. 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.919 A ported game is one that developers originally created for 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.760 one architecture system and then they adapt that game for 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.200 a totally different system. So the easiest example is a 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.599 game that originally comes out on the PlayStation might get 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.400 ported to the Xbox. These are totally different architectures. The 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.600 video game consoles work in very different ways, so you 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:05.080 can't just reformat and put it on an Xbox one 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.200 disk and expect it to work. You actually have to 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.920 redesign parts of the game that's what porting is all 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:14.599 about now. Because each system, whether it's Xbox or PlayStation 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.719 or mac os or Windows, works in a very specific way. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:18.839 Those programs are. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.839 Not compatible, but a port can be reworked so that 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.880 it will operate on those new systems. Now, an emulator 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.400 is different. An emulator can run a game meant for 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.960 one system on a totally different system because the emulator 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:32.760 is doing the work. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:34.040 So instead of. 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.359 Giving a game to a new group of developers and 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.000 saying I need you to make this version of the 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.480 game playable for this other system, you have a piece 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.640 of software that pretends that it is the other system, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.960 and that way you don't have to have developers change 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.560 the code of the of the original game. You do 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.960 have to have developers create the emulator. So it really 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.400 just shifts the world from adapting a game to a 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.160 different system to adapting an emulator to be able to 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.840 work on whatever target machine you're talking about. Like I said, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.920 typically a PC, more often than not it's a Windows 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.040 based PC, but you also see them for Unix and 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.200 mac os, so it's not like it's exclusive to Windows machines. 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.800 Now it's necessary because video game consoles and even arcade 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.360 games like the old arcade game cabinets, they have specific 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.480 hardware and software architecture to them. So some of those 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.680 old arcade machines don't really even have much software at all. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.520 It's like the lightest level of software. It's mostly circuitry, 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:45.760 like hard coded circuitry. The game itself is represented in 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.080 the circuits that are on the board within the arcade cabinet. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.720 It's kind of like the old cartridge based systems if 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.440 you had one of those, like the old Nintendo Entertainment 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.600 System or Super Nintendo or the Atari. Those are video 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.080 games that would be programmed onto a circuit board that's 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.600 housed inside of a cartridge, and you insert the cartridge 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.560 into the video game console and some contacts between the 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.400 console and the cartridge allow the console to read that 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.720 information and then you're able to play the game. Obviously, 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:26.080 you don't have, for most PCs, a cartridge based system 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.800 that can accept these games in this way. Now, in 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:34.160 the olden days, arcade games contained a circuit board unique 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:39.000 to that particular game. So in other words, an Asteroid's 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.240 machine was an Asteroids machine. That's all there was to it, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.439 because the circuit board had the Asteroids game on it. 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.080 If you opened up a pac Man machine and you 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.560 opened up a Donkey Kong machine, you'd find two different 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.160 circuit boards. The pac Man one and the Donkey Kong 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.360 one would be unique to those arcade games. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.680 They did have a very. 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:02.360 Low level of software on the machines, on the circuit 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:08.280 boards called BIOS now that stands for Basic Input Output System, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.320 and really it's just a foundational software layer. It's really 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.640 just meant to be responsible for managing the relationship between 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.800 input devices like a push button or a joystick or 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:25.240 that sort of stuff, and the output devices like the monitor, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.600 or even just what the game is supposed to do 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:34.240 whenever you enact on those input devices. So the input 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.920 could be a jump button, for example, you press the 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.160 button and the output is you see your character jumping 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.480 on the display. But keep in mind, the actual output 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.680 is really the code for jumping and a signal to 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.120 the arcade machine's display. Right, the display is not making 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.640 your character jump. That's being controlled by the code of 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.520 the arcade machine itself. It's reflected on the monitor in 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:00.800 a way that you can see by having the little 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:01.840 character jump up. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:02.199 In the air. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.520 Now, the game's circuit board handled everything else in those 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.199 old machines, Besides that input output, the hardware was handling everything. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.880 It was just programmed directly onto the circuit board, and 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.760 that included the game's sound, its graphics engine, its logic. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:21.280 If you had an Arcade cabinet and you wanted to 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.120 switch out games. Let's say you've got a Pacmand cabinet 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.160 and you think I'm gonna put Donkey Kong in this cabinet, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.360 I'm gonna I want to switch out the games. What 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.480 you had to do was gut the machine. You had 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.600 to take all that circuitry and those connections out of 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.080 the machine, the Pacman machine, and replace them with the 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.960 ones from a Donkey Kong machine. You couldn't just swap 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.559 out a certain element. You had to do pretty extensive surgery. 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.440 It took some time, usually, you know, half hour an 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.560 hour easy to switch these things out. Later on, it 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.679 got a little simplified. First, it got simplified in the 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:03.040 the adoption of some more standardized connectors. So that meant 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.800 that you could start to disconnect a circuit board from 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.640 the rest of a system, and assuming that the control 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.280 scheme is similar from the old game to the new game, 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.480 you could plug the new circuit board into a cabinet 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.640 and it would work pretty well. Now, obviously, that only 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.240 works if your control scheme is the same. So, for example, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.319 if you're playing pac Man, there's no jump button, right, 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.720 there's a player one, a player two, and then there's 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.560 the joystick that has for motion control, and you just 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.760 control the pac Man character that way. But let's say 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.480 you want to play Centipede. Centipede is a very different 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.559 type of game. It has a rollerball controller, so you 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.120 have a ball that you swipe and you can move 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.760 your character that way, and it has a fire button 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.160 where you shoot whenever you press the button. So if 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.079 you were to switch out the pac Man to the 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.840 Centipede boards, assuming that they had these universal connectors, you 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.840 still would have to switch out the control system as well, 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.280 or else you wouldn't really be able to control the 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.640 game Centipede the way it was meant to be played, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.760 Particularly since you wouldn't have a fire button, that would 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.760 be a problem. Later on, arcade manufacturers would create machines 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.920 that had the basic hardware set up so that different 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.480 games could be plugged into the system more like a 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.880 video game console. So this was even simpler than the 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:29.439 universal kind of standardized controls. This was more about like 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.360 a set structure where you plug in a chip essentially 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.200 that has the game on it and everything else remains 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.840 the same. So kind of like a video game console 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.160 where if you're playing a Nintendo and you wanted to 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:49.760 stop playing Super Mario Brothers instead play Gumshoe, then you 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.319 could turn off the console, pull one cartridge out, put 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.040 the other cartridge in, turn it on, and there you go. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.840 Same sort of thing with these old arcade machines. Once 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.640 they got to this level of sophistication, it was still 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:03.120 a bit of a pain in the butt because he 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.839 still had to open everything up and get in among 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:07.840 all the wires and stuff, but it was still way 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.440 faster than the old days where you had to replace 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:16.800 everything essentially. Now the games themselves are called ROMs. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:18.559 MS. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.960 Now ROM is an acronym. It stands for read only memory. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.720 That meant the player or anyone else couldn't write anything 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.840 to the game. Now, they might have something on the 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.520 circuit board, some temporary memory in the arcade machine that 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.480 would allow players to put in initials next to high score, 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.560 and that would be stored in that memory CHEP, but 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.080 the game itself was immutable. You could not change the game. 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.240 It was the computer equivalent of being set in stone. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.120 So in the emulator world, we generally refer to game 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.839 files as in the software that represents that game as 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.920 a ROM. If you've ever used an emulator, you're probably 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.960 familiar with ROM. And there's a big legality question people 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.280 have when it comes to ROMs, and I'll get to 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.760 that later in the episode. At the end, I'm going 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.080 to spend time talking about the legality of read only 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.560 memory files and whether or not it is legal to 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.200 download them, But for now, let's just focus on the 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.560 technical side of things. We'll get to the legal stuff 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.720 at the end. So you got various types of games, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.240 each designed to run on specific hardware. And there are 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.800 the standalone arcade machines that each had their own peculiar architecture. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.840 They're the later arcade machines that could accept different chips, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.280 with each chip containing a different game. And then there 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.760 are the video game consoles and their proprietary game technologies. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.680 You even got old computer games that were designed to 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.560 run on slower machines with much less computing power than 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.680 today's PCs. A lot of those are impossible to play 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.640 on later machines because they just they can't handle the 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.160 fact that they've got access to all that processing power. 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.640 So you might even need an emulator for a PC 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.760 based game on a PC. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:02.760 If it's old enough. 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.280 If it's an old game, you may need an emulator 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.840 in order to run it a virtual machine of some sort. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.440 Emulators are what let you run those games designed for 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.440 those older or other devices on a modern machine. So 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.040 I've got more to say about this, but before I 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.280 get into it, let's take a quick break to thank 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:21.960 our sponsor. 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:33.760 All right, we're back now. 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.920 There are two big categories for emulators, and this doesn't 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.760 depend upon the type of console or game you're trying 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.440 to emulate. It's universal. These two big categories are universal 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.680 no matter what system you're trying to emulate, so all 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.320 different systems, all different arcade games, emulators can fall into 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.160 one of two categories. There's low level emulation and there's 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:02.359 high level emulation. And it might be a little counterintuitive 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.160 what these mean, but with low level emulation, programmers are 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.520 trying to create software and or hardware that can pretend 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:16.120 to be the emulated hardware. In other words, you're trying 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:21.760 to replicate the actual mechanics, although it's not mechanical, it's electronic, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:27.480 but the actual physical process I guess physical process doesn't 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.960 really work either, right, the actual logical process of the 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.320 original game system or arcade machine. So you want your 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.920 system to look from a high level as close to 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.880 that original system as you possibly can get it. Sometimes 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.720 that actually means including original hardware from the target machine 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.560 with the emulator, so that means you're not just replicating 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.840 the target machine, you're using some of its actual parts. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:17:00.000 You're in part rebuilding the actual original machine. In fact, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.040 the first couple of models of the PlayStation three actually 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.480 contained elements of the PlayStation two inside it in order 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.639 to provide some backwards capability. So if you wanted to 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.119 play a PlayStation two game on one of those early 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.159 PS three models, instead of it using the typical PS 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.520 three equipment inside the console, it would actually hand that 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.920 off to the PS two elements. So it was almost 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.679 like having two different video game consoles in the same box. 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:29.520 You didn't know it. 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.760 As a consumer, like, you don't see any of that happening. 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.320 It's all happening inside the console. But it wasn't a 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.639 PS three system reading the information and then playing it 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.800 on your screen. It was actually a PS two system 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:49.080 housed inside that PS three, So the PS three's core 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.919 system was acting as the emulator, but it was using 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:58.480 PS two hardware to actually read the information off of discs. Now, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.639 if you're using something like an sixty four emulator, the 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.320 emulator's trying to replicate the way the N sixty four 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.000 is hardware worked, and the more sophisticated that target system is, 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:09.800 the more difficult this is to do. 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:10.880 So. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.679 With low level emulation, the amount of processing power you 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.760 need on your computer to run the emulator so that 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.600 you can play those games the way they were meant 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:24.639 to be played. That processing power demand increases as the 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:29.440 complexity of the video game system you're emulating increases, which 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.800 makes sense, right. The more complicated the system, the greater 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:38.879 the demands are in processing power, particularly if the system 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:44.160 you're trying to emulate is remarkably different from PC architecture, 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.680 because your processors having to handle all of those differences 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.280 and it ends up creating a bigger drain on the 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:57.440 processor's ability. So if you've ever played a video game emulator, 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.040 and you've run a game and you're thinking, this thing 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.840 as slow as molasses, I'm barely able to get this 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.200 character moving. It's probably because you're experiencing that problem that 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:11.960 the emulator is probably a low level emulator. It's trying 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:16.040 to replicate that original system as closely as possible, and 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.760 as a result, your processor is having to work super 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.240 hard to keep up, even though the game might be 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.639 fairly simple. It can be very frustrating because you might 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.639 be playing a game that came out in like the 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.560 late eighties, and you're thinking, it's twenty seventeen. My computer 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.520 should be able to run this with no problem. But 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.119 the truth is the processor is trying to handle a 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:43.520 system so different from itself that that's what's causing the 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.920 slow down. I experienced this with a friend who had 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:53.320 an Arcade emulator, and he's had Ghosts and Goblins on there. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.080 And I love that game. I loved it when it 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.119 came out, but as I started to play it, I thought, 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.800 this game is way slower than and I remember it 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:02.960 am I just remember getting incorrectly. 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:03.359 Nope. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.760 Turned out it was because the emulator was putting too 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.200 great a demand on his system's processor, and as a result, 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:14.639 the game I was playing was much slower than what 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.679 it was supposed to be, and it's really hard to 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.359 make low level emulators efficient. Some games and systems require 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.080 multiple synchronization processes to make sure all the emulated components 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.760 are working together properly. So the more frequently that happens, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.200 the more times that an emulator has to say, hey, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.040 is everything all right and send that message out to 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.119 all the different components and wait for a response, the 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:44.840 more demands it places on that processor. So if you 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.800 want to have a really good low level emulator, you 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:53.440 need a computer with like a screaming fast processor. And 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.840 that could be again a little counterintuitive. You might think, well, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:01.040 this game can run the latest computer games with no 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.520 frame rate issues at the highest graphic setting, everything's awesome, 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.240 But when I try to run this emulated game, everything 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.480 slows down. Why is that? It's because of this. Now, 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.600 then you have high level emulation. This is very different. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:20.520 High level emulation simulates the functions of hardware, but doesn't 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.640 try to replicate those functions. So, in other words, all 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.200 it wants to do is get to that end result. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.439 It doesn't care if it follows the same path as 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.240 the hardware. So this gets back to that Josh and 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.639 Chuck example I gave at the top of the show. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.639 Both the vine and the bridge will get Chuck and 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.760 Josh across the pit, but they do it in different ways. 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.680 The end result is the same. That's what high level 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:50.159 emulation aims to do, so we call this abstraction. We 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.720 are able to create an environment in which a game 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.320 will work even if you're using totally different hardware because 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:02.399 of this level of abstraction. This is particularly handy for 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.520 game developers, not just people who want to play games, 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.720 but people who are making games, because you can develop 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.800 a game for a specific system using a level of abstraction, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:19.320 and you can use whatever system you prefer to develop on. 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.399 So let's say you're a developer and that you use 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.359 a Mac as you're a computer, but you're developing a 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.600 game for the Xbox. A level of abstraction allows you 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.240 to do this on a virtual level, so that you're 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.119 developing an Xbox game in a Mac environment and you 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.320 don't have to have special equipment or anything like that. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.159 You've abstracted all of the elements into a virtual realm. 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:52.520 So high level emulation uses shorthand for basic operations instead 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:56.520 of a specific pathway. So a low level emulator would 0:22:56.560 --> 0:23:00.160 try to replicate the exact way a game saves information. 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.359 For example, a high level emulator would just say save 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.959 this data to the storage drive, and firmware would actually 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:11.040 handle the transaction. So the software hands it off to 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:13.480 the firmware that says, all right, what's the most efficient 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.280 way for me to do the task I've been asked 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.240 to do? That puts the least demand on the processor. 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.800 It's kind of like a voice activated assistant in a way. 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.399 As these systems get more robust, you can ask for 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.720 the same information in many different ways. So for example, 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:31.119 if I had an iPhone, I could ask Siri what 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.840 is the weather like outside? Or I could ask Siri 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:35.719 is it raining? 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:37.320 Now? Both of those questions. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.560 Will get me a weather answer from Siri because the 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.359 system can actually handle the different ways to request essentially 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:48.320 the same information. Hardware abstraction does something similar. It interprets 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.199 a request and then it does the leg work to 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:55.840 fulfill that request. Now, there are three main ways that 0:23:55.960 --> 0:24:01.920 high level emulators simulate hardware functions. The first is called interpreting. 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:05.159 The emulator will go through the code of the game 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.600 line by line in chunks and replicate what the instructions 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.720 are supposed to do, so, interpreting makes sense right like you, 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:16.479 It's kind of like if you were to read a 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:20.479 story and then tell somebody what does the story say? 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:22.960 Like what are the basic points of the story. Or 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:25.440 you're trying to tell someone about a movie you've seen 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:29.160 and you're giving them kind of a high level, bullet 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:33.360 point rundown of what the plot was all about. That's 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:37.159 what interpreting does, except it does it with code. Next 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:42.840 is a strategy called dynamic recompiling. Now that method actually 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:45.760 looks at blocks of code, looks at the instructions that 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.199 are the processor is supposed to carry out according to 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:52.120 that code, and then it starts looking for a more 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:56.159 efficient or optimized way to run those same instructions on 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.200 the actual computer you are using. So, in other words, 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.160 it's recom hiling the code for a different piece of hardware. 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:06.360 It's kind of like saying, all right, this was written 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:10.359 for an Atari twenty six hundred, I want to rewrite 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.359 it so that the same result will happen on the 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:20.000 PC that is running the software. Very interesting that this 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:24.639 can be done on an abstract level. And finally, there's 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:28.760 a strategy called list interception. Now this is relevant for 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:32.680 computers that use coprocessors, and for systems that you're trying 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:37.280 to emulate that also had coprocessors. Most PCs these days 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:41.639 have a coprocessor. The graphics processing unit is a coprocessor. Now, 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:44.880 those chips are meant to handle graphics, but they're also 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.119 really handy for parallel processing. You might have heard that 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:51.320 a lot of hackers use GPUs in order to do 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:56.600 brute force attacks against secure systems. This is because GPUs 0:25:56.640 --> 0:25:59.800 can process stuff in parallel, which means you can have 0:25:59.840 --> 0:26:03.040 a bunch of parallel processors all tackling the same problem, 0:26:03.480 --> 0:26:06.639 going through different potential solutions, and that cuts down on 0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:08.679 the amount of time it takes for you to find 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:14.080 the real answer. So with list interception, an emulator interrupts 0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:18.439 a command list sent to the original device's coprocessor and 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:23.680 turns that into instructions that the actual host computer's graphics 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.880 processing unit can handle. So it's kind of like translating 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:29.760 text from one language to another. It intercepts the message 0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:32.600 says okay, well, the GPU can't understand this the way 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:36.239 it's written, but I can take these instructions rewrite it 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:39.520 in a way that the GPU understands. And send it along, 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:42.920 And that's how that works. The big advantage of high 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:46.879 level emulators over low level emulators is that they require 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:50.760 less processing power to run games. So a well designed 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:54.160 high level emulator can run titles smoothly on a modest PC. 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:58.199 You don't need to have a killer gaming rig, but 0:26:58.240 --> 0:27:01.320 a low level emulator would require that bf yeer processor 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:04.600 to handle demands. Now, the flip side is a low 0:27:04.680 --> 0:27:08.200 level emulator tends to be more accurate when replicating a game, 0:27:08.560 --> 0:27:11.159 and a high level emulator might not be able to 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:15.600 replicate all the things the game does because it's not 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:20.119 as specific to that system, like, it's not replicating the 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:22.000 system as faithfully. 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:24.480 As a low level emulator would. So there are trade offs. 0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:27.480 So let's say you want to invest in an emulator 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:30.680 and some games, and just for argument's sake, let's say 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:32.280 that there's a legal way for you to buy the 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.600 games rather than just download them willy nilly. Like I 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:38.200 said before, I'm going to talk more about the legality 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:39.879 of all of this at the end of the show. 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:43.160 So what system should you go for if you want 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:46.480 an emulator? Well, that really depends on several factors. For one, 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:50.840 are you missed their money bags or miss money bags, 0:27:51.040 --> 0:27:53.480 because if money's not an object, you might as well 0:27:53.520 --> 0:27:56.560 go bonkers and trick out a nice low level emulator 0:27:56.600 --> 0:28:01.639 system with a really really good gaming rig PC to 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.280 get the most authentic experience when you PLoP down to 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:08.280 a rousing game of Burger Time or Gauntlet two. Low 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:12.960 level emulators, particularly ones that include actual hardware used by 0:28:13.080 --> 0:28:16.760 the system you're trying to emulate, get pretty pricy, and 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:19.600 remember you got to have that powerful processor to run 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:20.480 those emulators. 0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:22.640 And as opposed to. 0:28:22.560 --> 0:28:26.240 The high level emulator types, high level emulators don't require 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:29.760 as much horsepower from the host computer, which brings the 0:28:29.800 --> 0:28:32.639 cost down. You don't need to buy a super fast computer. 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:35.239 In fact, you may already have a machine more than 0:28:35.359 --> 0:28:39.320 capable of running a high level emulator program, so you 0:28:39.320 --> 0:28:42.000 won't have to spring for that screaming gaming rig with 0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:46.840 you would like for a low level emulator. But sometimes 0:28:47.160 --> 0:28:51.120 those high level emulators cannot perfectly replicate whatever the target 0:28:51.200 --> 0:28:55.120 system is the emulated system, so you might find certain 0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:57.360 games don't have all the bells and whistles that they should, 0:28:57.680 --> 0:29:00.760 and if you might even be unplayable, like you might 0:29:00.960 --> 0:29:03.680 get a title a rom for a game you love, 0:29:04.400 --> 0:29:06.840 and you have an emulator, a high level emulator for 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:09.160 that system or for that machine, and then you find 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:11.360 out you still can't play the game. Well, it might 0:29:11.360 --> 0:29:13.600 not be that the file you got is corrupt. 0:29:13.680 --> 0:29:14.400 It may be that the. 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:17.560 Emulator just isn't capable of replicating that game the way 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:21.520 it should. Now, mostly that depends upon the way the 0:29:21.520 --> 0:29:25.000 original game developers programmed the original game. If they use 0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:27.800 a lot of weird shortcuts and hacks to create the 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:31.320 game that would work on the target system, it may 0:29:31.360 --> 0:29:35.200 not work on an emulated system. So in other words, 0:29:35.240 --> 0:29:40.160 like let's say I've developed a game for the original Nintendo, 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:43.360 and the original Nintendo could totally handle these sort of 0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:49.600 cludgy hacked processes I've created because I wanted to do 0:29:49.640 --> 0:29:51.560 it to make a bunch of shortcuts. Like the code 0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:54.200 looks messy as heck. If you look at the code, 0:29:54.640 --> 0:29:58.680 but the gameplay doesn't reflect that, it's just fine. But 0:29:58.720 --> 0:30:01.160 then you pull it over onto an emulaid system that's 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:06.600 more designed to handle games that are written to the 0:30:06.640 --> 0:30:10.960 standard of Nintendo as opposed to just getting it done, 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:14.520 and you may find out that that game isn't really 0:30:14.520 --> 0:30:18.120 playable on the EMULAID system. It's really frustrating if in 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:22.880 fact that was your goal from the start. So the 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.320 more standard of games code is, the better the chances 0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:27.840 are that a high level emulator will be able to 0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:32.080 handle it. Now, arguably one of the most popular types 0:30:32.120 --> 0:30:36.600 of emulators is the multiple arcade machine emulator or MAN. 0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:41.560 That's an open source emulator. An open source essentially means 0:30:41.600 --> 0:30:44.720 the code is open for anyone to look at, to alter, 0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:48.440 and even to re upload and distribute. So that means 0:30:48.920 --> 0:30:52.040 as people find better ways to emulate a particular machine, 0:30:52.080 --> 0:30:55.160 they can make adjustments to the code, and a new 0:30:55.240 --> 0:30:59.320 version of the emulator can incorporate those changes. So if 0:30:59.320 --> 0:31:04.440 it's a multiple arcade machine emulator, then you may have 0:31:04.560 --> 0:31:07.960 a specific arcade cabinet that has not been emulated yet. 0:31:08.000 --> 0:31:10.280 You might figure out how to do that, and you 0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:16.200 add that code into a already existing MAME emulator, which 0:31:16.400 --> 0:31:21.560 I understand is repetitive. See also my tire rate about 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:26.840 atm machines and pen numbers. But because you're able to 0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:30.120 actually take that code and change it, then you can 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:33.800 increase the functionality for the community as a whole. 0:31:35.960 --> 0:31:37.840 Now, the stated purpose of. 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:44.160 MAIME is to preserve games as an historical effort because 0:31:44.160 --> 0:31:47.480 these old arcade machines relied on physical hardware, and a 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:49.880 lot of them are no longer in production. In fact, 0:31:49.960 --> 0:31:54.280 most of them aren't in production anymore. So creating the 0:31:54.320 --> 0:31:57.400 software that could run those games is a way to 0:31:57.520 --> 0:32:01.600 preserve the games indefinitely instead of just have them get 0:32:01.640 --> 0:32:04.240 older and older and older and eventually they just don't 0:32:04.240 --> 0:32:06.640 work anymore. They break down to the point where it 0:32:06.680 --> 0:32:10.160 doesn't matter if you have an original arcade machine, the 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:14.800 circuit board just won't play the game. This way, they 0:32:14.800 --> 0:32:16.640 could be preserved indefinitely. 0:32:17.480 --> 0:32:18.960 Now it just so happens that the. 0:32:18.920 --> 0:32:21.640 Software also allows you to play those games, because that's 0:32:21.800 --> 0:32:25.840 how the games work, right, Like, if the software didn't 0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:29.080 allow the games to run, all you really would need 0:32:29.120 --> 0:32:31.800 to do is find a way to preserve that random 0:32:32.200 --> 0:32:36.320 or rather the read only memory the ROMs. If you 0:32:36.360 --> 0:32:39.560 could just preserve the ROMs period, you could have a 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:45.920 library of unreadable files. It would be pretty unusual to 0:32:45.960 --> 0:32:47.240 do that, Like, what's the point. 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:49.320 It'd be kind of like going into. 0:32:49.520 --> 0:32:52.760 A library that is filled with books written in an 0:32:52.800 --> 0:32:58.160 ancient language that no one understands anymore. So, yeah, they're historical. 0:32:58.440 --> 0:33:01.480 They have some historical significant but there's no way to 0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:04.880 understand what is there. So you start asking the question, 0:33:05.000 --> 0:33:07.640 does it really make sense to keep them if there's 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:10.840 no way to read them. So Maine can read these 0:33:10.840 --> 0:33:15.320 files that can play those games. But the stated purpose 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:18.200 for Maine isn't to play the games, it's just to 0:33:18.240 --> 0:33:23.200 preserve them. Now you might find that that purpose is 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:27.080 a little do not peak behind the curtain esk, and 0:33:27.160 --> 0:33:29.480 that you could easily imagine mame's design is meant to 0:33:29.560 --> 0:33:32.120 give you the chance to play those old games and 0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:35.720 not just keep them for posterity. I mean, if you 0:33:35.720 --> 0:33:38.360 can't play the video game, is it really worth keeping? 0:33:39.160 --> 0:33:43.400 But never mind that it doesn't really matter for the 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:47.920 purposes of this discussion. I just find it amusing. So 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:51.400 the main software evolves over time, and part of that 0:33:51.520 --> 0:33:55.120 is just to keep up with technology. As operating systems evolve, 0:33:55.320 --> 0:33:59.560 we have to adjust the software, the MAME software to 0:33:59.640 --> 0:34:04.120 run on new systems. So you know, if Microsoft releases 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:08.120 a new version of Windows that's remarkably different from previous versions, 0:34:08.719 --> 0:34:12.480 you may have to tweak the code for MAME to 0:34:12.520 --> 0:34:16.040 be able to run on the new Windows platform. So 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:19.000 it is necessary for this to be open source for 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:23.040 the software to remain relevant, and there are lots of 0:34:23.040 --> 0:34:26.759 different versions of MAIME on operating systems like Windows, on 0:34:26.960 --> 0:34:30.319 Unix mac os. There are versions for both thirty two 0:34:30.360 --> 0:34:33.880 bit and sixty four bit Windows versions. You can find 0:34:33.880 --> 0:34:38.799 people selling MAME machines inside either classic arcade cabinets or 0:34:38.960 --> 0:34:42.640 new cabinets designed to look like old ones, complete with 0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:46.480 special controls. So if you wanted to, you could create 0:34:46.520 --> 0:34:49.359 a computer like You could build a computer on your own, 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:52.759 a decent one, not like again, not a super fast 0:34:52.760 --> 0:34:55.439 one necessarily, but a decent computer. 0:34:55.120 --> 0:34:55.920 With a lot of storage. 0:34:56.600 --> 0:35:01.040 You could mount a display inside a cabinet to look 0:35:01.160 --> 0:35:05.040 like in arcade monitor. You could have the computer inside 0:35:05.080 --> 0:35:09.960 the cabinet. That's essentially the case for your computer, and 0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:14.640 you could hook up arcade controls, including ones that are 0:35:15.520 --> 0:35:19.120 more unusual like the roller balls or some of the 0:35:19.160 --> 0:35:24.479 other yoke versions for flight games like the old Star 0:35:24.520 --> 0:35:26.359 Wars game, that kind of stuff. You could have all 0:35:26.360 --> 0:35:29.399 those sort of controls available. You can even have ones 0:35:29.440 --> 0:35:33.000 that detach from the system so that you can swap 0:35:33.040 --> 0:35:35.160 them out whenever you need to for whatever game you 0:35:35.200 --> 0:35:38.680 want to play, and you could have that in your 0:35:38.719 --> 0:35:42.080 house and you would essentially have access to all the 0:35:42.239 --> 0:35:46.239 arcade games supported by that emulator. That doesn't necessarily mean 0:35:46.280 --> 0:35:49.600 every arcade game ever invented, but it could be hundreds 0:35:49.600 --> 0:35:52.880 and hundreds of different titles. On the inside's just a 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:56.680 PC running that mame software and a collection of ROMs. 0:35:57.960 --> 0:36:02.880 So it's getting to time for me to talk about 0:36:03.200 --> 0:36:06.480 the legality of this. Like, if you wanted to do this, 0:36:06.560 --> 0:36:09.120 if you wanted to have an emulator, whether it was 0:36:09.160 --> 0:36:12.760 a main emulator or a video game console emulator or whatever, 0:36:14.000 --> 0:36:17.360 what are the legal considerations you should make. I'm going 0:36:17.440 --> 0:36:19.240 to tell you more about that in just a second, 0:36:19.320 --> 0:36:22.920 but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:36:32.480 --> 0:36:33.359 All Right, we're back. 0:36:33.760 --> 0:36:37.160 So you could technically build or buy a machine capable 0:36:37.200 --> 0:36:41.560 of providing an entire arcade's worth of gaming on one device. 0:36:41.680 --> 0:36:46.160 But is that legal? So this brings us to the 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:49.959 legal discussion or law stuff, don't dun. 0:36:51.160 --> 0:36:51.560 Interesting. 0:36:51.600 --> 0:36:54.000 Note there are a lot of questions about ROMs and 0:36:54.040 --> 0:36:57.879 their legality. So our ROM files illegal? Is it ever 0:36:58.280 --> 0:37:04.360 legal to download one? Are emulators illegal? It's good to 0:37:04.440 --> 0:37:08.520 finally kind of tackle these questions now. First, emulators in 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:12.520 general are legal. You can own an emulator. There is 0:37:12.560 --> 0:37:18.040 nothing inherently illegal about emulators. They're software meant to emulate 0:37:18.080 --> 0:37:24.280 another technology, but in general they don't contain any proprietary code, 0:37:24.719 --> 0:37:28.399 So that means emulators more often than not, don't have 0:37:28.520 --> 0:37:33.320 any code in them that is protected by copyright. Since 0:37:33.360 --> 0:37:39.319 there's no copyright violation, there's no illegal nature to these emulators. 0:37:39.800 --> 0:37:44.000 Developers haven't stolen any intellectual property from the companies that 0:37:44.080 --> 0:37:47.400 made the original equipment. They're just creating new software to 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:51.759 run programs that relied on older original equipment. So it's 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:56.640 a fine line. But emulators on their own are totally legal. 0:37:57.840 --> 0:38:01.920 As for ROMs, that's where it gets messy. For one thing, 0:38:01.960 --> 0:38:08.640 we do not have global laws guiding our choices about 0:38:09.280 --> 0:38:13.120 legality or illegality when it comes to ROMs, so the 0:38:13.200 --> 0:38:16.920 rules in one country can be significantly different from those 0:38:17.080 --> 0:38:20.440 of other countries. Now, I'm gonna be looking at this 0:38:20.520 --> 0:38:23.160 from the viewpoint of someone in the United States because 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:26.160 that's where I live. Longtime listeners of text stuff. No, 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:29.160 this is my mo I will take a view from 0:38:29.200 --> 0:38:32.359 the US because that's where I'm from and it's way 0:38:32.480 --> 0:38:34.719 easier for me to talk about this. But if I 0:38:34.719 --> 0:38:37.960 wanted to tackle the legality from every country, I'd have 0:38:38.000 --> 0:38:42.320 to do a whole series of podcasts because it's different 0:38:42.400 --> 0:38:46.040 for different places. In fact, even just the length of 0:38:46.320 --> 0:38:50.399 copyright protection is different in different countries. The US has 0:38:50.880 --> 0:38:56.000 a lengthy period of copyright protection, Like we're talking decades 0:38:56.040 --> 0:38:59.560 and decades of protection even after the death of whomever 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:04.960 held the copyright. So something to keep in mind, all right, So, 0:39:05.040 --> 0:39:07.640 downloading a rom of a game you do not own 0:39:08.280 --> 0:39:12.719 is violating copyright and is illegal pretty much anywhere. 0:39:12.800 --> 0:39:14.640 So if you wanted. 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:17.279 To get hold of a RAM for a game, but 0:39:17.320 --> 0:39:20.320 you don't own that game, you have no legal copy 0:39:20.400 --> 0:39:24.319 of that game, Downloading it is against the law. It's 0:39:24.400 --> 0:39:27.360 no different from downloading a song you don't own, or 0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:30.279 a movie you don't own, or a television show. If 0:39:30.320 --> 0:39:34.560 you do not own a copy, you're essentially stealing. Now, 0:39:34.560 --> 0:39:37.680 in the case of arcade games, it's pretty darn common 0:39:37.680 --> 0:39:40.680 for people to steal them. Not many people actually own 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:44.080 arcade machines. There are people who do, there are a 0:39:44.120 --> 0:39:46.120 lot of them who do, but most people do not. 0:39:46.719 --> 0:39:49.319 The average person does not own an arcade machine in 0:39:49.360 --> 0:39:52.759 their home. So unless you own a legit copy of 0:39:52.840 --> 0:39:56.680 an arcade machine, downloading the ROM for that game is 0:39:56.680 --> 0:39:57.600 pretty much illegal. 0:39:59.040 --> 0:40:00.000 But let's say you. 0:39:59.840 --> 0:40:02.319 Go go to an auction right and you buy an 0:40:02.320 --> 0:40:05.120 old Spy Hunter cabinet for your rec room at home. 0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:08.680 First of all, good job, Spy Hunter, awesome arcade game, 0:40:09.040 --> 0:40:12.680 one of my favorites from the arcade era. You get 0:40:12.719 --> 0:40:16.360 the machine home and you realize that the circuit board 0:40:16.760 --> 0:40:20.400 is damaged a little bit. It's kind of fried, and 0:40:20.440 --> 0:40:24.960 the game isn't really working properly. It's not stable, like 0:40:25.000 --> 0:40:26.560 you can get it running every now and then, but 0:40:26.640 --> 0:40:31.239 it doesn't necessarily run flawlessly or it might crash at 0:40:31.320 --> 0:40:32.280 random intervals. 0:40:33.160 --> 0:40:34.280 So the question is, could. 0:40:34.120 --> 0:40:38.840 You then download a ROM for Spy Hunter and replace 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:41.800 the guts of the cabinet you've bought with a PC 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:45.440 running an emulated copy of the game. So instead of 0:40:45.480 --> 0:40:49.839 having the actual Spy Hunter elements inside this cabinet, you 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:52.479 remove those, you put a PC in there. 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:54.080 The PC is. 0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:57.440 Running Maime, and the only ROM you have on it 0:40:57.480 --> 0:40:59.680 is Spy Hunter, because that's the game you bought. 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:06.840 Would that be legal? Well, if you were to rip the. 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:10.520 Game off the circuit board yourself, you could probably argue 0:41:10.560 --> 0:41:13.719 that as being totally legit. So in other words, you'd 0:41:13.760 --> 0:41:16.400 have to make a digital copy of a hard coded game, 0:41:17.239 --> 0:41:20.520 which isn't exactly easy for the average person to do, 0:41:20.880 --> 0:41:23.080 but it would be a necessary step to use a 0:41:23.120 --> 0:41:25.720 digital ROM on another type of device. 0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:27.640 In the United States, this. 0:41:27.640 --> 0:41:31.200 Would likely be seen as making a legal backup copy, 0:41:31.760 --> 0:41:35.399 as in a lawful it is perfectly fine to make 0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:39.120 a backup copy of media you have purchased. It's similar 0:41:39.120 --> 0:41:43.320 to making a backup of a CD or a cassette 0:41:43.360 --> 0:41:47.399 tape or a vinyl album, either through putting it onto 0:41:47.440 --> 0:41:50.239 another medium or ripping it and making it an MP three. 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:52.160 That's perfectly legal. 0:41:52.480 --> 0:41:54.160 As long as you're doing it for your own personal 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:58.200 use without the intent to distribute, you're pretty much okay. 0:41:58.840 --> 0:42:02.120 You are legally al oued to make backup copies of 0:42:02.200 --> 0:42:07.440 stuff you purchased, as long as it's for the purpose 0:42:07.480 --> 0:42:11.400 of a backup. But what about downloading a ROM from 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:14.439 another source rather than ripping it from the circuit board 0:42:14.440 --> 0:42:16.440 you physically own. Let's say that you don't have the 0:42:16.480 --> 0:42:20.680 equipment necessary to pull the code off a hard coded 0:42:20.719 --> 0:42:23.880 circuit board and convert it into something digital that a 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:27.600 PC could read, so instead you're just going to download 0:42:27.640 --> 0:42:31.320 a copy from the internet. Now, arguably you could say 0:42:31.400 --> 0:42:34.040 that downloading the ROM in this instance is a case 0:42:34.080 --> 0:42:37.200 of fair use. So the argument you would make is 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:40.000 that you already own the game. You purchased a legit 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:43.879 copy of Spy Hunter, and you're not distributing the ROM 0:42:43.920 --> 0:42:45.440 to anyone. 0:42:45.520 --> 0:42:47.479 You're not trying to. 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:51.480 Create a marketplace for the Spy Hunter game. All you 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:53.319 want to be able to do is play the game 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:59.120 you bought on the arcade console you purchased. So you 0:42:59.120 --> 0:43:02.560 could argue, I'm not causing harm to the market, right, 0:43:03.120 --> 0:43:06.080 I'm not denying a sale. I'm just trying to get 0:43:06.120 --> 0:43:09.840 access to the thing I have already purchased. Well, that 0:43:09.880 --> 0:43:12.239 could be a legit fair use argument, but you got 0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:14.759 to remember fair use is an argument you have to 0:43:14.760 --> 0:43:17.720 make in a legal case. In other words, it doesn't 0:43:17.719 --> 0:43:22.960 protect you from getting sued. You can't say at the forefront, 0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:27.200 this is fair use, don't sue me. Instead, fair use 0:43:27.280 --> 0:43:30.760 is an argument you make once you have been sued, 0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:34.720 so fair use doesn't matter until you get to court. 0:43:35.600 --> 0:43:37.440 Chances are, though, no one would sue. 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:39.760 You in the first place unless you were distributing games, 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:42.600 particularly for some of these old ROMs because in some 0:43:42.680 --> 0:43:44.880 of these cases, the companies that made the games have 0:43:44.960 --> 0:43:48.600 been out of business for years, or they were acquired 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:51.520 and sold and acquired so many times, then no one 0:43:51.560 --> 0:43:53.759 really knows what the ownership rights are for some of 0:43:53.800 --> 0:43:56.279 these games. So, in other words, there's no one to 0:43:56.320 --> 0:43:59.400 give your money to because no one knows who owns 0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:04.640 the copyright. And not only are no copies being sold, 0:44:05.080 --> 0:44:09.040 but there's no one who's authorized to sell them, right, 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:12.320 no one knows who owns it. So in those cases, 0:44:12.719 --> 0:44:16.720 you're probably okay to download the ROMs, not that it's legal, 0:44:16.840 --> 0:44:19.160 but that you're probably not gonna get punished for it 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:22.080 because there's no one to lay a claim against you. 0:44:23.360 --> 0:44:26.799 That doesn't stop companies from doing that even when they 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:30.279 don't necessarily have a legal claim to the content. If 0:44:30.320 --> 0:44:31.960 they think they can get away with it, they could 0:44:31.960 --> 0:44:34.160 totally go that route. You would have to prove in 0:44:34.200 --> 0:44:37.399 a court of law that the company suing you does 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:40.919 not have a legal claim to the property they are 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:46.040 arguing is theirs. So you know, if video game Company 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:48.960 A says, hey, you know, back in nineteen eighty eight, 0:44:49.000 --> 0:44:51.839 we purchased video game Company B, which means we own 0:44:52.560 --> 0:44:57.479 the video game you have downloaded illegally and you say, 0:44:57.640 --> 0:45:02.080 well no because of X, Y and Z. Maybe it 0:45:02.120 --> 0:45:04.200 turns out you're perfectly fine, but it means you have 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:08.719 to go through the whole court experience, which isn't great. Now. 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:10.680 You may have also heard that there's a special rule 0:45:10.760 --> 0:45:13.319 that allows you to download any video game ROM and 0:45:13.400 --> 0:45:16.240 keep it for twenty four hours without it being illegal, 0:45:16.280 --> 0:45:19.480 as long as you delete the realm after twenty four hours. 0:45:20.840 --> 0:45:23.439 So generally people say, oh, yeah, you can download the game, 0:45:23.480 --> 0:45:25.440 give it a whirl, and delete it a day later, 0:45:25.560 --> 0:45:29.000 and there's no fear of someone coming after you. I 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:30.600 am here to tell you that is not based on 0:45:30.640 --> 0:45:33.960 any actual legal grounding. From what I can tell, there 0:45:34.080 --> 0:45:39.840 is no legal foundation for this argument. It's probably just 0:45:39.920 --> 0:45:42.799 wishful thinking that's been passed along as gospel among a 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:46.200 lot of realm sharing communities. The truth is, if you're 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:49.279 downloading something that doesn't belong to you and you're not 0:45:49.400 --> 0:45:53.040 purchasing it, you're just downloading it, you are stealing. It. 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:56.080 Doesn't matter if you're keeping it forever or for twenty 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:57.560 four hours, it's still stolen. 0:45:58.160 --> 0:45:59.879 Now. Complicating matters in this. 0:45:59.840 --> 0:46:03.359 Case is that we're talking about digital information, not a 0:46:03.360 --> 0:46:06.960 physical copy of something. I mean, if I walked into 0:46:07.000 --> 0:46:09.360 a video game store and I pocketed a copy of 0:46:09.360 --> 0:46:12.640 an actual video game that was stored on physical media 0:46:12.760 --> 0:46:15.800 like a CD or a DVD, there's no question that 0:46:15.920 --> 0:46:17.880 I stole something. Right If I walk into a game 0:46:17.920 --> 0:46:21.360 stop and I grab a box and I shove it 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:24.360 under my jacket and I walk out, I stole that. 0:46:25.160 --> 0:46:28.120 There is a physical copy of the game that I 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:31.080 have taken, and that means the store can't sell that 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:34.160 physical copy because it's in my possession and I didn't 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:40.279 buy it. But downloading a file doesn't feel like stealing, right. 0:46:40.080 --> 0:46:42.640 Because the original file still exists. 0:46:42.239 --> 0:46:45.839 On some server somewhere, So you didn't. You didn't take 0:46:45.920 --> 0:46:48.920 the one and only existing copy. You made a copy 0:46:49.000 --> 0:46:52.640 of another file, and now you have that copy, so 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:56.960 other legitimate customers could still purchase the game that you've taken, 0:46:57.360 --> 0:47:00.480 because it's not like it doesn't exist anymore. And so 0:47:00.640 --> 0:47:03.360 because of this, a lot of people justify their actions 0:47:03.400 --> 0:47:06.600 as being okay, because it's not like they actually took 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:10.920 something that physically exists, except that at the end of 0:47:11.040 --> 0:47:14.839 the day, you are accessing something without paying for it. 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:18.480 When there's an entire business based off of making games 0:47:18.480 --> 0:47:23.840 for money. If game developers didn't make money, there wouldn't 0:47:23.880 --> 0:47:28.000 be games. No one would make games, or at least 0:47:28.239 --> 0:47:30.200 not on the level that we are used to. People 0:47:30.280 --> 0:47:33.200 might make games as an expression of art and they're 0:47:33.200 --> 0:47:35.360 not trying to make any money, But there wouldn't be 0:47:35.360 --> 0:47:39.000 a video game business if we all just stole stuff, right, 0:47:39.040 --> 0:47:41.000 because there's no money in that, you would spend your 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:42.960 time doing something else where you'd actually be able to 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:48.000 make a living. But we get even more complicated because 0:47:48.160 --> 0:47:51.000 many of the games that are in raw form are 0:47:51.040 --> 0:47:54.600 now on obsolete systems or which you cannot purchase at 0:47:54.680 --> 0:47:59.799 least not from a primary company, Like you're not gonna 0:47:59.800 --> 0:48:03.040 be like be able to buy a classic Nintendo system 0:48:03.040 --> 0:48:07.080 from Nintendo. You could buy the little ones that replicate, 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:10.800 you know, a dozen or two dozen games on one system, 0:48:11.200 --> 0:48:13.200 but you can't just go out and buy an Anys. 0:48:13.600 --> 0:48:17.799 They don't make them anymore. Or some of those video 0:48:17.840 --> 0:48:20.160 game systems are in limbo as far as ownership goes. 0:48:20.600 --> 0:48:22.880 And that also makes it easier for people to justify 0:48:22.920 --> 0:48:25.840 downloading the files, but it doesn't make it any more legal. 0:48:26.480 --> 0:48:27.520 Now I'll admit. 0:48:27.320 --> 0:48:30.200 It's really frustrating to be in a position in which 0:48:30.239 --> 0:48:34.080 you would happily pay for something if you could, but 0:48:34.200 --> 0:48:36.040 you have no legal way to do it. That is 0:48:36.160 --> 0:48:39.600 really frustrating. I found myself in that same position with 0:48:39.680 --> 0:48:42.560 a lot of British television series that I love but 0:48:42.640 --> 0:48:45.000 are not available for purchase in the United States. 0:48:45.960 --> 0:48:48.160 So I do the. 0:48:48.239 --> 0:48:54.000 Legal, grown up lame thing, which is that I don't 0:48:54.719 --> 0:48:57.239 I don't access it like I don't. I don't get 0:48:57.280 --> 0:49:00.160 it means I don't pirate the stuff I love in 0:49:00.200 --> 0:49:02.160 the hopes that one day I'll have a legal means 0:49:02.160 --> 0:49:02.840 to access it. 0:49:04.120 --> 0:49:04.480 Instead. 0:49:04.520 --> 0:49:07.760 I'll, you know, I'll post about it, I'll write to people, 0:49:07.960 --> 0:49:11.799 I'll ask questions, but I have to wait until there's 0:49:11.840 --> 0:49:13.120 a legal way to purchase it. 0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:15.800 I do think this is a muddy area. 0:49:16.280 --> 0:49:19.359 If a game exists and there's no way to buy 0:49:19.400 --> 0:49:22.320 it and the company that made it doesn't even exist anymore, 0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:25.320 are you really causing harm to the market by downloading 0:49:25.360 --> 0:49:29.759 a ROM I'd say it probably not, because there's no 0:49:29.800 --> 0:49:33.319 way to purchase it legally. But someone in court might 0:49:33.400 --> 0:49:36.800 say you undermined their attempt to make a legitimate commercial 0:49:36.880 --> 0:49:39.640 copy of the game. Further down the road, and because 0:49:39.640 --> 0:49:42.080 we can't see into the future and see if someone 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:45.399 is really telling the truth in those cases, that's problematic. 0:49:45.920 --> 0:49:48.880 So if I download a bunch of ROMs from a 0:49:49.920 --> 0:49:53.720 previous publisher that no longer exists, but their intellectual property 0:49:53.960 --> 0:49:57.160 belongs to another company, and that other company says, hey, 0:49:58.200 --> 0:50:00.560 in five years, we're going to release a best of 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:04.880 compilation little console that you can connect to your TV, 0:50:05.719 --> 0:50:10.680 and if you distribute these ROMs, then you devalue that system, 0:50:11.000 --> 0:50:13.000 even if they have no plan of doing that. I 0:50:13.040 --> 0:50:16.759 don't know the case right, so it's complicated. 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:18.200 At the end of the day. 0:50:18.760 --> 0:50:21.680 It is illegal to download ROMs for any games you 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:25.160 do not own, and you could technically get in trouble 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:28.520 for it. And as for games you do own, it's 0:50:28.520 --> 0:50:32.239 a gray area and you could still technically get in 0:50:32.280 --> 0:50:35.120 trouble for it. So tread carefully, and if there is 0:50:35.440 --> 0:50:38.120 a legal way to buy or access the stuff you love, 0:50:38.239 --> 0:50:41.439 I urge you to do that first. It helps cut 0:50:41.480 --> 0:50:45.560 down on reactionary laws and digital rights management strategies, and 0:50:45.600 --> 0:50:49.600 it helps prevent companies from making these these. 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:53.200 These new systems that hurt everybody. 0:50:54.160 --> 0:50:56.759 So if there's a way to get it legally, do that, 0:50:58.640 --> 0:51:02.080 and if there's not, think really hard before you go 0:51:02.120 --> 0:51:05.560 down this pathway, because you could be causing yourself more 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:08.560 frustration in the long term. And that's it for that 0:51:08.600 --> 0:51:11.600 classic episode about how video game emulators work. As I 0:51:11.600 --> 0:51:14.440 said at the beginning, I've thought about getting like a 0:51:14.520 --> 0:51:18.640 mame machine. But the issue I have is that a 0:51:18.640 --> 0:51:21.360 lot of the content you find with those, I mean again, 0:51:21.440 --> 0:51:26.040 it's like pirated content. That doesn't mean that emulators themselves 0:51:26.160 --> 0:51:29.600 are bad, as I've said many times, they're not. Emulators 0:51:29.640 --> 0:51:33.480 are a way of preserving work that otherwise could just 0:51:33.600 --> 0:51:36.719 go forgotten. It. I don't have an issue with that 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:40.480 at all. It's just the issue where I balk is 0:51:40.920 --> 0:51:46.360 I really do believe in paying to have access to 0:51:46.480 --> 0:51:50.399 work that other people have made, and so that's why 0:51:50.480 --> 0:51:53.080 I haven't taken the plunge on getting a mame machine. 0:51:53.520 --> 0:51:55.799 It's not that I think Maime itself or any other 0:51:55.880 --> 0:52:00.799 video game emulator for that matter, is inherently bad. That 0:52:02.640 --> 0:52:05.120 I believe in paying people for their work. And I 0:52:05.360 --> 0:52:07.400 don't just mean the people who make the emulators. I 0:52:07.440 --> 0:52:09.279 mean the people who made the original games that are 0:52:09.320 --> 0:52:13.840 running on those emulators. It's a it's a it's complicated 0:52:13.840 --> 0:52:18.920 because in many cases you literally cannot purchase the content 0:52:19.320 --> 0:52:23.200 any other way, and then you're left with the question of, well, 0:52:23.239 --> 0:52:26.400 if you can't do that, doesn't it just get forgotten? 0:52:26.840 --> 0:52:29.640 And honestly, I don't. I don't know how to reconcile that. 0:52:29.960 --> 0:52:32.840 So as I struggle with this, I hope you all 0:52:33.280 --> 0:52:35.920 are well and stay well. 0:52:36.200 --> 0:52:37.000 Don't worry about me. 0:52:37.320 --> 0:52:40.720 I'm sure I can come to some sort of decision 0:52:40.760 --> 0:52:44.759 about Maine at some point, and I will talk to 0:52:44.760 --> 0:52:54.840 you again, really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeart Radio production. 0:52:55.160 --> 0:52:59.480 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple 0:52:59.520 --> 0:53:02.320 Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows.