WEBVTT - What is MAME? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.800 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:14.720 tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hey there, everybody, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.240 welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette. I'm 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.480 an editor here at How Stuff Works. With me as 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.560 always is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, everyone, and 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.240 today we're gonna talk about some old school gaming or 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.400 new school, depending on how you look at it. Yeah. Um, 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.000 those of us who grew up in the nineteen eighties, 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.200 you remember the arcade games that used to be so popular. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.720 Now they're still there, but nobody goes, well, there are 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.839 very few arcades left. The ones that I go to 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.360 or I've been to, I've mostly had racing games or 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.360 Dance Dance Revolution, Yeah, Dance Dance Revolution, racing games, and 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:58.360 gun games. And then there's that cow, right, yeah, the cow. Yeah. Anyway, Um, 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.600 so we were talking about the kinds of games that 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.720 we like to play, and you know, a lot of 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.800 us have a soft spot in our hearts for those 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.480 old arcades style games like the pac Man's and the 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.680 Donkey Kong's and Elevator Action. Yeah, that was my favorite 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.520 game make fun of Elevator Action. I'm not making fun 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.240 of Elevator Action. I'm just not an Elevator Action devotee. Well, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.000 no one can be perfect. But the thing is, you can't, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.320 you know, play those games. It's really easy. You can't 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:30.280 just go down to your seven eleven or you know, 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.640 Circle K or whatever you happen to have handy and dumb, 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:35.640 you know, to seventy five and in the machine and 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.479 play all night like or and and you know, there 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.080 there are a few places where you can maybe go 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.680 to say an auction, and there are places that will 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.679 auction off old arcade games. Have actually have a friend 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:48.240 who used to go to these all the time. There 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.400 was one that would come to Atlanta two or three 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.920 times a year and they would set up all the 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:54.360 games and you could go and you could play them 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.400 for a little while and if if you liked one, 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.360 you could bid on it and if you won, you 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.080 took it home that night. He had two or three 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.000 different cabinets in the basement of his house. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.720 there are antique game stores too. You look around and 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.320 and try to find him, you know, make your basement 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.519 like in uh, silver spoons and a couple of day games, 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.320 tinball machines, um, pachinko, you know that kind of stuff. 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.160 I'm gonna have that Leam song stuck in my head 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.480 all day now I have one anyway. Um. The thing 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.120 is a lot of those, uh, a lot of those games. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.519 You know, if you don't have the wherewithal to purchase 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.440 one yourself, you're kind of out of luck. Um. And 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.600 a lot of those manufacturers are, you know, in dire straits, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.400 have been bought out by other people, have discontinued their 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.880 operating existence. Speak. Yeah, they've been absorbed into other companies 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.600 to the point where there's no real no, there's there's 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.120 nothing left of the original entity. I mean, hey, you 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.840 could even take Atari, which was you know, ubiquitous in 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:57.320 the nineteen eighties arcade um, and you know they've died 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:01.920 and been resurrected. They're completely different company. Yeah and actually yeah, 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.200 and and also we should point out that a lot 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.680 of these arcade games, the game itself was hardwired into 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:13.120 the hardware the of the gaming system. So it seems 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.240 it seems kind of weird now when you think about 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.480 popping a DVD in your computer to play a game, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:20.920 you know, well, you could play thousands of games on 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.520 your computer. Well not so with these things. They were 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.360 wired to play one game in one game only, right, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.760 So that concerned a group of people who really wanted 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.200 to find a way to um preserve these games, these 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.880 games that otherwise, if the hardware fails, the games die, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.080 we lose them forever. And uh, that's kind of where 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:51.760 name kind of came out of, which stands for multiple 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:58.120 arcade machine emulator. That's true. Now name is for educational 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.600 and preservation purposes, all right, this this the purpose of 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.600 this is not to give people an opportunity to play 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.520 the games they loved. It's to create a system that 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.240 will play these these games, uh, in order to preserve them, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.599 so that say, sometime in the future, uh, somewhat, the 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.680 the rightful owner of this game could come back and say, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.200 you know, we want to build another machine that's just 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.440 like the one we built twenty years ago, but we 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.800 don't have any of the existing hardware anymore. Um, we 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.400 don't know how to build it the way it was 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.160 built originally. We would have to reinvent it if we 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.920 were to build it again. Well, Maine kind of preserves 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.440 these things, and it's almost like a museum in a way. Uh, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.400 it's meant to to keep things so that we we 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.480 don't lose them. That's it. And as the creators themselves 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.120 say that, you know, just being able to play the 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:59.960 games again, that's a nice side effect. It's purely you know, coincident. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.440 Don't exactly play these games. And in the software itself, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.000 which is open source and free, there is no game code. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.800 So if you download MAM for your computer, you have 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.200 downloaded MAME for your computer, and you can get a 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.520 copy for PC, Mac and lenox. I believe. But you know, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.680 you may be going, Okay, I don't get what all 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:21.480 the fuss is about. Why were you talking about these 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.400 old games? Well, Maine doesn't have any in there. What's 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.120 up with that? Right? Okay, so there are no games 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.040 that come with Maine is just an emulator, which means 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:35.479 it emulates the the abilities of various arcade machines. Now 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.800 that's where the multiple comes from as well, the multiple 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.159 arcade machine emulator. Not all arcade machines worked exactly the 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.240 same way. In fact, they were all very quirky and all. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.680 You know, if games from one manufacturer may work in 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.560 a completely different way than from another manufacturer. Sometimes games 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.159 from the same manufacturer worked in very odd ways, so 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.159 you had to have an emulator that could emulate all 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.240 of these different machine means in order for you to 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:06.400 to run this these programs. So if it doesn't come 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.360 with any of these games, where do you get the games? 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:16.080 The games themselves are on ROM images and read only memory, 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.599 right exactly. ROM stands for read only memory. And why 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:21.760 is it read only? Well, it's because these are games. 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.280 They're not designed to change. Uh, it wasn't. This wasn't 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.240 something that that the game designers wanted people to to 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.600 go in and tweak settings on. This is really meant 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.720 to just be a game, that's it. There's no need 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.520 for it to be random access. There's no read only memories. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.480 All you needed and they weren't gonna put anything else 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.200 in there, right, especially if you had, say, Centipede, which 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.719 used a trackball and a shoot button fire button, and 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.679 you wanted to throw something else in there, like Defender, 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.640 which had a joystick and lots of fire buttons and 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.720 thrust in hyperspace and all other stuff, and you couldn't. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.120 You couldn't do that. You'd have to read wire the 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:06.040 whole darn thing, exactly. So these ROMs. Now, these were 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:11.320 usually hardwired into the the hardware of the arcade machine. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.280 Usually it's on a chip, although it could also be 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.440 on a disk or tape. Um those were used in 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.560 some games, but not many. A laser disc in one 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.280 case or two cases. Really yep, and you're referring to 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.280 a dragon's layer in Space Ace with Don Bluth animation. 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.640 You're dead on there. But let it's it's that's exactly correct. 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.800 So you have these files that are on these other systems. 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.960 Now what what mame? What the main folks in the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.080 ROM folks have done. They've managed to pull that information 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:45.480 off and make an image of it. Um, it's an image, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.040 is It's essentially it's a copy, is really what it 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:55.400 comes down to. And uh, some places host these copies. Uh, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:00.000 not as a museum necessarily, but as a way from 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.640 able to get hold of them. And if you have 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.200 the MAME emulator, uh, and it supports that particular game. 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.280 If you have the ROM and the emulator together, you 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:15.680 can play the old classic arcade game on your computer. Right, 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.360 And if you actually own the chip rams, then you're 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.520 doing it legally exactly if you Yeah, if you don't 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.640 have the guts of the machine. Right, so if you 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.880 do not legitimately own a copy of that machine already, 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.199 you are essentially stealing. And um, you might say, well, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.560 these machines are very old, surely they're not bound by 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.600 copyright law, and you would be wrong because none of 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.400 these have dropped out of copyright, right, they're not abandoned ware. 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.000 These are all viable. So in theory, if you go 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.520 and steal a copy of an Atari game, then then 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.839 you could get you could theoretically be prosecuted for it. Now, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.040 are they actually gonna track you down? I don't know. Well, 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.120 it's not. It's not the r I A A or 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.560 the m P A A. They're not. They haven't been 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.720 as strict, but that especially the publishers who are who 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.320 have completely gone out of business, they really haven't gone 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.600 after people for trying to do that. And some of 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.600 the game creators have even gone ahead and released their 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.760 copyright hold and allowed people to go ahead and take 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.600 copies of their games. No, granted, the titles of these 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.560 games aren't necessarily like you know, show stoppers, like I 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.800 don't know, I've never played Circus. Oh well you know, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:34.000 but still you can get those copies legitimately because there's 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:35.599 there's no longer a hold and they're part of the 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.320 public domain. In fact, Name hosts them on its site, right, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.000 but not the thousands and thousands of other arcade games 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.800 that might be found elsewhere, right those Name does not host. Uh. 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.520 It does not endorse the downloading of ROMs. That's not 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.520 the purpose of the emulator, as they've said over and over, 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.360 And people who do go and download these ROMs may 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.600 find out that not all of them work the way 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.080 they had hoped they would. Part of that is that 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:10.280 the emulator is constantly evolving. So if if you read 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.880 that the emulator supports a game, that doesn't necessarily mean 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.000 it's gonna play exactly the way it played in the 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:20.199 arcade on your machine. It means that the emulator successfully 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.160 copies what the machine does. But maybe note at the 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.280 same speed, some of these games can come across as 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:31.920 very slow, and it might be a little different experience 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.040 playing a game that was supposed to have been played 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.160 with a joystick when you don't have a joystick. Yeah, 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.320 if you were just using the keyboard, for example, that 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.480 might slow things down. Depending on the settings you have 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.360 on your emulator. Some of the emulators look because name 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.880 is really a back end function. It's a command line function, 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:51.800 which means it's you know, you have to type in 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.680 commands to get to run programs. But people have created 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.760 front end versions that have a user interface, make it 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.960 like a graphic user interface, to make it easier to 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:05.439 to navigate the main system and to play ROMs on it. Um. 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.800 But all of that takes up processing power. So by 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.520 the time your game is actually running, a lot of 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.000 your computers processing powers already dedicated to just running the emulator, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.800 and the game itself may suffer as a consequence. I 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:24.760 I played a uh a RAM, an emulator version of 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.200 I want to say it was Ghouls and Ghosts. Do 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.880 you know that game very well? A little bitty guy 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.240 in armor running around firing at monsters and anyway, I 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.360 tried playing it on a friends machine, uh a friend 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.520 friends machine, not my machine, and uh it was really slow, 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.680 like it just it was. It was practically unplayable. Other 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.360 games ran all right, but that one in particular, not 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.240 so much. So. Just because you can get hold of 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.000 the emulator and the RAMS doesn't necessarily mean that you're 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.120 gonna get the same experience you would at an arcade 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.320 now that's true. Um. Even uh, there have been some 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.959 people who have gone so far as to assemble their 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.000 own arcade cabinet with a custom built screen essentially a 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.280 TV and a PC that they use only for that. 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.760 And it's um, you can actually buy these machines and 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.600 you know, they've got the full arcade layout with all 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.760 the different fire buttons and joysticks and track balls and 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.040 things that you can use. And some people, uh, you know, 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:28.000 have their own multi arcade machine emulator using name or 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.280 other software to to power it. Um, and you can 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.800 theoretically set all this stuff up. Of course, you know, 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.200 if the authorities found in your house, they might be upset. Right. Yeah, 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.360 I do know someone who actually has one of these 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:43.160 where it was his his wish to set up an 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.680 arcade machine that had all these rooms in it and 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.800 then you could just select whichever game you wanted from 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.320 a little simple user interface, try and hide the fact 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.160 that it's a computer at all. You know, the the 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.640 interface made it look like it was just an arcade 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:57.880 selection thing and you could, you know, scroll down the 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.880 different titles, pick the one you wanted, it would start playing, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.400 and uh, and he had pretty much weeded out any 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.960 of the games that would not run smoothly through the emulator. 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.920 So uh but yeah, he set it up that way, 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.400 and he had an old arcade cabinet that he bought 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.400 it one of these auctions and uh yeah, I mean 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.040 you can. I can go over to his place and 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.880 and play some MS pac Man as I am want 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.400 to do. Don't laugh. I love Miss pac Man. No, no, no, no, 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.520 not at all. Um, she's saucy. You know. One of 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.360 the things that's interesting too is um and this really 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:38.880 goes back to what the main inventors intended. UM. If 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.680 you try out different realms, you can find out you 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.240 could try games different persons of the same game that 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.600 were originally intended for different markets, and they're slightly different 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.559 from one another. It's and it's you know, you look 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.400 at it from a uh the standpoint of an archive 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.120 and you go, okay, well, that's really cool that this 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.559 You know that you get a chance to see what 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.680 people in the other part of the world. Uh, you know, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:03.440 we're playing at the same time it was it was 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.040 playing in the United States. Yeah. Yeah, you can get 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.840 a feel for the cultural differences. Like if you play 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.080 the same version, same game, but different versions different regional 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.560 versions of the game. Um, you can definitely see some 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.640 interesting differences, and uh um they're even there. And of 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:22.640 course there are there's a whole host of games that 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.840 were only available in other countries and that you may 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.320 never have had a chance to see unless you had actually, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.480 you know, traveled around the world in the eighties. Lots 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.920 and lots of Japanese games for example, that um, otherwise 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.280 you would you would never necessarily encounter because they were 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.280 never imported into the United States. And uh and main 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:46.280 supports more than three thousand nine unique games. That's a 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.120 that's a pretty impressive list. And that was back that 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.320 was when they last updated, which was sometime in two 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.680 thousand eight, so it maybe even more now. That's that's true, um, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.520 and I should point out to that it's not just 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.240 games from the eighties. There are other you know, more 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.240 modern games nives and uh double zeros, except you know, 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.440 I imagine some of those really rely on their sophisticated 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.080 hardware and things that you know, those giant floora games 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.520 with the surfboards and the not the cow not the cow. Okay, 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.720 so what Plett's referring to is a a cow arcade 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.000 game that I encountered once upon a time. It was 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.720 a milking game and the control was a set of 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.840 utters that would light up and you had to pull 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.280 the lit utter. It was like a Rhythm slash Simon game. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.360 I just had to explain it because I don't want 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.160 to have to answer those emails. Well, you know what, 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.360 I think that's fascinating though. It's just that's one of 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.440 the cool things about the arcade game that you don't 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.840 get from playing a game on your PC is uh, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.320 stuff like that that has the specialized hardware and you 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.160 get to to do this have this completely different experience 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.200 and you would you know, just you know, the wee 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.640 is fun, but it's it's not the same. Yeah, there's 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.240 also something about having the cabinet, um, you know, because 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.720 you could there's no reason why you have to build 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.680 a cat I mean, there's there's no requirement. You could 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.640 just have a television on a stand and you could 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.960 have regular joysticks or whatever hooked up to it and 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.400 you could play it that way. Um. But the reason 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:11.680 for the cabinet is really to recreate that sort of 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.800 arcade experience from the eighties. And so we're really talking 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.080 a lot about people who are pretty much our age 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.000 who remember that, you know, as a kid going to 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.160 the arcade and uh and standing in line so that 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.400 you could have your turn at Street Fighter too and 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.240 take on the reigning champ or whatever it was that 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.240 was your favorite. No, actually, I go back before Street 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.320 Fighter two. So so I'm thinking more along the lines 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.240 of I can't wait for that guy to stop playing 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.960 Galagha because I really want to play um or Donkey 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:50.280 Kong Jr. There was another good Food Fight classic anyway, 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:55.720 enough memory Lane, so to speak. Um. So yeah, that's uh, 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.600 that's pretty much it for Maine. But there are other 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.720 emulators out there. It's not just main is not the 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.080 only player in town, and there are a lot of 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.320 them for various machines, that's true, you know. Actually, speaking 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.520 of the Wei um, you have the ability to uh buy, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.879 we wear and and let you play games from the 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:19.040 Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, even the Sega Genesis UM 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:20.760 and a lot of the games that got poored it over, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.240 the classic Arcade games are available on that and uh 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.720 what at the Xbox Xbox three sixty the arcade version, 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.840 you know, and got some of those classics. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.000 these these machines have emulators built into them that allow 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.159 you to play these games, and uh and and legally. Yeah, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.160 there are other illegal ones as well. Um, I can 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.080 say that I have seen a Dreamcast emulator for the 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:51.680 Nintendo and the Supernintendo. Uh, i've i've I can tell 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.080 you that maybe half the games on each disc work properly, 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.280 but not Super punch Out, which was the only one 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.760 I really wanted, I mean, my friend really wanted. Yeah. Um, 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.800 but yeah, yeah, so there are emulators that people make, 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.000 you know, the hackers make essentially for various consoles that 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.359 allow you to play the games from other consoles. Uh. 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.840 Manufacturers don't like that, you know, for the simple reason 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.040 that they would much prefer you go out and buy 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.360 any other console. Yeah. Yeah, but in in cases where 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.840 the console is already dead and you want to be 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.320 able to play those old games, yeah, they can make 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.720 it a little extra money by making that available. Yeah, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:31.840 making it like if they if they follow if they 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.160 followed Nintendo's lead, then they can totally make money off 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.840 of that. Now, granted they're they're all these rights issues 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.400 for all those old games. No, Nintendo, it's a little easier, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.439 But for other game companies that refer the reliant very heavily. 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.359 On third party games, it gets a lot more complicated. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.040 But yeah, if you can make that available legally, people 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.560 will go out and they'll buy them. Um. Otherwise, people 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.639 kind of it's it's wrong to feel like you have 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:01.480 this sort of justified um sense of ownership over these 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.000 games because you don't. You really, you don't have any 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.040 ownership of these games. There's no reason why you should 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:08.960 be able to get hold of them. Just because you 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.480 can say like, well they're not available any other anywhere else. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.000 That's not justification for going out and stealing them. Uh. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.560 I know a lot of people kind of ignore that 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.239 because they're like, well, I really want to play this 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.359 game and there's no other way for me to do it, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.000 And the companies had a business, why do they care? 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.320 They probably still do care, yes, but the writer of 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.880 that game probably cares. I mean some of the writers 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.439 they don't. They they just want their game to be played. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.600 But those are the ones who released the ROMs for 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.399 public consumption. And in that case that's fine. But otherwise 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.520 it's you know, better to stay on the sunnyside of 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.840 the street. I guess, well, that's a good discussion there. Um. 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:51.560 You know what that brings us to listener mail? Disconnect 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:56.439 with um. Good luck. So today's listener mail comes from 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.320 Brendan Davey from Washington. I don't know how to say 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.000 the name of your town, Brendan, so I'm not even 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.560 gonna bother alright, alright, And he says, I'm looking into 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.600 buying a computer. I would like to know whether the 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.480 Windows operating system is better than the mac OS? Can 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.840 you compare these? Also? I heard that some max can 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.239 use both operating systems? Is this true? Thanks? So we're 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:23.520 gonna have a macp C throwdown, all right, Mr Mac 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.840 convinced me that Mac OS is better than Windows. Um. 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.639 One of the advantages of having the Macintosh operating system 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.600 UM is that it is more resistant to viruses. This 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.240 is true, or at least fewer viruses exist for it. Yeah, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.359 And that's that's part of the problem with being less 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.320 uh popular, if you will, is that a lot of 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.920 the crackers U take shots at the big guys and 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.720 uh leave the little guys alone. So the Lenox and 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.600 mac crowd just don't see the viruses and trojans and 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.439 all the other malware out there in the same volume 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.280 that Windows people do and mac os also poor. It's 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.400 a lot of really really useful software. UM. So if 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.879 you do a lot of media editing, for example, the 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.639 Max software is great stuff. I mean there's tons and 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.520 tons of stuff out there for video editing, audio editing. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.159 Max are great for that. Um. In fact, I prefer 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.879 using Max two PCs whenever I'm doing any kind of 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.440 media editing. It can even be adapted. Since it runs 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.240 on the BSD, which is a form of Unix UM, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.600 it can actually be adapted to run other Unix based applications. 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.520 It's a little tricky, it involves some emulation, UM, but 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.800 but it can be used to run Linux and other 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:44.159 Unix based applications UM when you need to do that, 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.760 which gives you a broader base of of applications to 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.520 draw from. Because one of the big complaints, like, for example, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.600 my father has Mac versus PC. He says, well, you know, 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.360 the Mac just doesn't have the same level of software, right. Well, 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.159 that's the thing is that Windows does support a huge 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.000 library of software. I'm the lions share really, So if 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.119 you're like a gamer, Windows is the way to go 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.359 because that's where most of your games are going to 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:10.160 come from. Now, there's some great games in the MAX. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.679 So Mac lovers don't write to me and say that 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.280