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Classic Arcade Game Emulation
Another one of my past times is playing classic arcade games. I grew up playing these games in the 80's and still enjoy playing them over new video games. When I was younger, I spent all of the money I earned from a paper route on video games. I could not get enough. I had high scores on most of the machines in our town. My favorite games are Gravitar, Tempest, Millipede, Galaga, and Dig Dug.
I always wanted to own a Gravitar machine, but I didn't know where to get one. The one that I used to play was long gone from the bowling alley where it was located. When I first got on the Internet a few years ago, I searched for information on Gravitar and found a few look-alike games for the PC, but they just weren't the same. I then came across an emulator called EMU by Neil Bradley. This program emulated the hardware for several Atari Vector games including Gravitar and Tempest. All that is required is the ROM images from the original machines. The emulator looks, sounds, and plays exactly like the original.
After finding this, I began following the emulation scene on the Internet. Emulators have been written for many original arcade games, home computers, and home game console systems.
One popular emulator is called MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). The current version of this emulator supports over 1500 different arcade games.
I decided that if I could not find an original Gravitar machine, I would build one. I purchased a broken arcade game from a coin-op vender. I then gutted the machine, and restored the cabinet. I mounted a computer inside including a 19" monitor and fabricated the control panel so it was similar to the Gravitar machine.
More to come ...