Video games that are stored as a software program (as opposed to video
games that are totally hardware based, such as the original "Pong"),
have only been publicly available since the 1970's. Programs have the
advantage in that if you simulate the hardware they were written to
using an "emulator", the program will run as if you are using the
physical hardware. Dozens of emulators have been written, with varying
degrees of fidelity (the "MAME" emulator, which we also offer here,
being perhaps the most famous).
Over the years thes programs have evolved from being nothing more than
just a few low-resolution pixels, to becomming fully immersive virtual
environments. Whole new catagories of games were invented such as the
"scrolling shooter" (popular with coin-operated video games) and the
"text adventure" (popular with home computer gamers). The size of
video game software has also increased, from a few kilo-bytes, to well
over 1 giga-byte.
Gathered here are several "classic" video games from their respective
(coin operated, game console, personal computer) "golden ages". These
games provide a good mix of playability, graphics quality, immersion
factor, hardware requirements, software code size (important when
downloading is an issue), and fun. To get into the mood, you may also
want to play the two sound clips, PACMAN.wav and WARGAMES.wav. Enjoy!
