Ramble on Emulation… and a demo of a ZX Spectrum emulator on the C64 (recorded May 10th 2014)

Using all the different home computer systems, Basiccode, CP/M, SpectraVideo vs MSX back in the day really got me interested in platform agnostic code and emulators.

Emulation, I encountered it as early as the C64 and the ZX Spectrum days where there was a bit of software that enabled the C64 to ’emulate’ the ZX Spectrum basic, including quite some of the PEEKS and POKES. I show that off running on a C64 emulator on the PC and ramble on.
To load software of the emulated microdrive do this to get around the rename disk name – invalid color error. Example of the syntax to use:
CAT #0;1 – directory
LOAD *”m”;1;”NAME”SCREEN$ – loading picture

I was using emulators on the Amiga to run C64 code, used emulators on my PC/XT and PCs later on. At first it was emulators of the old home systems but closely followed the development of WinUAE (which truly started out unusable) and the ability to transform your modern PC into a state of the art super Amiga that you could only dream of back in the day. Of course I have cloned my complete A1200 Workbench and HD setup in WinUAE and have my A1200 safely stored to prevent too much wear and tear on the system. Of course it’s not completely the same but close enough for my day to day Amiga fix.

Emulation can and must be used to preserve the ability to run code. I think closed systems are bad when it comes to preserve-ability of cultural heretage. I wholeheartedly applaud the MESS and MAME initiatives. The stigma Emulation seems to have stems from the misuse of it, the softwarepiracy side of things.

Oh and this was originally a video response to Lawnboyspost1975’s video on emulation: