CASA ::

Excellent - all updated and also found a few other emulators that needed updating.

One day when I have plenty of time and/or the week has two Fridays, I should really revamp this section. The Spectrum suggestions in particular are terribly outdated.

It's about time that the Emulators page was updated. Here is what I have found regarding all of the entries, plus a few more emulators that may be of interest.

Multiple systems:
MAME (v0.195)
http://www.mamedev.org/release.php (official Windows binaries and source code packages)
http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/SDL_S ... _Platforms (links page for all platforms)

MESSUI and MAMEUI (MAME with an integrated front-end, v0.195)
http://messui.1emulation.com/ (Windows only. MESSUI omits the arcade machines present in MAME and MAMEUI)


Amstrad CPC:
CaPriCe32 (v4.4.0 and "latest")
https://github.com/ColinPitrat/caprice32/releases (Windows binaries and source code, it looks like Linux builds are possible)

WinAPE (v2.0 Beta 2)
http://www.winape.net/downloads.jsp (Windows only)


Apple II:
AppleWin (use v1.25.0.4 as the best screen modes for text adventures have been removed from later versions)
https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin/re ... /v1.25.0.4 (Windows only)
https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin/releases (for the latest releases)

Apple Oasis - NO CHANGE


Archimedes:
ArcEm (v1.50 for Windows, Mac OS X, Amiga OS, and Unix-like; v1.50.2 RISC OS)
http://arcem.sourceforge.net/

Arculator - NO CHANGE


Atari 8-bit:
Atari 800 Win PLus - NO CHANGE


BBC:
B-EM - NO CHANGE
BeebEm - NO CHANGE
Elkulator - NO CHANGE
ElectrEm - NO CHANGE


Commodore C64:
VICE (v3.1)
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/#download (many platforms)

CCS64 - NO CHANGE


Dragon
XRoar (v0.34.8 and latest)
http://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/ (many platforms)
http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/xroar/ (latest development versions, usually Windows and source code for Linux builds)


Jupiter Ace
EightyOne (v1.9)
https://sourceforge.net/projects/eighty ... -emulator/ (Windows only)


MSX:
fMSX (v5.2)
http://fms.komkon.org/fMSX/#Downloads (many platforms, though some of the links further down the page appear to be dead)

NLMSX - NO CHANGE


Oric:
EuphORIC - NO CHANGE

As EuphORIC is for DOS only perhaps some other emulators should be mentioned, alongside MAME there is (untested by me):
Oricutron (v1.2)
http://www.petergordon.org.uk/oricutron/ (many platforms, though not all are the latest version)


Spectrum:
EmuZWin - NO CHANGE

Klive - NO CHANGE

ZX Spin (v0.7s)
https://www.zophar.net/sinclair/zx-spin.html

By now there may be better Spectrum emulators available since development seems to have ceased many years ago for the emulators mentioned above. Possible replacements could be EightyOne (see entries for Jupiter Ace and ZX80 and ZX81) and Fuse at http://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/ (which is available for many platforms).


Tandy TRS-80 CoCo:
XRoar (v0.34.8 and latest)
http://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/ (many platforms)
http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/xroar/ (latest development versions, usually Windows and source code for Linux builds)


Tandy TRS-80 Model I/III/4:
The link on the site should be replaced with http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/emulators/
To the emulators mentioned on that page should also be added the following since it seems to still be in development (although it is untested by me):

Sharp 80 (v1.1.0.99)
http://www.sharp80.com/download.php (Windows with .Net only)


VIC20:
VICE (v3.1)
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/#download (many platforms)


ZX80 and ZX81
EightyOne (v1.9)
https://sourceforge.net/projects/eighty ... -emulator/ (Windows only)

Great idea to update the list

I use Oricutron for the Oric. It works fine.

For the MSX I think we should ad Bluemsx
http://www.bluemsx.com/
It’s the one I prefer to use.

Some other emulators I didn’t see on your list which I use:

Amiga
WINUAE Amiga emulator
http://www.winuae.net/

Archimedes
RPCEmu
https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/

Robotron KC
KC85 emulator
http://kcemu.sourceforge.net/

VZ200
Guy Thomason's VZ Emulator 20090820
www.vz200.org

Alex wrote:Archimedes
RPCEmu
https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/

According to the Arculator download page

Since I have been asked this several times before :
Arculator emulates an Archimedes (anything from an A3xx to an A5000, up to RiscOS 3.1) and is intended for running games.
RPCemu emulates a RiscPC or A7000 (RiscOS 3.5 and greater) and is intended for running applications (+ some games).

Is this no longer the case, or for the purposes of playing text adventures is there no need to distinguish between "up to RiscOS 3.1" and "RiscOS 3.5 and greater"?

I also note that the Arculator home page links to https://www.marutan.net/rpcemuspoon/ rather than https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/ but the latter page seems up to date with the former. No doubt things have changed during the eight years since the Arculator home page was last updated and the Arculator page is out of date.

I'm not very experienced with the Archimedes, but I use version 0.8.13 from 2015 (there is a newer version available) which works fine for playing text adventures.

Maybe it's time to rethink the emulators page. I have a hunch that a lot of the ones I list have been superseded by something better.
I could start by removing the version numbers, as I simply forget to run through the list every month - that way, the links simply lead to whatever version is the current one.

Ideally we should have more "getting you started" guides, as I think these are a lot more useful than a somewhat outdated list of emulators. And I do think that we need at least some kind of assistance to get people up and running.

Anyone up for writing a "getting you started" for some of the platforms not yet supported?

Gunness wrote:I could start by removing the version numbers,

Good idea

Gunness wrote:Ideally we should have more "getting you started" guides

Could make it easier for people to try to play a game. Problem is I installed most of them years ago so I would have to reinstall them to see how I configured them.
I can write some of them. What do you want to include in the guides? which files needed, where to get them, how to configure the emulator, starting a game?

Right now I need some help with the Archimedes myself. I'll put my question in the emulator help section.

Alex wrote:

Gunness wrote:I could start by removing the version numbers,

Good idea

Except for where an older version is better than the latest, for whatever reason (e.g., AppleWin), in which case the preferred version number should be given.

Alex wrote:

Gunness wrote:Ideally we should have more "getting you started" guides

I can write some of them. What do you want to include in the guides? which files needed, where to get them, how to configure the emulator, starting a game?

Basically whatever you need to get up and running on a machine which they know very little about. For instance, I wouldn't have a clue how to get started with the TRS-80, but fortunately Dale Dobson has written a nice guide. For a briefer version, I think my own guide for the C64 or Samwise's for the BBC are quite okay, too.
What emulator to use, where to find games, how to insert a virtual disc/tape, how to load the game and any other essential idiosyncracies

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to find out which platforms have starting guides.

Putting in to Google reveals six platforms with starting guides. Are there any more?

Sorry about the late reply, Easter got the better of me.

No, there are only those six:
- Amstrad CPC
- BBC
- C64
- Dragon
- Sharp MZ
- TRS80

I looked them over and they all seem to hold up pretty well. We could link to those from either the articles page (which would seem out of place) or the emulators page (which I'm trying to get rid of), but neither option seems like a great idea.

Anyway, without giving it an awful lot of thought I'd say we could do with guides to:
- Apple ][
- Archimedes
- Atari 400/800
- Oric
- TI/99 4A

And personally I'd be very grateful for a Coleco Adam guide, as I'm struggling with getting it to run.

Gunness wrote: And personally I'd be very grateful for a Coleco Adam guide, as I'm struggling with getting it to run.

A long time ago I ran a Adam emulator using Adamem, it has a front end called Adememmam. That will help you too, I think. Just tell this front end where the roms and files are.

Thanks. I tried both ColEm and Adamem. One of them would only run in Colecovision mode, the other seemed to be missing some system ROMs which I couldn't find anywhere. I'll have to try again.