English Uni to Emulate All Video Games

[wraggster]

The 'Emulation Access Platform', which seeks to "facilitate universal access to our cultural heritage by developing flexible tools for accessing and storing a wide range of digital objects" doesn't seem that exciting. After all, it's part of the The KEEP (Keeping Emulation Environments Portable) Project, (EU Grant Agreement ICT 231954 (£4m)) and operates out of Portsmouth University.

It gets more exciting when you read that computer historians Dr David Anderson and Dr Janet Delve and computer games expert Dan Pinchbeck at the University of Portsmouth are ensuring that part of KEEP will be "the world's first general purpose emulator, a piece of software which can recognise and 'play' or open all previous types of computer files from 1970s Space Invaders games to three-inch floppy discs.

"Other emulators exist which are specific to certain platforms or types of media but the new version will be able to emulate media in any format."

This is, apparently, true emulation. Mr Pinchbeck says, "The difference with emulation is that you are freed from these problems. Every time hardware, software, operating systems or anything else upgrade, the KEEP machine just emulates on this new platform. It means it is as future-proof as these things get."

http://www.cdpa.co.uk/UoP/Research/members/anderson.php

http://news.spong.com/article/17136/English_Uni_to_Emulate_All_Video_Games?cb=421

[Murdock]

LOL ... nice idea ... BUT:

1. Is this pure fiction or is there already a software that can do this or at least emulate some older games?

2. Will this be available as freeware? or even open source?

3. The website you link to says absolutely NOTHING about the "project" ... it simply describes the dream ... nothing else

4. To me this appears to be once again one of these futuristic projects that cost money and will never see a release date ...

5. Mr. Professor Ph.-D. Whosoever: Come back with your "project" when you have something in your hands ... here at the university in Germany you always see "smart" studied people coming up with brilliant ideas ... but where do they end in 99 % of the time? In the trash can at best ... or a dusty side board ir whatever.

[apex05]

They'll end up with average emulators made by students who are unfamiliar with emulating each format, i already have a frontend to use the emulators i choose and list all the roms, this just looks like another pointless uni course and i'd only really be impressed if the makers of existing emulators got together with their source codes to make a mega-emulator, but that will never happen

[that1guywiththeface]

Nahh... this sounds a lot like linux did when it first came out, and it'll probably turn out the same way: it'll gain a small cult following , a bunch of different versions with different names, and a ton of people who don't know how to use it.

[osgeld]

actually this sounds alot like mess / mame, which does alot of this already

[fpcreator2000]

Something might come out of this since there is money involved and when people pay, something is expected.

Not to say that, "holy crap! the emulator of emulators is going to be released!", but I hope they succeed in their endeavour.

Trying to shoot someone down for trying something new is very typical of what I've been seeing in the emu scene for years. So sad.

[apex05]

I wouldn't say we trying to shoot them down for what they doing, but the best emulators rely on shared coder experiences and if this university doesn't have that then money can only get them so far

[Qmark]

There was an old axiom that went something to the effect of "any computer can emulate any other computer, as long as expense and performance are not considerations"

I believe the end result will be a nice 20-page article in a scholarly journal, rather than something that's actually useful.

[DrBlue]

What surprises me is that these guys got a GRANT to make this. The MESS team did it for nothing and it does virtually the same thing - in fact it does MORE!!