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by code_duck 4158 days ago
I went through the period of nostalgia and fascination the author exhibits years ago with Amiga, c64 and dos emulation and virtual machines.

It's impressive and convenient that this runs in a browser, but does itreally change anything about emulation? We've had this capability for windows, mac and Linux for years which covers about every platform with a browser. I suppose it's convenient if you wanted to emulate windows 3.1 on your iOS device.
2 comments
sehugg 4158 days ago
Emulators suffer from bitrot just like the software they're emulating. I've seen several fall into disrepair in recent years -- eventually we'll lose the people that remember how the the old systems worked. Centralizing the development and publishing it on the web seems a good way to keep the preservation effort humming.

(And as pointed out in the OP, getting something like Trumpet Winsock to work against a 21st century internet is non-trivial)

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smacktoward 4158 days ago
> We've had this capability for windows, mac and Linux for years which covers about every platform with a browser

Yes, but that always required installing emulation software, tracking down the necessary ROMs/disk images, etc. If it's running in the browser, the site admin can do all that once for everybody rather than every user having to do it for him/herself. All the user has to do is open a URL.

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zokier 4158 days ago
> All the user has to do is open a URL.

I think it is a shame that Java Web Start style tech never got anywhere. It pretty much delivered such experience (click url and app launches) without actually binding the application to the browser.

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