I first discovered emulators in college way back in good ol’ 1996.  The fact I could go back and play all of my favorite games from my dusty (and non-functional) Sega Master System meant there were more than a few hours of my time wasted when I should’ve been studying.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  I don’t regret it.  If it weren’t for emulators a lot of great games from back in the day would’ve been nothing but fond memories and the occasional picture of box art on the Internet.

Late last year I also discovered the thriving community of retro gamers who also happen to be skilled programmers over at Retro Remakes.  They take those original games, give them a facelift, and write a new codebase from scratch so it will run natively on Windows, and sometimes other operating systems.  Windows though is their primary target.

RR is very diverse when it comes to the community.  For the most part, the main members are from England, but there’s still a healthy representation from many other countries, including the US.  It’s good to see these older but still fun games getting a second chance.

Their site is currently undergoing some heavy maintenance due to being hacked recently but they’re keeping that spirit alive after all these years.  Seriously though, why would someone want to hack a site like that?  Seems like the one place that would be most likely to not be a target.  Oh well.  They’re persevering.  It’ll be great to when it’s back up fully.

I would put out a call to any hopeful or hobbyist game programmers to check out Retro Remakes.  The community is thriving and there’s plenty there for inspiration.