deltaryz

> there has been a basic Spacewar! emulator in Java since 1997, but it only recreated the game on an abstract level, missing the intricacies of the display

Did this version actually emulate PDP-1 machine code, or was it a purely mechanical clone? Because if it's the latter, then that isn't an emulator.

Either way though, Spacewar is definitely one of those examples where the hardware directly impacts the experience. This is also why I am saddened by the fact that the only truly good CRT emulation I've personally witnessed is from Super Win The Game!, and since I believe that game is closed source, it unfortunately cannot be repurposed for other games or emulators. Unless you happen to know of a particularly good reshade implementation or something.

For a game like Super Metroid, the "CRT experience" essentially boils down to "a greater sense of atmosphere and an enhanced sense of depth in some of the sprites". Does this arguably improve the experience? Yes. But the core experience of Super Metroid is not lost if you can't experience it this way - I would argue Spacewar does lose a core part of its experience without that iconic display, and I absolutely believe we should make an effort to preserve that experience.

better check your phone's permissions and make sure none of your apps have background microphone access

I address this near the beginning - and you are correct that there are some examples that can have a significant impact on the resulting experience of the software. Emulation is not a 1:1 recreation of the original experience including all of its intricacies. But I'm thinking extremely long-term here, far beyond "what our kids will think about the games we played". I'm thinking about what historians of the distant future could learn from our creations, due to how well they can be preserved compared to other forms of media. Ideally people would have an intuitive understanding that input methods and displays make a tangible difference in the experience, and that an emulator is never going to be a full replication of that - so that hopefully they can study and judge a piece of software with those differences in mind.

Technically this is true of anything that can be represented digitally, but software's interactive nature gives it a much more profound ability to represent our culture and elicit a strong and personal reaction in those who experience it.

I probably should have clarified that my "point" here isn't really about genuinely replicating the behavior 1:1, but rather preserving the experience at a level where our culture & media can still be accessed in a form that maintains its core experience and intentions. Sure, an emulator might have certain bugs or idiosyncracies when compared to the real hardware, but you're still able to utilize a game or piece of software for its intended function. It still delivers on the promise of what it was created for. Looking into the future, this means that children of the year 4862 might still be able to play Super Mario Bros. It might get some pixels wrong, it might crash or freeze under some weird edge case scenarios, but the experience is preserved.

Everything you've ever posted on the internet is probably already archived in 12 different places