Good Old Days!!!

When I was a kid, my Dad bought me a video game console. I was so much fascinated and got instantly addicted to those beautiful games like Super Mario, Contra, Islander, Spartan, Kung-Fu, Road Fighter, Circus Troupe, Karateka and what not. Most of them are brilliant and ecstatic games of those days. There were no cheat-sheets, no option to save/load game and that's where their charm was. We had to play within those limits. Later, as life moved on, my hands moved on to a keyboard from a joystick. Though am fascinated by new age high end graphically enhanced and mind blowing games, I still used to miss those good old games. Recently, while I was planning to buy a video game console, I did some googling on to see if they can be played on a PC. Voila! some super cool guys ported the video game console firmware onto different OSes. You name a console and there is an emulator for it on whatever OS you choose. Emulator is a software which simulates the behavior of something. Here, these emulators will simulate the video game console behavior on your PC. Once you install the emulator, your PC is as good as a video game console. It can read and play the video game cassettes (like the 64-in-1). But, how and where do you insert those video game cassettes? You need not worry about that. The software inside the chip set of a video game cassette is also available on the internet. So, for example, you can download the software of a 64-in-1 video game cassette, load it into the emulator and play the games in it. That too, everything for FREE!!!

Now, let's talk about how to get this into reality.

Video game consoles are manufactured by different vendors like, Nintendo, SEGA, Arcade, Amiga, etc. Each of them have their own firmware. All you need to do is install one of those emulators, download game software for that emulator, run it and enjoy!!! :-)

You can choose the emulator from here: http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/
And, if you want Nintendo emulator : http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/nes/

Now, to download the game software (usually called ROMs) : http://www.romnation.net/srv/roms/nes.html
And, to specifically download 64-in-1 : http://www.romnation.net/srv/download/rom/27417/nes/64-in-1-J-p1.html

Usually, you can map the keys on a keyboard to that of the keys on a joystick. But, for the real gaming effect, you can purchase the USB joystick (for around 200 INR).

Disclaimer: Afaik, these are free of cost. If they are not, you should be responsible for your action :)