Retro Gaming Hacks

Whether you're just discovering Tetris or you've been a Pong junkie since puberty, Chris Kohler's Retro Gaming Hacks is the indispensable new guide to classic games. Kohler has compiled the how-to information that used to take weeks of Web surfing to find and presents it in highly readable Hacks style. Serving up 85 hard-nosed hacks for reviving the classic games, including tips on hacking ancient hardware, home-brewing classic software, and adapting today's equipment for retro games, Retro Gaming Hacks hands you the joystick.

Chris Kohler is a video game journalist and editor who has written for several publications in the past decade, including Wired, Animerica magazine, and Nintendo Official Magazine UK. After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in Japanese, Chris attended Kyoto Seika University on a Fulbright Fellowship, and completed major research for a book tentatively titled Super Mario Nation: The Cinematic Japanese Video Game. At Tufts, he taught a for-credit undergraduate course titled "A History of Video Games" and continues to study Japanese at an advanced level.

Foreword

ix

Credits

xiii

Preface

xix

Playing Retro Games

1

(53)

Buy Retro Games

1

(5)

Collect Original ``Pong'' Systems

6

(2)

Buy and Run an Atari 2600

8

(5)

Buy and Run Later Classic Consoles

13

(5)

Play with Power: Set Up an NES

18

(3)

Make Your NES Work Like New

21

(4)

Take Your NES Games on the Go

25

(3)

Buy a Famicom from Japan

28

(5)

Buy Retro Games from Japan

33

(4)

Find, Fix, Play, and Emulate the Vectrex

37

(3)

Collect Classic Handhelds

40

(3)

Buy Your Own Arcade Hardware

43

(4)

Find the Holy Grails

47

(4)

Find Classic Games for Cheap

51

(3)

Playing Neo-Retro Games

54

(30)

Play Retro Games in All-in-One Joysticks

54

(10)

Play Retro Games on Current Consoles

64

(6)

Play Retro Games on Older Systems

70

(4)

Play Contemporary Classics

74

(5)

Find and Play Hidden Classics

79

(5)

Playing Arcade Games on Your Computer

84

(53)

Play Arcade Games Under Windows

84

(7)

Run Arcade Games on a Mac

91

(5)

Play Arcade Games Under Linux

96

(9)

Run MAME on the Xbox

105

(3)

Find Legal, Free MAME ROMs

108

(3)

Buy Legal MAME ROMs

111

(2)

Care for Your ROMs

113

(3)

Buy or Make Classic MAME Controllers

116

(4)

Add Sound to Your MAME Experience

120

(3)

Add Cabinet Art to MAME

123

(3)

Build a MAME Cabinet

126

(5)

Make a Self-Booting MAME Disc

131

(2)

Play MAME Anywhere

133

(4)

Playing Classic Console Games

137

(104)

Emulate the Earliest Game Systems

137

(5)

Emulate the Atari 2600

142

(5)

Emulate the Intellivision

147

(3)

Emulate the Colecovision

150

(4)

Emulate the Atari 7800

154

(4)

Emulate the Nintendo Entertainment System on a PC

158

(7)

Run NES Emulators on the Mac

165

(3)

Run NES Emulators Under Linux

168

(7)

Emulate 16-Bit Systems in Windows

175

(5)

Emulate Other Classic Systems on the Mac

180

(3)

Emulate Other Classic Systems in Linux

183

(10)

Emulate the Game Boy on Your PC

193

(4)

Play Games on a Smartphone or PDA

197

(10)

Play Homebrews on Your GBA

207

(3)

Play Classic Systems on the GBA

210

(5)

Emulate Other Classic Portables

215

(6)

Retro-Hack the GP32

221

(3)

Retro-Hack the Dreamcast

224

(4)

Use Console Controllers on your PC

228

(8)

Use USB Gamepads Under Linux

236

(5)

Playing with Early Personal Computers

241

(49)

Run the Apple ][

241

(4)

Trick Out Your Apple ][

245

(3)

Emulate the Apple ][

248

(5)

Become an Apple Guru

253

(4)

Run a Commodore 64

257

(5)

Emulate the Commodore 64

262

(5)

Emulate Other Classic Computers

267

(10)

Type in Classic Computer Games

277

(6)

Find Classic Computer Games

283

(2)

Emulate Classic Computers on the Dreamcast

285

(5)

Playing with Text Adventures

290

(31)

Play Interactive Fiction in One Minute

290

(5)

Download and Play Text Adventures

295

(3)

Play the Best: Infocom Adventures

298

(7)

Get Covered in MUDs

305

(6)

Write Text Adventures with INFORM

311

(10)

Playing with DOS

321

(28)

Run DOS Without Microsoft

321

(6)

Run DOS Games

327

(10)

Rediscover Classic DOS Games

337

(4)

Write a DOS Game

341

(8)

Playing at Game Design

349

(71)

Design Games with ZZT

349

(9)

Use Freeware Game Creation Tools

358

(5)

Design Web-based Flash Games

363

(11)

Create Your Own Atari 2600 Homebrew Games

374

(5)

Program for the Game Boy Advance

379

(11)

Add Tiles and Sprites to Your GBA Game

390

(10)

Put Your Homebrews on Cartridges

400

(6)

Create Packaging for Homebrew Games

406

(7)

Create Your Own Adventure Game

413

(7)

Playing Around with Other Neat Stuff

420

(25)

Learn the Patterns of Pac-Man

420

(4)

Show Off with Super Mario

424

(6)

Hack the Leisure Suit Larry Games

430

(7)

Play Retro Versions of Modern Games

437

(4)

Remix Your Retro Sounds

441

(4)

Index

445

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials