Retro X Emulator

[Luciana]

Among other things, it enables you to run classic games on a wide range of computers and consoles through its slick graphical interface. Settings are also unified so configuration is done once and for all.

It uses the original data files in order to work. What is nice about this one is that it has some very fancy graphics effects added on top of the old game engine without it resulting in any stylistic clashes.

PX-68K is a Sharp X68000 emulator. This is a Japanese home computer from the late '80s/early '90s that was used by Capcom as devkits for their arcade games. It played host to many popular games from the likes of Namco, Konami and Capcom.

RetroArch is now available on the Apple App Store. It is currently available for iPhone, iPad and tvOS. A macOS version on the Apple App Store is planned but no ETA. A new RetroArch version is also coming out soon.

In Ben Eater's "Hello World on a 6502", Ben shows how to build a computer from scratch using individual components on breadboards. Now I want to do the same thing, but more involved. I already have enough piles of tech equipment, so I don't want to add yet another item to the stockpile.

My end goal is to make a relatively simple computer with a retro CPU, RAM, hard-disk-like storage, a keyboard, a "display" (more likely a serial console of some sort), and maybe a user-tinkerable expansion bus of sorts. I intend to use it as a general purpose machine like one who built a computer from individual components would have done back in the 1970's, such as making a simple calculator in assembler code, getting a BASIC interpreter going, etc. (At some point I want to code an OS for it that includes an assembler for the processor's machine code, such that the assembler can assemble its own code and the OS itself, so that it functions as a self-hosted development environment.) I'm not interested in starting from an established piece of hardware - I want to reinvent the wheel here.

While this isn't a Z80 simulator, Wokwi lets you build and simulate Arduino or ESP32 projects, and meets the criteria you describe in your question. If you insist on a Z80, Wokwi allows you to define your own custom chips, as well.

I bought a cheap Ali Express NES emulator trinket (more specifically, this one), but the video quality on my 2016 Samsung TV is horrible: colors seem washed out, there is lots of blurring and striping artefacts, input signal feels very sluggish... I've played a bit with the TV's config options and that helps somewhat but it's nowhere near what I remember it looking like on CRT's 30-ish years ago.

So my question is - are there other ways to get a better experience with these cheap emulators? For example, if I buy a cheap composite to HDMI converter and plug that into a computer monitor, would that work better? Or are there formats I can convert into that TV's don't do processing on, assuming that all problems stem from that processing? Or maybe there are other options I didn't think about? Thanks.

I had to face the same problem when I decided to connect my old PSX to new 4K TV. It was really a nightmare. Unfortunately, there does not exist any good solution for native retro platforms. The easiest and painless way is to play on emulators, but if it is not satisfying for you too, I understand your point of view - I have the same.

Here is my topic where I had a similar problem to yours and as you can see there, I did not receive a full answer. However, I recommend you to read the comments under my question because as far as I remember, those guys mentioned a few times some reasonable workarounds:
Which type of screen will provide good video quality for PSX/PS2?

Many people have a Wii console they no longer use, and it can be very quickly and easily modified to become a kick-ass emulation machine. In fact, the amount of cool stuff you can do with a Wii will surprise you. If you have an SD card knocking about then you have everything you need to do the mod in a around 5 - 10 minutes. If you can unzip files on your computer and copy them to an SD card, you can do the mod. It's easy!

This is a long thread, but don't panic, you only need to do the first few steps. I've gone into a lot of detail because Wii modding becomes addictive, and once you done the emulation stuff, you'll want to explore more. How about connecting a USB hard drive full of your Wii and Gamecube games, as well as the arcade versions of F-Zero GX and Mario Kart (if you legally own the arcade machines of course) to your multi-region, Netflix compatible Wii that also plays DVD movies?

You need a Wii, a computer with internet access and an SD card. High capacity doesn't work for the mod process, low capacity SD cards are harder to find new, but you can pick up a 2Gb SD card from CEX for 2. Once the mod is done, you'll be able to use a big capacity SD card for your roms. You'll want a Wii Classic controller because of the button layout (The Wii Remote is fine for 2 button games). You can use Gamecube pads, the Wavebird controller (turn it on before starting up the console or it won't work), but the Wii Classic Controller has the most appropriate button layout. Homebrew doesn't work with 3rd party controllers so make sure you buy official Nintendo controllers.

Perform a system update when prompted to get your console on the latest firmware. This will update you to version 4.3 of the console firmware. (4.3E for a European Console, 4.3U for USA, 4.3K for Korean, etc.)

Turn off the Wii console. Open the flap on the front of the Wii to reveal an SD card slot. Put the SD card in the slot then switch the Wii back on. On the main Wii menu click the icon in the bottom right corner that looks like an envelope.

The screen will go crazy with white text on a black background, then you will get a professional looking welcome screen. This screen stays on for a good 30 seconds or so before telling you to press a key on the remote to continue so please be patient.

Now you have installed "BootMii as iOS" and "The Homebrew Channel" you are all done. Remove the SD card, then you can reset the Wii, or use the Home key on the remote to exit this application.

That's the mod all done. Told you it was easy! You don't need the SD card files any more, so if you want to use that SD card for emulation, just delete the files from it. I would suggest using a 32Gb SD card from this point, because this is going to become addictive.

Running the Homebrew Channel now will display a screen with animating bubbles, but nothing else. This is because you have a blank SD card in the console and the Homebrew Channel is for running Emulators and Applications that you copy onto your SD card into the APPS directory. So now we need to download some emulators, copy them onto the SD card and play some games.

When you download an emulator, it's usually in a zip/rar file. When you unzip it there are usually 2 directories that you copy exactly as they are to the root of the SD card. The Wii looks in an APPS directory for the emulator itself, while your roms, screenshots, cheat files etc go in a separate directory in the root of the SD card.

What follows is completely optional, but Wii modding becomes addictive! Once you start, you'll find there's loads of other cool stuff you can do. The trouble is, many of the guides online are out of date now, so what follows is a current method to make your Wii the most valuable device under the telly.

(Note - The following sections are written in the same order I would recommend you install (for example, by installing Priiloader before a custom iOS, you get brick protection so you can fix it if anything goes wrong. Also you need custom iOS installed before you start doing WII/Gamecube games from USB, for example. I don't recommend picking and choosing here - it's all dead easy, so you might as well do it all. I have written out all the steps in extra detail and it looks like a lot of words, but the entire rest of this guide will take you about half an hour, so please do every step in order, and don't skip bits.)

Highly recommended- Priiloader is an app that replaces the first part of the system menu that gets booted. This loads before the actual Wii menu appears on the screen, allowing installation of custom themes, region free gameplay and brick protection. I recommend installing this before you continue down this list because if anything did go wrong and you break your console, it's easy to repair it by booting the bricked console into Priiloader. As well as all this, Priiloader does the best thing ever - it lets you turn off that annoying music on the Nintendo Menu! You can easily make the entire console region free, and ignore OS updates from disk games - Priiloader does it all!

Priiloader also allows you to boot the Wii directly into an app. For example, you could tell Priiloader to boot directly into MAME instead of the Wii Menu, if you were putting your Wii in an arcade cabinet, or boot straight into a USB loader, as covered later in this guide.

Install Priiloader by downloading it from the link above. As with the emulators you already downloaded, the zip file contains an APPS folder, and you need to copy the contents into the APPS folder on your SD card. That puts the Priiloader installer program in your homebrew channel. Run the installer, and follow the prompts on screen (just just press + to install Priiloader). If you get any errors about loader.ini or password.txt, don't worry, these can be ignored. Your Wii will reboot in the Priiloader menu. If it doesn't, power off the Wii, then power it back on and hold reset while it's booting until you see it.

Now you have installed Priiloader, you can change any of its settings by holding the reset button whilst turning on the Wii. Should you break your console, just do this and select the option to repair.

So far, we've been loading our emulators and apps from within the homebrew channel. A "WAD" file is a program that appears on the Wii main menu, instead of in the Homebrew Channel. These can include Virtual Console Games, Apps and 'Forwarders' that bring your Homebrew forward to the main menu. You'll download some great looking forwarders later in this guide, but first we need to know how to install these WAD files. Luckily, there's a program called "Multi Mod Manager" and it's really easy to use.

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