Rising to the challenge!

<>I love it when someone looks at a problem and goes “It probably can’t be done, shouldn’t be done, but that ain’t gonna stop me!”.

I’ve been involved in game consoles and computers since late 70’s so I have a nostalgic side to me. Yes, that means my introduction to the computer revolution took place when I was seven years old and I had the nagging question enter into my brain of “hmmmm, how do they make those colored pixels display and animate on the screen”. I was five years later before I had purchased my first personal computer and been hacking away ever since. I have many old personal computers and game consoles stored away in a closet including a replacement for my first personal computer that I owned. I enjoy playing around with emulators whenever I have a moment. Tonight, I came across one of the most amazing emulation feats EVER!

Donkey Kong (released in 1981 on the Z80, 8-bit processor) emulated on a Tandy Color Computer 3 (released 1986, 68E09, 8-bit processor) hardware.

The general rule of thumb is that you need a computer that is about 5 times faster than the original in order to successfully emulate. This is definitely not the case in this instance and the fact that this guy pulled it off is downright impressive.

For those that were at the Twin Cities Code Camp and attended the emulation talk, this is an amazing example of what can be done through emulation… and you can see the results first hand thanks to a video posted to YouTube.com. Keep in mind that the Color Computer 3 is (and has been) a targeted computer for emulation for many, many, many years. The fact that someone took the time to actually create a Donkey Kong emulator on a 20+ year old piece of hardware… I wanna buy this guy a beer!