What was your first emulation experience?

[esadajr]

That, what was your first emulation experience?

For me it was Nesticle and Genecyst. Back in summer 98, I was talking to a long time friend on the phone and he told me he had NES and Genesis games on his 486.

I was like "no way dude, that's not possible". I paid him a visit a couple days later, he fired up the emulator and I was like "no way, this is not happening, pinche me, I must be dreaming".
I came back home with the "starter pack" (bunch of floppies) he gave me, copied everything, fired up Genecyst and I was still like "no way".

Back then, the cool thing was having and playing all these games on the computer, saving shelf space  and money.

I never would have thought I'd feel nostalgic for the original hardware. Today, I feel nostalgic for both.

[Dicer]

Shapeshifter on the Amiga, you could emulate a Mac, nifty but not terribly useful.

[BlueBMW]

Haha, I do remember Nesticle... lol  That horrible icon heh.

The most emulating I've ever done was actually on the PSP.  It seemed like the perfect platform for emulation.  Especially GB/GBC/GBA stuff.

[PunkicCyborg]

I was 14 away for the summer at camp...

[esteban]

1999...my brother showed me a bunch of stuff...

MagicEngine and then MAME...

[Gentlegamer]

NESticle and GeneCyst for me too! It was awesome being able to play Rygar with save states. Then I discovered MAME, and my mind was melted by awesome. Playing arcade games on my PC was like some far future technology, space magic.

Fun fact: NESticle is still playable today... through DOSBox

Emuception:

[Necromancer]

My emulation cherry was popped by Magic Engine on the ol' 486 in college.  It was so handy to have some turbobs with me when all the real stuff had to stay at home.

[slinkyturd]

I once emulated a woman or rather half of one with a midget blow up doll. That was my first.

[Gentlegamer]

Speaking of Magic Engine, for years I didn't know it was 'shareware' because in the old Wild West days of emulation sites, I must have downloaded a cracked/activated copy without knowing it.

[pulstar]

I remember using a few MS-Dos programs on PCTask on the Amiga around 1994, but the first console I ever emulated was the Nes with the venerable Nesticle around 1998 or so.

[cjameslv]

I remember wanted to play zelda ocarina of time really bad but didnt own a n64. These were the days i first heard of emulation. Sad day tho, my pc was so damn slow and the shit was so choppy trying to run ultrahle, that i gave up on emulation until way later when mame was in full swing and revived my interest in it.

Oh Shit!! Just remembered, this also brought about my first mod! Totally forgot that! I made a n64 to game port (used to be a port on audio cards) box and used some custom software some guy was just developing back in the day to play with. Damn memories lol

[ccovell]

Shapeshifter on the Amiga, you could emulate a Mac, nifty but not terribly useful.

It was useful!  I ran scanner software, Ph*t*shop, and Mosaic for web browsing in Shapeshifter at a time when the corresponding Amiga software was not quite up to snuff.

My first might be a C-64 emulator on the Amiga, absolute first would be the "100 Most Remembered C-64 Tunes" demo, but that emulated the C-64 partially (no video).  And PC-Task, Paso-Fami, Nesticle...

[Mishran]

I'm with everyone else with Nesticle and Genecyst. I remember the team who made them also made a cool Streets of Rage style beat em up game that I played the shit out of. Magic Engine was my third emu. I think it was version 0.8 at that time? Had the emus and bunch of games zipped up and filling up floppies. Memories...

[Paddyfitz18]

Yep, Nesticle.

[SephirothTNH]

It's neat reading everyone's experiences.  Mine was the very first release of ZSNES.  It ran like shit but I thought it was magic.  Shortly after that I got Nesticle and Genecyst.  I remember putting roms on individual floppy discs so I could insert them and feel like I was putting in a cartridge.