With all of the hype surrounding E3 and shiny new titles, it's good to see that classic gaming is still getting some attention. Two emulators have recently been updated, the well known SNES9X along with Modeler, a Sega Arcade emulator.

The Snes9x 1.3.7 update from John Stiles includes fixes and optimizations for better OS X support, including an option for full-screen play. Mac OS X version 10.0.2 or later is now required. Also included is an extensive Cheat Finder feature from Ian Patterson and a new sound decoding system.

Modeler, by Richard Bannister, is now at version 0.8.1. Although Model 1 arcade games are still unplayable because of lack of 3D support, many Sega System 32 and 32 multi games such as Golden Axe 2 and Spiderman are fully playable. Modeler is fully Carbonized so works under OS X. While there is no time line for development, this may mean early 3D arcade titles such as Virtua Fighter may eventually be supported.

Along similar lines, Rob Griffiths has posted an article at macosxhints.com which reveals how to play the classic Zork text-adventures on OS X - from the terminal app no less! Rob discusses configuring Jzip, which runs most games published by Infocom based on the Z-Machine standard. Full instructions as well as links to the first three Zork titles are included.

Modeler Homepage

Mac OS X Hints

Snes9x

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