Again, I’m not certain but it is apparent that emulators for popular consoles are still being developed. The legality of developing emulators may depend on the patent/copyright of the console being emulated. I’m not 100% certain, but it seems that it’s legal to posses ROMs if one owns the original game such as an NES cartridge.
For example, some claimed that the emulators and the possession of ROMs (copies of games) are illegal. I’ve never been certain about all legal aspects of console emulation. Now days it’s possible to play Gamecube, Xbox, Wii, and PS2 games, though they often don’t run at full speed and require significant tweaking to be playable. With 586 systems it was possible to play SNES and eventually even N64 games.
Over the years home computers and emulators have advanced together.
The first emulator I used was a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator that ran in DOS on a 486 Packard Bell, which was barely capable of running the games near their original speed. I’ve been using console emulators for several years.
