REVIEWS VINTAGE GAME ADAPTER Retrode Emulation-nut Mike Saunders is in heaven. And for once, it has nothing to do with Weißbier… hat a fantastic idea this is. We love DATA emulators, and spend way too much time playing classic games from the 80s and Web W www.retrode.org 90s. But there’s always one problem: the legality of Developer ROM files (the file that contains the data from a Matthias Hullin read-only memory chip – more or less a clone of a Price game cartridge). Some people argue that if you €64.90 already own the physical version of a game, there’s nothing wrong with playing a ROM file in an emulator – but then, where do you get the ROM file from? Chances are it has come off a website somewhere, and generated by someone else, so the legal questions remain. The Retrode avoids all of these complications by Plug in your game cart and its contents appear as a ROM enabling you to play your original Super NES and Sega image on a removable drive – simple as that. Mega Drive (aka Genesis) cartridges in an emulator on your PC. And the way it does that it is beautifully emulator such as ZSNES. You’re no longer playing a simple. It doesn’t require special data transmission random ROM file from an unknown source, but the software or custom emulators or anything like that exact code in the physical cartridge that you own. – it just works out of the box. On the top of the Retrode are two cartridge slots for Rainbow Road revisited the aforementioned consoles. Plug in a cartridge, One of the most common annoyances that people connect the Retrode to your PC via the included USB have with emulators is having to use different cable, and you’ll see a new removable USB drive controllers to the original machines. You can get appear. Open this drive and voilà: the contents of the adapters to connect original Super NES and Mega cartridge are available as a ROM file (eg for SNES Drive joypads to USB ports, but the Retrode is ahead games they appear as .sfc files), ready to play in an of the game here and includes four joypad ports: two Super NES and two Mega Drive. These appear to the system as standard USB game controllers, so they “It doesn’t require special data transmission will work with any emulator. software or custom emulators – it just works. And it gets better: if the game has battery-backup ” save states, in many cases you can access them too. We plugged in our copy of Super Mario Kart that we bought in 1992, and a .srm file containing our lap time records appeared on the drive, which loaded Shiny and black, the Retrode seamlessly into ZSNES. If you have some saved reminds us very much of the games that mean the world to you, and you’re worried Sega Master System II. about the in-cart batteries dying, you need this. Now. The Retrode worked with all the Mega Drive (5) and SNES (8) cartridges we tested, although there are compatibility notes on the website, so it’s worth checking those before buying the device. You can even get adapters to play Nintendo 64, Game Boy and Master System games. We’re beaming with delight at the prospect of getting our old Wave Race 64 records off the cartridge… LINUX VOICE VERDICT A brilliant idea, executed well. Not cheap for casual gamers, but for hard-core emulation fans it’s bliss. 22 www.linuxvoice.com.