Preface

A few months ago, I was playing a classic Game Boy game, in all its 15-year-old monochrome glory . But the version I was playing was markedly worse than what I remembered from 1989it ran a little slowly, had some graphic glitches, and there was no sound. And it was one of the most impressive things I'd ever seen.

Why? Because I was playing it on the Sony PSP.

It had been a pretty amazing week. Intrepid, brilliant Japanese hackers had discovered a security loophole in Sony's new portable game console that let them run executable files off of the Memory Stick media. Within daysliterally days they'd progressed from a simple "Hello World" display to a program that emulated the Game Boy hardware. As we went to press on this book, there were PSP programs that played games from consoles like the Neo Geo and Turbo-Grafx CD. By the time you finally read these words, there will probably be software that lets you do much more.

This volume is dedicated to the appreciation , understanding, and application of just that sort of impressive hack. And you don't even have to skirt copyright law to do ityou'll find that public domain and freeware games exist for most gaming consoles. The creation of these so-called homebrew titles is in and of itself a retro gaming hackand a damned impressive one at that! And if you want to try your hand at creating a Game Boy title of your own, you'll find tips and tricks to help you get started right here.

As for me, I like having the actual classic game hardware. The feel of hooking up a classic NES deck, blowing on the cartridge to get it to work right, shoving it into the ancient plastic, hearing the barely -audible clicks and hum of the television as it boots up (or doesn't and we'll show you how to fix that). Getting hand cramps from the old rectangular controllers, then throwing those controllers around the room, knowing they were so durable they'd never break. (Try that with your PSP, and you won't be playing Game Boy games or anything else.)

Retro gaming isn't about clinging to the last remaining shreds of our fleeting youth. Well, it is, but not entirely . The old saying "they just don't make 'em like they used to" has never rung more true. Game design has changed, some say permanently. In the never-ending quest to make games more complex, controllers have been packed full of buttons and screens filled with reams of indecipherable information. Where is the charm , the wide appeal , the elegant simplicity of the games of yesteryear?

It's out there, if you know where to look. Read this book, and you will.