Retro Android
Bring back the home microcomputer systems of old with your Android device. Darren Yates delves into the world of retro emulators (and the hardware they emulate).
There’s no doubt about it – 1980s’ tech is having a moment. Hipsters are apparently (re) discovering the compact cassette and many are reliving the era of microcomputers and gaming consoles from the ‘80s, thanks to big-brands and start-ups alike. Nintendo got the ball rolling with the Classic Mini NES and SNES consoles, Sony’s had a lash with the PlayStation Classic, not to mention the rash of Atari Flashback consoles. Then there’s the C64 Mini, a mostly-useable shrink of the venerable Commodore 64 that even comes with Commodore BASIC to code your own apps. However, if you’re feeling the urge to either relive childhood memories or just see what all the fuss is about, there’s an alternative that’s a fraction of the cost and is as close as your Android phone.
EMULATING THE PAST
I grew up during the 1970s/80s 8-bit microcomputer revolution and it was an awesome time to be alive – to be able to control what appeared on a blocky black-and-white TV screen via simple instructions would today seem almost tragic to some, but at the time is was nothing short of extraordinary. I was even more fortunate, for my Dad built our first home computer in 1979, an Australian design called the ‘DREAM 6800’ – and I got to watch it being made. Created by Australian electronics engineer, Michael Bauer, the DREAM 6800 had an 8-bit Motorola 6800 CPU, 1KB of RAM, a 64x32-pixel compositevideo output, a 16-key hexadecimal keypad and like most computers of the era, stored its programs on cassette tape. Those programs were written in a simple but powerful language called ‘CHIP-8’. Sure, the specs were modest, but this DIY computer arrived before the TRS-80 Color Computer, the Commodore VIC-20 – and four years before the Commodore 64. What’s more, computer hardware at that time wasn’t cheap – especially RAM. That made the DREAM 6800 an excellent introduction to the software and hardware required to make a working computer at a price many more could afford.
What’s interesting about the current rash of reissue retro consoles and computers is that they’re all based on small Raspberry Pi-like single-board computers. For example, the C64 Mini runs a dual-core Allwinner A20 System on a Chip (SoC), the Nintendo Classic Mini a quad-core Allwinner R16 SoC and Sony’s PlayStation Classic features a MediaTek MT8167a quad-core chip. They all run some form of Linux distro, an emulator layer for the hardware they replicate, plus original ROMs for the bundled games.
Or to put it another way, these consoles all run smartphone-grade
hardware – and phones from a few years ago now at that. The Raspberry Pi itself has become a stalwart for retro-gaming thanks to the RetroPie distro, but you’ll find a surprising number of emulators for a wide range of 8-bit microcomputers on Google Play.
WHAT’S AVAILABLE?
Hardware emulators for Android aren’t exactly new, but most air-time is given to hand-held machines like the Nintendo GameBoy. However, when it comes to emulating the classic 80s’ home microcomputers, there’s an abundance of options to be had that you don’t often hear about. I’ve put together a list of a dozen emulators covering most of the major home computers from the 70s and early-80s, from the BBC Micro (which found its way into many Australian independent schools) to the Commodore 64, even the awesome little Sharp PC-1401 Pocket Computer. Just search Google Play for the app name and it should appear. What’s awesome about many of these is that they’ll run on older versions of Android – some going back as far as Gingerbread/2.3.
ROMS
The most common issue when dealing with games console emulators is getting hold of legal ROMs, either for the emulator itself or just games to play. Microcomputer emulators are similar in some ways, although, a far greater proportion of apps here are ready to roll as soon as you install them. Whether it’s reverse-engineering or just the simplicity of the devices (for example, CHIP-8 has only 35 well-documented instructions or ‘opcodes’), device ROMs are, more often than not, built into these apps. Games for more complex emulators like the Commodore 64 are still an issue – we can’t tell you where to find the popular games and using commercial ROMs you don’t have cartridges or original disks for is
generally considered illegal. Still, that hasn’t stopped many.
THE BEST POCKET EMULATORS
I have a soft spot for CHIP-8 emulators, as it was the first programming language I learned and it’s still useful for studying the basics of software architecture today. Chipfinity (tinyurl. com/y47l6bkk) allows you to load and save ROMs (and comes with a truckload of them to start you off), but lacks the ability to code in the emulator itself. The DREAM 6800 and other CHIP-8powered variants had a built-in memory monitor app that allowed you to enter your programs via the 16-key keypad – this would’ve just given Chipfinity a more authentic feel in my book.
The ‘pockecom’ emulators of the early Sharp and Casio Pocket Computers are also impressive, with ‘go1401’ (Sharp PC-1401), ‘pockecomGO’ (Sharp series) and ‘pockecomGO2’ (Casio PB-100) being the pick of the bunch and fitting nicely on a phone.
For more well-known devices, Frodo C64 (tinyurl.com/7bdl88m) is well worth a look. It packs in the genuine Commodore BASIC 3.5 language you can code with and even supports the C64’s famous SIDs (sound interface devices).
ANDROID’S FAMILY TREE
Look back over the history of Android and you’d be forgiven for thinking the world began in 2008 with the launch of the HTC Dream. Others might consider the Pocket PC era of the late-90s/ early-2000s, when Palm and HP ruled the market, as the epoch of pocket computing. In fact, you have to go back to the home computer revolution, when
Sharp launched the PC-1211 Pocket Computer in 1980. It really was a revolutionary device in a revolutionary era, so much so that Tandy Electronics rebadged and sold not only this one, but seven subsequent models during the 1980s. One of Sharp’s many models was the PC-1401. This 1983 pocket computer was the first with a QWERTY keyboard capable of programming scientific functions. It packed in 4KB of batterybacked RAM and was powered by two CR2032 coin batteries, good for about 100 hours.
The final Tandy model was the TRS-80 PC-8, a rebadge of the underwhelming Sharp PC-1246 – and for most of us, that’s where the first-gen Pocket Computer story ended.
The mid-80s saw the home computer market crash, price wars crunched profits and a lack of compatibility between models, let alone brands, left many consumers stranded. IBM’s decision to use off-the-shelf components for its Personal Computer suddenly became a masterstroke and by 1986, IBM and Microsoft were winning ‘Personal Computer’ era.
However, that’s not the end of the story. While the Pocket Computer may no longer have held sway in Australia, Sharp continued designing new models, mostly for Japan. In 1988, the PC-E200 boosted the LCD size to four rows of 24 characters, added 32KB of storage plus the ability to code in Assembler language to increase processing speed. The PC-E500 appeared the following year with a 240x32-pixel LCD panel and by the time of the PC-G800 series in the mid-1990s, they’d become a staple of Japanese technical schools.
EMULATORS VS THE REAL THING
These days, retro computing comes in three flavours, depending on your appetite for cost. The first is the emulators we’ve looked at here – apps designed to run on generic hardware, like Android phones. The second flavour is the retro reissue – dedicated hardware featuring modern CPUs to emulate genuine game ROMs. The third and final flavour is the genuine article – original home microcomputers of the era either in original condition or refurbished using new-old-stock (NOS) original components.
To be brutally honest, of the three, the least appealing to me so far are the retro reissues. Apps designed to run on generic hardware generally have no pretentions to being more than they are. However, some of the reissues have had well-documented issues, for example, the USB latency on the C64 Mini. That said, the ability to update the C64 Mini’s ROM is such a plus and something you could never do with most of the originals. That leaves the original computers themselves, which really is the authentic way to experience those early days. However, that creates two problems. First, not only are prices for computers from that era starting to go crazy, but second, the early systems are now pushing 40 years old. Still, if nothing else, the home computers of the ‘70s and ‘80s are an excellent reminder of just how far we’ve come in the last 40 years. Write programs on a spongy membrane keyboard and try saving and reloading them from a cassette tape a few times and I guarantee you’ll never complain about your Android phone again.