If you’re an owner of emulators, and continuously are trying to find a decent ROM site then you’ll love today’s story. If you’re a copyright lawyer, then you might find the research being conducted by Portsmouth University a nightmare. Or a godsend if you really like suing people.

The researchers at Portsmouth University are developing emulation software, that could potentially read any software file dating back to the 1970’s. Emulation software isn’t anything new. If you scour across the internet, you can find software for nearly any kind of video game hardware. Everything from MAME (arcade), to the Playstation has emulation software available. But developing an emulator that can play any software file in existence? As Shortround from Temple of Doom would say, they’re not insane….they’re crazy.

The researchers have devised a lofty goal, and appear to be doing it for the right reasons. One of the historians working on the project, said this about the reasons behind the research, “(It’s a) rescue plan to recover and safeguard the rapidly vanishing technology and cultural information about the generation born and brought up in the digital age.”

That is quite a foresight indeed. If you think about it, how many devices are readily available on the market that can even read a 3.5″ floppy disk? Not that there’s software out there that still uses it, but what about information we’ve stored on those media devices that could prove useful in the future? It’s very important we maintain these documents for historical purposes, and research Portsmouth is conducting is vital indeed.

If all else fails, emulator users will no longer have to download different EMUs for different consoles.

[via: TechRadar]

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