> > I'd just like to lend some extra weight to this. Handheld emulation is a place
> where
> > MAME really shines. It's an area where MAME has been the first or only project to
> > attempt real emulation rather than simulation based on gameplay observation. LCD
> > handhelds aren't just nostalgia for '80s kids, they're a whole class of consumer
> > electronics that's really faded from prominence, and it's important to preserve
> this
> > piece of history. Not just as photos, but as an interactive experience.
> >
> > LCD handhelds have also been a catalyst for a lot of other improvements in MAME,
> > including improvements to the output and artwork systems, and better support for
> CPUs
> > with non-linear/paged program counters. These benefits carry over to other systems,
> > giving performance improvements and making driver development more efficient. This
> > effort has brought together people with a wide range of skills, from decapsulating
> > and photographing the MCUs to tracing the LCD segments, to adding the game drivers
> to
> > MAME, to the improvements to MAME core functionality that these games heavily rely
> > on.
> >
> > So even if you don't particularly care for the games in question, this is something
> > that can benefit the whole MAME ecosystem, and preservation-based emulation as a
> > whole.
>
> I have a feeling the non-MCU ones with ASICs might end up being a catalyst for people
> writing netlist style simulations of custom chips like that too assuming high enough
> resolution images can be produced as from the ones we have seen images of so far they
> look relatively simple compared to some of the others we've seen so might be a good
> starting place.
>
> As we've found with various protection devices, not every single one we've ended up
> seeing decapped is an MCU, some are custom ASICs similar to those found in some of
> the handhelds (in the case of Jaleco's protection device used on some games, it
> actually likes like some 7-seg driver ASIC repurposed as a protection device)
The info gotten out of these things has been incredible.
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