Hi Retroneer’s, It looks like the Internet Archive has recently been busy, uploading to its free digital library, many of the 70s, 80s and 90s classic LCD games in emulated versions that allow for an authentic player (within reason) experience via the means of today’s tech.
The section has been collectively called “Handheld History,” which just about sums up all you need to know with the collection currently standing at 74 games (as of 9th April 2018) offering a nostalgic trip through some of the greatest hits of gaming history, Within the first 5 seconds of looking I spotted Mortal Kombat, Frogger, Gauntlet and Donkey Kong, to name but a few.. hell they even have ‘Speak & Spell’ (the last one has me geeking out for the sheer lunacy that someone actively made an effort to rip this device!), and each is played by pressing buttons on your keyboard that correspond to the original controls.
Now while many of these games still exist in their original form, the consoles themselves are disappearing and slowly rotting away. To which documenting and researching them now is a vital act of cultural preservation taken on by a few loyal collectors and archivists. The Internet Archive’s collection presents the emulations with photographs of their original systems and, when possible, digitised versions of their instruction manuals.
I hope Handheld History continues to grow, as it would be interesting to see the game and watch titles and many of the Tomy and Tiger LCD’s, Viewmasters, etc. become available to all once more in the same way that the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) has for years been recreating the hardware of arcade games for more modern platforms.
Check out the games and experience the 80s and 90s once more Here.
