JAS-SYS1
JROK's Namco Arcade Simulator

            
Screen captures of Galaga '88, and Pac-Mania

There isn't much to say about this emulator yet.   It is in the early stages of development, and only two games work at the moment:   Galaga '88, and Pac-Mania.  The emulator will support all games that utilized the Namco "System 1" boardset.

This game board appeared around 1986 and supported some real classic games, such as Pacmania, Galaga'88, Dragon Spirit and SplatterHouse.

According to the author, this boardset is the pinnacle of 8bit board design. Featuring a total of THREE 6809 cpu's and a 63701 micro-controller. Video hardware was equally as cool with a 6 layer screen, 4 of which featured hardware scrolling, each layer could display 256 colours with a programmable 24bit palette - allowing for upto 16million colors. Basically 'kick-ass' by any standards.

The sound system used one of the CPUs, and the micro-controller for sampled waveform playback, it also had stereo sound provided by two Namco 8 channel custom sound chips and the excellent Yamaha YM2151 FM synth.

            
Screen captures of Galaga '88, and Pac-Mania

The hardware requirements, at the moment, are pretty steep.  I am unable to run this emulator at full speed on my Pentium II 300 unless the sound is shut off.  It does seem to run at full speed on my Pentium III 500 system.  Despite this, I'm sure that JROK will be optimizing the code, and it will get faster over time.

Go to the JAS homepage

This emulator can be downloaded directly from it's homepage.

NOTE: In order to run this emulator, you must have the emulator itself, and a copy of the ROM's from the original system.  The emulator itself is Freeware.  The ROM's are copyrighted by the programmer or the manufacturer. You are only legally entitled to do so if you own the actual game, or a PCB/ROM Cartridge from the game that you are emulating. If you decide to download ROM's to test out an emulator, you must delete the ROM's within 24 hours unless you own the equipment mentioned above.

ROM's may be found at many sites, including EMUCLASSICS.