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One question that I’ve been asked time and time again (and most recently by zx-81) is “why bother porting an emulator when there are other ports already?” This question was beaten to death when SMS Plus PSP was first released, and still comes up occasionally.

The number one reason is simply that I enjoy porting software to PSP, especially classic computer emulators. I like pushing the limits and capabilities of the (yet unnamed) psp library that I’ve been developing since the first fMSX release. The fact that another emulator may already exist (and may, in fact, be better) is a non-issue for me, as I don’t do it for any reason other than my personal satisfaction.

Second reason is that I believe having a choice in emulators is great. The only reason I got into programming for PSP is because I thought that the MSX emulators of the time could be a lot better.

I attempt to port in a manner that makes it possible to merge the PSP port with the main branch of the emulator, and I’m happy to let any interested maintainer of the emulator merge my code with theirs. I don’t generally touch emulation code, unless it results in significant optimization—the only exception to this rule has so far been fMSX and inclusion of SCC/MSXMusic/MSXAudio – and it’s largely thanks to the efforts of Vincent van Dam and his excellent fMSX SDL port.

When possible, I attempt to port a different emulator than one that’s already available. For example, as mentioned earlier, Caprice32 was not my first choice for a CPC emulator. Unfortunately, Arnold’s performance was nowhere near “acceptable,” so Caprice was my second choice.

And finally, there are a number of ported, working, but unfinished emulators that are currently littering my svn repository’s trunk branch, some of which may eventually see the light of day.

Hope this was enlightening. Comments are welcome.