by Don Hildenbrand

Created on: January 18, 2009   Last Updated: October 18, 2011

In spite of all the modern, flashy games available today, sometimes there's nothing better than to take a trip down memory lane and play the games of yesteryear. An example would be the games that played on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. No, they didn't have the graphical shock and awe of today's 3-D games, but they were overloaded with playability, and they were just plain fun!

You may not know that you can use your PC to play those old but fun SNES games. All it takes is a piece of software called an emulator, and game files called ROM's. The emulator and ROM files together make the PC believe it is actually a SNES console, and so the game play is exactly the same as it was on the original console.

One of the best Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulators is called ZSNES. It may not be as flashy as others that are available, and the interface may be a little crude by modern standards, but, in part because of these features, it is rock solid, stable, and plays the SNES games at blazing fast speeds!

ZSNES can be found simply by doing a Google search, and choosing from one of the many download sites that are available. It may come in a compressed format, so you will need a utility that de-compresses files, such as WinZip, or even better, WinRar. A good free alternative to these programs would be 7-Zip, which can also be found by Almighty Google.

Once ZSNES has been downloaded, install or unzip the files into a folder on your hard drive, perhaps to C:\Program Files\ZSNES, for example. If the program was installed, look for the link to start the emulator in your start menu. If it was unzipped, navigate to the folder you unzipped it to, right click on the executable, choose "copy", and then choose where you want to place the link, such as your desktop, and right click and choose "paste shortcut." This will place a link, or shortcut. to the emulator on your desktop.

A second step you will need to do is to locate the actual game files, the ROM's. As always when downloading files from the Internet, be aware that downloading the ROM files may violate local copyright laws, depending on what country you live in. It is not illegal to own an emulator, but, unless you own the actual game, some countries have made it illegal to own ROM files. Proceed with caution!

ROM's can be found through web searches, Peer to Peer networks, or BitTorrent. There are hundreds, if not thousands of ROM files available with a little searching. Download these ROM's, then make

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