In 1962, IBM had a major problem.
Its cutting-edge System/360 mainframe computer series wasn’t compatible with software designed for its older 7070 models. After attempts by others failed, engineers Larry Moss and Stuart Tucker found success with a hybrid software/hardware project they called The 7070 Emulator.
Decades later, similar approaches resulted in accessories that made the C64 behave like an Apple IIe and allowed the ST and Amiga to run PC software. Then in the early Nineties, Sega developer Yuji Naka created an in-house NES emulator for the Mega Drive, and Argonaut Software developed a Game Boy emulator for the Amiga for internal use.
The first console emulator aimed at a public audience appeared in 1994, in the form of the MegaDrive Emulator for the PC, with others following, including a Pac-Man emulator that evolved into MAME. By the late-Nineties, websites hosting emulators and games to play on them were commonplace, but in 1998, many shut down after legal threats from an organisation representing the games industry.