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Symbian S60 Emulator: Relive the Classic Games of Symbian Devices on Your PC or Phone



Using Nokia SDK emulator requires registration (at least for Symbian S60 3rd ed. FP2, S^3). Despite SDK is free, it asks for "username/serial" number or suggests to "load registration information from the file" after trial period. Since Nokia site shutdown it appears that new SDK users can't register it and use the emulator in development. Also one can't use serial from other machine.


Released in 1982, the C64 became the best-selling 8-bit computer ever. It was a worldwide hit, especially in Europe where it became the number one games system throughout the 1980s (Europe wasn't into consoles until the 1990s). C64 software releases totalled over 10,000 titles.Frodo is a C64 emulator for S60 and S80 devices. Frodo for S60 3rd Edition has now been released after spending a long time in development, so head on over and get your copy today. You can also download the finished versions of Frodo for S60 1st and 2nd Edition, and S80 (Nokia 9210, 9300 and 9500) from the same website. The author's favourite C64 games are M.U.L.E., Decathlon and Rally Speedway.




Symbian S60 Emulator



Launched in 1983, MSX (which stood for many different things depending on who you asked) was designed to provide a unified standard for 8-bit home computers, in much the same way that the IBM PC unified the standard for 16-bit computers. MSX had backing from many major electronics companies including Sony, Toshiba and Philips, and was a huge hit in Japan where most of its backing companies were based. Unfortunately it never really took off in the other major markets, Europe and America, partly because these markets had already become dominated by non-MSX computers such as the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum by the time MSX launched there.The MSX software scene is understandably dominated by Japanese releases, but boy are they famous releases: many major game franchises such as Metal Gear, Bomberman, Wizardry, Ys and Dragon Quest all started out as MSX games.fMSX is an MSX emulator for S60 devices. The website includes versions of fMSX for virtually every S60 model, S60 3rd Edition as well as 1st and 2nd Editions (including a special version for the N90). Getting fMSX to work is something of a pain as the MSX system files must be loaded in separately, or added by the end user to a SIS file on their PC using a separate set of tools and Windows notepad. However, as most MSX games are Japanese, the end user is more likely to be a hardcore gamer who puts up with these kinds of inconveniences.


A particular favourite with this reviewer, and the number one 8-bit home computer in the UK, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (or Speccy) was launched in 1982 and became an instant success in its home country. It sold for half the price of its nearest rival, the C64, and came out just as the British home computer market was booming. It was the right machine at the right time, and spawned an enormous third party software market, much of which still exists today in the form of British game companies such as Rare and Code Masters.There were about 10,000 game releases for the Spectrum during its lifetime.Speccy is an S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 emulator of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It's now come out of Beta so it's no longer free, but there's a free trial, and there are additional hints on how to install and run Speccy on your phone on a special S60 page. Feedback about Speccy should be left at a dedicated Google Group, and the developer really does take notice of it so don't hesitate to let them know how it runs on your S60 device.


(For those who don't have 3rd Edition devices, Spectrian is an excellent S60 1st and 2nd Edition-compatible Spectrum emulator, and there's a UIQ version too. Spectrian is a very polished commercial product, it's a shame there's no 3rd Edition version available yet.)


S60-CPC is a CPC emulator for S60 3rd Edition devices, which you can download for free from its official site. However, it's still very much in the early stages so you shouldn't expect it to work perfectly.


Launched in America in 1982, the ColecoVision console was intended to compete with the hugely successful Atari 2600. ColecoVision used the latest technology and had far superior graphics to the 2600, allowing it to run arcade game conversions that were much closer to the originals. Unfortunately the timing of the ColecoVision's launch was very poor, the American console market collapsed in 1983/1984 (probably due to a surplus of low quality games that flooded the market) and ColecoVision vanished along with most other US consoles of the period. There were about 140 games released for the ColecoVision during its lifetime.ColEm is a S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 emulator of the ColecoVision, and is available for free. Any feedback about ColEm should be posted to the author's Google Group, and is much appreciated. As with Speccy, you can get further instructions for how to install it on your S60 device on a specially written S60 page.


vNES is a NES emulator available for S60 3rd Edition (there's also a version for 1st and 2nd Editions too, and a J2ME version for non-Symbian phones). You can download it and get more information about it from the vNES website. It's free to try, but you have to pay for the full version.


Perhaps the most famous legacy of the SNES was the game Super Mario Kart, which was originally designed to show off the SNES's Mode 7 technology that allowed two dimensional games to appear three dimensional. The SNES had over 500 games released for it in the US and Europe.vSun is a SNES emulator for S60 1st, 2nd and 3rd Editions (make sure you download the "S60v3" file if you want the 3rd Edition version). One of its chief features is support for multiplayer games through bluetooth, so you can have several people taking part in the same emulated game on several different phones at once. However, due to the complexity of emulating the SNES hardware, the games can run rather slowly on 1st and 2nd Edition S60s, so it's probably worth going for the 3rd Edition version if you can. There's also a version called vSun Plus which is faster than vSun but does not emulate sound, and is compatible with fewer games.


In 1998 a slight update, a colour screen, was added and the new system was named the Game Boy Color. The GBC was eventually replaced in 2001 by an all-new system, the Game Boy Advance.There were over 450 games released in the US and Europe for the Game Boy, and another 450 for the Game Boy Color.vBoy is an S60 emulator of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, and is available in two versions: one for S60 1st and 2nd Edition, and one for S60 3rd Edition. You can find out more information and download vBoy from its website. vBoy is free to try and costs US$9.90 to buy.


Virtual GameBoy Advance is a GBA emulator for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 phones. There's a free trial version but you have to pay for the full version, both of which can be obtained from the official site.


MasterGear is a Master System and Game Gear emulator for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3 devices from the author of Speccy and ColEm. You can download the demo version or purchase the full version from the MasterGear website.


MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) isn't a games system, but a very widely used piece of software designed to emulate a wide variety of arcade machines (the kind you used to feed coins into).MAME can run over 3000 different arcade games, although how well it can run a particular game depends on how complex the game is and how powerful the hardware running MAME is. As with all emulators, most of the processing power of the system running MAME doesn't go on running the actual game but on simulating the behaviour of the hardware that originally ran the game, in order to reproduce the game's behaviour exactly as it was in its original form.EEMame, also known as E2Mame, is a port of MAME for older Symbians including S60 1st and 2nd Edition, UIQ2 (Motorola A925 and A1000), S80 (Nokia 9300 and 9500) and S90 (Nokia 7710), and can be downloaded from the EEMame website. There's a prototype version of EEMame for S60 3rd Edition originally put up by its author for user feedback purposes, but development work on it appears to have stopped.


EKA2L1 is a cross-platform Symbian emulator, mostly written in C++, that has been in development for over two years. It can currently emulate the S60v1, S60v3, and S60v5 platforms, which powered phones like the Nokia 7650, Nokia N95, Nokia E50, and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. The emulator also boasts compatibility with games created for the N-Gage, Nokia's unsuccessful attempt at a mobile phone/game console hybrid from 2003. Only three million N-Gage devices were sold during its short life, so there aren't many games for it, but the N-Gage is still an important part of history that EKA2L1 is helping to preserve.


The emulator has offered an Android version on GitHub for a while, but the app was just published to the Google Play Store. The app works best with 64-bit Android devices, but there is also experimental 32-bit support. When used with compatible software, EKA2L1 can run games at a higher framerate than original Symbian devices. Some of the best games and applications are shown off in the above video.


The Symbian specific build files are located in build.symbian directory under PJ's source tree. The project files are organized as .mmp files, with each library and executable having its own .mmp file. As usual, these .mmp files are put in bld.inf file.


  • Currently most test or sample programs are built as Symbian console programs. To enable console mode in the emulator:Open $(SDK)\epoc32\data\epoc.ini file

  • add TextShell line at the end of the file. With this settings, the emulator will now start in Console mode (and it will start faster too!).

  • Enlarge the console screen size, by changing ScreenWidth to 640, and ScreenHeight to 480.

Running Applications with EmulatorTo run the application, just run \Symbian\$(SDK)\epoc32\release\winscw\udeb\symbian_ua.exe file. 2ff7e9595c


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