Hot on the heels of news that iPhone app developer Manomio has decided to offer its popular Commodore 64 emulator for free, the company is announcing plans to create two new emulators for the iPhone: Atari 2600 and Amiga 500.

That means you may be able to play classic games including Frogger and Space Invaders on the iPhone and iPod touch. In fact, the developers have already whipped up tech demo videos which you can check out after the break, but the apps aren’t available for download yet.

The controls look… interesting. I’m not a big fan of games that require you to place your finger over the action in order to play. But I suppose a virtual joystick that’s invisible when you’re not using takes up less screen real estate than dedicated buttons.

Manomio still needs to work out the kinks and get the apps approved for the App Store — not to mention working out deals with the original game developers. An emulator isn’t much good if there aren’t programs for it to run, and something tells me Apple and Manomio aren’t going to release the Atari and Amiga emulators just for users that want to run pirated copies of old school games. The Commodore 64 emulator has a built-in app store that lets you purchase classic games. It also comes bundled with a handful of free games.

via TUAW

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...

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