Emulator Enhancer - 1.5.2

I really do not understand the negative comments by others that I see here. Every time I've emailed Richard I get a response within 24 hours and he practically upholds emulation on the Mac single-handedly.

Emulator Enhancer is a small price to pay to gain extra functionality in the excellent emulators Richard has developed/ported. A VERY small price *dark look at the whingers*

That said I would like more video modes in EE, better help files (that goes for all of Richard's software) and, though this isn't an EE problem - it would be great if the keyboard setup in his emulators had more than just icons - maybe tootips when you mouse over them? It was sometimes difficult working out which icons corresponded to certain buttons/keys.

Still - those are minor niggles with otherwise great software :-)

Mr. Bannister has released many versions of Emulator Enhancer and many versions of his emulators. When a user like me who purchased a 1.x license and has been busy tries to get Emulator Enhancer working, the user is met with all sorts of problems.

As soon as 2.0 of Emulator Enhancer was released, Mr. Bannister took down the download for 1.6.5 as well as the versions of his emulators that were compatible. Basically, he wanted users to pay for 2.0. He wrote here in reply to me when I mentioned that 1.6.5 is missing saying I should e-mail him to receive it. Why should users have to e-mail him? He shouldn't have taken away 1.6.5 and he shouldn't have taken away the compatible emulators.

After enough people contacted him, he put up an archive of all his emulators, by filename and version. But, the archive is interestingly missing the last version of the GameBoy Advance Emulator BoyCott Advance that is compatible with the last 1.x version of Emulator Enhancer, 0.3.6. The version that he put in the archive, 0.3.5, won't work with Emulator Enhancer 1.6.0 or 1.6.5. The archive has a snotty tone, too, because he says:

"In other news, after numerous requests, there is now an up to date archive of old versions of my emulator projects, including the last versions to work on Mac OS X 10.3.9. Everything on this link is strictly unsupported; if I start getting support queries THIS MIRROR WILL BE REMOVED." (his text is in bold, not caps).

Mr. Bannister's idea of support is novel. Remove all 1.x Emulator Enhancer downloads and all versions of emulators compatible with that, ask people to e-mail him. Put up an archive with a snippy note that's missing versions of emulators compatible with the latest version of 1.x of Emulator Enhancer..

Registering Emulator Enhancer is a big problem, too. Just today, I tried to register it after having a problem (I missed the last digit of the serial number he sent me - I didn't get a serial number when I originally registered Emulator Enhancer), and I was unable to even get to the registration screen. There is no button in Nestopia or RockNES that I can find that takes a person to Emulator Enhancer registration, only a button that takes a person to his web site's page that describes Emulator Enhancer.

I bought Emulator Enhancer to use the, now "not supported" emulator RockNES, which crashed all the time on my iMac. I have barely used the software because it didn't come with a serial number (I didn't know there was one until after I e-mail Mr. Bannister quite a long time later) and I spent most of my time on a laptop I got after registering. I don't feel that, given the numerous problems I've had dealing with this software, that I'm going to get 2.0. I built a Windows computer so I could use more reliable and feature-rich emulators that aren't shareware calling themselves freeware, coupled with the truly frustrating experience of dealing with this software. Sorry, Mr. Bannister, but freeware is software that is free, not crippled. And, although I sympathize you any developer about software piracy, the implementation of Emulator Enhancer 1.x has made me more frustrated than anything coming out of Microsoft, and that's quite a thing to say.