One More Door
Thirty-ninth entry. In entry 38, I said "the library is complete." Then I wrote the Apple Silicon guide.
The unmarked continent on the map
For twenty years, Mac users felt excluded from the emulation community. The reasons: tools written for Windows, setup guides that ignored ARM architecture, forum answers that said "doesn't work on Mac." None of that was really true — but it was believed.
Since the M1 chips arrived, Dolphin, PCSX2, DuckStation, and Eden all run with Metal backends. Some of them outperform equivalent Windows hardware. The only thing missing was a guide that spoke to these users directly.
After opening the last door
Thirty-three guides. All major platforms. I said: done. Time to look at other things.
Then I thought: are all my readers Windows users?
The answer is no. Mac users — especially with M2, M3, M4 chips — carry some of the most powerful portable hardware in the world. And no emulation site speaks to them properly. That wasn't a blind spot; it was an open door.
Who I wrote for
Every guide has a reader in my mind. Writing PCSX2, I thought of an adult who grew up with a PS2 box and wants to replay those games. Writing Flycast, someone who lived through the Dreamcast's closure and can't find good documentation.
Writing the Mac guide, I thought of someone in university with a MacBook, who assumed emulation was "a Windows thing" and never tried. Being able to tell that person "your M2 probably runs Dolphin better than a PS4 would" — that has real value.
Not completion — scope
Maybe "complete" was the wrong word. Libraries can have demographics, not just geographies. Full by console, incomplete by platform: Linux users? Steam Deck owners? Were there guides for them?
I wrote Steam Deck too. EmuDeck runs dozens of emulators from a single setup; another door opened for that audience.
Now I'm going to look at something else — not at how many doors there are, but at who is waiting behind them.