hmm, don’t know if this helps ,but :
What emulators are, and basic use
emulators basically make your pda (or pc etc)think that its a different system (for example your atari 2600),I'm not going to go into the details of how they do it ('cos well basically I dont know),but when you run the emulator , its the equivalent of turning the atari on.The next thing you need to do is put a game in. Usually there'll be an option that says "open file" , or "load rom" etc( a rom is the name given to the game file itself, usually someone has taken a game disk , or tape or cartridge or whatever , and via a connection to a pc, copied the data onto a file called a rom, and then put it on the net".
What you need
So to run the atari emu you'll need to copy the emulator program to your Axim (sometimes you have to run an install file on the PC, sometimes you just copy a file over), and copy the "rom" of the game you want over as well (usually into the "my documents" folder), then run the emu , click open file , then select the game (rom) you want to play ...(a bit like opening an mp3 file in winamp)
Usually there'll be a option called preferences, options ,etc , whcih allows you to set your controls, (some dont though)also there'll usually be an option for graphics (whether you want fullscreen etc), and if you see an option for frameskip, raising the frameskip number will allow you to speed the game up if its running slow(although raising it too high sometimes causes action to become "jerky")
"roms " and bios's
some emulators need you to download extra files to run, some old atari , and c64 emu's need "bios " files ,special files that contain information on the machine(c64 etc) that is being emulated , for copyright reasons you have to download these separately (this is fairly rare though)
oh copyright!! just a warning , as far as most game makers are concerned , even if a game is 10 years old , you still shouldn’t be able to receive it free, so in theory you should only download games you own (its like the situation with mp3's)...this is the reason that "rom" files tend to be hidden away on the net...you can find them..but I cant tell you where...if you want non-copyrighted games try a google search for "homebrew 2600 games"
Recap
download the emulator, download "roms", run emu, set preferences for controls/sound/etc, click "open rom"or similar
select your game..then play .
what and where
From memory , good emu's to try are
pocketnester _emulates the NES ...page is something like
www.jetech.org
cegg- emulates the sega master system and gg
morphgear -(emulates the gg/nes/pce and master sys - I dont rate this emu as I think there are better ones out there for the various systems , but its over at
www.morphgear.com )
castce - emulates the atari st (bit hard to get going if your'e an emu newbie though)
pocket atari (800xl emu...needs bios files though)
YAME - (gb/nes/snes emu -japanese and very hard to find)
pocketc64 - (great c64 emu...costs about €6 ($7)...from
www.clickgamer.com)
pocket genesis (emulates sega megadrive(genesis)..bit slow though)
pocket lynx (emulates the atari lynx ...haven’t got it working myself)
pocket snes(emulates the snes...bit slow again)
there's more out there as well
for any of the ones that I havent listed a webpage for , you can find them at
zophar ..under emu's for pocket pc's at thelower left hand side of the page
and also
at pocketgamers games->emulators page
Hope this helps :)