Now that the iPod/iPhone hubbub has settled a bit, and credits can be obtained by those early adopters burned by the recent price drop, we can obsess over other things.

For one, there's al the possibilities a robust OS like OS X offers, even on a “small” platform. Many of these we probably can’t even imagine, and others are simply “ports” of existing software projects to the iPhone. One that is sure to raise a few eyebrows is MAME (or Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator).

The project is over a decade old, dedicated to preserving the original playing experience of old video games (minus the cigarette smoke and people accidentally pressing your “hyperspace” button). It’s legal to own versions of MAME, but not necessarily the individual ROMs of the games (most are still covered by copyright).

If it takes hold on the iPhone, it will bring all these issues back into the spotlight. If nothing else, I hope it helps make the device more palatable as a gaming platform. Maybe then I’ll buy one.

Dan Sicko