When Did Emulators Come out?

GenEm, first released in 1996, is the second Genesis emulator released. The DOS version of it was the first emulator to feature (preliminary) sound emulation. Genecyst, first released in 1997 was one of the first widely used Genesis emulators. KGen was the earliest predecessor of Kega Fusion, released around 1997-1998.

What was the first emulator?

The history of Game Boy emulators is a little murky, but the first began to appear around 1996, seven years after the console's release. According to the probably reliable Emulation Wiki, Virtual Game Boy — written by Marat Fayzullin — was the first emulator that could play commercial games, which was a revelation.

Are game emulators illegal?

Emulators are legal to download and use, however, sharing copyrighted ROMs online is illegal. There is no legal precedent for ripping and downloading ROMs for games you own, though an argument could be made for fair use.