ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Video game console emulator

Okay kiddo, so you know how you love playing your video games on your game console like the Xbox or PlayStation, right? Well, an emulator is like a special program on your computer that can make it act like a pretend game console.

So instead of playing games on your actual game console, you can use the emulator to play the same games on your computer! Cool, huh?

But before you can use an emulator, you need something called a ROM. A ROM is like a special file that contains all the information needed for the game to work on the emulator. It's like the game's brain.

So the emulator uses that brain to make the game work on your computer screen, and you can control it by using your keyboard or a special game controller.

It's important to remember that using an emulator and ROMs means you're playing the game on something it wasn't designed for. Sometimes things might not work perfectly and there might be glitches, or the game might not work at all. But it's a fun way to play old video games that you might not be able to find anywhere else, even if it's not exactly the same as playing on a real game console.