Re: emulators/ROMs... Got introduced to them in August 15, 2001 by my sis who
thought she was getting MIDIs and a player for them. Seriously. Got hooked on
using them since. But most emulators weren't very well optimized back then and
some didn't even play sound very well or at all. My choices for emulators at
that time (2001-2002) were:
GB/GBC: bgb
Genesis: Genecyst, Gens (plays 32X and Sega CD well, missing PSG)
NES: RockNES, fwnes
SNES: SNES9X, ZSNES
PSX: bleem! (awful!), Connectix Video Game Station (demo)
SMS/GG: Meka (DOS)
GBA: Boycott Advance, VisualBoy Advance
CPS1/CPS2: Final Burn Alpha

2005's choices were different:
Genesis: Genecyst was left out for Gens (though will return on older PCs!).
NES and SNES stayed the same for now.
PSX changed to ePSXe.
SMS/GG was somehow changed to Dega.
Boycott Advance is left out, leaving only VisualBoy Advance.
CPS1/CPS2 stayed the same.
then came MAME and The King of Fighters craze (at least, at home). Though it
was 2003 for MAME itself, was re-introduced in 2005.

Then 2008 came along:
Kega Fusion! Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Game Gear, and Sega Master System. Goodbye,
Gens, Dega, Meka!
NES was changed to NEStopia.
SNES had more added: SNESGT.
PSX stayed the same.
CPS1/CPS2 stayed the same.
MAME ROM collection expanded since.

Since I'm primarily a retro gamer, it has not gone past the early 2000s for
games that I play.