To get back at the original post, I can understand perfectly well why people prefer to use emulators. A friend of mine was on a visit last week and showed me Alien Breed 2 on his modern laptop while I was trying to get Interstate 76 to work on one of my retro rigs (and failed 🤣).
Playing old games with help of an emulator or (trying to) play it on the real hardware, it's just a matter of choice to me.
I'm quite happy using an emulator for playing (S)NES games.
The people who play and make it work on the real thing generally like to tinker with (old) computers. Theres a difference in that.
For me, sure I have a lot of junk at home. Sure, I live alone, but I don't mind. I wouldn't even want to live with someone else in 1 house, I want my peace and quiet when I'm at home.
And about the cost of buying parts, sure it may cost a lot, but sometimes you get lucky, just read the "Bought these (retro) hardware today" thread, people still get lucky in these days. Heck, I got 2 486's last year for practically free! All it cost me was some gas for the car and a stack of dead graphics cards and in exchange I got to pull apart 2 486 rigs again and had an exciting afternoon at someone's place I didn't even know, it was interesting for me.
Same with flea markets, I find it fun browsing around other people's junk and when I see something interesting, trying to get some of the price off. I'm not on flea markets "just" for old hardware, but also for the experience itself.
Same goes with building these rigs, it's the experience of actually building one that is part of the fun 😀
I remember having played Unreal on my then main rig (a Celeron 400 with a TNT2 M64) and wondering what glide would look like. So later I simply build myself a glide rig, because I was curious 😀
Sure, having all these parts takes up most of my attic and part of the living room (where I have 3 seats for 3 people playing in a LAN) but that's my choice. I don't really have any other hobbies (got a few sleeping hobbies though) so why not?
I build myself a 486 because I wanted to experience the building process, including all the strange undocumented little problems I ran in to.
Maybe it's just bragging rights? But without the bragging.
And for me, building a 486 won't cost me anything now because I already have all the parts I need, and then some, so why not?
I can always toss or sell it if I ever get sick of it, but my interest in computers is already in it's 10th year and I still find it fun. And as long as I find it fun, I'll probably continue to soldier on like I have (with the difference that I got more organized as the years past by).
And again, I have nothing against people who use an emulator. Why shouldn't they?
Dang, this post got a little longer then I expected 😅