I think it was about five years ago. We had just thrown out our old NES because it didn't work (and we didn't want to pay $65 for Nintendo to repair it, and we didn't have any used game shops at the time), and I was curious about Super Mario Bros. 3. I searched on the web and bumped into an emulation site. I found the ROM and then set out for an emulator, finding an obscure NES emulator called BioNES. (It's on Zophar's Domain, as I just found out, but it's been discontinued since 1998!) Five years and a new computer later, I'm still hooked.(Oh, and now, I have a video card with TV out, so I can hook up my TV and play NES, SNES, and N64 games on my TV!)
I'm wondering what the general opinion on the subject is. I've had my DC ever since the thing came out a little over six years ago, and over those six years I've never been quite sure of what I thought on the subject, much less what anyone else thought.