MAME

MAME is a computer software program for personal computers. The purpose of MAME is to faithfully and precisely emulate as many arcade games as possible, with the intent of preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The name is an acronym for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.

ROM images

Refer to the main article ROM image

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In most arcade machines, the data (consisting of the game program, graphics, sounds, etc.) is stored in read-only memory chips (hence the name "ROM"), although other devices such as cassettes, floppy disks, hard disks, and compact discs are also used. These devices can be read in a process called "dumping" to create computer files containing the same data; these files are often generically called "ROM images" or "ROMs" no matter what kind of device they originally came from. To play a particular game, MAME requires a set of files (called a ROM set) containing all the data from the original machine, however MAME itself does not include any of these files.

Related Topics:
Cassette - Floppy disk - Hard disk - Compact disc

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MAME handles these data files in two ways: CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) files hold the contents of hard disks or compact discs, and all the other types of game data are stored in ZIP archives, one for each game.

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There are three types of ROM sets:

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• Original game ROM sets. These are the games which the MAME development team has decided are the "original" versions of each game. Except for the files contained in BIOS ROMs (if needed; see below), the ROM files for these games contain everything those games need to run. The "original" set is generally defined as the most recent revision of the game, and if multiple regional versions are available, the "World" or US revision.
• Clone ROM sets, which are different versions or variants of the originals (for example, Street Fighter II Turbo is considered a variant of Street Fighter II Champion Edition).
• BIOS ROM sets, which are the ROMs in common between all games on various standardized arcade systems (e.g. Neo-Geo). They basically 'boot' the hardware, then allow the regular game software to take over.

There are a few legal ways of getting these ROMs:

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• If you own the actual arcade game board and an EPROM reader, you can read the ROMs yourself.
• Some companies, such as Capcom and Atari, offer ROMs for sale either separately or included with other products.
• For two ROM sets, Gridlee and Robby Roto, the game's copyright holders have given permission for them to be freely distributed. These are available at the MAME website.
• For one ROM set, the game's copyright has expired or is otherwise nonexistent. This currently only applies to Poly Play, whose copyright was held by VEB Polytechnik Karl-Marx-Stadt. As the former East Germany collapsed, there does not seem to be a copyright holder for this piece of software anymore.. This is also available at the MAME website.

There are numerous questionable ways of getting these ROMs:

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• Downloading from websites; although many sites like mame.dk have stopped offering ROMs, they can still be found.
• Downloading from binaries newsgroups on Usenet.
• Downloading via various peer-to-peer methods such as EMule, BitTorrent, and IRC Fserves.
• By sending the required number of CD-Rs/DVD-Rs to people who will burn and mail these back with the ROMs on, in exchange for shipping costs.

These methods are questionable because they are definitely illegal for games where one doesn't own the original, and their legality is not clear even when one does own the original, at least in the United States - US law allows a backup copy to be made for personal use, but presumes that the user will make this backup themselves. Disc burning services are especially questionable because of the potential argument that their service is commercial in nature; although burning services usually charge only for media and shipping costs, there are in fact a number of pirate merchants illegally offering ROM discs for sale for a profit on eBay and elsewhere.

Related Topics:
United States - EBay

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Since all the ROMs and associated files would fill at least 61 CD-Rs or 10 DVD-Rs, downloading the whole collection is not an option for people with dial-up Internet access, although when the CHD files are omitted the download size is significantly smaller. People with fast, unmetered Internet connections who don't mind leaving the download running for a few days or even weeks can feasibly get the full set via BitTorrent. Although it requires a lot of downloading, people do this for several reasons, ranging from simply wanting to have a full collection (derisively called "PokéROM" by the MAME developers, since their activities resemble the phrase "Gotta catch 'em all!" from the Pokémon television series) to wanting to help preserve arcade history—the more places these ROMs are stored, the less likely it is that they will be lost.

Related Topics:
Dial-up Internet access - Internet - BitTorrent - Pokémon

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