What are these Game Roms?

FrankFalcon

Hi all

I frequently visit a website that specialises in Hot Deals.  On there the other day there was a gaming console for sale.  There were many comments about how good/bad deal the price and games quality were but the most interesting post was somebody saying 'just buy a hard drive and download ROM's on to it' which reminded me of something I read a couple of years ago.  So, taking into account this comment can somebody please educate me here?  Is it that easy to just get a hard drive and download these games onto it? If so, download the games from where? Is it actually legal? Where/how does one play these games? On a PC? etc

Thanks in advance.

facade

The ROMS are copies of game cartridges or arcade machine romsets.

As the originals are copyrighted. they are illegal to distribute. Morally, they are in a grey area, as it isn't possible to buy new genuine cartridges any more, so using copies isn't depriving anyone of revenue, but upto you.

The ROMs work with emulators that run on your pc, or in the case of the cheap consoles a Raspberry Pi type microcomputer.

They are easy enough to get hold of if you search around.

MAME is a well known PC multimachine emulator.

They are easy enough to set up, then you want a "zero delay USB encoder" kit and make your own arcade joystick and buttons, or use a pre made case.

TBH, if you just want to play a few ancient games, buying one of the Aliexpress 4000 game arcade consoles is a better option.

Neil_Jones

FrankFalcon said:

Hi all

I frequently visit a website that specialises in Hot Deals.  On there the other day there was a gaming console for sale.  There were many comments about how good/bad deal the price and games quality were but the most interesting post was somebody saying 'just buy a hard drive and download ROM's on to it' which reminded me of something I read a couple of years ago.  So, taking into account this comment can somebody please educate me here?  Is it that easy to just get a hard drive and download these games onto it? If so, download the games from where? Is it actually legal? Where/how does one play these games? On a PC? etc

Thanks in advance.

It depends on the console/platform .  Some retro computer manufacturers and have licensed their software ROMs to be included in emulators.  Others haven't.  Amstrad (which made the CPC range and bought out Sinclair which made the ZX Spectrum) are happy.  The Commodore range (including the Amiga) is a bit less clear cut, although since Commodore itself went bankrupt in 1995 anyway and everybody else who has inherited the IP since has gone bankrupt as well, and its all now owned by Acer.

The bigger names though like Sony and Nintendo would have the right to get involved, though whether they would for legacy systems is another thing.

Individual games/ROMs though, technically yes illegal and even if the company has gone under in the meantime doesn't mean the copyright vanishes into a black hole.  It will be owned by somebody, somewhere.  However you're probably more likely to win the lottery than see any comeback from some copyright holder somewhere because you downloaded a game that hasn't been commercially available since 1989...