Legal Way to Upgrade MAME

rikitheshadow

Active member

Donor 2011
Joined
Mar 19, 2011
Messages
793
Reaction score
36
Got my first clientel asking about adding more games to his MAME cab he bought somewhere. I dont want to touch it if there is no legal method to doing this, but if turns out just that its a mame on a pcb and not a computer......eh I dunno. MAME cabs are done everywhere online, but I imagine them buying licensing rights to sell multicade setups and junk.


Just share with me your insight.......please......i'd hate to drive out there and to have to tell him no.
 
There is no "legal" was to add games to MAME other than the few crappy Exidy games that are available on the MAMEWORLD site.
 
Do you have a Black Market in your town? If not you may need to find one. While you're there, be sure to stock up on meth, aluminum foil, spoons, and needles...
 
Do you have a Black Market in your town? If not you may need to find one. While you're there, be sure to stock up on meth, aluminum foil, spoons, and needles...

Lolz


Anyways I figured this, I just might take a look but I dont think I will touch anything. I would just like to see what this rig looks like and where he got it.
 
There is a chance (however small it may be) that he ended up with an Ultracade or one of the few LEGAL multigames. If that is the case, there ARE upgrade packs available but they are pricey.
 
There is a chance (however small it may be) that he ended up with an Ultracade or one of the few LEGAL multigames. If that is the case, there ARE upgrade packs available but they are pricey.

And possibly sold illegally as well by the former copyright owners in the case of Ultracade.
 
Yes, many of the USB game packs that were sold for the Ultracade did not provide actual royalty payments to the copyright holders. To make matters worse, they charged quite a bit for them as well. I have an Ultracade that I bought brand new and updated it with many expensive packs. I believe most of them to be legit, with the exception of the midway arcade treasures 2 USB update. I really don't understand why people have not taken the Ultracade software package and modified it so that you can add games yourself, as it is a pretty good setup. Some might point to Hyperspin as being Ultracade-like, but it is quite a pain in the ass to setup. Which leads to people selling hard drives (even on here) pre-loaded with Hyperspin and rooms. In fact, this was on here just last week...

Lee
 
" I really don't understand why people have not taken the Ultracade software package and modified it so that you can add games yourself, as it is a pretty good setup."

It's not that easy. No one has done it yet because no one has successfully bypassed the encryption or reverse engineered the file format that Ultracade game packs are compiled into.

I agree with you - the Ultracade is a nice setup.
 
MAME is free legal software, in order to upgrade it all you have to do is download the newest revision! :D

Now if you're wanting to add roms, then the only legal way to do that is if they purchased a licensed copy of the software.
 
MAME is free legal software, in order to upgrade it all you have to do is download the newest revision! :D

Now if you're wanting to add roms, then the only legal way to do that is if they purchased a licensed copy of the software.

That's true, but the OP specifically said that the potential customer wanted more games.

OP - You could sell him a board that already has a ton of games loaded onto it, but you know that's just as legit as DL'ing and putting them on there yourself.
 
Last edited:
I really don't understand why people have not taken the Ultracade software package and modified it so that you can add games yourself, as it is a pretty good setup.

Lee

Probably because it would be much easier to just use a different, free frontend that already accepts ROMs that you can find online or buy.
 
There is no "legal" was to add games to MAME other than the few crappy Exidy games that are available on the MAMEWORLD site.

I must call you out on that. Those Exidy games are far from crappy. Crash is addicting. Rip Cord is good. Teeter Torture is simple but fun. Circus is decent (although hard to play on a keyboard). Robot Bowl is ok for a bowling game (I think it might have been the first video bowling game, can anyone think of an earlier one)? Side Track is ok. Targ, Spectar and Victory aren't bad either. That set of games is WAY better than the 73465289265 fighting games or mindless vertical or horizontal scrolling shooters out there. Plus, besides the Exidy games, Gridlee is cool too! I know Looping has a decent following too (but I don't care for it too much).

See all the legal free ones here: http://mamedev.org/roms/
 
I must call you out on that. Those Exidy games are far from crappy. Crash is addicting. Rip Cord is good. Teeter Torture is simple but fun. Circus is decent (although hard to play on a keyboard). Robot Bowl is ok for a bowling game (I think it might have been the first video bowling game, can anyone think of an earlier one)? Side Track is ok. Targ, Spectar and Victory aren't bad either. That set of games is WAY better than the 73465289265 fighting games or mindless vertical or horizontal scrolling shooters out there. Plus, besides the Exidy games, Gridlee is cool too! I know Looping has a decent following too (but I don't care for it too much).

See all the legal free ones here: http://mamedev.org/roms/


To each his/her own...

...though I think we both agree that he couldn't use those ROMS anyway... unless his MAME cab is set for freeplay.
 
Looping isn't bad, but it's really hard. They brought one out at the annual tournament at Funspot/ACAM this year.
 
he couldn't use those ROMS anyway... unless his MAME cab is set for freeplay.

An interesting question from a legal point of view. So if you set up a MAME machine, only using the legal free game/ROMs (i.e., the Exidy games and a few others), could you put it on location and charge money for it? Hmmm... my guess yes, based on you're charging for the use of the hardware. But then again, I think MAME constantly refers to something like "non-commerical use". Ok, I take it back, maybe it technically wouldn't be legal.
 
An interesting question from a legal point of view. So if you set up a MAME machine, only using the legal free game/ROMs (i.e., the Exidy games and a few others), could you put it on location and charge money for it? Hmmm... my guess yes, based on you're charging for the use of the hardware. But then again, I think MAME constantly refers to something like "non-commerical use". Ok, I take it back, maybe it technically wouldn't be legal.

My understanding is that any use of MAME in any commercial context is forbidden (legitimate ROMS or no). The MAME guys have emulation as a form of preservation as their stated goal, so they've cut off pretty much any money-making use so that no one can say they are in it for the money, and no one can say that they are helping anyone else profit from these emulations either.

That's not to say you can't easily get away with it. The MAME guys probably won't sue you (where are they going to get the money for lawyers?). Which means that as long as you stay out of the ROM owner's line of sight, you can probably get away with it.
 
An interesting question from a legal point of view. So if you set up a MAME machine, only using the legal free game/ROMs (i.e., the Exidy games and a few others), could you put it on location and charge money for it? Hmmm... my guess yes, based on you're charging for the use of the hardware. But then again, I think MAME constantly refers to something like "non-commerical use". Ok, I take it back, maybe it technically wouldn't be legal.

The roms were only released for non-commercial use:

Thanks to the generosity of some of the original creators of the classic games that MAME® can emulate, several games have been released for free, non-commercial use. It is our hope that in the future, we will be able to add more games to this list.
Note: The ROMs on these pages have been approved for free distribution on this site only. Just because they are available here for download does not entitle you to put them on your own site, include them with your own distributions of MAME, or bundle them with your software, cabinet, or other item. To do that, you must obtain permission from the original owners.
 
Charge him $250 (and send $50 my way for the suggestion) and then give him a slip of paper that just says:

GOOGLE MAME ROMS




:D

ken
 
Back
Top Bottom