Welcome to the new Emulation section. This section was created due to multiple requests, and additionally, to help provide a central place here for discussion about emulation and multi game systems.
Emulation has moved far beyond MAME with new ever sophisticated front ends like LaunchBox. Emulation has moved more and more mainstream for many reasons. The Library of Congress issued game modification exemptions. Technology increases and gets cheaper over time. Emulation offerings are now widely and easily found. For example, Archive.org has offered the 'Internet Arcade' utilizing playable versions of countless game roms for more than 4 years. A search just today for 'multi game' on eBay and Amazon both brought numerous results I would not have expected to see just a few years ago. Additionally, multi game systems are routinely found on Craigslist and at various auction houses and retailers.
That said, we fairly conservative in our practices here, and want to continue to balance the needs of not only historians and enthusiasts, but also of game companies and designers. So yes, we may be more conservative than Amazon, eBay, and Archive.org.
Notes:
Several years ago, the Library of Congress created a copyright exemption that allows old games to be modified to be saved and run on other hardware. Please note that this did not create a free license to copy or distribute game code as one may wish.
Specific Forum Section Guidelines
Some links of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware
DMCA Copyright Exemptions:
https://www.engadget.com/2015/10/27/abandonware-dmca-exemption/
DMCA game exemption 2018 battles (re: coverage of online games):
Pro exemption expansion:
https://www.techspot.com/news/72437-renewed-proposal-seeks-dmca-exemption-abandoned-online-games.html
Anti exemption expansion:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/20/esa-dmca-online-gaming-petition/
Enjoy
Emulation has moved far beyond MAME with new ever sophisticated front ends like LaunchBox. Emulation has moved more and more mainstream for many reasons. The Library of Congress issued game modification exemptions. Technology increases and gets cheaper over time. Emulation offerings are now widely and easily found. For example, Archive.org has offered the 'Internet Arcade' utilizing playable versions of countless game roms for more than 4 years. A search just today for 'multi game' on eBay and Amazon both brought numerous results I would not have expected to see just a few years ago. Additionally, multi game systems are routinely found on Craigslist and at various auction houses and retailers.
That said, we fairly conservative in our practices here, and want to continue to balance the needs of not only historians and enthusiasts, but also of game companies and designers. So yes, we may be more conservative than Amazon, eBay, and Archive.org.
Notes:
Several years ago, the Library of Congress created a copyright exemption that allows old games to be modified to be saved and run on other hardware. Please note that this did not create a free license to copy or distribute game code as one may wish.
Specific Forum Section Guidelines
- Please do not upload games, even public domain or abandonware games
- Please do not offer rom collections for sale, nor multi-boards focused on a collection of diversely different games (ie: 128 in 1 boards).
Some links of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware
DMCA Copyright Exemptions:
https://www.engadget.com/2015/10/27/abandonware-dmca-exemption/
DMCA game exemption 2018 battles (re: coverage of online games):
Pro exemption expansion:
https://www.techspot.com/news/72437-renewed-proposal-seeks-dmca-exemption-abandoned-online-games.html
Anti exemption expansion:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/20/esa-dmca-online-gaming-petition/
Enjoy
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