MAME Arcade Repair

[jwebtx]

I'll dig and see who i ordered my mame roms from. 90% percent work. i changed front end software once for ease and they still worked rather easily.

[Koby01]

Thank you all for the info, truly appreciated.

[Koby01]

4

[KM1174]

Originally Posted by Koby01

Hi, I bought a MAME Arcade machine from Dream Home Arcades with over 20K games on it.
Some of this games don't work, some are duplicated, and some require a complicated way to start the game. I'm looking for someone who can come to my house in San Antonio, TX or take the hard drive and fix all these. Please [mod cut: no personal info. Please contsct per DM] if you know somebody who can help. Thank you!

MAME machines are software piracy, which im sure has no place on this forum. IF you need help with your pirated arcade machine, there are several underground communities that can help you.

Its extremely unlikely you own a physical copy for the 20k games you said were on there...

you DO know that you being in possession of those would constitute felonious theft, right? IANAL but i seriously doubt you have a software license for each of the 20k games on that hard drive.

[KM1174]

Originally Posted by Koby01

I don't know the base system of it, also I totally understand what you are saying about the illegal part of this. What they said is that they don't sell the games, just the system and "help you" downloading the games for you.

It's piracy, either way. Doesn't belong on this forum.

[AFMike]

While you are technically correct the mame community has always waited until games have left the main stream before porting them and they have made no effort to stop or even discourage it. There seem to be an unwritten understanding.

That being said I don't think anyone should be selling the machines with the ROMS...If people are making money then the owners may move to end this practice

Singing happy birthday in public was a copyright infringement until recently...

[bspray]

Originally Posted by KM1174

MAME machines are software piracy, which im sure has no place on this forum. IF you need help with your pirated arcade machine, there are several underground communities that can help you.

Its extremely unlikely you own a physical copy for the 20k games you said were on there...

you DO know that you being in possession of those would constitute felonious theft, right? IANAL but i seriously doubt you have a software license for each of the 20k games on that hard drive.

There is absolutely nothing illegal about a MAME machine, although having ROMs on that machine CAN be illegal. Several thousand ROMs have come into public domain in the last year, meaning they are no longer protected by copyrights.

While I am as sure as you are that quite a few of the 20k ROMs the OP has on his machine are probably not legal, it isn't accurate to say all MAME machines are illegal, nor is it accurate to say all ROMs are pirated.

[KM1174]

Originally Posted by bspray

There is absolutely nothing illegal about a MAME machine, although having ROMs on that machine CAN be illegal. Several thousand ROMs have come into public domain in the last year, meaning they are no longer protected by copyrights.

While I am as sure as you are that quite a few of the 20k ROMs the OP has on his machine are probably not legal, it isn't accurate to say all MAME machines are illegal, nor is it accurate to say all ROMs are pirated.

yep, there's a ton of abandonware / freeware out there, but out of 20k roms on a hard drive someone got from a website, chances are its all licensed stuff that s/he doesnt have a copy of / appropriate licence for.