Free Roms For Everyone


jbrodack

gp2x fan
Joined
Dec 22, 2005
Messages
1,034
Age
40
Location
new jersey, USA
Website
jbrodack.googlepages.com
hopefully this won't get deleted just because of the title. anyway I set up a little page with public domain rom packs for some of the systems that the gp2x emulates. the link for it should be in my sig.

let me know if I accidentally include stuff that isn't public domain and I will remove it immediately. while I do download commercial roms that isn't the point of the site and so I would like for it to be completely legal public domain roms.

also let me know if I'm missing any really good public domain games. finding game boy pd roms was easy but finding the good ones out of the huge rom packs out there was difficult. some systems I didin't spend too much time looking for pd roms like the jeff minter packs I made. so if you know of any really good individual roms out there I would appreciate if you could point me too them. finding good pd roms can be hard since i'm sure its hard for an amateur to make anything even playable on some of these systems so a lot are tech demos or just for experience.

last, give me feedback on what you think of the site and the roms I choose. I know the site is simple but I just wanted to provide easy access to public domain roms to give everyone some extra games to play. and for people who won't do anything illegal and who usually wouldn't use emulators I wanted to give them a reason to give some of the emulators a try.
 
it should be completely legal. the author of zero tolerance for genesis gave full permission to distribute the rom files. same goes for all jeff minter games. the rest are pretty much all homebrew game made with the intention to share with people and to be freely distributable.

im pretty sure you were just kidding but wanted to make sure all bases were covered here.

at worst I know most companies don't want unlicensed games being sold for their systems even though I think even that is legal just something companies try to put a stop to.
 
hmmmm nice, thanks (so let me get this straight, these are legal cause their not licensed?)
 
most amiga roms by team17 are public domain and can be downloaded from the fansite...
i was afraid to post (dont know if its already been posted) incase it was against the rules...
 
Be careful about distribution right for some ROMs. Although some companies give permission to freely download some ROMs... Sometimes they have little provisos, like you can only download from their site, etc.
So yeah, be careful on what you mirror and do your homework. :)
 
yep thats what is happening with the team17 stuff, they also have the same old disclaimer...

Amiga emulation is NOT legal if you do not own an Amiga system yourself. However you can buy a legal, fully licensed Amiga emulation package from Cloanto called Amiga Forever. We here at Dream17 fully encourage you to buy this product!
 
thats why most of the roms I included are freeware homebrew. theres some unlicensed unreleased prototypes and games that companies allow to be distributed for free. however, as you said the games that were once commercial usually have stricter rules about distribution so I put more homebrew/shareware stuff that I know that the authors are completely cool with anyone distributing. at most one of them required the read me to be distributed with it.

I noticed llamatron for amiga isn't working for me. if you find games that don't work alert me to it and i'll either try to find a version that works or delete the rom from the zip.

I'm basically trying to provide a scaled down more to the point version of what pdroms.com used to offer.
This is just homebrew you can use for emulators so there shouldn't be anything wrong with me linking to my site from here. I know roms are against the rules but in the context the rule is written I would assume it means illegal commercial roms since the rule is no links to warez/roms.
 
yeah there seems to be a lot of distribution issues with that site. I'm more after stuff thats considered in the public domain and can be distributed freely. homebrew games made by amateurs that is usually the safest to stay completely legal.

do you want a text file in the zip that lists the full names of the roms that are in the the zip file? or do you want it listed on the site?

also I ended up finding a lot of good homebrew game boy and game boy color roms. some of the zips only have a few files but there is a good amount of games in the game boy zip file.
 
well the problem isn't the sites its the authors of the original games. they may have allowed say that world of spectrum site distribute the rom files freely but I would have to contact the owners of the game to do it myself.

perhaps i'll add a links section to my site with sites like that on it.
 
i updated the page with information about what is in the zip files and I started a links page. world of spectrum is the only one on it at the moment. once I get more free time I'll fill up the links page more.

also updated the neo pocket zip with 2 more games one of them being a really good match 3 game.

edit: i'll have to try that gbc Daikatana game out. maybe it will actually be fun.
 
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