Latest Mame For Pandora

[fusion_power]

Yes MAMEdev change the ROMs just for the pleasure of changing them and irate users :lol:

It indeed looks exactly like this!

This is specially true to copy protected roms (like the CPS or NeoGeo), where dumping them is incredibly hard as well as probably expansive (many of these copy protections contains code or data critical to the game in battery powered ram, meaning if you are careless and unplug the battery, good bye cabinet).

It's very interesting, that Arcade-machines have Copy-protection at all, and especialy already ages ago where the Emulation-Scene was nearly non-existant. ^_^ Even today you can't simply go tho the Arcade and plug a USB-Stick into the Machine to read out the ROM :lol:
I think only a hand full of people can and want to make Roms out of Machine-PCB's, not a bad Idea at all because I know many older Arcade-Machines are very rare or entirely vanished from the planet and it is the only way to keep this old Games alive.

 

[juniorm33]

I beleave that's why CPS2(or was it 3) took so long to get emulated was due to how long it took to break the copy protection, not the emulation itself at all

edit or was it model 2, all to long ago when I was into it all haha

 

[ldesnogu]

It's very interesting, that Arcade-machines have Copy-protection at all, and especialy already ages ago where the Emulation-Scene was nearly non-existant. ^_^ Even today you can't simply go tho the Arcade and plug a USB-Stick into the Machine to read out the ROM :lol:
I think only a hand full of people can and want to make Roms out of Machine-PCB's, not a bad Idea at all because I know many older Arcade-Machines are very rare or entirely vanished from the planet and it is the only way to keep this old Games alive.

That has nothing to do with emulation. Arcade games have been pirated since the beginning. How many clones of space invaders and pacman were found in arcades? That's the reason why manufacturers started putting protections very early, or dedicated chips pirates couldn't get. These protections were also put in place so that even when the hardware is 100% identical, one could not swap ROMs and so get a new game.

I don't think arcade makers ever cared about MAME, because MAMEdev are careful not to emulate too recent games, even when they can.

 

[Nat495]

It indeed looks exactly like this!

It's very interesting, that Arcade-machines have Copy-protection at all, and especialy already ages ago where the Emulation-Scene was nearly non-existant. ^_^ Even today you can't simply go tho the Arcade and plug a USB-Stick into the Machine to read out the ROM :lol:
I think only a hand full of people can and want to make Roms out of Machine-PCB's, not a bad Idea at all because I know many older Arcade-Machines are very rare or entirely vanished from the planet and it is the only way to keep this old Games alive.

They also used it to prevent Arcade hacks. For example, Ms. Pac-Man was developed by a few people who wanted to create new maps for Pac-Man and change the sprite. Thus, Ms. Pac-Man was born. They did this for several owners of the Pac-Man cabinets for a relatively small fee. So, the owners got a brand new game rather than having to buy an entirely new cabinet. The only people who weren't happy about this were Namco, the makers of Pac-Man. They threatened the people who made Ms. Pac-Man, gained the rights to it, and they produced their own copies of Ms. Pac-Man. That's just an arcade example that comes to mind. Atari was pretty angry too when Activision formed and made games for the 2600. Ms. Pac-Man became even more popular in the United States than Pac-Man.

 

[fusion_power]

How many clones of space invaders and pacman were found in arcades?

I don't know because here in germany, Arcade-culture was nearly non-existant because of incredible restricted laws, they put the simple "River Raid" onto the Index you can imagine what they have done with other Games.

They also used it to prevent Arcade hacks. For example, Ms. Pac-Man was developed by a few people who wanted to create new maps for Pac-Man and change the sprite. Thus, Ms. Pac-Man was born. They did this for several owners of the Pac-Man cabinets for a relatively small fee. So, the owners got a brand new game rather than having to buy an entirely new cabinet. The only people who weren't happy about this were Namco, the makers of Pac-Man. They threatened the people who made Ms. Pac-Man, gained the rights to it, and they produced their own copies of Ms. Pac-Man. That's just an arcade example that comes to mind. Atari was pretty angry too when Activision formed and made games for the 2600. Ms. Pac-Man became even more popular in the United States than Pac-Man.

Hey, very interesting Story, I didn't know that. If this new Movie about the History of ATARI is a good one, I think this would be a reason to see it. (And because of the cool TETRIS Story of course)
It seems that these hacks were very common in the Arcade Scene. Now I know why these Games have such complicated Copy-Protections even if nobody actualy can put a Cabinet in his pocket and steal the Code.