Beavis and Butthead?

[ChadTower]

Gimme four, baby.

[Shape D.]

and I'll add this too. heres your two legal sources for games.

www.starroms.com

Ebay


And if you want to do it illegally, although i don't condone it, I'm not going to think any less of you. If you do it illegally and want to whine about it, and whats acessable to you, then you've got some splainin to do.

[MrTroy]

uh? He didn't purchase this stuff to keep it from others. Where the heck did that come from? He paid some serious cash for the Atari stuff. He also pays serious storage fees every month to boot. He brings out all of the prototypes every year to California Extreme. Play it there.

Misinterpritation on my part. And I live on the East coast.

Well.. if someone does get to go to California Extreme can they video tape the game being played or something. I'm curious as to what they actually had at that time.

[ChadTower]

It's probably a side scrolling beat 'em up like every other arcade game of that era.

[link2005a]

Tower, so really who is losing money with this Mame stuff? The original designer? The company that owns it's rights now? Or you who spent money on PCB's when you could have gotten the ROMs for cheap/free?

As for this website that sells ROMs, first time I've ever heard it mentioned, I had no idea about it. I'll have to check that out.

As for why alot of the older ROMs should be cheap? You got it right, supply and demand. If someone had the choice to get a ROM illegally for free or spend $20.00+ for it, they'd choose the illegal way. But, much like MP3's, giving people the option to buy individual songs(ROMs) for a good fair price has allowed both parties to be satisfied. Solving consumers who were afraid to download and allowing record company's to make money on their product (which they obviously should). So you need to look at the market, which does include illegal downloading, and comeup with a price which will be low enough for people to slow their downloading craze and high enough for you to make max profits on it. An optimum price.

You can say downloading is illegal till you're blue in the face. I've never said that it's not, I don't think anyone has said that it's not illegal. But instead of making this a right or wrong argument why not discuss ways to make all parties happy such as legal reasonably priced ROM distributors like this one that was mentioned.

Reason? Because if fair priced ROM dealers like that become the main way for ROM distribution, they'll earn money, the owner of the games rights will for selling the rights to that dealer and I'll get a game for fair money which leaves...you paying more money for PCB's and thus your real point with this whole argument..."what about me?!".

[the3eyedblindman]

You guys are like little girls..Its sad. Just sit here and argue...go do something..stop whining. Read the title of the thread.."Beavis and Butthead", and look what youve turned it into.  Stop arguing and act like men. Im only 16 and it seems like more mature than all of you. 

[Shape D.]

Im only 16 and it seems like more mature than all of you.

Are not.

[ChadTower]

Tower, so really who is losing money with this Mame stuff? The original designer? The company that owns it's rights now? Or you who spent money on PCB's when you could have gotten the ROMs for cheap/free?

It can be said, legally, that every PacMan ROM out there is one less potential buyer for the TV joystick thing that has PacMan on it.  The same can be said legally for every other game on every other one of those built-in units.  The manufacturers of those units are being hurt by the existance and distribution of those ROMs.

As for why alot of the older ROMs should be cheap? You got it right, supply and demand. If someone had the choice to get a ROM illegally for free or spend $20.00+ for it, they'd choose the illegal way.

I would pay the $20 for the ROM.  In fact I have done that, bought PCBs of some games I wanted to play.  When I wanted to play the Neo Geo MVS I bought the motherboard since the bios on it is proprietary, then bought some carts of stuff I wanted to play.  THEN I loaded up an emulator... there are people who do this stuff the right way.  It's much harder and more expensive, yes, but it is the right way.  Maybe you choose the illegal way, I do not.  It is my lament that I seem to be one of the only ones.

[Dav]

I would pay the $20 for the ROM.  In fact I have done that, bought PCBs of some games I wanted to play.  When I wanted to play the Neo Geo MVS I bought the motherboard since the bios on it is proprietary, then bought some carts of stuff I wanted to play.  THEN I loaded up an emulator... there are people who do this stuff the right way.  It's much harder and more expensive, yes, but it is the right way.  Maybe you choose the illegal way, I do not.  It is my lament that I seem to be one of the only ones.

LOL, that's just as illegal.  The only difference between you and the kiddiez playing metal slug 5 is your self-rightous attitude.

[redcoats]

Without reading over this whole thread, I only have one thing to add. Everyone knows arcade games were made with the intent to make money. Mame does not take money out of the creators pockets. I'll explain why: If someone is going to download a rom(which is illegal) to play on their computer which is stealing, they were not going to buy it anyway. I'm not saying it is right, just saying the creators are not losing money because of this. A company can hardly lose money from something that wasn't going to be purchased anyway with the exception of a material item(if you stole them they would lose money). JMO as I said it doesn't make it right but it also isn't taking food out of anyones mouth.

[ChadTower]

I would pay the $20 for the ROM.

[Dav]

Erm, how exactly is that illegal?  I had a legal copy of the BIOS, a legal copy of the game... the only difference is that I didn't dump them myself and that bit of the law is still too grey to know what is what with it.  I did it because it IS legal.
[

There is nothing grey about it, it's perfectly clear.  There is nothing in the current law that allows you to copy a rom that doesn't belong to you.   The roms are copyrighted.  That means you can't download  them. Period.  The fact that you own something similar doesn't mean anything at all.  In the US you are allowed to make a backup copy of  YOUR media but that is it.  You could argue that fair use then makes it legal to use that image you dumped in an emulator, that is a grey area, but if you didn't dump the roms yourself you have no right to have the roms, much less use them in an emulator.



 

[MrTroy]

You guys are like little girls..Its sad. Just sit here and argue

Yes... because only girls debate.   

[link2005a]

It can be said, legally, that every PacMan ROM out there is one less potential buyer for the TV joystick thing that has PacMan on it.

[ChadTower]

Sigh.  Folks aren't getting it.  The MAME ROM is the arcade PCB's ROM.  It is not random alternate ports of the game.

And yes, it's not 100% proper, but it's 99% more proper than 90% of users.

[link2005a]

Sigh.

[Dav]

Callup Namco or whoever owns the rights to Pacman and ask them if they mind you having the ROM for it and explain how you purchased the PCB from some street vendor so it should be okay.

That's pretty funny you should bring that up.  Foley was supplying Pacman with his Ultracade emulator and throwing some used Pacman eproms in the cab to justify it.   Namco put a stop to it.   I guess the Foley comparison was justified.    



 

[ChadTower]

My Pacman TV hookeup game is the same program as the arcade version and is...

That's the mistake.  It is not the same program, not running on the same processor, using the same calls... it's a port.

[link2005a]

My Pacman TV hookeup game is the same program as the arcade version and is...

That's the mistake.

[tommy]

The arcade pacman rom is taken off the original pacman pcb ...as said, whats the confusion on that.

[link2005a]

The arcade pacman rom is taken off the original pacman pcb ...as said, whats the confusion on that.

I believe it's still a copy from something that was never intended to be copied (and from something that is not 100% transferable in it's EXACT form). So really it's different then, PCB does not = ROM. It may be close, but not exact.

[tommy]

Its the same file as the pcb rom, it is the same 99%.

I have the real MK2 pcb and on mame,,, side by side theres no difference, ive ran them at the same time the only difference is one is on a pc lcd screen and one is on the arcade monitor is was meant for.

[Dav]

I have run pacman on mame compared to a pcb and they are different.  That is true for most of the games in mame.  If you know what to look for you can tell the difference.   In the case of Pacman and ms pacman the sprites are off vertically.

[link2005a]

Its the same file as the pcb rom, it is the same 99%.

I have the real MK2 pcb and on mame,,, side by side theres no difference, ive ran them at the same time the only difference is one is on a pc lcd screen and one is on the arcade monitor is was meant for.

Again, 99% is not 100%. Therefore you don't have the EXACT same program either.

[ChadTower]

Right, but what is is following the SPIRIT of the law where it's not possible to follow the LETTER of it.  It's as close as one gets.  I ended up putting the MVS board into a Dynamo cab anyway shortly after since as good as MAME can be, it's not the real thing.

IMO, it really is the spirit of these laws that is important.  I am not as big a hardass on it as I've been saying all along.  My main motivation is trying to get people to respect the IP and the developers/companies more than it is strict adherence to every single bit of every single law.

[link2005a]

Right, but what is is following the SPIRIT of the law where it's not possible to follow the LETTER of it.

[ChadTower]

No, what I was doing was giving an example of how it CAN be done.  Eh, I made my points, I'm going to pass on the rest of this conversation.  Do what you feel appropriate.

[link2005a]

No, what I was doing was giving an example of how it CAN be done.

[tbombaci]

Back on topic:

http://www.atarigames.com/safestuff/bb.htm

[the3eyedblindman]

Now that the children are done bickering and we are back on topic...How cool of a game does that look from those pictures, wish I could get it somehow.

[ChadTower]

Actually, since it runs on a 3Do, it's probably pretty lame.  The 3Do was not very good.

[Dav]

I've played it.  It wasn't good.

Something to remember when you see exetremely rare games like this.  There's a reason why they're rare.    Think about all the really bad games they put out in quantity and somehow they've decided this game is worse.   There are exceptions of course but it's a good rule of thumb.

[ChadTower]

This one probably also had to do with the cost of the license.

[Kremmit]

  .

[tommy]

[MrTroy]

Is that a different Cabinet design or a whole new design?