Video games are the result of countless hours of hard work by diligent and creative programmers. From the point of conception to the final execution of a video game, there are innumerable drafts and tons of code written and rewritten to deliver a finished product to the stores. In most arcade games and classic video game systems, the finished code can be reduced to a single, stable bunch of code, called the game's ROM.

What Are Video Game ROMs?

ROM itself stands for Read-Only Memory. Unlike RAM (Random-Access Memory), ROM consists of permanent, unchangeable data. Video game cartridges and arcade game chips consist of ROM, since it is only necessary for the data to be read, rather than changed. (The exception to this comes when you save a game, in which case you must access a separate RAM memory card or other device.)

On older gaming systems like the Atari 2600, it was necessary to plug a cartridge into the machine in order to play a game. The cartridge had a chip inside it that contained the game's ROM. The ROM would be read by the console where it would interact with the joystick or paddle, and the entire outcome would be visible on your television set.

Arcade games, too, run off of video game ROMs. Like the home game console, the ROMs contain the "meat" of the game. Different items interact with user input (like a joystick control or a "fire" button) and the output is displayed on the built-in video screen.

ROM, If You Want To

Fans of classic video games may be surprised to learn that they can easily download and play some of their favorite old video game ROMs right on their own home computers. The ROMs themselves are raw code and thus can't be read directly by regular computers. However, with the aid of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) software, the video game ROMs can be translated into a format usable by most major operating systems.

Here's how it works. First, you must find and download the proper version of MAME for your operating system. There are versions of MAME available for Windows (MAME32), Macintosh OS (MacMAME), Linux and other Unix-based operating systems (XMAME), as well as several others.

Once you have your emulator software installed, it's time to start searching for ROMs. There are many places on the Web to find video game ROMs, including video game library sites. These are companies that have made agreements with video game creators and distributors to legally license their video game ROMs for use with MAMEs. The user will often have to pay a small, negligible fee to use the software legally.

ROMs and Legality

Let me offer a word of caution about downloading ROMs from the Internet. There are sites from which you can download free video game ROMs that will run in MAME applications. Because they are free, however, there is a strong chance that they are pirated. Pirated ROMs are dangerous both to the video game creators and to the users. Video game developers lose royalties every time a pirated, unlicensed ROM is downloaded. Users run the risk of downloading a corrupt or, even worse, an infected ROM. ROMs should only be legally licensed from an acceptable source.