> > Did he really make this driver? It's been a while since he's done some Mame related > > work. > > Maybe it's been on the backburner for sometime.
The driver is probably from 10+ years ago, from when Aaron was actually active, just modernized by Phil for submission.
While on one hand I'm happy to see this finally included, on the other hand I just feel 'meh' because at this point it's been hoarded for so long that the politics of the situation have just slowly made it uninteresting and sapped all enjoyment from it; we've had to answer so many 'why isn't it in MAME?' questions over the years where the answer was purely silly games that I literally stopped caring.
I guess the only big positive here is that it must signal some kind of change of heart from those who have been hoarding these things.
There are several drivers I've authored for various people (including one co-authored by Phil) that are in similar positions, and at this point I feel equally 'meh' about and probably won't even bother to do coverage of if they do ever get added.
> Where does it say this dump came from the person(s) that were witholding it? It could > be a 2nd source, or the PCB was sold and dumped by someone else.
I guess I'm being optimistic and trying to actually think good of people instead, believe as they get older that they can realise former behaviours weren't really beneficial and thus change their way of thinking. (Shocking I know, but I do that sometimes, maybe only at the wrong times tho? that does seem to generally be the case in the rest of my life)
> > those that are age 50 and over. > Basically 99,9% of the MAME involved...
I'm 'only' 37
At least some of this Plug and Play work seems to creating some interest amongst younger age groups tho.
Unfortunately however a lot of people who grew up with them probably didn't develop a great deal of interest in programming in the same way that most of the existing devs did; we were growing up with home computers, learning the ropes that way, and thus became very interested in things from a hardware point of view. As a result I'm not sure it will actually result in an influx of younger developers.
While things like the Pi were meant to bring back that culture, I've seen little evidence of it. There are no shops full of original games to plug into your Pi etc. and I've only seen guides that don't really provide any understanding, just things like how to install emulators without providing real transferable knowledge. They seem to be appealing more to the crowd that think they're hackers and computer experts because they can install a mod chip on a console and run some hacked software in order to sell them on at a profit. The kind of people who compile MAME, but only to apply patches we'd rather weren't applied rather than contribute.
This came from an anonymous dumper, I don't have whatever safe stuff hoarded dumps from 10 years ago or whatever. If you have them feel free to email them to me and I'll release the shit out of them all immediately.
> This came from an anonymous dumper, I don't have whatever safe stuff hoarded dumps > from 10 years ago or whatever. If you have them feel free to email them to me and > I'll release the shit out of them all immediately.
Ah, that's a shame then, I guess my optimism was once again misplaced.
Of course, it's nice that somebody else did dump it, and that it hasn't cost a fortune in fundraisers to rebuy something that was already dumped, so I can still take those as positives instead.
Heh. Exactly. I can envision anyone over that age and attending the CAX show probably avoid that video game for 'internal organ' reasons and walk over to a different cab and play a round of Pac Man or Donkey Kong instead.
There were only 3 machines were ever built. All are in high-end collections. One collector had a tech come and work on some of his games. The unscrupulous tech copied the ROMS without permission- The game was not broken and not one he was supposed to "fix". The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can catch him in the act.
This is the first time that someone has actually had the balls to steal ROMS from a collector.
> There were only 3 machines were ever built. All are in high-end collections. One > collector had a tech come and work on some of his games. The unscrupulous tech copied > the ROMS without permission- The game was not broken and not one he was supposed to > "fix". The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > catch him in the act. > > This is the first time that someone has actually had the balls to steal ROMS from a > collector.
> > The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > > catch him in the act. > > What exactly, I wonder, could be done about it?
In this case (unlike a previous one) it wasn't 'stolen' from an active company employee, so I'm guessing not much, since the owner of the unit isn't the copyright owner / associated with the copyright holder in the first place and nothing was actually stolen.
It would be up to Atari to enforce this if that is even possible (weren't these things considered tax write-offs? with the current Atari being an entirely different company anyway?)
If something was damaged in the process the collector could probably explore that avenue tho.
But no, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and frankly this case is far less serious. In a previous case I was even asked to volunteer email / any logged private conversations between me and a third party for part of an investigation into what happened (although I had nothing to forward since that side of things had nothing to do with me and I hadn't been in contact with said person for well over 5 years)
> There were only 3 machines were ever built. All are in high-end collections. One > collector had a tech come and work on some of his games. The unscrupulous tech copied > the ROMS without permission- The game was not broken and not one he was supposed to > "fix". The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > catch him in the act. > > This is the first time that someone has actually had the balls to steal ROMS from a > collector.
The heist of the century which will surely put all others in the shade!!!
> > > The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > > > catch him in the act. > > > > What exactly, I wonder, could be done about it? > > In this case (unlike a previous one) it wasn't 'stolen' from an active company > employee, so I'm guessing not much, since the owner of the unit isn't the copyright > owner / associated with the copyright holder in the first place and nothing was > actually stolen. > > It would be up to Atari to enforce this if that is even possible (weren't these > things considered tax write-offs? with the current Atari being an entirely different > company anyway?) > > If something was damaged in the process the collector could probably explore that > avenue tho. > > But no, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and frankly this > case is far less serious. In a previous case I was even asked to volunteer email / > any logged private conversations between me and a third party for part of an > investigation into what happened (although I had nothing to forward since that side > of things had nothing to do with me and I hadn't been in contact with said person for > well over 5 years)
If - and this is a very big if - the owner of the cab actually owned the rights to the game AND the code then yes, he could potentially file charges against the alleged thief.
That said, depending on the country, he might still have the option of a civil lawsuit - if he can prove that copying the game made the value of his cab go down. (And once this shows up on MAME cabs, or asshats start selling "repro" boards on eBay, then that could happen.)
Wouldn't you have to have an example of the game selling, sort of how you have to have to prove to the post office a value when they lose something to get an insurance payment? And an after the fact sale to show a new lower price. And even the sale of 2 boards probably isn't enough to set a proof/standard I would guess.
> Wouldn't you have to have an example of the game selling, sort of how you have to > have to prove to the post office a value when they lose something to get an insurance > payment? And an after the fact sale to show a new lower price. And even the sale of 2 > boards probably isn't enough to set a proof/standard I would guess.
And prove Atari wasn't going to do something to surface the data next month?
No, I'm pretty confident that the copyright holder is the only one who would have standing to take any action here.
> > Where does it say this dump came from the person(s) that were witholding it? It > could > > be a 2nd source, or the PCB was sold and dumped by someone else. > > I guess I'm being optimistic and trying to actually think good of people instead, > believe as they get older that they can realise former behaviours weren't really > beneficial and thus change their way of thinking. (Shocking I know, but I do that > sometimes, maybe only at the wrong times tho? that does seem to generally be the case > in the rest of my life)
Lets hope the change of good will is for the sakes of future game preservation for all to be enjoyed.
I hope the generous person who has donated the roms has other unreleased roms to donate in the future for all to be enjoyed / preserved for future generations.
I hope that in my time left on the earth that games like marbke man will be one day playable.
Just to get it out in front, I'm not a big fan of Scott over here. Granted, he may at one point have (grudgingly) worked with certain members of the MAME team, and that's great. In the meantime, he seems to have done everything in his power to burn any accrued goodwill through actions like taking advantage of being on the MAMEdev mailing list (circa 2009) in order to outbid the rest of the team so as to ensure that the Vidkidz development systems would never, ever be dumped and preserved. It's pretty clear at this point that his value system is based on how many unique trinkets he acquires before he croaks, rather than any good works that will live on after he does, paying lip service to preservation from time to time by graciously sharing parts of his hoard with ostensible museums that care more about the value of selling tickets than any historical value. Not content to sit on his hoard, he now only pops up to drop drama bombs here and there, and to saw on the world's smallest violin about how very magnanimous he is to slum it with the folks at CAX with his precious Atari games. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, he seems to see preservation as some sort of dodge, or hustle.
In addition, I take issue with his characterization of this situation as "stealing". If this alleged malicious repairman literally absconded with the ROM chips themselves off the board, leaving a non-functional machine behind, then yeah, maybe I'd be inclined to agree. But what he alleges is simply by definition not theft in the eyes of the law, as there is no deprivation of goods. Last I checked, a person's ego isn't a tangible good.
Having said all that, none of this changes the fact that if what he alleges is true, the collector who was allegedly bilked has every right to be absolutely furious. A person's private goods, acquired through private transactions, are sacrosanct.
We can sit here and dither about moral imperatives as they pertain to preserving history, but at the end of the day these collectors either need to come around to the Kindergarten-level concept of sharing on their own, or they need to be left well alone. Forcing their hand, so to speak, is an incredibly bad look.
This isn't a fucking Indiana Jones movie. This alleged malicious repairman isn't Henry Fucking Jones Junior, swinging in on his whip to rescue the Ark of the Fucking Covenant from the clutches of evil. He's an asshole, and one that I'd be perfectly alright seeing thrown under what little legal bus there is to be thrown under. If we accept that what this alleged guy allegedly did is acceptable, what then? Why don't we just form a real Tear Gas Dumping Squad and start breaking into peoples' houses to wreck up the place? Shit, let's hire some black-hats to penetrate companies' networks to get all their data, if nobody cares about doing the right thing anymore. Where does it end?
At this point there's very little point in closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. With the whole SegaSonic Bros. fiasco, we've seen what happens when someone either erroneously or maliciously obfuscates the provenance of a ROM set in order to get it into MAME: Inevitably, bad actors make copies of the ROM set within seconds, and even if we pull support for it from MAME, the ROM set and associated driver code will forever be indelibly flung across the Internet.
This needs to stop happening. It's just not fucking right.
Spot on, Moogly! Thanks for saving me the time and effort of having to write the comment that I was contemplating to make some of the same points, but not as cogently. ;-)
> > > Where does it say this dump came from the person(s) that were witholding it? It > > could > > > be a 2nd source, or the PCB was sold and dumped by someone else. > > > > I guess I'm being optimistic and trying to actually think good of people instead, > > believe as they get older that they can realise former behaviours weren't really > > beneficial and thus change their way of thinking. (Shocking I know, but I do that > > sometimes, maybe only at the wrong times tho? that does seem to generally be the > case > > in the rest of my life) > > Lets hope the change of good will is for the sakes of future game preservation for > all to be enjoyed. >
Unfortunately there has been no change of heart. Just the same egos as before with additional drama.
There are literally zero positives to this aside from the game now being emulated.
.. and people wonder why I'm really not doing arcade stuff in MAME anymore?
We're dealing with games of no commercial value, games that were deemed not good enough to even see release, at best, historical artefacts of failed development, and yet dick waving and drama surrounds them at every turn. I really thought that as human beings we were better than that. It's basically school playground mentality and at this point I really couldn't care less if these guys get buried with their collections, that's how much they're already devalued to me.
It means that versions carrying the "Target Outpost" and "The Sentinel" titles aren't dumped. I don't know if there is any evidence of them even still existing at this point tho, it's just development trivia.
> There are literally zero positives to this aside from the game now being emulated.
So then it's identical to every other game that has ever been emulated in the past 25 years. Who cares if someone posts a drama post? That shit still gets to you?
> > There are literally zero positives to this aside from the game now being emulated. > > So then it's identical to every other game that has ever been emulated in the past 25 > years. Who cares if someone posts a drama post? That shit still gets to you?
As I said, I live in hope that people improve, especially in cases like this where the only reason not to is basically just greed to the detriment of a more valuable long term cause.
It's simply disappointing that it's the same shit as ever with a sprinkle extra on top. I was optimistic that some might have seen the light and changed their behaviour to be more beneficial to everybody, but nope.
I'm happy enough basically not doing any arcade work lately, it's much more fun to see what trash / treasure we can dig up elsewhere.
> > > > Where does it say this dump came from the person(s) that were witholding it? It > > > could > > > > be a 2nd source, or the PCB was sold and dumped by someone else. > > > > > > I guess I'm being optimistic and trying to actually think good of people instead, > > > believe as they get older that they can realise former behaviours weren't really > > > beneficial and thus change their way of thinking. (Shocking I know, but I do that > > > sometimes, maybe only at the wrong times tho? that does seem to generally be the > > case > > > in the rest of my life) > > > > Lets hope the change of good will is for the sakes of future game preservation for > > all to be enjoyed. > > > > Unfortunately there has been no change of heart. Just the same egos as before with > additional drama. > > There are literally zero positives to this aside from the game now being emulated. > > .. and people wonder why I'm really not doing arcade stuff in MAME anymore? > > We're dealing with games of no commercial value, games that were deemed not good > enough to even see release, at best, historical artefacts of failed development, and > yet dick waving and drama surrounds them at every turn. I really thought that as > human beings we were better than that. It's basically school playground mentality and > at this point I really couldn't care less if these guys get buried with their > collections, that's how much they're already devalued to me.
but nobody doing any active arcade stuff in Mame expect you ,what pity...
Well written, but how is this event fundamentally breaching the MAME team's self-defined morals, which have disregarded (or sidestepped around) the holy principle of private (intellectual) property for the last 25 years ?
I mean you could have written mostly the same slippery-slope tirade the first day a copyright holder sent in a C&D. And IMHO 1995 Namco had a better point, at least from the legal POV, as the "actual creator" of the product.
MAME, like other emulators, comes from the hacking / reverse-engineering culture, which has always been willing to bend the rules a bit to pursue art, experiments, research... it's just that most people tend to grow more right-wing as we get older and richer
That collector has the right to be furious because we're all entitled to our opinions and feelings, I'm mostly amused because there's been no harm except from the sudden loss in value of his collection, but this is what happens when you speculate, sometimes unexpected things happen and your little gamble bites you in the ass. Especially when you "invest" in immaterial stuff. "High-end collectors" should still value the real machine, right ?
When it comes to MAME's reputation, I don't think there's anyone in the universe still undecided about whether or not they support the project, so I don't think it changes anything.
> Well written, but how is this event fundamentally breaching the MAME team's > self-defined morals, which have disregarded (or sidestepped around) the holy > principle of private (intellectual) property for the last 25 years ?
Ah yes, those dastardly MAME devs, developing an emulator, which has been proven time and time again in actual court cases to be legal, and leaving it up to users and other people to actually track down ROM sets. Let me go grab my pitchfork.
> I mean you could have written mostly the same slippery-slope tirade the first day a > copyright holder sent in a C&D.
Which no copyright holder has ever done. To date, the extent of any demands by copyright holders that have been leveled at the MAME team were a courteous request to not support certain games by HanaHo (which, to my knowledge, we still don't), and a request from Cave to not support certain newer titles of theirs, which we dutifully adhered to until they went belly-up.
> And IMHO 1995 Namco had a better point, at least from > the legal POV, as the "actual creator" of the product.
I guess you'll have to be more specific as to what court case you're referring to, because a quick search for cases involving Namco in 1995 didn't turn up a whole lot, except for a patent involving hot-joining linked arcade cabinets for a multiplayer game.
> MAME, like other emulators, comes from the hacking / reverse-engineering culture, > which has always been willing to bend the rules a bit to pursue art, experiments, > research... it's just that most people tend to grow more right-wing as we get older > and richer
Sure, if you totally ignore the case law, as well as specific DMCA exemptions, that have established that copying a copyrighted work is perfectly fine if it's for the purposes of reverse-engineering and interoperability. Distributing those copyrighted works, not so much, but the MAME team does not and has not ever done that.
> That collector has the right to be furious because we're all entitled to our opinions > and feelings, I'm mostly amused because there's been no harm except from the sudden > loss in value of his collection, but this is what happens when you speculate, > sometimes unexpected things happen and your little gamble bites you in the ass. > Especially when you "invest" in immaterial stuff. "High-end collectors" should still > value the real machine, right ?
One would hope so, but at this point, one of these "collectors" selling an Akka Arrh machine between to another is about as likely as sunshine and rainbows flying out of my asshole. I'd bet dollars to donuts that for these kinds of people, it's not about any monetary value in the first place. It's about ego and bragging rights, having something that nobody else has, or at least what anyone outside of one's own insular little enclave doesn't have. From my perspective, it's kind of shitty, but that is ultimately their god-given right to be that way.
You seem to be overly focused on this whole copyright thing, so let's take that entirely out of the equation.
In one scenario, I have some floppy disks for my Commodore 64, containing some one-of-a-kind public domain software that I downloaded from a BBS back in the day. Turns out I'm the only one who has a remaining copy of that software. I wire up a 1541 drive to my PC, image them, and share them with the world, as is my right to do. Great, all is well.
Now in an alternate scenario, I have this same public domain software, but for whatever reason, I decide that I like being the only person with a copy of that public domain software, and don't feel inclined to share it - as is my right to do as well. Let's say my broadband modem stops working at some point. I phone up my ISP, and unlike any ISP in the history of ever, they send out a tech to fix it. "Have no fear," says the tech, "you go get some lunch, and I'll have this baby fixed up in no time." While I'm off having lunch, this guy fixes up my modem, but also decides to take it upon himself to image those same floppies, and shares the contents with the world. That's shitty. That is a violation of the established trust with a person who I allowed into my proverbial castle to perform a service.
If what Scott alleges is true, then that alleged repair dude is equally shitty. Not for copyright infringement, but for violating that trust.
There's also the fact that said tech (assuming it's true) might have damaged the game, perhaps even in a way that's irreparable since they're so rare like inadvertently killing a custom chip or undumped PAL. Now granted in the hands of an expert those chances are very very small, but still that's a risk he had absolutely no right to take unauthorized with someone else's property. Personally I'd feel like the world's biggest asshole taking that kind of gamble with someone else's property behind their backs and wouldn't be able to live with myself if I screwed it up.
I'm not trying to judge one way or another, and not taking it very seriously either, that was just me trying to make sense of the situation from a moral (not legal) standpoint.
Since I'm not a native english speaker, and taking into account the limitations of written communication over a web forum, my post seems to have given the wrong impression.
- I fully support MAME's position (evolving over the years), realizing it's a delicate balancing act. The project has managed to stay legal and keep the "moral high ground" as well as relative goodwill from industry actors.
- I'm not basing my remarks on any existing legal action (best I can remember is Sony vs. Bleem, and IIRC it created a relatively favorable precedent for emulation under the DMCA). Like in today's situation, game companies can be as furious as they'd like, they would have little to no legal ground to stand on. Litigation would cost more than any impact to their bottom line, AFAIK only Nintendo has a different opinion / strategy.
So once again, I'm not debating legality, DMCA arrived after MAME had already matured quite a bit, and the project has always survived and stayed legal through the efforts of the team and other actors like the EFF.
That said, I'm pretty sure various IP holders would think the project is morally "shitty" as you say, and that industry inside information has been leaked many times to enable MAME progress (I'm not going to try and prove this as this would harm the project).
The "breach of trust" is an individual, personal decision from the employees, or technicians, who believe the interests of the other party to be less important than the "common good" of preservation, and they sometimes sacrifice their own employability or reputation for that goal (think whistleblowing).
With this point of view, I have the exact same analysis of your alternate scenario. You do have the right to keep your software to yourself (but in my completely subjective opinion, your claim to ownership is morally quite weak since the actual creator released it under public domain). The tech who "pirated" it (piracy vs stealing being an endless debate I never settled for myself, but then again, the software is PD) is jeopardizing your contract with the ISP, their job, but legally, possibly something like "unauthorized entry into a computer system" - IANAL but how ridiculous would this look in court, compared to the "damage" at stake?
Like Shkreli back then with his Wu-Tang album, or art collectors, the hoarding of cultural products for speculation is a very volatile game and in the end I won't be crying much over the loss of potential profit. Comparatively, over the years I've been more conflicted over game companies losing profit to emulation, even though we all want to think it didn't happen. Balance is now being somewhat restored with all the current retro products using the work of MAME and others to fructify their IP (if somewhat badly).
> There's also the fact that said tech (assuming it's true) might have damaged the > game, perhaps even in a way that's irreparable since they're so rare like > inadvertently killing a custom chip or undumped PAL. Now granted in the hands of an > expert those chances are very very small, but still that's a risk he had absolutely > no right to take unauthorized with someone else's property. Personally I'd feel like > the world's biggest asshole taking that kind of gamble with someone else's property > behind their backs and wouldn't be able to live with myself if I screwed it up.
It's a whole chain of shitty things to do.
There collectors themselves are taking risks with things they didn't originally create too.
Some have better solutions to mitigate the risk than others, but there have been a few cases where for example, the collectors *think* they have things backed up, only to not actually have a good dump, or to have not read out a critical component because they didn't realise it could be read, or for their backup, which hadn't been checked in years, to have failed in the meantime (CDRs go bad, HDDs go bad, email accounts purge emails etc.)
If it wasn't for the shitty behaviour in the first place, this subsequent shitty behaviour wouldn't have occurred; I dare say the person doing it might have felt they were doing the only thing possible to liberate a collector from a non-beneficial agreement if these stories about the collectors promising other people they won't distribute things (and therefore having their hands tied) are to be believed. The data being 'stolen' absolves them of any responsibility after all.
I'm assuming these weren't sold on ebay for profit, but instead handed over anonymously for free, meaning profit wasn't the motive, so IMHO the guy who did it had probably heard those stories about tied hands and thought he was actually doing the collector a favor.
But yeah, it's just all one long chain of shitty behaviour and unnecessary risks, people giving value to things which really have no value and as a direct result of that, people trying to help in the only way they see possible. All of this, every single risk, could have been easily avoided.
Worse used to happen back in the day at trade shows etc. where ROMs were dumped from the prototypes back then, and ended up on the market before the official game even hit; you can read stories all about how that happened with Defender and the like. That was actually a legitimate problem, with potentially huge losses, this is a storm in one person's teacup.
This has been quite a ride. Bless this mess. I would like to do some arcade progress but I need to properly configure my local mame files and git fork. I'm having some rl problems too.
Not dumping the roms would put the board at much higher risk going forward than the little tiny risk you have with removing socketed roms. All the roms are way past their lifespan for holding data. It's amazing that the data can still be extracted if the roms are original. A miracle. The first thing any sane tech would do is dump the roms.
It's amazing to me that people think they own the data on these, like own the copyright. Haha.
> There were only 3 machines were ever built. All are in high-end collections. One > collector had a tech come and work on some of his games. The unscrupulous tech copied > the ROMS without permission- The game was not broken and not one he was supposed to > "fix". The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > catch him in the act. > > This is the first time that someone has actually had the balls to steal ROMS from a > collector.
Is this the real AtariScott or, is this a troll trying to stir up trouble by making the stealing allegations?
Been following the mame scene since late 1997. It is always great to see a new game (proto or not) preserved. For about the last decade, I have been more intrigued by the background on how the proto was dumped/released than I am about actually playing the proto.
The background of the dump/release usually has one of the following narratives:
(1) the feel good story of an undiscovered gem, something like Soultime finding a long lost Jap prototype collecting dust in a warehouse; or
(2) some controversial claims of why the dump should have never been released in the first place.
In either story above, people get to play and enjoy the games for decades to come so it is great for the community. However, the controversial scenario, like we have here, is far more entertaining to read the background. We have these forums but someone should put together the controversial background on a Wiki so that is preserved as well in case these forums disappear someday. Just a thought.
> > Is this the real AtariScott or, is this a troll trying to stir up trouble by making > > the stealing allegations? > > > IP address seems to match his neck of the woods.
For an account registered in 2005 it would have to be a very long con for it to not be him.
> > I mean you could have written mostly the same slippery-slope tirade the first day a > > copyright holder sent in a C&D. > > Which no copyright holder has ever done.
Oh really? Ever try to distribute (free or not) any Gottlieb ROMs (especially the pinball ROMs)? Ever try to distribute (again, even free), PDF copies of any Gottlieb manuals?
And why have several ROM web sites gone away in the past couple of years? It wasn't because the owner of the web site retired or just lost interest. It was because Namco or Nintendo (I don't remember which or it might have been another company all together), started threatening them.
I know for a fact that the Gottlieb copyright holder sends C&D letters. And just from what I've read, the ROM web site owners got something even stronger than a C&D letter. Enough so that even ROM sites that hadn't received such a letter yet closed up shop.
Settle down, Joe. It's obvious I was referring to the MAME team, specifically, having never been sent a C&D, because that's the only topic that was relevant to the discussion at hand.
> > > I mean you could have written mostly the same slippery-slope tirade the first day a > > > copyright holder sent in a C&D. > > > > Which no copyright holder has ever done. > > Oh really? Ever try to distribute (free or not) any Gottlieb ROMs (especially the > pinball ROMs)? Ever try to distribute (again, even free), PDF copies of any Gottlieb > manuals?
You're conflating developing/distributing an emulator (original work) and ROM definitions (facts) with distributing ROMs and manuals (copyrighted material). They aren't the same thing at all.
> And why have several ROM web sites gone away in the past couple of years? It wasn't > because the owner of the web site retired or just lost interest. It was because Namco > or Nintendo (I don't remember which or it might have been another company all > together), started threatening them.
Namco went after the people importing and distributing X-in-1 bootleg arcade boards in the US. This is commercial-scale copyright infringement. It qualifies as felony copyright infringement, so it's a criminal (rather than civil) matter.
Nintendo specifically went after a site that was offering a paid in-browser emulation experience including ROMs, and using Nintendo characters (including Mario and Donkey Kong) in their marketing material. This is copyright infringement and trademark violation. The trademark violation alone would've been easy to prosecute - using unlicensed trademarked characters to sell something is clear-cut. Nintendo has successfully gone after other individuals/groups for using characters from the Pokémon and Mario franchises to promote products/services.
The other site Nintendo went after recently was a site distributing ripped Pokémon assets in a form designed to be used with a specific role-play game engine. Nintendo still develops Pokémon RPGs, so having fan-made RPGs using their characters and assets dilutes the brand. Note that they didn't go after community sites like Bulbapedia or Bulbagarden which also host ripped assets. Bulbapedia in particular has ripped sprites of every Pokémon from every RPG. Nintendo didn't go after these sites because they're not directly diluting the brand.
> I know for a fact that the Gottlieb copyright holder sends C&D letters. And just from > what I've read, the ROM web site owners got something even stronger than a C&D > letter. Enough so that even ROM sites that hadn't received such a letter yet closed > up shop.
What's "something even stronger than a C&D" supposed to mean? There's a polite requests, a DMCA takedown (demanding that a site remove material), a C&D (more general, usually an explicit or implied threat of legal action), there's a civil filing ("suing"), and there's criminal prosecution.
I really doubt criminal prosecution happened, because the copyright holder would have to show that it's a criminal matter, and the charges would have to be brought by a DA/crown prosecutor/etc. (and possibly have to pass a grand jury/magistrate/etc. before that). You'd definitely be hearing about it if this happened, as we did in the Namco case.
Did the copyright holder actually file civil action? This can end in three ways: plaintiff dropping the case, formal out-of-court-settlement, or a judgement in a court of law. It's expensive to file, so they're not going to just file and drop civil action as a show of force to scare two-bit website operators. It gets very expensive very quickly.
Nothing short of civil action is "stronger than a C&D". But none of this is relevant - distributing copyrighted materials and distributing an emulator are two very different things.
Does the driver in its current state include hookups for the lights that blink through the bezel?
If not, is that something that needs to be understood better to implement. Its not random flashing, the lights are tied to activities on screen. Do we need more video of game play to see how this works?
> Does the driver in its current state include hookups for the lights that blink > through the bezel? > > If not, is that something that needs to be understood better to implement. > Its not random flashing, the lights are tied to activities on screen. > Do we need more video of game play to see how this works?
AFAIK they are hooked up as generic lights with no graphics as an alternate Video Option. I'd presume if they are more than random, they would just 'work' as expected. Looking at current, it does seem to be some repeating pattern at least.
> Did he really make this driver? It's been a while since he's done some Mame related > work.
Leave it to Hydro to blow right on through the first rule of MAME: if something unusual happens, for fucks sake don't call attention to it on a message board or it'll probably get pulled right back out when the legally appropriate people find out.
> And now there is a Rerez "Hot Take" on this too.
I think somebody is going around drumming up publicity for this, because it's literally one of the least interesting things to happen in the last 5 or 6 years, there's practically no reason to be giving it coverage. Most of the places covering it act like MAME hasn't really done anything for the last 15 tho.
The cynical side of me says that some people probably just want their name in active news coverage, there no such thing as bad publicity etc.
There always seems to be more going on in your head than reality. I've never talked with ars technica or these youtubers, not sure who else you could be talking about other than Scott as far as wanting their name on news. My brother who lives across the country and doesnt follow emulation texted me the link to the article. I laughed my ass off. Just wrote "get ars technica to cuss" on my bucket list and immediately crossed it off. Anyway you're dead wrong about it being the least interesting whatever. What are you pissed off that it got added? Why the negativity. You know mamedevs never get the full credit that they deserve. Why after 20 years you're still moping around about it is beyond me.
The publicity sadly hasn't done any good, haven't gotten a single donation since the announcement.
> There always seems to be more going on in your head than reality. I've never talked > with ars technica or these youtubers, not sure who else you could be talking about > other than Scott as far as wanting their name on news.
Well I wouldn't rule it out, he did come here to post the story.
But yes, I often struggle to see why people get hyped over things that really aren't that interesting.
I also struggle to understand why I've got RB accusing me being responsible for these things getting coverage.
>My brother who lives across > the country and doesnt follow emulation texted me the link to the article. I laughed > my ass off. Just wrote "get ars technica to cuss" on my bucket list and immediately > crossed it off.
> Anyway you're dead wrong about it being the least interesting > whatever. What are you pissed off that it got added? Why the negativity.
Well even Vas has said it's not worth the hype. The roms were dumped from a piece of stolen property, with owner of said property coming up with some sob story about the roms being 'stolen' from them. That's pretty much your story in a nutshell.
Compared to a lot of what has been going on, the dumping of it is completely irrelevant on a technical level, and it's not even a game anybody is going to remember because it never made it to market.
Nice, it's preserved, great, but even in terms of rare things being preserved it only get attention because one person has spent years waving it in our faces. Plenty of other things that have been emulated are likely just as rare, if not rarer. It doesn't need tech site articles about it, streams about it etc. so that it's getting them seems entirely abnormal, that's my point here. It's been made into a story when there really isn't much of one, and on top of that, nobody has even named said repair tech so that others can avoid using them so it's not even a public service.
> You know > mamedevs never get the full credit that they deserve. Why after 20 years you're still > moping around about it is beyond me. >
Sometimes it's for the best, I mean while it would be nice if stuff like the G&W emulation got more coverage, maybe it's best it hasn't, considering Nintendo and all.
Maybe it's just annoying, because when things do get done that make a HUGE difference (such as the Taito C-Chip work) the majority of people seem to write it off as entirely unimportant to the point of refusing to upgrade MAME because a ROM changed, even if that ROM just happens to be the c-chip dump to make things actually work properly. In reality that c-chip work is a much more significant achievement and much more worthy of hype. Seems people only want to cover irrelevant clickbaity stuff tho?
In this case, the kind of coverage we see paints the project in a bad light by association. No coverage at all would have been better.
> The publicity sadly hasn't done any good, haven't gotten a single donation since the > announcement.
I wouldn't expect it to, if anything now the expectation will be that ROM dumping ninjas are going to dump all the games without it costing anybody a penny.
> > There always seems to be more going on in your head than reality. I've never talked > > with ars technica or these youtubers, not sure who else you could be talking about > > other than Scott as far as wanting their name on news. > > Well I wouldn't rule it out, he did come here to post the story.
So then he convinced ars technica to lie their ass off about him not returning requests for info. It's a conspiracy lol.
> > But yes, I often struggle to see why people get hyped over things that really aren't > that interesting.
I struggle to understand why you'd think an arcade game from Atari in 1982 surfacing in 2019 isn't interesting to the mame community.
> > I also struggle to understand why I've got RB accusing me being responsible for these > things getting coverage. > > > My brother who lives across > > the country and doesnt follow emulation texted me the link to the article. I > laughed > > my ass off. Just wrote "get ars technica to cuss" on my bucket list and immediately > > crossed it off. > > > Anyway you're dead wrong about it being the least interesting > > whatever. What are you pissed off that it got added? Why the negativity. > > Well even Vas has said it's not worth the hype.
Why you care about his opinion is weird.
> The roms were dumped from a piece of > stolen property, with owner of said property coming up with some sob story about the > roms being 'stolen' from them. That's pretty much your story in a nutshell.
No, my story is who cares how we got it. My story is that we got it. Others seem intrigued by that safestuff story. I was already past that crap 17 years ago when Moose raised money for Marble Man and safestuff shitshowed.
> > Compared to a lot of what has been going on, the dumping of it is completely > irrelevant on a technical level, and it's not even a game anybody is going to > remember because it never made it to market.
That just goes to show that your perspective is narrow as a needle point and you're incapable or unwilling to try and see the dump from anyone else's perspective. If it's not a new tech breakthrough then you don't care. Good for you. Newsflash - most mame users don't see things that way.
> > Nice, it's preserved, great, but even in terms of rare things being preserved it only > get attention because one person has spent years waving it in our faces. Plenty of > other things that have been emulated are likely just as rare, if not rarer. It > doesn't need tech site articles about it, streams about it etc. so that it's getting > them seems entirely abnormal, that's my point here. It's been made into a story when > there really isn't much of one, and on top of that, nobody has even named said repair > tech so that others can avoid using them so it's not even a public service.
This coming from the guy who writes books on his website about emulating handhelds from a few years ago that nobody has ever heard of. Sorry you didn't go viral and this did. Keep your head up little guy. Sunshine is just around the corner.
> > > You know > > mamedevs never get the full credit that they deserve. Why after 20 years you're > still > > moping around about it is beyond me. > > > > Sometimes it's for the best, I mean while it would be nice if stuff like the G&W > emulation got more coverage, maybe it's best it hasn't, considering Nintendo and all. > > Maybe it's just annoying, because when things do get done that make a HUGE difference > (such as the Taito C-Chip work) the majority of people seem to write it off as > entirely unimportant to the point of refusing to upgrade MAME because a ROM changed, > even if that ROM just happens to be the c-chip dump to make things actually work > properly. In reality that c-chip work is a much more significant achievement and much > more worthy of hype. Seems people only want to cover irrelevant clickbaity stuff tho?
It turned click baity on account of the safestuff post but it's also worth the read so it's not like normal clickbait where you leave unfulfilled.
> In this case, the kind of coverage we see paints the project in a bad light by > association. No coverage at all would have been better. > > > The publicity sadly hasn't done any good, haven't gotten a single donation since > the > > announcement. > > I wouldn't expect it to, if anything now the expectation will be that ROM dumping > ninjas are going to dump all the games without it costing anybody a penny.
> That just goes to show that your perspective is narrow as a needle point...
This.
> ...and you're incapable or unwilling to try and see the dump from anyone else's perspective. If > it's not a new tech breakthrough then you don't care. Good for you. Newsflash - most > mame users don't see things that way.
And this. The inclusion of Akka Arrh in MAME and the drama regarding how the data surfaced is one of the most interesting things to happen connected with MAME ever, to me.
It's all about the prostate, bladder, and bowels because that arcade attract mode title screen image is probably what a medical xray image might appear after having a bad meal. The game name by saying it out loud screams what might be heard in a restroom.
As for drama and article, the Zara jacket says it all according to local Fox news 'desk jockey' teleprompter readers.
> And this. The inclusion of Akka Arrh in MAME and the drama regarding how the data > surfaced is one of the most interesting things to happen connected with MAME ever, to > me.
If *this* is the most interesting thing ever to happen in MAME for you, you haven't been paying attention.
> If *this* is the most interesting thing ever to happen in MAME for you, you haven't > been paying attention.
Well, I said "one of" the most interesting things. Also, I have no doubt that I find different things interesting than you do, nor do I doubt that you are privy to a lot of things that I am not.
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