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69-400: As of April 2015 MESS supported 994 unique systems with 2,106 total system variations. MESS was first released in 1998 and was under development up until 2015. MAME and MESS were once separate applications, but were later developed and released together from a single source repository. MAMEDEV member David Haywood maintained and distributed UME (Universal Machine Emulator) which combined much of

138-457: A USB or serial port of another computer, with pin sockets on the reader specifically designed to match the chip package shape in question, to perform a memory dump of the ROM to a data file. Removal of a soldered chip is often far easier than reinstalling it, especially for extremely small surface mount technology chips, and the emulated device in question will be destroyed beyond recovery after

207-588: A cease and desist notice to the MAME developers over those games being included in the emulator. MAME complied with the request a day later, making both unplayable on the emulator outside of command line, as of version 0.240. The MAME core coordinates the emulation of several elements at the same time. These elements replicate the behavior of the hardware present in the original machines. MAME can emulate many different central processing units (CPUs) and associated hardware. These elements are virtualized so that MAME acts as

276-509: A vulnerability . Software patches are often released to fix identified vulnerabilities, but those that remain unknown ( zero days ) as well as those that have not been patched are still liable for exploitation. Vulnerabilities vary in their ability to be exploited by malicious actors, and the actual risk is dependent on the nature of the vulnerability as well as the value of the surrounding system. Although some vulnerabilities can only be used for denial of service attacks that compromise

345-520: A web application —had become the primary method that companies deliver applications. Software companies aim to deliver a high-quality product on time and under budget. A challenge is that software development effort estimation is often inaccurate. Software development begins by conceiving the project, evaluating its feasibility, analyzing the business requirements, and making a software design . Most software projects speed up their development by reusing or incorporating existing software, either in

414-430: A 2 GHz processor is enough to run almost all 2D games, more recent systems and particularly systems with 3D graphics can be unplayably slow, even on the fastest computers. MAME does not currently take advantage of hardware acceleration to speed up the rendering of 3D graphics, in part because of the lack of a stable cross-platform 3D API, and in part because software rendering can, in theory, be an exact reproduction of

483-457: A change request. Frequently, software is released in an incomplete state when the development team runs out of time or funding. Despite testing and quality assurance , virtually all software contains bugs where the system does not work as intended. Post-release software maintenance is necessary to remediate these bugs when they are found and keep the software working as the environment changes over time. New features are often added after

552-486: A code's correct and efficient behavior, its reusability and portability , or the ease of modification. It is usually more cost-effective to build quality into the product from the beginning rather than try to add it later in the development process. Higher quality code will reduce lifetime cost to both suppliers and customers as it is more reliable and easier to maintain . Software failures in safety-critical systems can be very serious including death. By some estimates,

621-443: A legal regime where liability for software products is significantly curtailed compared to other products. Source code is protected by copyright law that vests the owner with the exclusive right to copy the code. The underlying ideas or algorithms are not protected by copyright law, but are often treated as a trade secret and concealed by such methods as non-disclosure agreements . Software copyright has been recognized since

690-445: A month. Windows executables in both 32-bit and 64-bit fashion are released on the development team's official website , along with the complete source code. Smaller, incremental "u" (for update) releases were released weekly (until version 0.149u1) as source diffs against the most recent major version, to keep code in synchronization among developers. MAME's source code is developed on a public GitHub repository, allowing those with

759-550: A process called "dumping". The resulting files are often generically called ROM images or ROMs regardless of the kind of storage they came from. A game usually consists of multiple ROM and PAL images; these are collectively stored inside a single ZIP file , constituting a "ROM set". In addition to the "parent" ROM set (usually chosen as the most recent "World" version of the game), games may have "clone" ROM sets with different program code, different language text intended for different markets etc. For example, Street Fighter II Turbo

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828-418: A rudimentary user interface, the use of MAME in arcade game cabinets and home theaters necessitates special launcher applications called front ends with more advanced features. They provide varying degrees of customization, allowing one to see images of games' cabinets, histories, playing tips, specialized logo artwork for games, and video of the game's play or attract mode . The information within MAME

897-495: A significant role in the distribution of software products. The first use of the word software is credited to mathematician John Wilder Tukey in 1958. The first programmable computers, which appeared at the end of the 1940s, were programmed in machine language . Machine language is difficult to debug and not portable across different computers. Initially, hardware resources were more expensive than human resources . As programs became complex, programmer productivity became

966-481: A software layer between the original program of the game, and the platform MAME runs on. MAME supports arbitrary screen resolutions, refresh rates and display configurations. Multiple emulated monitors, as required by, for example, Darius , are supported as well. Individual systems are specified by drivers which take the form of C preprocessor macros . These drivers specify the individual components to be emulated and how they communicate with each other. While MAME

1035-509: A specific version of the software, downloaded, and run on hardware belonging to the purchaser. The rise of the Internet and cloud computing enabled a new model, software as a service (SaaS), in which the provider hosts the software (usually built on top of rented infrastructure or platforms ) and provides the use of the software to customers, often in exchange for a subscription fee . By 2023, SaaS products—which are usually delivered via

1104-415: A system's availability, others allow the attacker to inject and run their own code (called malware ), without the user being aware of it. To thwart cyberattacks, all software in the system must be designed to withstand and recover from external attack. Despite efforts to ensure security, a significant fraction of computers are infected with malware. Programming languages are the format in which software

1173-423: Is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade games , video game consoles , old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage video games from being lost or forgotten. It does this by emulating the inner workings of the emulated machines; the ability to actually play

1242-454: Is completely undocumented and cannot be reverse-engineered in detail. Signal level emulation is used to emulate audio circuitry that consists of analog components. We want to document the hardware. Now a lot of people will say; "Where's your document? You just write a bunch of source code." And yes, that's true. One thing I've learned is that keeping documentation synced with source code is nearly impossible. The best proof that your documentation

1311-740: Is considered a variant of Street Fighter II Champion Edition . System boards like the Neo Geo that have ROMs shared between multiple games require the ROMs to be stored in "BIOS" ROM sets and named appropriately. MAME ROMs come in three forms, split , non-merged , and merged : Hard disks, compact discs and laserdiscs are stored in a MAME-specific format called CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data). Some machines use analog hardware, such as laserdiscs, to store and play back audio/video data such as soundtracks and cinematics. This data must be captured and encoded into digital files that can be read by MAME. MAME does not support

1380-454: Is free for reuse, and companies have been known to utilize MAME when recreating their old classics on modern systems. Some have even hired MAME developers to create emulators for their old properties. An example is the Taito Legends pack, with ROMs readable on select versions of MAME. On 27 May 2015 (0.162), the games console and computer system emulator MESS was integrated with MAME (so

1449-457: Is not considered an open source , or free software license, respectively. The non-commercial clause was designed to prevent arcade operators from installing MAME cabinets and profiting from the works of the original manufacturers of the games. The ambiguity of the definition "commercial" led to legal problems with the license. Since March 2016 with version 0.172, MAME itself switched , by dual licensing , to common free software licenses ,

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1518-629: Is now available under the BSD-3-Clause license, and the complete project is under the GPL-2.0-or-later license. On 24 February 2016 (0.171), MAME embedded the MEWUI front-end (and its developer joined the team), providing MAME with a flexible and more full-featured UI. On 30 December 2021, exA-Arcadia , the Western copyright holders of the games Akai Katana and DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou had their lawyers file

1587-400: Is right is "does this code work". MAME emulates well over a thousand different arcade system boards , a majority of which are completely undocumented and custom designed to run either a single game or a very small number of them. The approach MAME takes with regards to accuracy is an incremental one; systems are emulated as accurately as they reasonably can be. Bootleg copies of games are often

1656-453: Is written. Since the 1950s, thousands of different programming languages have been invented; some have been in use for decades, while others have fallen into disuse. Some definitions classify machine code —the exact instructions directly implemented by the hardware—and assembly language —a more human-readable alternative to machine code whose statements can be translated one-to-one into machine code—as programming languages. Programs written in

1725-443: The BSD-3-Clause license, and the GPL-2.0-or-later license. However, old versions remain licensed under the original license. Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the execution of a computer . Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th century. Early programs were written in

1794-438: The high-level programming languages used to create software share a few main characteristics: knowledge of machine code is not necessary to write them, they can be ported to other computer systems, and they are more concise and human-readable than machine code. They must be both human-readable and capable of being translated into unambiguous instructions for computer hardware. The invention of high-level programming languages

1863-605: The machine language specific to the hardware. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 allowed for more human-readable instructions, making software development easier and more portable across different computer architectures . Software in a programming language is run through a compiler or interpreter to execute on the architecture's hardware. Over time, software has become complex, owing to developments in networking , operating systems , and databases . Software can generally be categorized into two main types: The rise of cloud computing has introduced

1932-448: The original MAME license . MAME developer Miodrag Milanovic explained that the change was to draw more developer interest, allow game manufacturers to distribute MAME to emulate their own games, and to make the software "a learning tool for developers working on development boards". The transition of MAME's licensing to BSD/GPL was completed in March 2016. Most of MAME's source code (90%+)

2001-508: The "MAME license" or the "MAME-like license", which was adopted also by other projects, e.g. Visual Pinball . This license ensures the availability of the licensed program's source code , whilst the redistribution of the program in commercial activities is prohibited. Due to this clause, the license is incompatible with the OSI 's Open Source Definition and the FSF 's Free Software Definition , and as such

2070-435: The MAME core, was integrated into MAME in 2015. With OTVDM (WineVDM) a version of MAME is available to emulate 16-Bit DOS and Windows applications on x64 and AArch64 versions of Windows. The NTVDM from Microsoft is only supported for the 32-bit versions of Windows. The MAME project was started by Italian programmer Nicola Salmoria . It began as a project called Multi-Pac, intended to preserve video games in

2139-500: The MESS User Manual is still the most important usage instruction for the non-arcade parts of MAME). This also led to the removal of the acronym, as MAME can now emulate more than arcade machines. Since 2012, MAME has been maintained by former MESS project leader Miodrag Milanović. In May 2015, it was announced that MAME's developers planned to re-license the software under a more common free and open-source license , away from

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2208-452: The Pac-Man family, but the name was changed as more games were added to its framework. The first MAME version was released in 1996. In April 1997, Salmoria stepped down for his national service commitments, handing stewardship of the project to fellow Italian Mirko Buffoni for half a year. In May 2003, David Haywood took over as project coordinator; and from April 2005 to April 2011, the project

2277-707: The ROM has been removed for reading. However, if one has a working system, it may be far easier to dump the ROM data to tape, disk, etc. and transfer the data file to one's target machine. In 2013 the Internet Archive began to provide select games browser -playable via JSMESS (a JavaScript port of the MESS emulator), for instance, the Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . MAME#License MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator )

2346-531: The Windows platform, and most other platforms are supported through the SDLMAME project, which was integrated into the main development source tree in 2006. MAME has also been ported to other computers, game consoles, mobile phones and PDAs and, at one point, even to digital cameras. In 2012, Google ported MAME to Native Client , which allows MAME to run inside Chrome . Major releases of MAME occur approximately once

2415-399: The bottleneck. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 hid the details of the hardware and expressed the underlying algorithms into the code . Early languages include Fortran , Lisp , and COBOL . There are two main types of software: Software can also be categorized by how it is deployed . Traditional applications are purchased with a perpetual license for

2484-404: The correctness of code, while user acceptance testing helps to ensure that the product meets customer expectations. There are a variety of software development methodologies , which vary from completing all steps in order to concurrent and iterative models. Software development is driven by requirements taken from prospective users, as opposed to maintenance, which is driven by events such as

2553-400: The cost of poor quality software can be as high as 20 to 40 percent of sales. Despite developers' goal of delivering a product that works entirely as intended, virtually all software contains bugs. The rise of the Internet also greatly increased the need for computer security as it enabled malicious actors to conduct cyberattacks remotely. If a bug creates a security risk, it is called

2622-419: The cost of products. Unlike copyrights, patents generally only apply in the jurisdiction where they were issued. Engineer Capers Jones writes that "computers and software are making profound changes to every aspect of human life: education, work, warfare, entertainment, medicine, law, and everything else". It has become ubiquitous in everyday life in developed countries . In many cases, software augments

2691-407: The emulated computer, since this may be copyrighted software. Obtaining the ROM data by oneself directly from the hardware being emulated can be extremely difficult, technical, expensive, and even destructive since it may require decapping or desoldering of integrated circuit chips from the circuit board of the device they own. A desoldered IC is placed into a chip reader device connected to

2760-411: The emulation scene." The MAME license required source code be included with versions of MESS that are modified from the original source, while the MESS legal page states that when distributing binary files "you should also distribute the source code. If you can't do that, you must provide a pointer to a place where the source can be obtained." While MESS was available in both binary and source code forms,

2829-589: The emulation speed. Back-end targets supported are x86 and x64. A C back end is also available to further aid verification of the correctness. CPUs emulated in this manner are SH-2, MIPS R3000 and PowerPC. The original program code, graphics and sound data need to be present so that the system can be emulated. In most machines, the data is stored in read-only memory chips (ROMs), although other devices such as cassette tapes , floppy disks , hard disks , laserdiscs , and compact discs are also used. The contents of most of these devices can be copied to computer files, in

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2898-484: The first to be emulated, with proper (and copy protected) versions emulated later. Besides encryption, arcade games were usually protected with custom microcontroller units (MCUs) that implemented a part of the game logic or some other important functions. Emulation of these chips is preferred even when they have little or no immediately visible effect on the game itself. For example, the monster behavior in Bubble Bobble

2967-438: The form of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or open-source software . Software quality assurance is typically a combination of manual code review by other engineers and automated software testing . Due to time constraints, testing cannot cover all aspects of the software's intended functionality, so developers often focus on the most critical functionality. Formal methods are used in some safety-critical systems to prove

3036-509: The functionality of MAME and MESS in a single application. On May 27, 2015, MESS was formally integrated with MAME and became a part of MAME. MESS was distributed under the MAME Licence , which allowed for the redistribution of binary files and source code , either modified or unmodified, but disallowed selling MESS or using it commercially. The license is similar to other copyleft licenses in requiring that rights and obligations provided in

3105-439: The functionality of existing technologies such as household appliances and elevators . Software also spawned entirely new technologies such as the Internet , video games , mobile phones , and GPS . New methods of communication, including email , forums , blogs , microblogging , wikis , and social media , were enabled by the Internet. Massive amounts of knowledge exceeding any paper-based library are now available with

3174-405: The games. The stated aim of the project is to document hardware, and so MAME takes a somewhat purist view of emulation, prohibiting programming hacks that might make a game easier to run at the expense of emulation accuracy. Components such as CPUs are emulated at a low level (meaning individual instructions are emulated) whenever possible, and high-level emulation (HLE) is only used when a chip

3243-469: The license must be remain intact when MESS or derivative works are distributed. In addition to the MESS Licence, The MESS Team required that: "MESS must be distributed only in the original archives. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version, nor to remove and/or add files to the archive. Adding one text file to advertise your web site is tolerated only if your site contributes original material to

3312-597: The mid-1970s and is vested in the company that makes the software, not the employees or contractors who wrote it. The use of most software is governed by an agreement ( software license ) between the copyright holder and the user. Proprietary software is usually sold under a restrictive license that limits copying and reuse (often enforced with tools such as digital rights management (DRM)). Open-source licenses , in contrast, allow free use and redistribution of software with few conditions. Most open-source licenses used for software require that modifications be released under

3381-627: The new software delivery model Software as a Service (SaaS). In SaaS, applications are hosted by a provider and accessed over the Internet . The process of developing software involves several stages. The stages include software design , programming , testing , release , and maintenance . Software quality assurance and security are critical aspects of software development, as bugs and security vulnerabilities can lead to system failures and security breaches. Additionally, legal issues such as software licenses and intellectual property rights play

3450-453: The numerous releases in the 0.37 beta cycle (these version numbers have since been marked next to their equivalent 0.37 beta releases on the official MAMEdev website). MAME's architecture has been extensively improved over the years. Support for both raster and vector displays , multiple CPUs, and sound chips were added in the project's first six months. A flexible timer system to coordinate synchronization between multiple emulated CPU cores

3519-472: The operating system) can take this saved file and execute it as a process on the computer hardware. Some programming languages use an interpreter instead of a compiler. An interpreter converts the program into machine code at run time , which makes them 10 to 100 times slower than compiled programming languages. Software is often released with the knowledge that it is incomplete or contains bugs. Purchasers knowingly buy it in this state, which has led to

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3588-604: The physical world may also be part of the requirements for a software patent to be held valid. Software patents have been historically controversial . Before the 1998 case State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. , software patents were generally not recognized in the United States. In that case, the Supreme Court decided that business processes could be patented. Patent applications are complex and costly, and lawsuits involving patents can drive up

3657-434: The project by potentially bringing it into disrepute. Despite this, illegal distributions of ROMs are widespread on the Internet, and many "Full Sets" also exist which contains a full collection of a specific version's ROMs. In addition, many bootleg game systems, such as arcade multi carts, often use versions of MAME to run their games. MAME was formerly distributed under a custom self-written copyleft license , called

3726-517: The public through licensing. For example, in 2003 Atari made MAME-compatible ROMs for 27 of its arcade games available on the Internet site Star ROMs . However, by 2006 the ROMs were no longer being sold there. At one point, various Capcom games were sold with the HotRod arcade joystick manufactured by Hanaho , but this arrangement was discontinued as well. Other copyright holders have released games which are no longer commercially viable free of charge to

3795-441: The public under licenses that prohibit commercial use of the games. Many of these games may be downloaded legally from the official MAME web site. The Spanish arcade game developer Gaelco has also released World Rally for non-commercial use on their website. The MAME community has distanced itself from other groups redistributing ROMs via the Internet or physical media, claiming they are blatantly infringing copyright and harm

3864-408: The release. Over time, the level of maintenance becomes increasingly restricted before being cut off entirely when the product is withdrawn from the market. As software ages , it becomes known as legacy software and can remain in use for decades, even if there is no one left who knows how to fix it. Over the lifetime of the product, software maintenance is estimated to comprise 75 percent or more of

3933-467: The required expertise and tools to build the most up-to-date version and contribute enhancements as pull requests . Historical version numbers 0.32, and 0.38 through 0.52 inclusively, do not exist; the former was skipped due to similar naming of the GUI-equipped MAME32 variant (which itself has since been renamed MAMEUI due to the move to 64-bit builds), while the latter numbers were skipped due to

4002-735: The restrictions on commercial exploitation cause it to fall outside of the Free Software Foundation's definition of free software . Similarly MESS was not considered to be open source software if appraised according to the criteria of the Open Source Definition . Generally the emulation only includes raw hardware logic , such as for the CPU and RAM , and specialized DSPs such as tone generators or video sprites . The MESS emulator does not include any programming code stored in ROM chips from

4071-424: The same license, which can create complications when open-source software is reused in proprietary projects. Patents give an inventor an exclusive, time-limited license for a novel product or process. Ideas about what software could accomplish are not protected by law and concrete implementations are instead covered by copyright law . In some countries, a requirement for the claimed invention to have an effect on

4140-482: The subject of any court cases. Most games are still covered by copyright. Downloading or distributing copyrighted ROMs without permission from copyright holders is almost always a violation of copyright laws. However, some countries (including the US) allow the owner of a board to transfer data contained in its ROM chips to a personal computer or other device they own. Some copyright holders have explored making ROMs available to

4209-431: The total development cost. Completing a software project involves various forms of expertise, not just in software programmers but also testing, documentation writing, project management , graphic design , user experience , user support, marketing , and fundraising. Software quality is defined as meeting the stated requirements as well as customer expectations. Quality is an overarching term that can refer to

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4278-683: The use of external analog devices, which (along with identical speaker and speaker enclosures) would be required for a 100% faithful reproduction of the experience. An ever decreasing number of games with unemulated audio circuits require sound samples in WAV file format for sound emulation. MAME additionally supports artwork files in PNG format for bezel and overlay graphics. Furthermore, emulation of games with liquid-crystal displays such as Game & Watch or extra physical aspects such as slot machines usually require extra image files for backgrounds or other aspects of

4347-406: The various custom 3D rendering approaches that were used in the arcade games. Owning and distributing MAME itself is legal in most countries, as it is merely an emulator. Companies such as Sony have attempted in court to prevent other software such as Virtual Game Station , a Sony PlayStation emulator from being sold, but they have been ultimately unsuccessful. MAME itself has thus far not been

4416-427: The video games is considered "a nice side effect". Joystiq has listed MAME as an application that every Windows and Mac gamer should have. The first public MAME release was by Nicola Salmoria on 5 February 1997. It now supports over 7,000 unique games and 10,000 actual ROM image sets, though not all of the games are playable. MESS , an emulator for many video game consoles and computer systems, based on

4485-490: Was coordinated by Aaron Giles; then Angelo Salese stepped in as the coordinator; and in 2012, Miodrag Milanovic took over. The project is supported by hundreds of developers around the world and thousands of outside contributors. At first, MAME was developed exclusively for MS-DOS , but it was soon ported to Unix-like systems (X/MAME), Macintosh (MacMAME and later MAME OS X) and Windows (MAME32). Since 24 May 2001, with version 0.37b15, MAME's main development has occurred on

4554-1084: Was implemented, and ROM images started to be loaded according to their CRC32 hash in the ZIP files they were stored in. MAME has pioneered the reverse engineering of many undocumented system architectures, various CPUs (such as the M6809 -derivative custom Konami CPU with new instructions) and sound chips (for example, Yamaha FM sound chips ). MAME developers have been instrumental in reverse engineering many proprietary encryption algorithms utilized in arcade games, including Neo Geo , CP System II and CP System III . MAME's popularity has gone mainstream, with enthusiasts building their own arcade game cabinets to replay old games and even some companies producing illegal MAME derivatives to be installed in arcades . Cabinets are built either from scratch or by taking apart and modifying an original arcade game cabinet. Cabinets inspired by classic games can also be purchased and assembled (with MAME optionally preinstalled). Although MAME contains

4623-482: Was not perfected until the code and data contained with the custom MCU was dumped through the decapping of the chip. This results in the ROM set requirements changing as the games are emulated to a more and more accurate degree, causing older versions of the ROM set becoming unusable in newer versions of MAME. Portability and generality are also important to MAME. Combined with the uncompromising stance on accuracy, this often results in high system requirements. Although

4692-548: Was originally written in C , the need for object oriented programming caused the development team to begin to compile all code as C++ for MAME 0.136, taking advantage of additional features of that language in the process. Although a great majority of the CPU emulation cores are interpretive , MAME also supports dynamic recompilation through an intermediate language called the Universal Machine Language (UML) to increase

4761-401: Was simultaneous with the compilers needed to translate them automatically into machine code. Most programs do not contain all the resources needed to run them and rely on external libraries . Part of the compiler's function is to link these files in such a way that the program can be executed by the hardware. Once compiled, the program can be saved as an object file and the loader (part of

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