Where do Roms come from?

[Geoff D]

I need to preface this question - I'm not asking for, or interested in, any roms, nor links to any sites that host them etc. It's a general question that's puzzled me recently - no specifics please, in accordance with site T&Cs.

Where do they come from? Is it when a mummy rom & a daddy rom who love each other very much... They seem to appear on the web much earlier than each new game is released - are they leaked like movie screeners?

[Square]

I think people 'dump' the contents of a PCB directly to a PC. Don't ask me how, though.

...oh, you didn't...

[Vaipon]

Yes, game ROMS are leaked by warez groups, just like films, although you rarely see the ROM before the game has been released unless it exists as a piece of prototype hardware (like the Garou NeoGeo rom for example). The games are rarely leaked into the public domain before they have been stored onto chips though, as only members of the dev team normally have access to the software in this state.

The technical process involves someone who has access to the game (a "donator", normally someone who works at an arcade, software shop/distributor, or owner of game), "lending" the hardware to a person who has the know-how to replicate the contents of the ROM memory chips. This person will use custom built interface hardware to read the ROM chips on an arcade board or a cartridge onto a host machine (usually a PC). The data is decrypted if necessary (eg CPS2 software), and dumped onto the computer's hard-drive as binary files which are duplicates of the original software in the chips. Once this has been done, you have a disk version of the data that was stored on the ROM chips. From there, it's compressed (usually RARd), and uploaded onto the internet. And that's basically how ROMS are made.

[ExpertKing]

Eeprom readers........can copy the code stored on the rom chips of the motherboard.

[JRMacumber]

Where do ROMs come from?

Well, you see, a Mommy ROM and a Daddy ROM get together, and...

[Average Monkey]

I thought it happened when the big ROM stork dropped them under a bush.