Documentation
What we be about...
Projects like No-Intro, Redump, and MAME center their efforts into videogame preservation. They accurately extract and verify the data stored in the original media (cartridges, tapes, floppy disks, optical discs...) and save it into normal computer files. Meta-data about those files (file name, size, and content checksums) is collated and published in the internet in the form of .dat
files to help collectors and enthusiast to verify and preserve their material for future generations.
Each one of those .dat
files is dedicated to one particular gaming system and is like an island in the middle of the ocean: isolated, with no communication to other islands, and quite limited in resources. They cover single gaming systems (Game Boy, Atari 2600, NES...) and contain basic information about the dumps... but there is still much more to do!
(TODO: Update the figure when main .dat
files have been imported)
The goal of ROMdb is to gather information about different versions like release date, genre, number of players... to make the .dat
files more meaningful and then connect different versions across platforms, building games and relating them even more to create sagas.
Nothing of this could have been even thought without the .dat
files generously created by No-Intro, MAME, and Redump; communities working for the community. Just praising them is not enough. We stand for the same cause: all the contents of ROMdb are published under a CC license and we will try to regularly publish the main contents of the database (versions, games, and sagas) in a reusable format (WIP very likely to be a plain .csv
file) so anyone can start a derived project.
Considering just the platforms covered by No-Intro, Redump, and MAME, we are talking easily about ~50k versions! It's a inmense task, so we better start to work...
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the full license:
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
- The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
- ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
- You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
- No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
Documentation
Website organization and rules:
- SITE RULES ← This is really important, READ IT!
- User roles
- Ideas or suggestions for the website
Help and guides to add content to the site:
- Platforms covered
- Version's fields
- Game fields
- Saga fields