What is MAME
============

MAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework.

MAME’s purpose is to preserve decades of software history.  As
electronic technology continues to rush forward, MAME prevents this
important “vintage” software from being lost and forgotten.  This is
achieved by documenting the hardware and how it functions.  The source
code to MAME serves as this documentation.  The fact that the software
is usable serves primarily to validate the accuracy of the documentation
(how else can you prove that you have recreated the hardware
faithfully?).  MAME, originally the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator,
absorbed sister-projects, including MESS (Multi-Emulator Super System)
and AGEMAME (Arcade Gambling Extensions for MAME), so MAME now documents
a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles,
calculators and gambling machines, in addition to the arcade video games
that were its initial focus.

|
| **MAME®**
| **Copyright © 1997-2026 MAMEdev and contributors**
| **MAME is a registered trademark of Gregory Ember**
|


I. Purpose
----------

MAME’s main purpose is to be a reference to the inner workings of the
emulated machines.  This is done both for educational purposes and for
preservation purposes, in order to prevent historical software from
disappearing forever once the hardware it runs on stops working.  Of
course, in order to preserve the software and demonstrate that the
emulated behavior matches the original, one must also be able to
actually use the software.  This is considered a nice side effect, and
is not MAME’s primary focus.

It is not our intention to infringe on any copyrights or patents on the
original software and systems.  All of MAME’s source code is either our
own or freely available.  To operate, the emulator requires images of
the original ROMs, CDs, hard disks or other media from the machines,
which must be provided by the user.  No portions of the original
software are included in the MAME executable.


II. Cost
--------

MAME is made available at no cost.  Its source code is freely available.
The project as whole is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License, version 2 or later (GPL-2.0+), but most of code,
including core functionality, is also available under the terms of the
more permissive 3-clause BSD license (BSD-3-clause).


III. Software Image Files
-------------------------

ROM, CD, hard disk and other media images are all copyrighted material.
They may not be lawfully distributed without the explicit permission of
the copyright holder(s).  They are not “abandonware”, nor has copyright
expired on any of the software supported by MAME.

MAME is not intended to be used as a tool for mass copyright
infringement.  Therefore, it is strongly against the authors’ wishes to
sell, advertise, or link to resources that provide illegal copies of
ROM, CD, hard disk or other media images.


IV. Derivative Works
--------------------

Because the name MAME is trademarked, you must abide by the rules set
out for trademark usage if you wish to use “MAME” as part of the name
your derivative work.  In general, this means you must request
permission, which requires that you follow the guidelines above.

The version number of any derivative work should reflect the version
number of the MAME release from which it was derived.


V. Official Contact Information
-------------------------------

For questions regarding the MAME license, trademark, or other usage, see
https://www.mamedev.org/legal.html
