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A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to simply as a cartridge or cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device device such as a home computer or video game console. ROM cartridges can be used to load software such as video games or other application programs. The cartridge slot could also be used for hardware additions, for example speech synthesis. Some cartridges had battery-backed static random-access memory, allowing a user to save data such as game progress or scores between uses. ROM cartridges allowed the user to rapidly load and access programs and data without the expense of a floppy disk drive, which was an expensive peripheral during the home computer era, and without using slow, sequential, and often unreliable Compact Cassette tape. An advantage for the manufacturer was the relative security of distribution of software in cartridge form, which was difficult for end users to replicate. However, cartridges were expensive to manufacture compared to making a floppy disk or CD-ROM. As disk drives became more common and software expanded beyond the practical limits of ROM size, cartridge slots disappeared from later consoles and computers. Cartridges are still used today with handheld gaming consoles such as the Nintendo DS and available as downloads in the Nintendo eShop for systems in the Nintendo 3DS family. == History == ROM cartridges were popularized by early home computers which featured a special bus port for the insertion of cartridges containing software in ROM. In most cases the designs were fairly crude, with the entire address and data buses exposed by the port and attached via an edge connector; the cartridge was memory mapped directly into the system's address space. Notable computers using cartridges in addition to magnetic media were the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, MSX standard, the Atari 8-bit family (400/800/XL/XE),〔 the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (where they were called ''Solid State Command Modules'' and were not directly mapped to the system bus) and the IBM PCjr〔 (where the cartridge was mapped into BIOS space). Some arcade system boards, such as Capcom's CP System and SNK's Neo Geo, also used ROM cartridges. From the late 1970s to mid-1990s, the majority of home video game systems were cartridge-based. The first system to make use of ROM cartridges was the Fairchild Channel F, released in 1976.〔 As compact disc technology came to be used widely for data storage, most hardware companies moved from cartridges to CD-based game systems. Nintendo remained the lone hold-out, using cartridges for their Nintendo 64 system; the company did not transition to optical media until 2001's GameCube. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「ROM cartridge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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