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MAME (an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. The intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The aim of MAME is to be a reference to the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered "a nice side effect". Joystiq has listed MAME as an application that every gamer should have. The first public MAME release (0.1) was on February 5, 1997, by Nicola Salmoria. The emulator now supports over seven thousand unique games and ten thousand actual ROM image sets, though not all of the supported games are playable. MESS, an emulator for many video game consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core, has been integrated into MAME, which is currently also maintained by former MESS project leader Miodrag Milanovic. == History and overview == The project was started by the Italian programmer Nicola Salmoria. MAME traces its roots to an earlier emulator project called Multi-Pac, but the name was changed as more and more games started to be emulated within the MAME framework. In April 1997, Salmoria stepped down for his national service commitments, handing stewardship of the project to fellow Italian Mirko Buffoni for a period of half a year. In May 2003, David Haywood took over the job of the coordinator. From April 2005 to April 2011, the project was coordinated by Aaron Giles.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=MAME Project History )〕 Angelo Salese stepped in as the new coordinator. 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). Currently, the main development occurs on the Windows platform, and most other platforms are supported through the SDLMAME project, which was integrated into the main development source tree in 2006. In addition, different versions of MAME have 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 a month. Windows executables in both 32-bit and 64-bit fashion are released on the official web site of the development team, along with the complete source code.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=MAME Latest MAME Release )〕 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=MAME Source Updates )〕 The up-to-date MAME source code is kept on the public mess.org Subversion server for those who wish to access it. This is intended only for those who have access to compiler tools and feel comfortable building software from source code. The architecture of MAME has been extensively improved over the years. Support for both raster and vector displays, as well as multiple CPUs and sound chips, were added to MAME in the first six months of the project. A flexible timer system to coordinate the synchronization between multiple emulated CPU cores 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 the Yamaha FM sound chips), and MAME developers have been instrumental in the reverse engineering of many proprietary encryption algorithms utilized in arcade games. Examples of these include the Neo Geo, CP System II, CP System III and many others. The popularity of MAME has well since broken through to the mainstream, with enthusiasts building their own arcade game cabinets to relive the old games, and with companies producing illegal derivative works of MAME to be installed in arcades. Cabinets can be built either from scratch or by taking apart and modifying a genuine arcade game cabinet that was once used with the real hardware inside. Cabinets inspired by classic arcade games can also be purchased and assembled (with optional PC and MAME preinstalled). Although MAME contains a rudimentary user interface, the use of MAME in arcade game cabinets and home theater PCs necessitates special launcher applications called ''front ends'' with more advanced user interfaces. Front ends provide varying degrees of customization – allowing one to see images of the cabinets, history of the games and tips on how to play, and even video of the game play or ''attract mode'' of the game. The information contained within MAME is free for re-use, and companies have been known to utilize MAME when recreating their old classics on modern systems. Some have gone as far as to hire MAME developers to create emulators for their old properties. An example of this is the ''Taito Legends'' pack. On May 27, 2015, the games console and computer system emulator MESS was integrated with MAME.〔http://www.mamedev.org/?p=406〕 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「MAME」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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