Has a vigilante flee the ROM gone too far to "preserve" a lost Atari ROM?

Earlier this month, digital curators at The Dumping Union made an important announcement in the world of arcade games emulation. The collective had gotten hold of a ROM image of Akka Arrh, an extremely rare arcade prototype of Atari and one of the most important remaining cabinets that, to date, had never been available by emulation.

That alone would have been a notable news in the history of video games – the dumping union has suggested just as much in announcing the announcement of its forum "Sit on the toilet before reading this or you will piss off your pants. " But the story might require another grooming session, as what began as a rare game revealer turned into a credible "hold-up" story perpetrated by an alleged MAME activist, no less.

A bit of history

The history of Akka Arrh (also known as Target Outpost during development) dates back to 1982, when the game was created by Dave Ralston of Atari and Mike Hally, who later worked on many of the company's well-known arcade games (the title is supposed to be a mutilated initialism for "Also Known Like Another Ralston Hally"). After a small publication on the test market in 1982, Akka Arrhthe rotation to take Missile commandTargeting the trackball would have been considered too complicated for the masses at the time. So even if Akka Arrh was almost finished and had his own artist and cabinet design; a wide exit has been abandoned in favor of more promising Atari securities.

The existing prototypes on the test market were recovered from Atari's warehouse waste – probably during or after the company's spectacular crash – and were ceded over the years to extremely private collectors. It is believed that only three firms exist and only two are listed in the census of the Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, which has close to 8,500 collectors.

Perhaps because of this rarity, the ROM chips including Akka ArrhThe game program from (until recently) has never been publicly dumped and cataloged in the large database of the emulator of multiple arcade machines. This is bad for the historical preservation community, but it could be good for the value of these extremely rare machines. After all, collectors might not be willing to pay the same premium for a rare piece of furniture if they (and anyone else) could just play the same essential game on an emulator.

But Akka ArrhThe few owners have not kept the rare game completely to themselves. Cabinets are sometimes set up for free parties at conventions like California Extreme, which are the only public occasions to play these pieces of history. Nevertheless, many communities of emulation and preservation have expressed their consternation over the years on the fact that such a singular piece of Atari history is essentially inaccessible to all. , with the exception of some very private collectors.

A shady technology?

All this context should highlight how difficult it was to finally see Akka Arrh dropped and playable via MAME earlier this month, 37 years after its creation. But where exactly did this ROM come from and why was it abandoned now?

The CEO of the Dumping Union, who passes for Smitdogg Online, claims only that the dump comes from an anonymous donor. But a user of the MAMEWorld forum with the pseudonym "atariscott" had an explosive charge in this regard (added emphasis):

There were only three machines ever built. All are in the high-end collections. A collector brought a technician to work on some of his games. Unscrupulous technology copied ROMs without permission. The game was not broken and not one that it was supposed to "fix". The owner reviews a security video of a few months to find out if he can catch it in the act. This is the first time anyone really has the means to steal ROMs from a collector.

Without context, there are reasons to be skeptical about this story. On the one hand, the accusation is the only message of "atariscott" on the MAMEWorld forums. The account behind this, however, was created in 2005, which would be a pretty long setup for a random troll.

Atariscott is also the public nickname of collector Atari Scott Evans, who uses it to post to other online retro game forums (as well as on Instagram). And Evans is well placed to know something about the state of Akka Arrh Preservation, being well known in the collector community to own a number of rare arcade prototypes over the years. This list at one point did not include one but two Akka Arrh cabinets (at least one of which seems to have been sold to another collector since then).

Evans also had two Marble man, the continuation of the prototype of Marble madness which is considered another grail "unobtrusive" inaccessible to the community of emulation. And then there is Bradley Trainer, a version of Atari Battlezone modified for the US military training. Evans has apparently discovered the only known cabinet for this "side of a dumpster located outside the closed Midway offices", according to history.

In addition to cabinets, Evans also collects information on Atari. He recently donated an almost complete set of Atari arcade source code to The Strong Museum of Play, also apparently from Midway's trash. Evans has also updated an online Atari Classic Arcade Clearinghouse, first on Safestuff.com, and then on AtariGames.com.

Is it true?

If the message "atariscott" on MAMEWorld is Evans, there are many reasons to give credit to his story. Evans has not responded to multiple requests for feedback from Ars Technica through various contact methods.

But a story does not happen in a vacuum. A well-placed arcade collector with direct knowledge of the existing Akka Arrh The firms and their owners (who requested anonymity to "avoid burning bridges") said that "it sounded as if it had really happened". This source tells me that the victim of the alleged robbery shares essentially the same story as anatisciscott with others Akka Arrh owners (who, unsurprisingly, know each other).

"They were told it was a technology robbery that had access, and apparently there were rumors that this technology was suspicious before this publication," the Ars collector said. "It's not their advice that was dropped, but [they] were quite upset when the ROMs were released, given the scarcity of the machine. "

It is far from direct evidence or recorded testimony confirming the history of the "unsolicited repair technical copy". But perhaps that's what we can do for the moment, given the insular and secret world of the rare arcade collection.

And it is not because the story is told in the world that this is true. The "theft" could be a blanket for a Akka Arrh The owner has just decided to release his own ROM dump, for example.

The blogger and arcade owner Arcade Heroes, Adam Pratt, has his own opinion, which he shared with Ars:

Online, it seems that something is missing … A technician would enter a collection to repair something else, break the Akka Arrh machine, extract all the ROMs, burn them one by one (which requires a ROM burner and a computer), then put everything back unnoticed does not seem plausible. Chances are, [Evans] or one of the other two collectors saved the ROMs when first using the machine and this backup is either output or one of the collectors finally decided to anonymously download the ROMs.

Does it belong to a museum?

History or not, the allegation alone has refocused a longstanding debate in circles of emulation. Is there a moral imperative for collectors of rare games and prototypes to publish their code for the sake of preservation? And if they refuse, is there an ethical argument for infiltration into a private collection to make an unsolicited copy of the game for posterity?

"All ROMs have exceeded their life span for data retention," writes Smitdogg of Dumping Union in an article in MAMEWorld. "It's amazing that the data can still be extracted if the ROMs are original – a miracle The first thing a sensible technology would do is to empty the ROMs It's amazing to me that people think they have the data concerning them, such as [they] own the copyright. "

Smitdogg argues that emptying the ROM Akka Arrh "identical to all other games that have been imitated over the past 25 years."

Others are not in agreement. "If what he's claiming is true, the collector who would have been robbed has every right to be absolutely furious," said Mooglyguy, a user of MAMEWorld. "The private property of a person, acquired through private transactions, is sacrosanct." We can sit here and talk about the moral imperatives of preserving history, but in the end these collectors must either go to the kindergarten level the concept of sharing by themselves, or they need to stay well alone.To force their hand, so to speak, is an incredibly bad look. "

And it's not because a game is not available to the general public that the owner does not protect it for the story. As Evans himself says in a 2009 forum message, "everything does not have to be in MAME for it to be" preserved "".

If the story of Atariscott about the Akka Arrh ROM is true, says Pratt, the repair technician's actions were "the right thing to do, but the wrong way to do it". On the one hand, Pratt says "happy that the game is preserved and more available". On the other hand, "there is a level of trust you have in someone to come and work on your games."

It has not yet been proven that the MAME version will even reduce the collection value of what still remains extremely rare prototype cabinets. "In my opinion, Akka ArrhThe presence of MAME will not diminish the value of existing machines, "Pratt said. On the contrary, it will probably improve the situation because more people will know it now. "

"Arcades are not just software," he continued. "When cabinets are specifically geared to a gaming experience, you have more than just playing a digital game on Steam … Akka ArrhThe cabinet is unique, so if I had the chance to do it, I'd rather play it on the original cabinet rather than emulate it every day. "