Like many other items such as stamps and coins, ROMs are also
collected by many people. The motives for doing this vary from a
desire to preserve the history of computer and video games to
obsessive collectors. Those who desire to collect all ROMs have been
derided by the team behind the MAME emulator as PokéROMs, in a
reference to the Pokémon fad. PokéROM can also refer to "Pocket
ROMs" as Pokémon refers to "Pocket Monsters"; since the advent of
the GP2X, PSP, DS and other portable handheld gaming machines
capable of emulation and even with some Cellphones, people can now
have an entire library of old games in their "pocket".
Given this desire by many people to collect ROMs, there are many
projects on the internet which dump ROMs, catalogue them or provide
tools to verify the correctness and completeness of ROM collections.
For instance, the TOSEC and Good Tools projects produce
regularly-updated databases of games and other software for various
old computers and video games consoles.
The NES
Nintendo World Championship 1990 cartridgeFor the
competition, 116 special game cartridges were manufactured. 90 of
these copies exist in a grey cartridge and were given out to
semi-finalists of the 1990 NWC. 26 of these cartridges are gold -
like the Legend of Zelda cartridge - and were given out to winners
and runners-up in a contest held by Nintendo Power magazine.
To play the cartridge, one must have a controller inputed both
controller ports and press start on the second player's controller.
For the competition, there was a special switch that would start all
cartridges simultaneously.
Both versions of the cartridge feature DIP switches on the front,
which can alter the time limit.
The Nintendo World Championships 1990 game cartridge is considered
to be the rarest and most valuable NES cartridge released, promo
cartridges aside. Recently, a grey cartridge went on eBay and sold
for a record $6,100, and a gold cartridge was up for sale on eBay
with a Buy It Now purchase price of $20,000.
On April 17th, 2007, a gold cartridge was inadvertently sold by a
father who was selling his sons possessions who had died in Iraq on
myebid.com. The father was selling 24 cartridges, with no special
attention paid to the Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge.
The collection sold for $21,400
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