Those of you wanting to play some true arcade classics need to take a look at the awesome MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) system. Like it’s name states, MAME emulates the hardware found in classic arcade games and allows you to play the games on your computer.
MAME is totally free and works on all major OS’s (Linux users might want to read this article) and features many classic games. While there are not many ROMs available on MAME’s site, there are several good resources available when you do a quick Internet search. One resource I found helpful was MameWorld.
The one thing I love about classic games is they can be played for 10 minutes or 10 hours, where most modern games seem to require you to dedicate a significant amount of time. For the true hard core classic gamers, there are several conversion kits you can purchase which will allow you to build your own freestanding arcade game with the game(s) of your choice.
These games are probably not for everyone, but if they are… enjoy.
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The reason you won’t find ROM files in the MAME site is for copyright issues. It is exactly the same issue as with music files. It is legal to have the ROM image file only if you own the original ROM chips. But just as with music files there are tons of ROM files available online. So just find what you like and play away.