Whats a ROM?

[Greenmoon7]

Err, I am kinda' new here, so don't attack me like a piece of delicious chicken! :P
But, I wanted to know what a ROM was, I see it sometimes and don't understand. I would've posted this on Nintendo.com, but they might banned me and pulverize me with high tech plasma electromagnetic double barrel revolver launcher.

[Myoko-chan]

a ROM is like a copy of a game, designed to run on emulators and the original gaming system. Technically, a ROM is illegal if you don't have the original game of itself.

[Ichida]

Which defeats the entire point, IMO...

[Lin]

Well, games are created on a computer, and then burned into like a gba game, or cd, etc... For systems. The game on the computer is a ROM... xD

[salmjak]

Just say like this: The Game Boy series have their own cd-scan in this case a square :P It's just like for a DVD-player you need a DVD-file for a Game Boy you need a ROM-file.

[Squeenix]

a ROM stands for Read Only Memory and mean that you can't load anything onto the ROM. Techinacally what we're talking about is a .gba file which is copy of a game which is also illegal if you don't own the game itself.

[Random]

A rom is the ripped data from a games' read-only memory chip from inside the cartridge, so to put it in simple terms, when putting a rom in an emulator, its like inserting the chip in the game cartridge while the cartridge is already inserted into the console.