How to participate in the burning scheme

What's a "Burner", then?

These are volunteers willing to give up their time and electricity to burn their collection of ROM binaries onto CD-ROMs free of charge for people that request them.

How did this group come about?

It all started when someone in the alt.games.mame newsgroup started selling CDs full of ROM binaries for use with MAME. Many people were understandably annoyed at the blatant profiteering from such a practice; when someone in the UK offered to burn CDs without charging for their time and effort, others were willing to step forwards, both in the UK and also abroad (Canada, Australia, US etc)

Initially, people requesting CDs from abroad found that the cost of sending blanks to the UK plus cost of a return envelope meant that a fixed sum was still required to obtain a free service! A cheaper option was to send the Burner remuneration to cover the cost of raw materials (around 5 blank CDs, packaging and postage to cover international shipping costs), and several burners are happy to obtain the required materials on behalf of the requester. However, it is still cheaper to approach a local Burner than an international one.

What about the costs incurred from downloading and burning?

What about the costs incurred by Nicola and the MAME developers - have they *charged* anyone for their time and efforts? Do MAME-related websites charge anyone to download ROM off their sites? MAME was never intended to be a project to generate revenue; if there are people willing to give their efforts for free, don't *you* want to contribute to this project by burning ROMsets for free?

But my CD/DVD writer cost a lot of money! I want return on investment!

*sigh*... we've had these discussions numerous times. If people are genuinely interested in helping out those who are giving their efforts freely, then they're happy to use their equipment to benefit other people. If you've just bought a writer and want to cover your outlay, then you're not really the type who are interested in helping. Go drive someone injured to hospital and then ask for petrol money, while you're at it. On the other hand, if you already own a writer and are interested in giving away copies of your ROMsets to other people freely, then we're interested.

So other people may get more use out of my burner than I do?

Lazarus Burners are the sort of people that spend their own money on a new writer because their current one isn't fast enough to cope with the number of requests they've been receiving. They're the kinda people that save up for another writer so that they can burn twice as many requests. Its not unusual to hear of a Burner that's brought a new writer and have yet to use it for themselves.

That's the way Tombstones was: that's the way Lazarus is. That's the way MAME will always be.

You've convinced me. What do I need?

A CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM) burner - or at least access to one.
An e-mail address. Yah, that may seem obvious, but Burners receive a lot of mails (and spam) so it's useful to have another e-mail address to seperate out personal mail account from MAME-related stuff. Note: it may not be a good idea to call yourself "mameburner"... any idea how many there are out there? :-)
A full set of ROM libraries for the current release of MAME. (Currently 0.69) If you're lacking in this department, contact another Burner or post requests in newsgroups until you've got a full set. It is *not* a good idea to volunteer without being prepared first... a backlog of unfulfilled requests will mount up pretty quickly while you're still trying to complete your ROMsets!
A decision... as to whether you're going to be a media-only burner (take a set of sent CDs, burn your collection, send 'em back) or whether you will take funds and buy the raw materials for the requester. The former option is preferable, as this is closer to the original purpose of the burning team, but if you opt for the latter check to see if base costs have been established in your area yet.

Yep! Got that... now what?

Simply contact the burner admin in your country with details of your new e-mail address and confirmation that you fulfill the requirements listed above. Don't forget that mails may be subject to anti-spam filters; best to send a test mail first!

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