Glossary

Bootleg, bootlegger

A bootleg , or pirated version, is an unlicensed version of a copyrothed product. A bootleg of a coin-op videogame is usually obtained by hacking the program code.
A bootlegger is a maker of a bootleg. The italian word for bootlegger is "cantinaro" (from cantina=cellar).

CPU

CPU stands for Central Processing Unit.
Today, nearly all electronic devices contain a CPU, who is the main logic.
Due to high price list of the times, the first coin-op videogames did not have any CPU (See Discrete Logistic). The first CPU-equipped coin-op was Gun Fight by Bally-Midway (1975), the last coin-op with no CPU was Monaco GP by Sega (1980).
Paradoxicalally, CPU-free videogames are harder to emulate.

DICE

Discrete Integrated Circuit Emulator, a free software. It's an emulator for games with no CPU. No one of the few CPU-free italian games is emulated, and the development stopped years ago.

Discrete logistic

Using the definition from discrete.mameworld.info: "Putting video games together not using a CENTRAL processing unit but instead use decentralised processing in the form of relatively inexpensive TTL (Transistor-Transistor Logic) circuits spread over the whole PCB".

Dumping: see ROM

Emulation

From Wikipedia: "In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates (or emulates) the functions of one computer system (the guest) in another computer system (the host), different from the first one, so that the emulated behavior closely resembles the behavior of the real system (the guest). "
When both host and guest systems are CPU-based, the emulation has usually more choices to acheive satisfacting results.
There are many programs to emulate coin-op videogames; the most popular and used is called MAME.

ENADA

An exposition of coin-operated machines in Italy.

Hack

Unauthorized modification performed on a software or hardware component.
An hack is used, for example, to remove the copyright, or change a graphic image, or get rid of a copyrighted or security chip of a coin-op machine.

MAME

"Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator". A software, developed originally by Nicola Salmoria and now mantained by a team od volunteers called MAMETeam.
MAME is an emulator for hundreds of coin-op videogames. It's distributed under LGPL license.

Pirated: see Bootleg

ROM

"Read-Only Memory". A set of memory chips containing data.
The first coin-op videogame containing ROMs was Tank from Kee Games (a company controlled by Atari), released in 1974.
To emulate a videogame, all data contained in ROMs must be extracted. This operation is called Dumping.