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Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
Make sure you do your research on the legal issues. The general consensus seems to be that operating a emulator-based arcade cabinet for profit is tough to do legally. I don't think the above comment about abandonware is correct. Unless I'm mistaken, even if a game seems to be abandoned, you do not necessarily have any right to use or copy it.
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In almost all cases, abandonware is still copyrighted. In fact, every piece of computer software ever written in the US is still copyrighted, unless the author has expressly put the software in the public domain. There are a few abandonware sites that only list public domain software, but most of them just list old software that is still copyrighted.
StarROMs will sell you roms licensed from atari. However, those are licensed for private, noncommercial use, so you couldn't use them in your fundraiser either.
What if rather then using an emulator, you buy an atari system and a bunch of games, and use your robotics expertise to create a game selection/cartridge loading mechanism.