Nowadays, many kids are downloading ROMS files for their pokemon gameboy machine. But do you, as an adult, know what they are?

Simply put, the rom files are copies available for the computer of the cartridge game version. However, these files need what is called an emulator in order to play with them on your computer.

For example, say you would like to play the rom version of the pokemon gold game. You would simply need to go on the Internet and do a search for those words. From there you would select a site - such as ConsoleClassix (www.consoleclassix.com) - where you could download both the rom file as well as the emulator.

What is great with these rom files is that you can find almost any old games - such as pokemon silver or pokemon red. And it is not limited to the gameboy, files such as for the pokemon advance versions are also available.

What can be wrong is that for some games such as pokemon crystal version, the rom file was available not even a week after the game was officially release in stores.

So a word of wisdom here for the parents, please know that although these files are available on the Internet, they are usually considered to be illegal copies as you would normally not have any access to these roms files since you would be purchasing the cartridges - so decide for yourself if you wish you child to download them or not.