As soon as they get back in stock I intend to get one and write some software for it. I'm hoping it can handle a very bare-bones version of windows xp/9x. It's got enough ram, and the storage space is doable... I just don't know about that arm processor.
My thought was to write a custom version of mamehooker for the i/o pins. Then it could essentially act as a drop-in replacement for a broken pcb, even if it's an oddball one with a lot of lights, ect....
If we can't get windoze on it I'm not sure. Mame's output code is still in there, but it only works in windows. Getting it to work in linux, for example could be doable... but getting it to work in dos could prove difficult. Of course the output system is farily new as well. It's more like version .100, not .55. The older builds of mame could be modified, but I'm not really sure if anyone is willing to maintain an ancient build of mame anymore.
I think for standard mame it's a no-brainer, but if you want to do anything more than that, we are going to have to wait and see what OSes people manage to install on the thing. Many of the ideas brought up thus-far sound very windows/linux gui centric.... and it may have trouble handling that. Then again most of the tablets on the market run on arm processors so I dunno.
I think pbj's cynicism is mertied in this case. It took the guy 6 YEARS to get the thing out on the shelves. That's duke nukem forever territory. This very easily could have gone the other way. I'm very gald it didn't though!