Need advice for upcoming project...

[IG-88]

Here is what I am wanting to do. I am in the planning stages for a small bartop for my 3 yr old that plays classic arcade games ie: pacman, frogger, donkey kong ect. (thru Mame32) some basic pc games, Dora the explorer, spongebob, ect....and maybe another emu or 2.

I want it to a use a joystick, a couple buttons and a small trackball. The interface has to be very basic and yet stable. I thought about Mamewah but I'm thinking that it may be too complicated for the little ones. What would be ideal is a picture of each game and emu that they could click on or even mapping a special button for each.

The hardware I think I can handle. What I am having difficulties with is what kind of software would allow this to happen. The Mame games are easily setup with an ipac but I am wondering how to map the keyboard keys to the buttons, joystick & mouse for the pc games and other emus?

Anyone have any brilliant ideas?

[leapinlew]

I love Mala!

[IG-88]

Probably to complicated for my purposes. Also I don't speaky German.

[Kremmit]

You can get Dora, PacMan, Frogger, and Spongbob in those Jakk's Handheld games.  Have you looked at Markrvp's bartop he did for his kid?  It uses 4 of those handhelds instead of a PC and MAME.  Cheaper than a PC, and harder for a kid to mess up, too.

[IG-88]

I may go that route yet, it's just that I have lots of old PC's laying around and I wanted to try those first. I thought about connecting it to the internet later on also....I'll check out Markrvp's set-up if I can find it.