Need some help -- Old PC, need help choosing a Frontend.

[barness]

First off, Sorry I am posting as a guest, the login is not woking for me.

'm really intrested in building a MAME Cabinet for myself, asking for the parts for Chirsmas. Pretty sure I know what I need to do. I'm going to use the I-PAC and build my control panel, and use my old PC. It has a Pentium 2, like 64 mb RAM, and 8 gig HDD. Now thats not going to run any new XP install, so I know I need to install something like a felxible Linux distro.

I'd preflebly boot stright into the front end like I can do with AdvanceCD or xMAMEKnoppix, but for some reason they will not work, and I'm not sure it would detect my home made control panel. I'd like having this set up so I don't have to get the mouse out to boot up what ever I need to...unless I can contol the mouse with the joystick, is that possible?

Secondly, Whats more affordable? Buying the xArcade controller, or building my own. I want a 2 player set up, and according to what I've done, the xArcade costs 130 for the 2 player, and for all the parts on the I-PAC site, it would cost me 160. Now, not sure if building my own will be worth it. I'd love to build it because I like building things, but its not looking cost effective. What do you all think?

Also, I was intrested in a Trackball, but they seem expenisve, and confusing. Do you all reccomend them?

Any other input in my cab would be awesme, thanks alot.

[shardian]

If you get a Betson Imperial trackball and a mouse hack you can get by pretty cheap.

Also, MALA and windows 98 works great on an ancient pc for me.

as to controlling the mouse with the keyboard( and thus your joystick) it is built into all versions windows!

Just go to control panel, accesibility, then click on the mouse tab, then check the box for "use easykeys"

[barness]

I'd love to use Windows 98, or older, but I have no liecense for it. At the moment, I am installing Xubuntu, its a linux distro that runs well on old PC's. Once that installs, and if it does, I can use AdvanceMAME, and MENU.

Is 60 bucks good for a trackball? I saw it on X-Arcade, seems nice for the price.

[BobA]

See this link for a thread on a linux distro being done to setup mame from single CD

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=56385.0

[barness]

I got windows 98 up and running, but now I can't get MAMEWAH to run...I don't know what I am doing wrong.

[leapinlew]

did you check the settings? 



you may need to provide a bit more information. Mamewah isn't super easy to setup. Check out Mala also.