I'd also suggest that you don't put all 7000 games on your machine. As you say, it's ridiculous to have all of them and overwhelming to look at.
Why not trim the list down to only the games that:
a) work with your controls
b) you're interested in
so, (toot toot) go get this:
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister
and get your lists under control.
First off I have to say that this has been one of the most helpful and enjoyable forums I have ever used.
Here I am a total newbie commin in here and right off the bat I get treated with total respect!!
...and I know I'm asking what seem to be very simple questions that have very simple answers and no one is jumping on me for it.
Also I have been using the search function and have been going in about 5 pages to look for answers to my questions but sometimes I come up dry.
Thanks everyone. Soon I will be building my first cabinet. I know I might be going about this backwards but I wanted to make sure all of the mame, controls, etc. worked first before I started to build my first cabinet. I read that it's bad to get all the guts working first becasue you'll be more likely to spend all of your time playing games then building.
Thanks