a no front-end front-end.

[sandheaver]

I had an idea today at work that I thought was pretty effing excellent: control the emulation machine via a web browser.

So I boot the emulation PC, a web service starts, an http form or whatever, and from a simple app on my phone (or via the web browser on my phone) i visit a web page served by the emulation PC, and I see a form where I can select systems, genres, or whatever, then enter a rom name or select a game from a drop-down.  I do so, click "play" and the emulator starts on the PC and the game is available for play on the cabinet, as you'd expect.

If/when I select a new game, the current emulator is stopped, and a new one launched that is configured for whatever system & rom I've chosen.

At any time, from anywhere the webpage is accessible, you can see what game is playing, perhaps even capture a screenshot if you like, stop the current game, shut down the PC, start a new game, or whatever.

The best front-end is an invisible front-end.  I'm a purist, and even though I hate front-ends, I'm writing one and using it, because I don't want a single game per cabinet.

At first glance this seems pretty easy to do to me.  (I am a developer.)  I'm going to try to write this over the weekend.  Devil is in the details, and security would be an issue if this were exposed to the Internet; but nothing insurmountable, though, just have to do taint checking on the inputs and make sure things like "format d:" aren't tossed in there somehow.

I'm REALLY tired and this seems like a FANTASTIC idea.  I'm posting here so I can get feedback on this.  Good idea?  decent idea?  "dude are you high again" idea?

thank you.

[Nephasth]

I'm a purist.

If you were, you wouldn't be emulating.

Anyway, this sounds like over complicating things...

[sandheaver]

I'm a purist.

If you were, you wouldn't be emulating.

Anyway, this sounds like over complicating things...

on most (all -1) of my cabinets I am not.  But, again, there isn't enough room in my entire town to have one cabinet for each game.  Even purists must succumb to reality.  I need a machine that emulates.

This is a far simpler way to select games on an emulation machine than any other front-end I've seen, including my own.  The number of lines of code for this would be few indeed.  I have a very simple front-end written in C# and WPF, and I'm pretty sure I could get to < 300 lines of code with a web-based front-end.  May turn out to be false, but I've written looking glass software in Perl and in Java and exposed those via http, so I have some small amount of experience to back up my claim.

[yotsuya]

If you are high again, dude, pass it around.

[Howard_Casto]

Makes things astoundingly over complex if you ask me. 

If we are talking a very simple FE with just a gamelist and maybe a snapshot you can do that in any programming language in an afternoon.  All you need is the ability to read text, load images and then render said images and text.  Of course launching mame might be nice as well, but nearly every language has an equivalent of "shell"

On the other had a web interface means you have to deal with html/flash/java and god know what else which are NOT easy to program for... no drag-n-drop there.  Then of course you need to setup both a client and server side app to make the games launch able. 

In what way is that simpler?

[sandheaver]

Makes things astoundingly over complex if you ask me. 

If we are talking a very simple FE with just a gamelist and maybe a snapshot you can do that in any programming language in an afternoon.  All you need is the ability to read text, load images and then render said images and text.  Of course launching mame might be nice as well, but nearly every language has an equivalent of "shell"

On the other had a web interface means you have to deal with html/flash/java and god know what else which are NOT easy to program for... no drag-n-drop there.  Then of course you need to setup both a client and server side app to make the games launch able. 

In what way is that simpler?

well web browsers are ubiquitous, very common.  client is done.

web page can be just as simple as you like.  start with just mame & mess, you can get all the supported games from -listxml and with .NET you can rather easily filter that XML out by any information contained in the XML (orientation, resolution, year, manufacturer, .. anything) and render a drop-down in probably 15 lines of code.  (the .net feature linq is very powerful for that sort of thing.)

spawning the process to run mame is a bit more complex, but is done so often that MS has working example code on MSDN for just this use case.  So, I don't have to write that.

killing an existing mame instance can be done one of two ways, by getting a handle on the fullscreen mame UI and sending the ESC key, or by keeping track of the process ID and killing it via P/Invoke.  Both are about the same level of complexity and are maybe 15 lines each.

This just plays very well into my no-frills nature.  utilitarian.  whether or not i live with this "front-end" is another matter entirely, but i'm going to write it this weekend and try it.  if i like it, i'll expand the code greatly, do some fancy multi-select listboxes so I can refine the resulting game list, and probably toss up a ton of icons/buttons for single-click launching of the emulator.

I just hate the thought of a visible front-end on my cabinet.  I know that no one agrees with me, but to me it's 100% tacky. 

My ultimate goal, which I achieved quite easily 10 years ago via DOS & autoexec.bat, and is more or less impossible now, is to quickly boot directly into mame without a front-end at all.  boot into a single game that this cabinet will run for a long period of time.  when I wanted to switch games, I just switched floppies & pressed the reset button on the PC.  Ten seconds later the new game was running.  That's my ideal; modern operating systems make ten second boots effectively impossible.  I used to be able to do this with computers I found at yard sales for $0.50.  Now I have to do it with a pile of JAMMA boards.

This no front-end front-end will certainly not speed up the boot process, but it will hide a UI from anyone playing. 

Look, I'm weird about this.  I get that.  you all hate it.  I get that.  I'm doing it anyway.

[Howard_Casto]

It's not a matter of liking it or not liking it man, you come in insisting that it's simpler when it's infinitely more complex. 

[sandheaver]

It's not a matter of liking it or not liking it man, you come in insisting that it's simpler when it's infinitely more complex.

"infinitely" more complex?  "Infinitely?"  Really?  you chose that word?

...most definitely not infinitely more complex.  Far LESS complex than HyperSpin, and several others with a UI completely customizeable by anyone that knows HTML and/or JavaScript.  All of HTML5 is available to you, if you choose to use it, and we already should know that HTML5 can do 99% of what Flash can do, and 100% of what is useful. 

The only complex bits at all are the launching of the emulator and the killing of the emulator, and I've done both of this in other applications before, and sample code exists already in case I ever forget how to do it.  Doesn't get much simpler than copy/paste.

The rest is dead simple for anyone who has ever written any web stuff at all. 

I get that this would be more complex FOR YOU, but it is certainly not for me.

[yotsuya]

I recently picked up a gutted Tempest cab. No board, no vector monitor, nothing. I have a computer in it that has the OS hidden by Instant Sheller. It boots directly into AtomicFE, which is set up to boot directly into Tempest. You never see the FE. If Joe Compaq came over to my house to play some video games, there's no way he'd know it wasn't an authentic Tempest.

The added benefit. I hit some hidden keystrokes, and I go to a menu where I can play games that use Tempest's controls. I know it's there, but Joe doesn't.

If you want to write it, more power to you.

[DaveMMR]

I like the idea of a front-end on a separate screen - perhaps a cheap tablet nearby the cab. But the idea of fumbling with my phone in a browser to choose a game seems far more complicated than just exiting the game on the cab and choosing a new one. It's not like this is completely unlike a real machine. There are legit multigame cabs that have a somewhat similar system (those Namco remixes come to mind).

I see the desire for authenticity while enjoying the convenience of emulation. Someone had an idea in another thread where MAME ran in pure DOS and each game was stored on an individual thumbdrive with an autoexec.bat file directing it to auto start. That's a simpler, albeit still convoluted, way of maintaining a "front-endless" cabinet.

[Howard_Casto]

It's not a matter of liking it or not liking it man, you come in insisting that it's simpler when it's infinitely more complex.

"infinitely" more complex?  "Infinitely?"  Really?  you chose that word?

...most definitely not infinitely more complex.  Far LESS complex than HyperSpin, and several others with a UI completely customizeable by anyone that knows HTML and/or JavaScript.  All of HTML5 is available to you, if you choose to use it, and we already should know that HTML5 can do 99% of what Flash can do, and 100% of what is useful. 

The only complex bits at all are the launching of the emulator and the killing of the emulator, and I've done both of this in other applications before, and sample code exists already in case I ever forget how to do it.  Doesn't get much simpler than copy/paste.

The rest is dead simple for anyone who has ever written any web stuff at all. 

I get that this would be more complex FOR YOU, but it is certainly not for me.

Nope.  It's more complex for ANYONE.  Perhaps you don't know the difference between the words complex and difficult?  They aren't the same.  It might not be difficult for you to do, (For the record it wouldn't be for me either, perhaps with your low post count you a new and you aren't aware of who I am and what I've written for this community.  ) but there are a ton more hoops to jump through and steps to do, even if you "copy and paste" the programs still have to run in the way you have it designed, so it's more complex. 

And yes, relatively speaking it is infinitely more complex.  I can literally write a fe with less than 40 lines of code with more functionality then what you are trying to setup.  As long as I don't have to run it through a web interface that is. 

Also why are to talking about fe's like hyperspin and ect... they are literally the most convoluted and complex fes to setup and configure.  Check out mamewah, or game launcher or tons of the simplier fes.  Even that aside, I can't think of a fe off hand that won't let you boot directly into a game upon launch.  I think perhaps you did 2 minutes of research instead of really looking into this. 

Again, you seem to be getting defensive.  I'm not sure why. What you are going to find is that as a stand alone fe and not a neat feature for a fe, you are going to run into unexpected problems.  Off the top of my head, playing a marathon session of a particular game and then not being able to change to another because your phone went dead comes to mind.

[sandheaver]

It's not a matter of liking it or not liking it man, you come in insisting that it's simpler when it's infinitely more complex.

"infinitely" more complex?  "Infinitely?"  Really?  you chose that word?

...most definitely not infinitely more complex.  Far LESS complex than HyperSpin, and several others with a UI completely customizeable by anyone that knows HTML and/or JavaScript.  All of HTML5 is available to you, if you choose to use it, and we already should know that HTML5 can do 99% of what Flash can do, and 100% of what is useful. 

The only complex bits at all are the launching of the emulator and the killing of the emulator, and I've done both of this in other applications before, and sample code exists already in case I ever forget how to do it.  Doesn't get much simpler than copy/paste.

The rest is dead simple for anyone who has ever written any web stuff at all. 

I get that this would be more complex FOR YOU, but it is certainly not for me.

Nope.  It's more complex for ANYONE.  Perhaps you don't know the difference between the words complex and difficult?  They aren't the same.  It might not be difficult for you to do, (For the record it wouldn't be for me either, perhaps with your low post count you a new and you aren't aware of who I am and what I've written for this community.  ) but there are a ton more hoops to jump through and steps to do, even if you "copy and paste" the programs still have to run in the way you have it designed, so it's more complex. 

And yes, relatively speaking it is infinitely more complex.  I can literally write a fe with less than 40 lines of code with more functionality then what you are trying to setup.  As long as I don't have to run it through a web interface that is. 

Also why are to talking about fe's like hyperspin and ect... they are literally the most convoluted and complex fes to setup and configure.  Check out mamewah, or game launcher or tons of the simplier fes.  Even that aside, I can't think of a fe off hand that won't let you boot directly into a game upon launch.  I think perhaps you did 2 minutes of research instead of really looking into this. 

Again, you seem to be getting defensive.  I'm not sure why. What you are going to find is that as a stand alone fe and not a neat feature for a fe, you are going to run into unexpected problems.  Off the top of my head, playing a marathon session of a particular game and then not being able to change to another because your phone went dead comes to mind.

I'm getting defensive because you're attacking me and exaggerating while doing it, as if you're having fun. 

I know WTF I'm doing.  You don't know WTF I'm doing.  I was writing apps like this 15 years ago, tool apps which were available on the public internet and received tens of thousands of hits per day from people who needed these apps to run and to spawn processes on the local machine, and I've only gotten better in the interim.  I know WTF I'm doing.  You don't know WTF I'm doing, yet you talk as if you know more than anyone.  High post count means only that you do a lot of typing, it has nothing to do with anything else.  An idiot can type just as much as a genius, so post count says absolutely nothing.  I don't know where within that range you fall, and I don't think it matters where within that range you fall.

Yeah my phone battery will totally determine the usefulness, because no other device in my house has a web browser installed....   ... Even my PS3 has a web browser useful enough for this, nevermind any of the computers, phones or however many Nintendo DSi/3DS variations my kids have scattered around.

You're right, I don't know who you are, but I can tell you right now that you are not impressing me.  You make me want to leave this community.  Well done!  Was that your goal?

You've definitely succeeded in convincing me that front-end people are to be avoided.  FEs are tacky as hell and I'm halting all work on all FE work I'm doing.  So I guess you got what you were aiming for there.  Congratulations.  You won an argument on the Internet. 

[Endprodukt]

Wow. Don't you think you're over reacting? Well if you want to leave because one person knows better (and he does in case of emulation and Frontends as it seems) why do you post in the first place?

Howard does a lot for this scene so you may should listen and take a closer look at what he's trying to say.

[Nephasth]

I'm getting defensive because you're attacking me and exaggerating while doing it, as if you're having fun. 

I know WTF I'm doing.  You don't know WTF I'm doing.  I was writing apps like this 15 years ago, tool apps which were available on the public internet and received tens of thousands of hits per day from people who needed these apps to run and to spawn processes on the local machine, and I've only gotten better in the interim.  I know WTF I'm doing.  You don't know WTF I'm doing, yet you talk as if you know more than anyone.  High post count means only that you do a lot of typing, it has nothing to do with anything else.  An idiot can type just as much as a genius, so post count says absolutely nothing.  I don't know where within that range you fall, and I don't think it matters where within that range you fall.

Yeah my phone battery will totally determine the usefulness, because no other device in my house has a web browser installed....   ... Even my PS3 has a web browser useful enough for this, nevermind any of the computers, phones or however many Nintendo DSi/3DS variations my kids have scattered around.

You're right, I don't know who you are, but I can tell you right now that you are not impressing me.  You make me want to leave this community.  Well done!  Was that your goal?

You've definitely succeeded in convincing me that front-end people are to be avoided.  FEs are tacky as hell and I'm halting all work on all FE work I'm doing.  So I guess you got what you were aiming for there.  Congratulations.  You won an argument on the Internet.

Hoy soy! Anti-Casto!!


Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference.
 

[sandheaver]

Wow. Don't you think you're over reacting? Well if you want to leave because one person knows better (and he does in case of emulation and Frontends as it seems) why do you post in the first place?

Howard does a lot for this scene so you may should listen and take a closer look at what he's trying to say.

How can you say he knows more than I when you cannot quantify what I know?  I will not discuss this further.  You are clearly prejudiced against me in your opinion that he knows more than me.  You don't know what I do and do not know, and therefore you cannot make that statement in good faith.  You are biased, and your opinion is therefore moot.

[yotsuya]

You asked for opinions. I'm sorry you don't like the replies. Just code it anyway. 

[Endprodukt]

He made a Frontend and many other apps for this community , you did not (at least I never heard of them). I clearly wrote "as it seems". That's not a fact but my interpretation from your reactions. 
Biased? Of course. He gave us ts2 and mamehooker so he may be godlike. On a serious side: he gave you some fair input and his honest opinion. You're answer :I'm not coming back and people who made fe's are all the same. What the!?

[sudopinion]

This may help you in your quest sandy...
http://code.google.com/p/rom-jacket
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/413403/index.html

[Gray_Area]

Is this different than the Chrome browser porting (that happened a year or so back)?

[Le Chuck]

Sand, you know you can ignore users right? Why get all butt hurt when you can just block dissenting opinion. All you've done here is make us wonder why we'd want you in this community anyway. If you're going then peace be upon you, if you're staying then "Lighten up Francis"

[sandheaver]

Sand, you know you can ignore users right? Why get all butt hurt when you can just block dissenting opinion. All you've done here is make us wonder why we'd want you in this community anyway. If you're going then peace be upon you, if you're staying then "Lighten up Francis"

I'm going to start by ignoring you.  You've already insulted me more than anyone else here, in that single post.  Well done.

[Le Chuck]

Yeah, I have a way with words like that. 

[sandheaver]

I'm not going to read what you said, but it would not surprise me in the least if it could be considered a part of the general behavior that shrinks the arcade hobbyist community, year by year.

This community (not arcadecontrols.com specifically; the entire community) shrinks over time and people who crawl out of the woodwork to attack others are not helping.  Constructive criticism, rather than destructive criticism, should be encouraged.

So, keep it up with the brave comments such as name calling and soon we can eradicate the community entirely.

[Le Chuck]

I'm not going to read what you said, but it would not surprise me in the least if it could be considered a part of the general behavior that shrinks the arcade hobbyist community, year by year.

This community (not arcadecontrols.com specifically; the entire community) shrinks over time and people who crawl out of the woodwork to attack others are not helping.  Constructive criticism, rather than destructive criticism, should be encouraged.

So, keep it up with the brave comments such as name calling and soon we can eradicate the community entirely.

Step one of ignoring is not to take the bait FYI. 

Eradicate the community?  Do you want to compare new users brought to this community by our builds?  I'm no Sjaak or Ond when it comes to pulling out the lurkers but I've done my fair share of adding bodies to the community.  What have you added besides a snippy attitude and a holier than thou demeanor?  Lighten up Francis.  Stick around.  I'm not such a bad guy, just occasionally prickly.  You want an olive branch?  This is as close as you're going to get.  Take it or leave it. 

[yotsuya]

So, keep it up with the brave comments such as name calling and soon we can eradicate the community

The ones that stick around seem to be pretty thick-skinned when they ask for honest feedback.

[sandheaver]

So, keep it up with the brave comments such as name calling and soon we can eradicate the community

The ones that stick around seem to be pretty thick-skinned when they ask for honest feedback.

One can be honest without attacking.  It's a life skill all of you have, but choose not to use when on the Internet.  I don't know why some feel that it's OK to attack someone when they ask for feedback. 

[Endprodukt]

No one attacked you until you claimed we would. You got opinions and you didn't like them. That's not attacking.

[Vigo]

So, keep it up with the brave comments such as name calling and soon we can eradicate the community

The ones that stick around seem to be pretty thick-skinned when they ask for honest feedback.

One can be honest without attacking.  It's a life skill all of you have, but choose not to use when on the Internet.  I don't know why some feel that it's OK to attack someone when they ask for feedback.

[sandheaver]

.. fine.  what word?

[yotsuya]

Post #5: First salvo - read who fired it

"Look, I'm weird about this.  I get that.  you all hate it.  I get that.  I'm doing it anyway."

Up until then, all feedback was pretty honest, and not what you were looking for (and no one used the term "hate"). That chip on your shoulder probably blocked your view.

[sandheaver]

Post #5: First salvo - read who fired it

"Look, I'm weird about this.  I get that.  you all hate it.  I get that.  I'm doing it anyway."

Up until then, all feedback was pretty honest, and not what you were looking for (and no one used the term "hate"). That chip on your shoulder probably blocked your view.

fine, again, you all win.  i'm wrong.  i admit it.  now go away.  jesus christ.

[HaRuMaN]

[yotsuya]

Post #5: First salvo - read who fired it

"Look, I'm weird about this.  I get that.  you all hate it.  I get that.  I'm doing it anyway."

Up until then, all feedback was pretty honest, and not what you were looking for (and no one used the term "hate"). That chip on your shoulder probably blocked your view.

fine, again, you all win.  i'm wrong.  i admit it.  now go away.  jesus christ.

You are, without a doubt, the biggest ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- I have ever seen on this board.

[sandheaver]

You are, without a doubt, the biggest ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- I have ever seen on this board.

So brave.

[yotsuya]

So true. You can't take any sort of feedback that doesn't mesh with your "vision". Just code the ---smurfing--- thing and show us how wrong we all are.

[sandheaver]

So true. You can't take any sort of feedback that doesn't mesh with your "vision". Just code the ---smurfing--- thing and show us how wrong we all are.

I can take it.  I just don't appreciate the vitriol that's come with it.  So I used the word 'hate' when referring to my own interpretation; I wasn't hateful about it, I didn't attack anyone when I said it.  How is that word enough to light the fuse of "let's screw with sandheaver and her stupid frontend?"  How is that the first salvo, as you said?

I give up.  Banned or not I'm done with this forum and everyone in it, for a long time or forever.  My fault or not, I'm done.  I realize you don't care one bit, but maybe it'll make someone somewhere be a little less a-holeish at some point.

[Nephasth]

I realize you don't care one bit, but maybe it'll make someone somewhere be a little less a-holeish at some point.

They probably won't notice the ripple.

[yotsuya]

Dandro came in around the same time. No one's been harsh with him. We don't treat newbies poorly for the sake of it. You, my friend, came in with this big chip on your shoulder we all could all see from a mile away. Sorry no one is fawning over your idea, but it is what it is.

[HaRuMaN]

[Le Chuck]

Am I still being summarily ignored? Sandy, can you read me, over.

[Vigo]

.. fine.  what word?

Attack. No one here has been hostile against you. You may have been hit with a bit of Snark, but I think that it is due to your over-reaction from criticism.

Trust me, I have had ideas that have been from another planet of what everybody else thinks, and even though I have been nothing but criticized for it, I still think it is a good idea. Anyone remember Vigo going on about Mahjong Control Panels? Vigo still thinks he will be on the cusp of greatness when that baby gets made.  Well...I at least took the criticism without being a dick to anyone who disagreed with me.

Your idea has merit, and it might be what is right for you, but to most of us here, you are swatting a fly with an anvil. I can tell programming is no big deal to you, but wouldn't it just be easier to just have a hidden touch screen on your cabinet that you can use select the game from?

I mean, with your way you are relying on a cabinet without a keyboard or any form of easy admin access to only work through network commands without ever going down or having lag. Maybe you can do it seamlessly, but I can't even get my ps3 to stay online all the time without problems. I just see remote access only as a big can of worms with very little benefit. Sorry, but I can't recall a single time that I am in an airport, or at burger king or on the crapper and decided that I want to change my Mame machine from Mappy Land over to Zaxxon. And on a phone? Damn, I can't even dial a phone number without having to go back from pressing the wrong button 3 times. Can you really display more than a few games at a time on a browser list and still have the ability to select want you want, and keep it all easy to navigate? I dunno. Maybe you should go ahead and make it and show us how it's done right.

[sandheaver]

Your idea has merit, and it might be what is right for you, but to most of us here, you are swatting a fly with an anvil. I can tell programming is no big deal to you, but wouldn't it just be easier to just have a hidden touch screen on your cabinet that you can use select the game from?

Maybe, but I don't have spare touch monitors laying around.  I do have spare web browsers and time.

I mean, with your way you are relying on a cabinet without a keyboard or any form of easy admin access to only work through network commands without ever going down or having lag. Maybe you can do it seamlessly, but I can't even get my ps3 to stay online all the time without problems.

You are not the only one to have PS3 wireless problems.  My network has never had such issues, and even if it did, it would be like an escalator breaking down and halting, becoming another useful (though unmoving) way to traverse floors in a building: stairs.  If my ability to change games suddenly is lost, I still have a working game I liked enough to switch to in the first place.  I can fix it at my leisure.

I just see remote access only as a big can of worms with very little benefit. Sorry, but I can't recall a single time that I am in an airport, or at burger king or on the crapper and decided that I want to change my Mame machine from Mappy Land over to Zaxxon.

It would not be used when you're away from home.  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  If someone is at home and wants to change the game, they can do so themselves.

And on a phone? Damn, I can't even dial a phone number without having to go back from pressing the wrong button 3 times. Can you really display more than a few games at a time on a browser list and still have the ability to select want you want, and keep it all easy to navigate? I dunno. Maybe you should go ahead and make it and show us how it's done right.

Certainly.  On my phone, HTML SELECT lists are rendered as native controls once clicked/tapped.  So, when I click a dropdown, I get a fullscreen phone-UI that lets me easily make a choice; the control is easy to read and easy to use.  I know it's that way on Android and Windows Phone, and I suspect iPhone as well.  That is a good point, though, I really don't know how it would render on all platforms.  But I really only care about my own, and I know it would be just fine in that case.

I see remote access an a very easily implemented solution.  I've done this a great deal for other purposes and it's not new territory for me at all.  This is probably why I'm so comfortable with it and few others are.

Thank you for actually wanting to discuss the topic.

[yotsuya]

In all seriousness, I'd like to see you code this and post a video of it in action. I don't personally see a use for it, but maybe you can convince some of us ---uvulas--- that we're wrong. 

[Nephasth]

You're still here? I thought you left.

[Vigo]

In all seriousness, I'd like to see you code this and post a video of it in action. I don't personally see a use for it, but maybe you can convince some of us ---uvulas--- that we're wrong. 

+1

Sandheaver, I like your responses to my points. You make it sound like it is a good solution for you needs. I still think it is unnecessary, but who ever said overkill always was a bad thing? I hope it works as smoothly for you as you say it will.

I just see remote access only as a big can of worms with very little benefit. Sorry, but I can't recall a single time that I am in an airport, or at burger king or on the crapper and decided that I want to change my Mame machine from Mappy Land over to Zaxxon.

It would not be used when you're away from home.  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  If someone is at home and wants to change the game, they can do so themselves.

But now thinking about it. It might be a cool feature to mess with people playing on your machine. Set up a wifi camera as well, bring a friend over, have them go for a high score on their favorite game while you make a run for some food. Then watch them over the camera and when they are getting far in the game, change the game to Snacks 'n Jackson on them. 

[Malenko]

It's times like this that I really miss Pinball Jim.

This is one of the dumbest ideas Ive ever read. I'd rather select the game on the 27" monitor then on a 4.3" phone screen. This ranks right up there with XuiceBox's rotating panel.

I'll attack you, cause its ---smurfing--- stupid. Everyone else tries to be constructive but you'll have none of that, so I'll be your huckleberry. All ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- aside, doesnt this OP and post sort of remind you of a certain young custom LCD monitor slinging kid that wanted to have his MAME hosted on a server in his unventilated closet and accessed from a thin client based arcade machine while "streaming" roms all over his house?

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

[HaRuMaN]

You're still here? I thought you left.

I guess he sucks at quitting, too...   

[Endprodukt]

Haha this can only get better. 

[Vigo]

It's times like this that I really miss Pinball Jim.

This is one of the dumbest ideas Ive ever read. I'd rather select the game on the 27" monitor then on a 4.3" phone screen. This ranks right up there with XuiceBox's rotating panel.

I'll attack you, cause its ---smurfing--- stupid. Everyone else tries to be constructive but you'll have none of that, so I'll be your huckleberry. All ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- aside, doesnt this OP and post sort of remind you of a certain young custom LCD monitor slinging kid that wanted to have his MAME hosted on a server in his unventilated closet and accessed from a thin client based arcade machine while "streaming" roms all over his house?

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

Ahh, you're missing the beauty of this project idea then. Am I the only one who enjoys watching his friends get bewildered when trying to navigate my mame machine? This is that enjoyment times 1000. When they ask how to change games or adjust settings and you toss them a web address in response, saying "I dont want you touchin' my phone" Just wait for their million dollar reactions. And then once they figure it out, turn the machine on "name that tune" and quickly unplug the internet router. 

Its sorta the same beauty that the world missed with X's rotating panel. I mean, just let that panel free spin, invite some friends over, and don't tell them a thing about what controls are used for each game. Pure entertainment. Just sit back and watch while they try 10 minutes to figure out what controls are needed to play a game of Moon Patrol. If you want to go the extra mile, set every control not used by that specific game to escape out of mame. It will be like Indiana Jones trying to pick the Holy Grail.

[sandheaver]

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

In-cabinet front-ends are necessarily ugly to me.  This is what I'm avoiding.  So, it is a solution to a problem I have.  It is not a solution to a problem you have.

You're still here? I thought you left.

I guess he sucks at quitting, too...   

She.

[Malenko]

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

In-cabinet front-ends are necessarily ugly to me.  This is what I'm avoiding.  So, it is a solution to a problem I have.  It is not a solution to a problem you have.

If only the current front ends could be skinned and/or heavily altered...........

I stand by my answer, picking a game on your phone for your arcade cab is a pointless idea. Its like having a remote start buttons for your car, that you can only press while in the drivers seat of the car.  That being said, if you want to do it, then do it. Just don't get a bunch of sand in your girly parts when people disagree with you.

[Le Chuck]

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

In-cabinet front-ends are necessarily ugly to me.  This is what I'm avoiding.  So, it is a solution to a problem I have.  It is not a solution to a problem you have.

You're still here? I thought you left.

I guess he sucks at quitting, too...   

She.

Called it! 

[sandheaver]

"A solution to a problem no one will ever have"

In-cabinet front-ends are necessarily ugly to me.  This is what I'm avoiding.  So, it is a solution to a problem I have.  It is not a solution to a problem you have.

If only the current front ends could be skinned and/or heavily altered...........

I stand by my answer, picking a game on your phone for your arcade cab is a pointless idea. Its like having a remote start buttons for your car, that you can only press while in the drivers seat of the car.  That being said, if you want to do it, then do it. Just don't get a bunch of sand in your girly parts when people disagree with you.

Find me one that isn't ugly or just plain tacky in general and I'll start listening to this point of view.  There is no way that having a selection screen, no matter how elegant, is the proper approach, to me.  This is a preference, so don't bother arguing it; I understand that your preference(s) are different.  That's fine, I'm not telling you that you're wrong, I'm just saying that my preference is to not have a game-selection UI at all, even if it's on a phone or a web browser outside of the cabinet.

That said, I recognize the necessity of such a selection system.  One game per cabinet is impractical unless you own a gymnasium and it's not being used for anything else.  So, I'm trying to make a game selection system that is completely and totally invisible to the user standing/sitting at the cabinet.  You may not like it.  That's fine.  I'm doing it anyway.  And no, I will not be posting any pictures or video when it's done.  You've all made it clear that this is of no interest to you, and I won't pretend otherwise.

[Malenko]

I was just replying to you the way that you were replying to everyone else. No UI is unpossible, youre just moving it to the phone or whatever. I have 6 machines and counting, Im hoping to one day not need a UI either.  As for not posting picture or videos......that seems a little juvenile / cunty to me.

[yotsuya]

So, I'm trying to make a game selection system that is completely and totally invisible to the user standing/sitting at the cabinet.  You may not like it.  That's fine.  I'm doing it anyway.  And no, I will not be posting any pictures or video when it's done.  You've all made it clear that this is of no interest to you, and I won't pretend otherwise.

Then why the ---fudgesicle--- are you wasting your time here?

[sandheaver]

I was just replying to you the way that you were replying to everyone else. No UI is unpossible, youre just moving it to the phone or whatever. I have 6 machines and counting, Im hoping to one day not need a UI either.  As for not posting picture or videos......that seems a little juvenile / cunty to me.

Your choice of words is terrible.

Why would I bother those of you who I've bothered so much already.  Half of you have me on your ignore lists, certainly.

Believing you have the right to see what I'm doing is not reasonable.  You'll see the software if I choose to show it to you.  As of this moment I'm quite certain no one here is interested in anything I do or say.

So, I'm trying to make a game selection system that is completely and totally invisible to the user standing/sitting at the cabinet.  You may not like it.  That's fine.  I'm doing it anyway.  And no, I will not be posting any pictures or video when it's done.  You've all made it clear that this is of no interest to you, and I won't pretend otherwise.

Then why the ---fudgesicle--- are you wasting your time here?

When I started this topic, I was quite happy to show my progress.  Now it seems no one is interested in me or my progress.  That's why.

[yotsuya]

I was just replying to you the way that you were replying to everyone else. No UI is unpossible, youre just moving it to the phone or whatever. I have 6 machines and counting, Im hoping to one day not need a UI either.  As for not posting picture or videos......that seems a little juvenile / cunty to me.

Your choice of words is terrible.

Why would I bother those of you who I've bothered so much already.  Half of you have me on your ignore lists, certainly.

Believing you have the right to see what I'm doing is not reasonable.  You'll see the software if I choose to show it to you.  As of this moment I'm quite certain no one here is interested in anything I do or say.

So, I'm trying to make a game selection system that is completely and totally invisible to the user standing/sitting at the cabinet.  You may not like it.  That's fine.  I'm doing it anyway.  And no, I will not be posting any pictures or video when it's done.  You've all made it clear that this is of no interest to you, and I won't pretend otherwise.

Then why the ---fudgesicle--- are you wasting your time here?

When I started this topic, I was quite happy to show my progress.  Now it seems no one is interested in me or my progress.  That's why.

I tried to extend the olive branch and tell you that I am interested in seeing your project (which I am, even though I wouldn't use it). But most kids, when they take their ball and go home, actually GO home rather than stand in the park and continually tell the kids they're going to leave.

Look, you are certainly welcome here. You obviously think your project has more merit than others here do. Fine, I get that. Code it, and show us. If you're not going to, why stick around?

Conversely, will your front end be able to let people play Galaga?

[Le Chuck]

Half of you have me on your ignore lists, certainly.

What's got two thumbs and is still tuned in to your crazy station?  THIS GUY!


















Don't flatter yourself, it's way too much work to add you to an ignore list, especially when it's so much fun to watch you self destruct.  Oh, and don't pretend you're not clicking the little link to show my hidden posts...I know you are.  Aren't you, you dirty bird. 

[EightBySix]

Hesitating to jump in here, but I can kind of see where the OP is coming from.

I'm setting up my project so it boots straight into the last game played. To me, it adds to the illusion that its an arcade game. Lots of us go to lengths to hide evidence of Windows - its really just a natural extension of that.

As for the front end - I'm hoping to keep mine minimal - using the LED display to scroll through available games. I kind of like the idea in the future, of putting my phone down on it (mines a table so it's a sensible place to do so) and using nfc to fire up an app on my phone with game stats, menu for choosing next game etc. Only as an alternative though, not the main way of selecting.

[yotsuya]

Hesitating to jump in here, but I can kind of see where the OP is coming from.

I'm setting up my project so it boots straight into the last game played. To me, it adds to the illusion that its an arcade game. Lots of us go to lengths to hide evidence of Windows - its really just a natural extension of that.

As for the front end - I'm hoping to keep mine minimal - using the LED display to scroll through available games. I kind of like the idea in the future, of putting my phone down on it (mines a table so it's a sensible place to do so) and using nfc to fire up an app on my phone with game stats, menu for choosing next game etc. Only as an alternative though, not the main way of selecting.

I think we can all see where the OP is coming from regarding the FE- it's just that it's not a problem that isn't currently solvable. I showed the example with my Tempest. The FE never shows unless I want it to. To guests, it's a dedicated Tempest machine. If they want to play Galaga, they can get on my vertical MAME machine.

Maybe it's all in what you want from your cabinet. I want to be able to walk up to it, pick a game, and play. If I need to start digging around for my phone and access a website/app to change a game, I'm doing it wrong, IMHO.

[Malenko]

Your choice of words is terrible.

Why would I bother those of you who I've bothered so much already.  Half of you have me on your ignore lists, certainly.

I don't ignore anyone, and if I ever changed my mind you are no where near the top of the list. As for my choice of words...I go for effectiveness over eloquence.  Either be a part of the community or go away *shrugs*

Because someone tells you its a waste of time to do (and it is) doesnt mean we dont want to see the end result when you do it anyway. I personally would love to see XuiceBox's control panel dispense bingo balls everytime you changed games.

[Endprodukt]

She doesn't care what we think or wants to hear our opinion. she won't go either. She won't show her FE once it's done and ban everyone on this forum. Ever. Most ridiculous thread I've seen in a long time.

[Le Chuck]

[Ond]

What a thread, well its different anyhow.  It is missing PB Jims particular POV, oh well.  So the basic idea here (if I understand it correctly) is a kind of web based remote control for your cab to control emulators, game switching etc without having any visible FE on the cab right?  Well OK, I'd like to see it happen.  As a bit of a different perspective on this you may start out with one idea and end up with something else really useful to the community.  If you have the coding skills you claim it would be a shame to not show what you got and contribute. 
If you start off by evangelising an idea that is a bit left of field (according to some) it’s a sure thing you’ll get comments like ‘overcomplicated’ ‘difficult to do’ etc that’s just  interwebs par for the course opinion.  If you make something and ASK for opinions you’ll probably get more lovin than you have so far.  Even Howard is right sometimes.  I didn’t say that.

[Aceisback]

Wow. I just think this forum has surpassed the XDA development forums for childish behavior...

Who cares how complex something is or whether or not it will be worth the trouble. I thought these boards were here to help people not discourage them from doing something new.

I keep hearing how great Mala and Mamewah are, but I cannot even get Mamewah to run (on a WIN7 64bit and WIN8 64bit pc) and Mala just plain sucks in my own opinion not because it doesn't work, just because it is not what I was looking for in a FE, and I have tried several. I am currently using that overly complex Hypersin, and so far it has been the easiest to setup and use and does what I want it to. What works for some does not always work for others, so why all the trash talk? In todays age, we are controlling other things with our phones and tablets, why not an arcade machine???

[sandheaver]

She doesn't care what we think or wants to hear our opinion. she won't go either. She won't show her FE once it's done and ban everyone on this forum. Ever. Most ridiculous thread I've seen in a long time.

That's... some grammar you have there.  If you're not a native speaker then that's fine, but if you are, you need to work on that.

I don't ignore anyone, and if I ever changed my mind you are no where near the top of the list. As for my choice of words...I go for effectiveness over eloquence.  Either be a part of the community or go away *shrugs*

You have neither effectiveness nor eloquence.  I'm not going away, but I'll tone it down accordingly.

So the basic idea here (if I understand it correctly) is a kind of web based remote control for your cab to control emulators, game switching etc without having any visible FE on the cab right?  Well OK, I'd like to see it happen.  As a bit of a different perspective on this you may start out with one idea and end up with something else really useful to the community.

For this reason, I started writing the software tonight.

Client side, on my phone, looks like this, so far.  http://imgur.com/a/z2Lig  One image is of the main first screen, the other is what the buttons dropdown looks like when you press it.  This should serve as a demonstration that the UI elements are plenty big, at least on Windows Phone.  My Android development phone also shows the large UI elements.  This UI isn't done yet; there will be a "save my cabinet" link which will store your cabinet configuration.  Subsequent visits to the page will bring you to the game list, with a link to go back and modify the config when/if it changes.

Server side, I've completed the logic that reads in the MAME -listxml file and only shows the games that are compatible with your cabinet.  This was much easier than I thought it would be and is very fast.  I used the extra time to set up a server on the public Internet that other people can use to query the MAME list, but I have some bugs and won't give out the link, yet.  When I do, though, you can go crazy querying, if you want.  Or, don't, up to you.  If you want to programmatically access a list of games supported by the latest MAME version given your own query options, well my service will help you.  It will be a REST service; queries in the URL, response returned as JSON or XML.

Tomorrow I'll create the query object that will be passed between the configuration page pictured and the results page, and I'll work on and hopefully finish the launching of MAME.  When I do, I'll take a video.

Wow. I just think this forum has surpassed the XDA development forums for childish behavior...

Who cares how complex something is or whether or not it will be worth the trouble. I thought these boards were here to help people not discourage them from doing something new.

I keep hearing how great Mala and Mamewah are, but I cannot even get Mamewah to run (on a WIN7 64bit and WIN8 64bit pc) and Mala just plain sucks in my own opinion not because it doesn't work, just because it is not what I was looking for in a FE, and I have tried several. I am currently using that overly complex Hypersin, and so far it has been the easiest to setup and use and does what I want it to. What works for some does not always work for others, so why all the trash talk? In todays age, we are controlling other things with our phones and tablets, why not an arcade machine???

Agreed & thank you.

[Aceisback]

Hopefully, things cool down and the project gets back on track...

I was interested in this idea because although it may not be what some people want as a FE, it can always lead to something also.

Keep us updated on your progress.

[Nephasth]

If I watched TV with my hands on the front controls of the TV, why would I want to take my hands of the controls to use a remote?

Why use a remote device to select a game on a MAME rig, when I have the controls at my finger tips?

Anybody else think wheels aren't round enough?

[Aceisback]

If I watched TV with my hands on the front controls of the TV, why would I want to take my hands of the controls to use a remote?

Why use a remote device to select a game on a MAME rig, when I have the controls at my finger tips?

Anybody else think wheels aren't round enough?

Once again...Who cares, if you you don't like the idea, move on!

[Le Chuck]

Ace, Sand - I don't get when dissenting opinion became taboo.  I have admittedly not made a "useful contribution" to this thread in any way.  I came here on a lark to watch to fireworks but Nep voiced his informed opinion.  That doesn't mean that opinion negates this project or that it even has to be addressed but shilling out a "bump it on up the road" isn't going to really work in anyone's favor in the long run.  This community has a very long memory and some very impassioned members who have done a lot for the community at large.  MAME would not be able to do many of the things we expect from it w/out Howard's hard work and Nep is one of the preeminent builders on this site.  Some of these folks you are raging against carry the BYOAC community on their backs day in and out.  That doesn't mean you have to take their advice, or lay off a project because they don't see the purpose.  You're not even rolling over because we are naught but words.  So why the vitriol? 

I have burned one bridge to the ground since joining.  X2.  I don't talk to him and he doesn't talk to me.  I made that choice.  How many bridges will you choose to burn and with whom will you be cutting ties?  From the looks of it those bridges run to some of the core knowledge base in the community.  I can't demand your respect and you're free to do as you see fit but I caution you to take pause. 

The above message was brought to you by the coalition of "Lighten up Francis".  The coalition is unaffiliated with the ownership of this website and the opinions herein are the user's own and not be construed as binding, good advice, or anything on the nature.  The above should be taken with a grain of salt and is not to be taken as a suppository.     

[Ond]

I have admittedly not made a "useful contribution" to this thread in any way.

Yeah you did, with that post  .

@ sandheaver Don't hate on Le Chuck, read his stuff, friendly mischief - mixed with serious talent. 

@ Aceisback - this is a forum.  Ideas get discussed, tossed around, debated, turned upside down and criticised.  Hopefully vitriol and personal attacks at a minimum.  Hell, compared to some forums BYOAC is a totally nurturing place (mainly) .

By the sounds of it sandheaver is getting on with it.  Watching with interest.

[Aceisback]

Ace, Sand - I don't get when dissenting opinion became taboo.  I have admittedly not made a "useful contribution" to this thread in any way.  I came here on a lark to watch to fireworks but Nep voiced his informed opinion.  That doesn't mean that opinion negates this project or that it even has to be addressed but shilling out a "bump it on up the road" isn't going to really work in anyone's favor in the long run.  This community has a very long memory and some very impassioned members who have done a lot for the community at large.  MAME would not be able to do many of the things we expect from it w/out Howard's hard work and Nep is one of the preeminent builders on this site.  Some of these folks you are raging against carry the BYOAC community on their backs day in and out.  That doesn't mean you have to take their advice, or lay off a project because they don't see the purpose.  You're not even rolling over because we are naught but words.  So why the vitriol? 

I have burned one bridge to the ground since joining.  X2.  I don't talk to him and he doesn't talk to me.  I made that choice.  How many bridges will you choose to burn and with whom will you be cutting ties?  From the looks of it those bridges run to some of the core knowledge base in the community.  I can't demand your respect and you're free to do as you see fit but I caution you to take pause. 

The above message was brought to you by the coalition of "Lighten up Francis".  The coalition is unaffiliated with the ownership of this website and the opinions herein are the user's own and not be construed as binding, good advice, or anything on the nature.  The above should be taken with a grain of salt and is not to be taken as a suppository.     

Wheres the rage? I'm just stating my opinion that this thread has gotten a bit out of hand, and that I think we should drop the attacks and move on with the project, but like any forum, everyone is going to try and get one last jab in, that's just the nature of these things i guess.
My only question is why is this response directed only towards Sand and myself??? It appears others have been more outspoken in this thread than me...But I already know the answer, I am a newer member with no status here and I accept that because I come here to learn and to help people in a positive way if I am asked a particular question.

[Endprodukt]

English isn't my native language but thanks for letting me know.

[Le Chuck]

My only question is why is this response directed only towards Sand and myself??? It appears others have been more outspoken in this thread than me...But I already know the answer, I am a newer member with no status here and I accept that because I come here to learn and to help people in a positive way if I am asked a particular question.

Nope.  We have lots of members with high post counts who have been around for years that have next to zero status.  We have members who are new who have contributed, shown themselves to be pleasant to deal with, and already command great respect.  I took the time to write a word of caution not because you're a newb and I'm a regular and you need to repect mah authoritai but because I'd like to see all new members ingratiate themselves into the latter group of those I mentioned, those that demonstrate stewardship.   
 

[Malenko]

And post count and time here don't always amount to merit, for example Chadtower has been here forever had has a million posts.

I'll retract my previous assholely posts if you start posting like a normal person. deal?

[Vigo]

My only question is why is this response directed only towards Sand and myself??? It appears others have been more outspoken in this thread than me...But I already know the answer, I am a newer member with no status here and I accept that because I come here to learn and to help people in a positive way if I am asked a particular question.

Ace, in a way you are right. It does have something to do with you two being new, but not in the way you think. Being a new member does means that you usually miss a couple dynamics of this place. The big one is that many of us understand what a huge undertaking any arcade project is in reality. When making a machine that that costs lots of money and takes lots of time, we would rather be completely honest to people up front about their ideas  revolving their machine than lie to them telling them that we think their idea is always great. That hand-holding attitude leads to projects with serious problems and ultimately become unused and unloved in the end. A bad first project usually kills the love of the hobby.

The other is that a new member might not realize what kind of experts we tend to have hanging around here. Honest opinions from experts are not an attack. We simply have seen thousands of ideas and have a feel for what works and what doesn't. Many new members here interpret that is a holier than thou attitude, you two are not the first to feel that way. The ones that stick around see that we are really just trying to help. Hopefully you and Sand will be a part of that crowd.

[yotsuya]

I usually don't get involved in pile-ons, and I've been here long enough that I think most people know that I'm easy going, but the early tone of the OP's posts in this thread rubbed me the wrong way. OP asked for opinions, Neph and Howard, two guys who I respect enough that they would give honest, unsugarcoated feedback, gave it, and in post #5, the OP says "Fine, I get it, you guys hate it, I'm going to do it anyway"- basically, a passive agressive "---fudgesicle--- You and Your Opinion", when none of these guys said anything about "hating" the project, but rather only why they didn't think it was a useful idea. I think Ond hit it on the head- if you're that dead-set on it, do your project first, then solicit feedback on your finished item. Maybe most of us don't see a use for it now, but perhaps a finished, near polished project would change minds. No one "hates" things because they're new or different, but we've evolved to the point that we're not handing out gold stars for every new idea, either.

And I've missed you, Vigo. Always the voice of reason.

I do want to apologize to the OP for calling her a "---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?---". I thought she was a guy acting like a woman. I didn't realize she WAS a woman.  That's been bugging me.

[brad808]

Hey look a thread about a font end, let's see what this is about ....... Slowly starts backing away.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[dandro]

Dandro came in around the same time. No one's been harsh with him. We don't treat newbies poorly for the sake of it. You, my friend, came in with this big chip on your shoulder we all could all see from a mile away. Sorry no one is fawning over your idea, but it is what it is.

True and received great feedback as I asked for opinions, accepted input and turned out great product! 

[yotsuya]

Dandro came in around the same time. No one's been harsh with him. We don't treat newbies poorly for the sake of it. You, my friend, came in with this big chip on your shoulder we all could all see from a mile away. Sorry no one is fawning over your idea, but it is what it is.

True and received great feedback as I asked for opinions, accepted input and turned out great product! 

Exactly. It's not all "Here's a newb, let's ---fudgesicle--- with him" around here.

[sandheaver]

I'm somewhat ready to show you the backend logic that will supply a list of compliant games, given a cabinet configuration.

http://pastebin.com/JRNm5P3G

I created an incomplete (as in not fully implemented) cabinet configuration class which defines the cabinet that the emulator will run on.  This is not done, and the list of TODOs on my desk is significant, but the programmers among you should be able to see what I'm doing here.  If you're accurate in your description of your cabinet, and my logic is sound (so far it holds up) then this will generate a list of games that your cabinet has sufficient controls and displays to run properly, and no more.  Further options will be added to only show games with a status of "good", for example, so you can weed out the incomplete games, or perhaps you want to restrict that the game list only shows Nintendo arcade games or maybe Neo-Geo games.  I'll add that.

Once generated, this list will be used within the web UI I wrote last night to select, and ultimately launch, that game on the cabinet.  The code can easily be used in other front-ends that support MAME, and if you want to use this code, you are welcome to it.

Currently only MAME is supported.  Adding MESS on top of that is easy, so I'll probably be doing that soon.  I have no plans for other emulators; I'm not familiar with other emulators and MAME & MESS have everything my family wants.

edited (again) with updates to the code.

[mcseforsale]

subscribed.

AJ

[Seith]

I may be in the minority here, but I could totally see the reasoning behind coding a project like this.  Sometimes you just want your arcade machine to play a game without giving the user the capability to switch from the cabinet itself - I know that for my project, I went the way everyone else did and set up a frontend that allows for the game to be selected and even exited from, but all the while I kept thinking "what would be really cool would be a way to say 'here's the game for this week/month, everyone come play and try to beat hi-scores when you're over, next week/month will be a different game' thereby keeping the arcade experience a little more authentic".  Yes, of course you could do that with a frontend, but I think sandheaver's project is an interesting step in that same direction, to be honest.  As a player, I am far less likely to jump onto a Web Browser/Smartphone to switch games as I am if it were easily done on the cab itself.  There is a certain value to that, most definitely.  The amount of easy selection and access to games of all types can sometimes be a hindrance to game discovery.  It is a challenge, especially in today's internet age, to focus on one task and hone your skills at it until you become adept at playing it like arcade players used to in the 80's/90's.  Instead my guests can just say "Phoenix?  What the hell is that?  SFII, ---maternal-smurf---" and a potentially great gameplay experience is foregone.

So, with that in mind, I am following this project.  It's kind of unfortunate I am so close to finishing my cab, I would be willing to try this front-end.

[sandheaver]

... apparently getting people to quiet down on this thread is easy when you start posting code...

[Drnick]

... apparently getting people to quiet down on this thread is easy when you start posting code...

Yep, That's mostly all you need to do to keep us all happy, feed us pictures and or working code.

As a neutral person in this thread. I see what you are trying to do with this FE,  I can even see some occasions where this could be handy.  Obviously many others disagree.

I For one could use it at an 80's themed disco for charity that work is holding next month.  I will be taking along my Bartop which uses shifted functions to exit games etc.  Now I could either explain to people how to select different games and then spend most of my time repeating this or I can set the machine up with the 1 game say Pacman and then let people know that if they are bored of the currently selected game they can call me on the phone.

It won't matter if I am at the bar, on the toilet, smoking in the garden, shagging in the car.  I can just change the game without stopping whatever I am doing.  Yay 

Keep the work up.

[yotsuya]

It won't matter if I am at the bar, on the toilet, smoking in the garden, shagging in the car.  I can just change the game without stopping whatever I am doing.  Yay 

Keep the work up.

 

"Hold on, love, I got to put Galaga on for me mate!"

[Drnick]

It won't matter if I am at the bar, on the toilet, smoking in the garden, shagging in the car.  I can just change the game without stopping whatever I am doing.  Yay 

Keep the work up.

 

"Hold on, love, I got to put Galaga on for me mate!"

Nah he could wait for about 2 Minutes 

[yotsuya]

Nah he could wait for about 2 Minutes 

I wish we could give out rep points on this site. 

[Malenko]

... apparently getting people to quiet down on this thread is easy when you start posting code...

Nope, just stop complaining when people disagree then show us your progress. I actually thought of a useful purpose for this, if you can make it work. Have it generate game lists for other front ends using selectable variables. Like if I pick 4 way 1 button vertical games, your program could spit out a  MaLa list for someone's MAME cab, then they could sort out what they wanted to keep from that list instead of the full list. Just spitballin ideas.

[sandheaver]

... apparently getting people to quiet down on this thread is easy when you start posting code...

Nope, just stop complaining when people disagree then show us your progress. I actually thought of a useful purpose for this, if you can make it work. Have it generate game lists for other front ends using selectable variables. Like if I pick 4 way 1 button vertical games, your program could spit out a  MaLa list for someone's MAME cab, then they could sort out what they wanted to keep from that list instead of the full list. Just spitballin ideas.

That's already done; see the first post on this page, or reply #80 if you're viewing the whole thread in 1 page.

All of the code to do this, except list.xml which is the file 'mame -listxml' generates is in the link in that post.  Set up a CabinetDefinition with a vertical raster monitor, a 4-way joystick and 1 button, then run it.  You'll see a count of the games that are supported.

to see the actual games and to format the output how you like, modify the DisplayResults method.  You can write out any of the information contained in the list.xml file for each game.  Should be enough to suit for any emulator.

edit:

By the way, here's that list.  I don't know what a Mala list looks like so I can't customize it further. http://pastebin.com/wkL1NEQu  If you could sanity check it for me that would be great.  I'm not familiar with most of these games.

I added this to that method:

Code: [Select]

foreach (var game in resultGameList) {
    Console.WriteLine(game.name + ": " + game.description);
}

[EightBySix]

Consider access in the other direction too... I'd like to see some sort of restful web service access. You would be able to have current high scores in your signature, for example.

[Malenko]

attached is a wrestling list. you'll need to change the extension to mlg.  I didnt mean exporting to just a general XML file, I meant exporting to FE specific formats. More leg work? Of course, but also makes your project more useful.

[Seith]

Consider access in the other direction too... I'd like to see some sort of restful web service access. You would be able to have current high scores in your signature, for example.

Yes!  I love this idea.

[sandheaver]

attached is a wrestling list. you'll need to change the extension to mlg.  I didnt mean exporting to just a general XML file, I meant exporting to FE specific formats. More leg work? Of course, but also makes your project more useful.

That is a binary format.  There's text in it but the delimiters are binary and unknown to me.  Why someone would choose a binary format for that escapes me...

Is there a textual file format you can import into that front-end?

[sandheaver]

Consider access in the other direction too... I'd like to see some sort of restful web service access. You would be able to have current high scores in your signature, for example.

If you know how to get the high scores out of MAME or out of one of the files, I'm all ears.  I'm on my work computer so I can't look at that right now.  I imagine writing a different mechanism for each driver would be in order, and that would be just ... ugh.

[yotsuya]

Consider access in the other direction too... I'd like to see some sort of restful web service access. You would be able to have current high scores in your signature, for example.

If you know how to get the high scores out of MAME or out of one of the files, I'm all ears.  I'm on my work computer so I can't look at that right now.  I imagine writing a different mechanism for each driver would be in order, and that would be just ... ugh.

If I'm not mistaken, it's not standard across the board for each game, so you're probably right about it being a lot more work.

[sandheaver]

If I'm not mistaken, it's not standard across the board for each game, so you're probably right about it being a lot more work.

It's a good idea, but I want to finish my project before I work on someone else's.   

Reading MAME's hiscore save routine makes me think it won't be that hard, really.  I don't know C at all, though, so my ignorance of the language could be blinding me quite well.  Let's just assume that it is.

[yotsuya]

If I'm not mistaken, it's not standard across the board for each game, so you're probably right about it being a lot more work.

It's a good idea, but I want to finish my project before I work on someone else's.   

Reading MAME's hiscore save routine makes me think it won't be that hard, really.  I don't know C at all, though, so my ignorance of the language could be blinding me quite well.  Let's just assume that it is.

You know, you may want to finish your vision first, THEN explore additions. We're kind of (in)famous here for encouraging feature creep. Next thing you know, you'll be trying to figure out how to add cupholders to your project. 

[Seith]

If I'm not mistaken, it's not standard across the board for each game, so you're probably right about it being a lot more work.

It's a good idea, but I want to finish my project before I work on someone else's.   

Reading MAME's hiscore save routine makes me think it won't be that hard, really.  I don't know C at all, though, so my ignorance of the language could be blinding me quite well.  Let's just assume that it is.

You know, you may want to finish your vision first, THEN explore additions. We're kind of (in)famous here for encouraging feature creep. Next thing you know, you'll be trying to figure out how to add cupholders to your project. 

   too true.

[mcseforsale]

Absolutely...It could definitely use a gun rack.  Or a fridge.

AJ

If I'm not mistaken, it's not standard across the board for each game, so you're probably right about it being a lot more work.

It's a good idea, but I want to finish my project before I work on someone else's.   

Reading MAME's hiscore save routine makes me think it won't be that hard, really.  I don't know C at all, though, so my ignorance of the language could be blinding me quite well.  Let's just assume that it is.

You know, you may want to finish your vision first, THEN explore additions. We're kind of (in)famous here for encouraging feature creep. Next thing you know, you'll be trying to figure out how to add cupholders to your project. 

[sandheaver]

Alright.  I've got the game list filtering mechanism pretty much fully done.  It compiles to a DLL now and is usable in other apps, and I created a console app to test that.

You can filter by your monitor orientation and type, control interfaces (joystick, steering wheel, etc.) number of buttons available to each player, the year the game was released, the manufacturer, description, and if the system has a bios, you can specify which bios you want to see (so you only see Neo-Geo, for example.)

So you can see all vertically oriented Nintendo arcade games released between 1978 and 1983 if you want.  You can just specify that you want to see games with a "neogeo" bios, or you can see all games which have "Kong" in the description, or any combination of any of that and more.

It is easy to restrict all the way down to very small, specific lists.

The complete source for the .net DLL is here: http://pastebin.com/jYyDATtv

Working commandline demo app here: http://pastebin.com/4EF9G0Xd

Exception handling is up to the end developer.  C# is nice this way.

[Gray_Area]

She.

Called it! 

Yeah, the lingo was definitively feminine. Well.


((late to the game here....of course, I'm too busy playing to keep that up on affairs and all))

Am I still being summarily ignored? Sandyvag, can you read me, over.

Oh. I just got that maybe you meant vagina. I first thought 'vagger' was a play on bagger - sand bagger. I was about to say 'Is there sand in your clitty?', and perhaps you beat me to it.

[sandheaver]

Am I still being summarily ignored? Sandyvag, can you read me, over.

Oh. I just got that maybe you meant vagina. I first thought 'vagger' was a play on bagger - sand bagger. I was about to say 'Is there sand in your clitty?', and perhaps you beat me to it.

He meant vagina before he knew my gender, and was attempting to belittle me.  That's why he's still ignored.  Name-calling is a pet peeve of mine, so I filter it via ignores.

[Vigo]

Naw, I'm sure he meant vagary. It's just his pirate accent got in the way.

vagary  [vuh-gair-ee, vey-guh-ree]
noun, plural va·gar·ies.
1. an unpredictable or erratic action, occurrence, course, or instance: the vagaries of weather; the vagaries of the economic scene.
2. a whimsical, wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action.

He was referring to how unusual and unexpected your front-end idea was. You have to admit that it was a very vagarious idea you threw out there.

[sandheaver]

Naw, I'm sure he meant vagary. It's just his pirate accent got in the way.

vagary  [vuh-gair-ee, vey-guh-ree]
noun, plural va·gar·ies.
1. an unpredictable or erratic action, occurrence, course, or instance: the vagaries of weather; the vagaries of the economic scene.
2. a whimsical, wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action.

He was referring to how unusual and unexpected your front-end idea was. You have to admit that it was a very vagarious idea you threw out there.

Maybe, but it's still name calling, and I really, REALLY hate name calling.

[lordnacho]

Are you planning on supporting multiple cabinets?  I think this is where this would pay off.  Would also be nice to be able to kill remote processes like hyperspin or any other frontend.  By myself, I may want to browse through all the games, but at a party be able to control a bunch of Mame machines with one interface.  Tapper tournament?

Please note I skimmed the hell out of this thread

[sandheaver]

Are you planning on supporting multiple cabinets?  I think this is where this would pay off.  Would also be nice to be able to kill remote processes like hyperspin or any other frontend.  By myself, I may want to browse through all the games, but at a party be able to control a bunch of Mame machines with one interface.  Tapper tournament?

Please note I skimmed the hell out of this thread

Multiple machine support is possible.  Anything is possible, really, it's all just implementation details.  You'd need some sort of listener on each additional machine that would know how to listen for instructions and kill & start processes. 

That would actually be fairly trivial to do with Node.js.

That said, I'm writing this to solve my problems.  Once I'm done, if I don't have much else to work on, I'll implement other folks' ideas.  Or, you can just snag the code yourself and have at it.

[Vigo]

Naw, I'm sure he meant vagary. It's just his pirate accent got in the way.

vagary  [vuh-gair-ee, vey-guh-ree]
noun, plural va·gar·ies.
1. an unpredictable or erratic action, occurrence, course, or instance: the vagaries of weather; the vagaries of the economic scene.
2. a whimsical, wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action.

He was referring to how unusual and unexpected your front-end idea was. You have to admit that it was a very vagarious idea you threw out there.

Maybe, but it's still name calling, and I really, REALLY hate name calling.

Well, I can understand that. As a understanding adult, I hope you find the capacity to forgive Le Chuck as I know he did not mean to belittle. He is just a very unfiltered individual.

It reminds me of my younger years. Back when I was in High School, I was in a number of athletics and extra curricular activities. One of which was Cross Country Running. More or less that is a long distance running, but over various terrains. I think the standard run is about 3 miles. There is this one time i was in a cross country race and on a course that I never had the change to do my pre-jog of the course. Normally that is no big deal, but in my case I hadn't been fully prepared when the starting gun went off on this race. I was in the starting alley, but my shoes were completely untied. Surprised by the sound of the gun, I began to run, shoes flopping everywhere, I hollered over to my coach for advice on what to do. Well, my coach was a friggen sadist, and he told me to pull off my shoes and run the race in my socks. Being that the leg of the race I was currently on was grass, I took him for his word and whipped my shoes over to one of the girls on my team and asked her to take them back to our team camp.  Unbeknownst to me, but beknownst to my coach, there was a a large section of gravel on the course. So fast forward a half mile and I encountered a sea of jagged gravel. I had to run through that gravel full force in my socks while my team laughed at me the whole way through. Top top it off, I had grade 2 contusions all up and down the bottom of my feet, and when I finished the race, My teammates hid my shoes on me and accidentally dropped one in the creek by accident. In the race, I placed pretty badly, second to last on my team. Last being the tubby kid, Gordy. He was self admittedly incapable of moving at speeds in the range from moderate to fast, but inspirationally finished every single race without stop even with with his asthma. Well, it was fun to have a few minutes to shoot the breeze with Gordy as we plowed through the gravel portion of the race together. Anyway, I know I am rambling a tad, but my digression does root at name calling pertinent to my anecdote.  You see, the reason I was distracted away from the signal gun and the start of the race is because I was busy complaining to our team statistician about this time in 5th grade where I joined the theater club. I only joined because of the cute girls that were joining. I was not planning on the club taking any time away from my day, but I ended up getting dragged into helping the choir with their Lion King Performance. We were expected to dress like jungle animals for the production, but Vigo don't dress up as no jungle animal. So Vigo just wore a black shirt. I had told my principal that I was a black panther. That part has no bearing on the story, but I just think it is funny I had no clue the other meaning of what I was saying then. Haha. The day after the choir show, my principal made an announcement over the PA congratulating us for our efforts. He then said "Vigo was a panther, Rowr!" I could hear the whole school laughing at that one. That single event spiraled into a chain of events leading up to me running a race without my shoes. Because of his announcement, I was called "Panther (Rowr!)" for like 2 or 3 days afterward. That caused me to remember the events occurring, and needing to tell the team statistician about the story and forget to tie my shoes on time.  So I guess the moral of the story is that even a little name calling can have years or repercussions with unknown consequences. That story is completely true, except I changed the name of the tubby kid to protect his identity. His real name is Johnny Cabato and he is from Hawaii or one of those Pacific islands. He should have been in football, as a lot of those pacific island peeps are excellent Football players.

[nullPointer]

Dude, this is the most glorious thread derailment I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in all of my days.

 

Thanks for that!  It sort of made my afternoon.

[Le Chuck]

He meant vagina before he knew my gender, and was attempting to belittle me.  That's why he's still ignored.  Name-calling is a pet peeve of mine, so I filter it via ignores. 

The implication that I would not have said it had I known your gender implies that your gender is a concession for your poor behavior. It is not. Regardless of your sex I stand by my original statement and I am duly offended that you would label me a sexist who is scared to call it like I see it. This blatant covert name calling shall not be ignored!

I invoke the age old rites of shenanigans!

 

Ps. Vigo, you rock!

Pps.  I think we both know I didn't mean vagaries. Think she bought it? Tell another story if you think she did.

[sandheaver]

[story clipped]

I would have stopped at the gravel.  2nd to last isn't worth a lifetime of foot problems.  Maybe that's what I'm doing in this thread; running on gravel.  You're all making vagina jokes and I'm trying to offer some code that might help someone eventually.

No, Le Chuck, I didn't buy it.  Having conversations with others under the shade of my ignores is a pretty weak move, btw.

[Le Chuck]

No, Le Chuck, I didn't buy it.  Having conversations with others under the shade of my ignores is a pretty weak move, btw.

And just like that we've made it apparent that I'm not actually being ignored.  I type a well meaning and thoughtful post (#69) and get zero reaction but when I type what is clearly a tongue in cheek post you deign to acknowledge me.  That's really reinforcing the wrong behavior.   

As for the shade of your ignores...this is a public forum and my comments are openly visible to all who choose to see them, or more apropos, those who haven't chosen not to see them.  I also had no way of knowing if in fact I was under your "shade of ignores" so the expectation of me to tiptoe around was ill founded and certainly not shared by yours truly.  Given the fact that I have been summoned by name I must therefore conclude that I am not under any such shade and will conduct myself accordingly. 

Lastly, I don't think anyone has made a vagina joke recently.  Grey Area was going to but decided against it when he decided that I had.  I clearly was talking about the fact that you were vague in the purpose of your project.   

Edit.  I wrote something about you being delightful deep down but I've decided that I'm not ready to take that emotional step yet.  My heart just can't handle the let down if it turns out I'm wrong.  At this point I'm willing to say, "I'm sure you're a delight to those who are of the persuasion to find you delightful."  Perhaps I shall someday be persuaded.  Not that you should feel any pressure.  Performance anxiety can be a killer so rest your mind.  Be at ease.  No pressure here.  Let's take some deep breathes together. 

Double Edit:  I have carefully crafted a hidden message in this message.  By deleting a sequence of letters you can reveal the message.  Sand, you seem like an analytical mind that enjoys an Easter egg hunt.  Would you care for a hint?

[yotsuya]

"Running On Gravel" is my favorite Jackson Browne song.

[mcseforsale]

I like chicken.

And vagina jokes.  But, back to topic.

AJ

[Vigo]

I would have stopped at the gravel.  2nd to last isn't worth a lifetime of foot problems.  Maybe that's what I'm doing in this thread; running on gravel.  You're all making vagina jokes and I'm trying to offer some code that might help someone eventually.

Perhaps you are right, Sandy. Maybe I should have quit when the going got tough. It would have been the easy thing to do. But you know what, only a few minutes earlier I had seen Johnny Gordy running a trail in the distance with all his heart. He was quite openly teased by others for his weight, and him joining the running team was only fuel to that fire of ridicule. He never gave up, and I guess that part rubbed off on me. Flash forward to today, and Gordy is fit, trim, served time in Iraq (I believe in the Air Force but I could be wrong) and now is a full time firefighter. In complete seriousness, the man is an inspiration and hero to me. Well, I guess I could see something in him even back then. I just couldn't give up so easily knowing Gordy was not giving up.

Maybe you have seen the movie Kill Bill Part 2. Black Mamba, played by Uma Thurman at one point gets buried alive and thinks back to her days training martial arts under the master Pai Mei. Now Pai Mei was a real ---tallywhacker---. He called her names all day and told her how pathetic she was. Deep down, Pai Mei saw the hidden talent, and was only doing what he was doing to push her to the right path. He has forced her to repeatedly punch a wood board from only an inch away, her knuckles raw and bloody, her hand pulsing in pain. Perhaps that was what my coach was trying to do for me. Years later, that painful training saved her life, as she used her skill to break out of the coffin she was nailed into. Maybe my running coach was like Pai Mei. I know he saw potential in me, but I was never a top contender on the team. I think it may have been a push to make me better. When I think back to my days as a runner on that day. I can't remember the pain anymore, the embarrassment and the anger washed away as well. I do still feel pride for my accomplishment, and until you mentioned it just now, I never ever thought of myself as second to last place. I thought of myself more as "Going the distance" as Rocky Balboa would put it.

Now thinking about it that way, maybe your analogy of you running on gravel is spot on. Here you stand, your ideas challenged and you feel as if you are being personally insulted. But maybe, just maybe you are encountering some of the Pai Mei's of your life. They may seem rough, insulting and unapologetic, but hopefully you will see someday that their purpose here isn't to bring you down, but rather understand that they are masters in the art of arcade building, and they believe in your enough to leave you to decide whether you want to give up the race or take on that gravel road no matter how shoeless your feet may be.

[sandheaver]

I would have stopped at the gravel.  2nd to last isn't worth a lifetime of foot problems.  Maybe that's what I'm doing in this thread; running on gravel.  You're all making vagina jokes and I'm trying to offer some code that might help someone eventually.

Perhaps you are right, Sandy. Maybe I should have quit when the going got tough.

It's not about quitting when the going gets tough.  It's about quitting when the going gets stupid.

[Le Chuck]

I would have stopped at the gravel.  2nd to last isn't worth a lifetime of foot problems.  Maybe that's what I'm doing in this thread; running on gravel.  You're all making vagina jokes and I'm trying to offer some code that might help someone eventually.

Perhaps you are right, Sandy. Maybe I should have quit when the going got tough.

It's not about quitting when the going gets tough.  It's about quitting when the going gets stupid.

Anyone can be an expert in quitting. Post some more code. Keep it up. Or don't. Whatever. Are you the best at what you do? If you are then stop grousing and be the best.

[sandheaver]

I am not the best; I am sufficient.

You all have made it quite clear to me, intentionally or not, that posting code is not enough for you to stop trying to coach me on how to live my life and how to behave.  If that's not true, you certainly haven't been articulate enough to convince me that's not true.

You're all playing games at my expense.  That's fine, we are gamers, but I'm not going to partake anymore.  Discuss me at length if you're that bored, but don't expect me to read it or respond to any of it; I won't.

I'm done running barefoot on gravel.

[Vigo]

Sandheaver,

You are right that I have been intentionally cheeky. Even though my ramblings were pretty truthful, my overall goal was not so much to tell you how to how to live your life or how to behave around here. My goal was in essence to get you to "crack a smile" and allow you to loosen up around here. I always thought that my normal "Vigosian" cheeky charm 9 times out of 10 gets gets a smile, and the 10th time I get an xbox controller thrown at my face. I must be getting rusty as I am getting neither reaction from you. Sigh....It sucks getting older.

Anyway, since we are talking about being barefoot, I thought old Shoeless Joe could have a home on this thread 

[griffindodd]

[Howard_Casto]

[sandheaver]

Couple of days ago I got the bit of code that launches MAME on the cabinet done.  It is a very simple bit of javascript running on Node.js.  I can launch MAME and change games via my phone or any other web browser in the house.  I have a sane family and no roommates, so I didn't build any kind of security into it.  Doing this is left as an exercise for the reader.

This script has proven VERY HANDY already, such as when my daughter wants to play a different game and I am on the couch or in the garage or whatever.

PM ME if you want to see the code.  Why?  Because, that's why.

[Vigo]

This script has proven VERY HANDY already, such as when my daughter wants to play a different game and I am on the couch or in the garage or whatever.

Just curious, is there a reason in particular why you don't just want her to be able to change the game herself from the machine directly? As I parent I get the need for certain parental controls, but never considered the need to disable direct access to the front end.

Congrats on getting it going though.

[sandheaver]

This script has proven VERY HANDY already, such as when my daughter wants to play a different game and I am on the couch or in the garage or whatever.

Just curious, is there a reason in particular why you don't just want her to be able to change the game herself from the machine directly? As I parent I get the need for certain parental controls, but never considered the need to disable direct access to the front end.

Yeah, I've disabled the [P1 Start + P2 Start = exit game] chord on my i-PAC.  Actually, I changed the chord button (normally P1 start) to P1 button 8, which is not wired up.  None of the chord combinations work at all.  P1 Start and P2 Start are right next to each other and were continually getting pushed simultaneously by mistake.  It's not that my daughter couldn't learn a new button chord or that I don't want her to change the game.  I just hate visible front ends.  Emphasis on hate.

[Gray_Area]

......I have to comment before I read the rest of the page, and the next one.....because.

Regardless of your sex ...

Yeah. 'Gender' is a non-word. In my vocabulary anyways, and mine is more functional.

I'm getting a little personally interested in you sandheaver....although....I think I might have to steal you and Le Chuck, meld you together, and then have mad fun with you.

[Vigo]

This script has proven VERY HANDY already, such as when my daughter wants to play a different game and I am on the couch or in the garage or whatever.

Just curious, is there a reason in particular why you don't just want her to be able to change the game herself from the machine directly? As I parent I get the need for certain parental controls, but never considered the need to disable direct access to the front end.

Yeah, I've disabled the [P1 Start + P2 Start = exit game] chord on my i-PAC.  Actually, I changed the chord button (normally P1 start) to P1 button 8, which is not wired up.  None of the chord combinations work at all.  P1 Start and P2 Start are right next to each other and were continually getting pushed simultaneously by mistake.  It's not that my daughter couldn't learn a new button chord or that I don't want her to change the game.  I just hate visible front ends.  Emphasis on hate.

Fair enough. I assumed it was a more of a parental control from that last comment. I guess it all leads back to your deep embedded hate for the standard front-end. 

[sandheaver]

Fair enough. I assumed it was a more of a parental control from that last comment. I guess it all leads back to your deep embedded hate for the standard front-end. 

I just think they're tacky and take away from The Arcade Experience.  None of the arcade machines I played as a child had front-ends, none had custom cabinets, none had custom control panels.  I don't think you can correctly claim to be a fan of arcade games and modify everything about them when you build your own cabinet. 

I don't like custom cabinets, I don't like custom control panels, I don't like custom experiences (when it comes to arcades) at all.  I just don't think customization jives with the retro nature of the hobby.  If you're a person that just likes to play the games, then that's different entirely, but if you are doing it to replicate the arcade experience, and you don't use a stock or accurately restored cabinet and you don't use a stock control panel, and you don't use a game without a front-end, well, I don't understand a single thing about your motivations. 

Example: That guy who made a coffee table emulation machine for his family; I completely understand that.  There's a practicality to that thing that I love, and it's not trying to be anything it isn't.  When I see someone who "loves arcades" but builds a custom cabinet with a custom control panel with a spinner and a trackball and 4 joysticks and 8 buttons per player, and that person runs NES and SNES games on it... that I do not understand at all.

To me, it would be like buying a Mustang, but you modify it into a school bus, and while you drive it, you say "I love Ford Mustangs!  Don't you love my Mustang?  The Mustang experience is so amazing, and my 33 passengers agree!"

I know I'm in the minority with those opinions, and that's fine.  I've never followed the crowd. 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect)."  -- Mark Twain



edit: added clarification and a stupid analogy.

[Le Chuck]

I'm getting a little personally interested in you sandheaver....although....I think I might have to steal you and Le Chuck, meld you together, and then have mad fun with you.

now i'm offended

[Endprodukt]

Fair enough. I assumed it was a more of a parental control from that last comment. I guess it all leads back to your deep embedded hate for the standard front-end. 

I just think they're tacky and take away from The Arcade Experience.  None of the arcade machines I played as a child had front-ends, none had custom cabinets, none had custom control panels.  I don't think you can correctly claim to be a fan of arcade games and modify everything about them when you build your own cabinet. 

I don't like custom cabinets, I don't like custom control panels, I don't like custom experiences (when it comes to arcades) at all.  I just don't think customization jives with the retro nature of the hobby.  If you're a person that just likes to play the games, then that's different entirely, but if you are doing it to replicate the arcade experience, and you don't use a stock or accurately restored cabinet and you don't use a stock control panel, and you don't use a game without a front-end, well, I don't understand a single thing about your motivations. 

Example: That guy who made a coffee table emulation machine for his family; I completely understand that.  There's a practicality to that thing that I love, and it's not trying to be anything it isn't.  When I see someone who "loves arcades" but builds a custom cabinet with a custom control panel with a spinner and a trackball and 4 joysticks and 8 buttons per player, and that person runs NES and SNES games on it... that I do not understand at all.

To me, it would be like buying a Mustang, but you modify it into a school bus, and while you drive it, you say "I love Ford Mustangs!  Don't you love my Mustang?  The Mustang experience is so amazing, and my 33 passengers agree!"

I know I'm in the minority with those opinions, and that's fine.  I've never followed the crowd. 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect)."  -- Mark Twain



edit: added clarification and a stupid analogy.

So why don't you just buy pcb's and do it the real way? You don't understand why people build custom cp's but switching games from a mobile phone replicates the arcade feeling? I think that's a pretty custom experience.

[sandheaver]

So why don't you just buy pcb's and do it the real way? You don't understand why people build custom cp's but switching games from a mobile phone replicates the arcade feeling? I think that's a pretty custom experience.

Keep reading.  I've said at least twice that while I prefer PCBs (and use them in ALL my other cabinets) there simply isn't room for a 1:1 ratio of games to cabinets.

I prefer the unmolested nature of the 1:1 ratio but it isn't practical if you wish to play a wider variety of games than you can fit cabinets.  Again, I've said that while I prefer the authentic PCBs, I recognize the need for the ability to play many games on one cabinet.

This is my way of meeting that need in a way that is as hidden as possible.  Nothing more. 

[Malenko]

you dont need a 1:1 ratio of cabs to PCBs, I have a MKII cab (bought as a UMK3) that I use to play MK1, MKII, UMK3, and WWF Wrestlemania. With a generic vertical JAMMA and generic horizontal JAMMA cab you can play a great deal of PCBs. I am curious on how having the front end on a phone makes it not count as a front end?

Interesting quote about the majority, I cant be myself because most people agree with how I feel? How odd.

[Howard_Casto]

Exactly.  Now lets say you are installing mame in a pacman cabinet, I might see the point then.  But if it's a generic mame cab with no specific artwork or ect it isn't arcade authentic anyway.  Hell, you can go into any arcade still in existence today and even classics like pac-man, joust, ect have front-ends in them because they either have bootleg XXin1 pbs in them or the companies have officially released compilations to cram multiple games into the original hardware because 1 game per cab isn't exactly cost-effective anymore. 

Multiple games in one system selectable by a front-end started as early as the playchoice and max-a-flex systems. 

You can easily make a fe cruddy and 8-bit looking if you want it to blend in with the looks of the cab, so I must really be missing something.

[sandheaver]

you dont need a 1:1 ratio of cabs to PCBs, I have a MKII cab (bought as a UMK3) that I use to play MK1, MKII, UMK3, and WWF Wrestlemania. With a generic vertical JAMMA and generic horizontal JAMMA cab you can play a great deal of PCBs. I am curious on how having the front end on a phone makes it not count as a front end?

You don't.  Nor do I; I was trying to explain that there isn't enough room in my house to have all the cabinets I want.  This will be the 4th time I've said this, yet still I'm being challenged on that fact. 

Interesting quote about the majority, I cant be myself because most people agree with how I feel? How odd.

You've misread me.  Most of you have had zero hesitation in telling me how ridiculous my idea is.  Does this not equate to disagreement?  You certainly aren't lining up to say "your idea is terrible, I agree with you entirely."

You all work so hard to find things to nitpick, yet those of you still commenting each continue to miss my overall points entirely.  I'm beginning to think I'm talking to CleverBot.

[sandheaver]

You can easily make a fe cruddy and 8-bit looking if you want it to blend in with the looks of the cab, so I must really be missing something.

You are.

I find it odd indeed that when I speak of this to people, face-to-face, my ideas are transmitted quite effectively, usually sparking discussions that generate new ideas on both sides.  Yet, here, you're all still dumbfounded.

[yotsuya]

You can easily make a fe cruddy and 8-bit looking if you want it to blend in with the looks of the cab, so I must really be missing something.

You are.

I find it odd indeed that when I speak of this to people, face-to-face, my ideas are transmitted quite effectively, usually sparking discussions that generate new ideas on both sides.  Yet, here, you're all still dumbfounded.

No one's dumbfounded by what you want- rather, they're trying to understand your FE jihad.

[sandheaver]

No one's dumbfounded by what you want- rather, they're trying to understand your FE jihad.

It's not a jihad, I just don't like them.  That's it.  It's personal preference; there's nothing to understand.

[Ond]

I think the exact opposite about about FE's and custom cabs.  This isn't a rant about your personal preference BTW Sandy, I still say go for it and develop your cabs remote control system to suit your needs.  However,  a few general thoughts in support of customization, multi-purpose cabs and FE's.   I think a lot of what people are trying to achieve with their custom built emulator based based cabs these days is more about practicality and enhancement, than strict arcade experience authenticity.  I totally understand the pleasure restoration folk get from restoring a mint fresh version  of a cab they loved to play on back in the day.  Given the time and parts availability, its something I'd like to do myself.  One cabinet, one game, and attention to authenticity bordering on the pathologically obsessive, you know, make a KLOV member weep blood with envy  .

However (this a series of howevers)  When I make a custom cab I'm not aiming for that, I'm aiming for a new experience, something that builds on arcade nostalgia but also extends on it.  There are poor example of builds where they are a 40 seater bus claiming to be a mustang, but this isn't true of all multi-game custom builds.  I went to a kind of an arcade exhibition last year featuring a bunch of original 'preserved' cabs unfortunately poorly maintained.  It really sucked trying to play Xevious with dud controls that wouldn't respond,  I thought "I can play this much better on my Mame machine with quality controls".  My point is, when I’m playing, so long as the controls respond accurately and the game experience itself is accurate, well I’m not focusing on much else at the time if you know what I mean.

Sure there weren't Front Ends back in the day, but so what, there weren't a lot of other cool technologies that can extend the experience (including you’re handy iPhone/Android apps) either.   A well designed FE can be fun and useful, especially for younger people oblivious to the era.  I have a pinball game with completely re-done customized (professionally recorded) music to replace the terribly dated 80’s 90's music in its vanilla version, it’s great to play it all over again with the new experience, that’s the crux of what I’m getting at.

I lived the golden era of arcades (I was 16 when Space Invaders was released to the world) you want to talk nostalgia and Arcade purism?  They were tough times for me as a kid, bah, I prefer today.  To quote KISS:

“The hard times are dead and gone
But the hard times have made me strong
And the hard times have made me see
That the hard times ain't where I wanna be”.

[Malenko]

You don't.  Nor do I; I was trying to explain that there isn't enough room in my house to have all the cabinets I want.  This will be the 4th time I've said this, yet still I'm being challenged on that fact. 

I'm just confused on how having a no front end front end is any different then swapping PCBs, other than the fact you have to buy PCBs and physically swap them. And how is the front end making you have all the cabinets you want? I'm being genuine in my replies, I'm not intending to be difficult.

You've misread me.  Most of you have had zero hesitation in telling me how ridiculous my idea is.  Does this not equate to disagreement?  You certainly aren't lining up to say "your idea is terrible, I agree with you entirely."

You all work so hard to find things to nitpick, yet those of you still commenting each continue to miss my overall points entirely.  I'm beginning to think I'm talking to CleverBot.

I think your idea is ridiculous, my opinion is independent of everyone else's opinion. While they may agree with me (or I with them); it's not because of them I feel this way. That being said, I only offered up my opinion because you asked for it. I certainly understand why you did it, and I cant argue with the results. It does exactly what you want it to do and I see the convenience of being able to switch games for your kid without getting them to let go of a sticks. I however still prefer MaLa over using my phone/web browser. Did I not suggest using what you made to generate gamelists for other front ends so that others could benefit from the work you've done?

Just because people on here disagree with things you do doesn't mean we hate you. The list of people that is universally hated by pretty much everyone is only about 8 members long and they are all driverman. So relax 

[sandheaver]

Just because people on here disagree with things you do doesn't mean we hate you. The list of people that is universally hated by pretty much everyone is only about 8 members long and they are all driverman. So relax 

I don't feel hated; I just wonder why people keep asking why I'm doing things that I want to do.  Especially maddening are those who haven't read the entire thread who believe they have some powerful logic that I've not come across myself.  An example of this would be the "why not just use PCBs" question.

I'm just confused on how having a no front end front end is any different then swapping PCBs, other than the fact you have to buy PCBs and physically swap them. And how is the front end making you have all the cabinets you want?

If you can't see the difference between clicking a link on a webpage and hauling PCBs around, then there is nothing I can say to explaining it to you.  Of course I believe that you do understand the difference, technically.  The difference to someone standing at the cabinet is exactly nothing, except that I can switch games for them in less than one second, rather than several minutes to an hour, depending on where the PCB they want to play is located.  The difference for me is that I don't have to drive to my storage locker and dig out the PCBs I want then bring them home, pull the cab out from the wall, turn it off, take off the back, unplug the current board, and so on and so forth.  It is an issue of convenience for me, while keeping the cabinet as pristine as possible.

Over the weekend I converted my Donkey Kong cabinet away from a dedicated Donkey Kong PCB.  I used a spare PC and set it up so that the little switching app that runs on it only lets me select Nintendo games that originally came out in that style of cabinet.  (Mainly the Donkey Kong series & Popeye.)  I can switch from dkong to dkongjr to popeye with VERY little effort.  That is of value to me.  I visit http://nintendocab/ and I'm presented with a list of games, as well as what is running currently.  A single tap of the finger, or click of the mouse and the game is switched. 

It is very different than switching PCBs, as I'm sure you can see.  The benefit to the player is minimal, in that downtime is shortened.  The benefit to me is significant.

I hope I've explained the benefits of this little system well enough.

[sandheaver]

What I mention above applies to all front-ends, with the exception that one does not need to stand in front of my cabinet, and reveal to the player the wizard behind the curtain.  I can be anywhere within my house and and make the change, or on any computer from which I can connect to my home VPN.

Surely you can recognize the advantage(s) of that.

[yotsuya]

It's an advantage if you absolutely want to hide the front end. I actually enjoy watching guests browse through the front end lists and seeing their smiles as memories are triggered. It leads to great conversations.

[sandheaver]

It's an advantage if you absolutely want to hide the front end. I actually enjoy watching guests browse through the front end lists and seeing their smiles as memories are triggered. It leads to great conversations.

I have paper "menus" (for lack of a better term) for that.  Yes, it does lead to great conversations.

But there is no reason whatsoever to show all 25 (or however many there are) clones of Street Fighter II, for example.  If they want to see the full list, I have a web application at home for that, but the menu booklet has met every need, so far.

[yotsuya]

If your FE is showing 25 clones of SFII, then you're either lazy or you don't know what you're doing.

[Nephasth]

If your FE is showing 25 clones of SFII, then you're either lazy or you don't know what you're doing.

Agreed. Takes all of a few minutes with a list generator to trim the fat.

[yotsuya]

I will agree with you on that, Sandy. I hate seeing massive unfiltered lists.

[Hoopz]

I have paper "menus" (for lack of a better term) for that.  Yes, it does lead to great conversations.

To clarify this, you mean a hard copy correct?  I'm assuming so but wanted to ask just to make sure I understood correctly.

[Vigo]

I'm assuming she keeps a paper list out like a karaoke machine would have.

[yotsuya]

I'm assuming she keeps a paper list out like a karaoke machine would have.

I'm trying to see how this is better than using a FE. I really am.

[sandheaver]

I'm assuming she keeps a paper list out like a karaoke machine would have.

I'm trying to see how this is better than using a FE. I really am.

The menu doesn't come unless requested and no one is forced to look at it or listen to it.

To me, a front-end is like an advertisement that no one wants to really see but that everyone tolerates because they're so common.  I've "bought the DVD" and don't see the commercials.  That is, I've used my skills to eliminate the most annoying feature, by far, of any multiple-game arcade cabinet: the obnoxious front-end.

Again, if you don't get it already, you won't.  Stop trying.

[yotsuya]

Again, if you don't get it already, you won't.  Stop trying.

Why do you take such an antagonistic tone when people engage you in any sort of questioning? How is whipping out a paper list and choosing a game a more optimal experience than selecting a game from a scrolling, animated list? In the almost 3 years I've had a MAME cab, no one has ever said, "Man, this would be so much cooler if I wasn't forced to look at all these choices."

[sandheaver]

Again, if you don't get it already, you won't.  Stop trying.

Why do you take such an antagonistic tone when people engage you in any sort of questioning? How is whipping out a paper list and choosing a game a more optimal experience than selecting a game from a scrolling, animated list?

Because you keep asking me to explain.

In the almost 3 years I've had a MAME cab, no one has ever said, "Man, this would be so much cooler if I wasn't forced to look at all these choices."

I'm saying that.  That's the whole point.  I don't want to see all those choices.  I don't think it's some great feature to advertise that you've pirated tens of thousands of games.  I don't think it makes one look like they have more, I don't think that it makes the cabinet look better, I don't think having 10,000 games on a single cabinet can even be considered reasonable.

You don't agree.  That's fine.  You keep asking, and saying you don't understand, so I keep reiterating.

[yotsuya]

Again, if you don't get it already, you won't.  Stop trying.

Why do you take such an antagonistic tone when people engage you in any sort of questioning? How is whipping out a paper list and choosing a game a more optimal experience than selecting a game from a scrolling, animated list?

Because you keep asking me to explain.

In the almost 3 years I've had a MAME cab, no one has ever said, "Man, this would be so much cooler if I wasn't forced to look at all these choices."

I'm saying that.  That's the whole point.  I don't want to see all those choices.  I don't think it's some great feature to advertise that you've pirated tens of thousands of games.  I don't think it makes one look like they have more, I don't think that it makes the cabinet look better, I don't think having 10,000 games on a single cabinet can even be considered reasonable.

You don't agree.  That's fine.  You keep asking, and saying you don't understand, so I keep reiterating.

First of all, you're misguided in assuming most of us here have 10,000 games on their cab. That's usually someone who has built their first machine. After doing this for a while, you learn what works and what doesn't work. I bet anyone who's been here for at least 3 years (as long as I have), has pared their machine down A LOT.

Second, news of your arcade wine list just came out this morning. So you went from "I like minialist FEs" to "I don't like FEs" to "My guests pick games from a list I don't tell them about". As you keep revealing more about your habits, you're going to get more questions. If you don't want to be engaged by questions, stop giving us info.

If it works for you, it works for you. But I don't think it's easier, nor do I think FEs shatter some illusion for purists. I don't remember some grizzled old OP handing me a list of games I could play when I walked into the Rebel Arcade back in '82.

[Hoopz]

I have paper "menus" (for lack of a better term) for that.  Yes, it does lead to great conversations.

To clarify this, you mean a hard copy correct?  I'm assuming so but wanted to ask just to make sure I understood correctly.

BUMP!

I'm just trying to understand the project more clearly.   

[sandheaver]

I don't remember some grizzled old OP handing me a list of games I could play when I walked into the Rebel Arcade back in '82.

You do remember that, I assure you; you looked at all the marquees.  The marquees weren't handed to you, but they didn't have to be.  You knew which games were available because the marquees told you which games were available.  That's a menu, if you define "menu" as "a list of choices."

I don't have room for all the games I play, so I must make sacrifices.  I can't let the marquees be my menu.

(By the way, I realize that this is the dilemma all of us face, I just chose a different solution than is common.)

To clarify this, you mean a hard copy correct?  I'm assuming so but wanted to ask just to make sure I understood correctly.

Yes.

[Hoopz]

Thanks.

Is there a way you can have your list on your phone?  From the screenshot I saw, it looks (somewhat) like Romlister where it showed # of buttons, players (if I recall correctly), and probably other info that's from Mame.  Is there a benefit to eliminating the paper list altogether and having everything via the browser?  I don't know how the lists are arranged but I try and eliminate all paper when possible.

What's the next step?  Thoughts on making this an app v. a browser?  Sideload it via Android (or whatever they call it on iOS)?  I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and even on my home network, I find that (most) apps run faster and more smoothly than waiting on a browser to render a page. 

Will it be scalable to larger phones/tablets? I can see someone running a cheap 7" tablet instead of a touchscreen monitor and clicking an icon for sports games, shooters, or maze games then a list coming up.

Caveat:  I'm not a programmer and stopped "coding" when I got to List "$",8,1 or WTF it was.   

[griffindodd]

My Mustang Bus has a frikkin' laser strapped to it's head, which makes it the second most awesome cab of 2012 

[Malenko]

I don't have room for all the games I play, so I must make sacrifices.  I can't let the marquees be my menu.

Sure ya can, I could do this in MaLa in about 10 seconds. Also, despite it already being said, I must reiterate that few of us have "10,000 pirated ROMS". Just for the record, I'm pretty confident I have more machines and PCBs than you do

I stated before that I saw the advantage of your system, and it works for what you do. Can you see the disadvantages as well?  If a person wants to know if you have a certain game, you have to look through your list and select it for them. If I was there and I want to play something else, you need to change the game for me. No option to have "preview videos" running so that they can be sure the game they are about to pick is the game they thought it was. Im not gonna go down the advantages and disadvantages, I just want to see if you realize even your way has it faults.

I think perhaps you tried out 1 or 2 front ends that weren't set up at all, and you're basing your opinions of all front ends based on that. I'm pretty sure no normal user has all 34 flavors of Street Fighter II (maybe just CE, Turbo, and Rainbow) and if they do it's their fault, not their front ends.

[sandheaver]

Is there a way you can have your list on your phone?  From the screenshot I saw, it looks (somewhat) like Romlister where it showed # of buttons, players (if I recall correctly), and probably other info that's from Mame.  Is there a benefit to eliminating the paper list altogether and having everything via the browser?  I don't know how the lists are arranged but I try and eliminate all paper when possible.

The "Application" (if you can consider it a whole) has two parts.  The part that runs and switches games is written and ready and running;  the full-featured front-end selection UI is nearly ready.  I'm probably not going to finish the full-featured UI selection one, even though it's about 98% complete.  I need to implement only a way to point it at a certain cabinet, and send an HTTP request to that cabinet.  Everything else is done.

The part that switches the games and all that has its own optional web UI.  In there you can list games, yes, and I do.  On my Nintendo cabinet that little app shows a small list with only Nintendo games that can play on that cabinet (all the Donkey Kong arcade games.)  I click the link for Donkey Kong Jr. and mame will immediately gracefully kill any running mame instance(s) and launch Donkey Kong Jr.

What's the next step?  Thoughts on making this an app v. a browser?  Sideload it via Android (or whatever they call it on iOS)?  I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and even on my home network, I find that (most) apps run faster and more smoothly than waiting on a browser to render a page. 

Next step?  I'm pretty much done; it's met my needs quite nicely and I've debugged it enough that it runs for days on automated testing.  I wrote a small script that switches games on my desktop machine and I let it run for 2 days while I worked on the Nintendo cab.  The whole thing could be made into an app, but honestly that feels like overkill given that the page is very light and no device I've tested with takes longer than an eyeblink to render.  If you add more games, that won't necessarily be true, though.  The full-featured front-end was imagined partly for this reason. 

Will it be scalable to larger phones/tablets? I can see someone running a cheap 7" tablet instead of a touchscreen monitor and clicking an icon for sports games, shooters or maze games then a list coming up.

It's HTML; it will run on anything with a web browser.  The pages can be customized to your liking.  If it were to be made into an app, the app could generate the HTML pages itself and only rely on the Node.js application to actually launch the games.

[sandheaver]

I don't have room for all the games I play, so I must make sacrifices.  I can't let the marquees be my menu.

Sure ya can, I could do this in MaLa in about 10 seconds. Also, despite it already being said, I must reiterate that few of us have "10,000 pirated ROMS".

My machines don't have LCDs in the marquee area.  MaLa can show you which games are available, but not at a glance.  [restatement of my hatred for visible front-ends and my refusal to implement one.]

Just for the record, I'm pretty confident I have more machines and PCBs than you do

If you want this to be a contest of who can pee the farthest, yes, I'll lose. 

I stated before that I saw the advantage of your system, and it works for what you do. Can you see the disadvantages as well?  If a person wants to know if you have a certain game, you have to look through your list and select it for them. If I was there and I want to play something else, you need to change the game for me. No option to have "preview videos" running so that they can be sure the game they are about to pick is the game they thought it was. Im not gonna go down the advantages and disadvantages, I just want to see if you realize even your way has it faults.

I think perhaps you tried out 1 or 2 front ends that weren't set up at all, and you're basing your opinions of all front ends based on that. I'm pretty sure no normal user has all 34 flavors of Street Fighter II (maybe just CE, Turbo, and Rainbow) and if they do it's their fault, not their front ends.

Yes, I recognize that my system may have disadvantages for some.  I don't dispute that at all.  I'm stating only that for my needs, this is the proper solution.  Those that I invite to play know what I have.  I created the menu simply to brush up on my LaTeX (typesetting system, in case you don't know) skills.  I'm having the shortlist laminated and the big book-o-games bound today.  We'll have to wait and see if they ever get any real use.

[Vigo]

I don't have room for all the games I play, so I must make sacrifices.  I can't let the marquees be my menu.

Sure ya can, I could do this in MaLa in about 10 seconds. Also, despite it already being said, I must reiterate that few of us have "10,000 pirated ROMS".

My machines don't have LCDs in the marquee area.  MaLa can show you which games are available, but not at a glance.  [restatement of my hatred for visible front-ends and my refusal to implement one.]

I think he is saying he could set up MaLa to show marquees rather than a list of games. It would be on the main screen and not on the Marquee.

And from my understanding, you could set up mala to show games in the exact same way you could with a piece of paper or a phone. You can set up Mala tree to group an organize your games any which way you want them to. I've had mine set up alphabetically, by genre, by control scheme, favorites, by year, you name it.

[Hoopz]

Is there a way you can have your list on your phone?  From the screenshot I saw, it looks (somewhat) like Romlister where it showed # of buttons, players (if I recall correctly), and probably other info that's from Mame.  Is there a benefit to eliminating the paper list altogether and having everything via the browser?  I don't know how the lists are arranged but I try and eliminate all paper when possible.

The "Application" (if you can consider it a whole) has two parts.  The part that runs and switches games is written and ready and running;  the full-featured front-end selection UI is nearly ready.  I'm probably not going to finish the full-featured UI selection one, even though it's about 98% complete.  I need to implement only a way to point it at a certain cabinet, and send an HTTP request to that cabinet.  Everything else is done.

The part that switches the games and all that has its own optional web UI.  In there you can list games, yes, and I do.  On my Nintendo cabinet that little app shows a small list with only Nintendo games that can play on that cabinet (all the Donkey Kong arcade games.)  I click the link for Donkey Kong Jr. and mame will immediately gracefully kill any running mame instance(s) and launch Donkey Kong Jr.

What's the next step?  Thoughts on making this an app v. a browser?  Sideload it via Android (or whatever they call it on iOS)?  I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and even on my home network, I find that (most) apps run faster and more smoothly than waiting on a browser to render a page. 

Next step?  I'm pretty much done; it's met my needs quite nicely and I've debugged it enough that it runs for days on automated testing.  I wrote a small script that switches games on my desktop machine and I let it run for 2 days while I worked on the Nintendo cab.  The whole thing could be made into an app, but honestly that feels like overkill given that the page is very light and no device I've tested with takes longer than an eyeblink to render.  If you add more games, that won't necessarily be true, though.  The full-featured front-end was imagined partly for this reason. 

Will it be scalable to larger phones/tablets? I can see someone running a cheap 7" tablet instead of a touchscreen monitor and clicking an icon for sports games, shooters or maze games then a list coming up.

It's HTML; it will run on anything with a web browser.  The pages can be customized to your liking.  If it were to be made into an app, the app could generate the HTML pages itself and only rely on the Node.js application to actually launch the games.

Would you post the program or executable when possible please?  I'd like to take a look at it. 

[sandheaver]

I think he is saying he could set up MaLa to show marquees rather than a list of games. It would be on the main screen and not on the Marquee.

And from my understanding, you could set up mala to show games in the exact same way you could with a piece of paper or a phone. You can set up Mala tree to group an organize your games any which way you want them to. I've had mine set up alphabetically, by genre, by control scheme, favorites, by year, you name it.

Oh, yeah, I know that MaLa can do that, in the round-about way that use of the monitor can make it happen.  In fact, I played with MaLa and HyperSpin and a few other FEs before I decided to write my own.  During the time I was writing my own, I decided that there was no FE I could find nor create that looked good to me.  No amount of customization could bring them anywhere approaching presentable, in my very picky opinion.

I'm not debating what front-ends can do, just my desire not to use them at all.

[yotsuya]

No amount of customization could bring them anywhere approaching presentable, in my very picky opinion.

 

[Malenko]

If you want this to be a contest of who can pee the farthest, yes, I'll lose. 

I think you misunderstood.  I was implying that I am much less of a pirate than you are.

My "give a ---fudgesicle---" is broken when it come to the size of my epeen.

[sandheaver]

If you want this to be a contest of who can pee the farthest, yes, I'll lose. 

I think you misunderstood.  I was implying that I am much less of a pirate than you are.

I did misunderstand. 

I, however, don't emulate games I don't own physical copies of.  My decision to do that has cost me a great deal of money, as I'm sure you can understand.

[Vigo]

You don't emulate any games you don't physically own? I was thinking different from comments like this:

But, again, there isn't enough room in my entire town to have one cabinet for each game.  Even purists must succumb to reality.  I need a machine that emulates.

and this:

I have paper "menus" (for lack of a better term) for that.  Yes, it does lead to great conversations.

But there is no reason whatsoever to show all 25 (or however many there are) clones of Street Fighter II, for example.  If they want to see the full list, I have a web application at home for that, but the menu booklet has met every need, so far.

How many machines / PCBs you got? Do you really have like 25ish different Street Fighter variants lying around??

[sandheaver]

How many machines / PCBs you got? Do you really have like 25ish different Street Fighter variants lying around??

Nowhere near enough.

Sorry for the vague answer, but I'm a private person. 

[Malenko]

Few people need much of a front end for the actual PCBs they own I only have 20ish, but I have quite a few ports and compilations for numerous systems so I justify it in my head, mostly because the PCBs are out of reach for me or just not available.



Sadly, I also have MK9 on 360 and the collectors edition controller.
Again, not a pissing match, I know there are guys on this forums that have more cabs than I have cabs and PCBs and CRTs combined!

Nowhere near enough.

To cover all the games you're pirating? While I do not doubt your ability to program, I do doubt your sincerity that you don't emulate games you don't own if you have a "big book-o-games" you're getting bounded. SO your either lying about what you emulate or you're lying abou thte amount of storage space you have in your house.

Vigo, I'm less private than her, I have 7 machines (Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat II, MsPacMan, Galaga, Pole Position, Generic Dynamo that was a factory SF3). PCBs uhhh going from memory ........ Street Fighter 2:WW, Kung Fu, BreakThru, NBA Jam, NBA Jam TE (all revisions), MK1 (rev 5.0), MKII (all revisions), Umk3 (1.0, 1.1, and Juggernaut hack), WWF Wrestlemania, Killer Instinct, Killer Instinct 2, Ms Pacman (with and without speed hack), Pacman (with and without speed hack), Galaga, 60 in 1, some horseshoes game that I use as a JAMMA tester, a broken 15 in 1. Im sure there are more but Im drawing a blank, one of the caveats of getting old.

[sandheaver]

Nowhere near enough.

To cover all the games you're pirating? While I do not doubt your ability to program, I do doubt your sincerity that you don't emulate games you don't own if you have a "big book-o-games" you're getting bounded. SO your either lying about what you emulate or you're lying abou thte amount of storage space you have in your house.

I have a big book-o-games, but the number of games is not that high.  80 PCBs or so?  Probably 30 more if you want to count Neo-Geo and CPS2 cartridges.  Some are spares or parts boards I got cheaply.  I have flyers, trivia, and artwork in that big book-o-games that I've collected over the years.  One game takes 4 pages or so.  Marquee graphics, side art, flyers, etc.  Little bits of trivia such as world record scores where available, notable bugs & cheats, etc.  Not a lot of games, but a lot of information.  The menu card would not have covered 1 side of a 8.5" x 11" piece of paper had I not made the font a lot bigger.

I don't emulate games I don't own, as a rule.  There are very few exceptions to the rule, none of which are permanent.  I'll play a game I don't own when I decide whether or not I'm going to purchase it, for example.

[Malenko]

Here is where giving info always leads to more questions.....


If it weren't such a terrible game, would you play Primal Rage 2? It was never released so its unpossible to get a PCB of it. Maybe "Guts n' Glory" is a better example, or maybe even Cyber Tank. Never released but in MAME.

[sandheaver]

If it weren't such a terrible game, would you play Primal Rage 2? It was never released so its unpossible to get a PCB of it. Maybe "Guts n' Glory" is a better example, or maybe even Cyber Tank. Never released but in MAME.

I didn't know that.  I came at this hobby from a weird angle so I don't know a lot of information like that.  I'm sure you guessed as much.  How were they dumped if they were not released?  Those would be situations where I really wouldn't feel too bad about emulation only, but the game would have to be good for me to consider keeping it in rotation.

[Endprodukt]

Very rare prototype dump.

[DaveMMR]

I don't emulate games I don't own, as a rule.  There are very few exceptions to the rule, none of which are permanent.  I'll play a game I don't own when I decide whether or not I'm going to purchase it, for example.

You do know that whether you own the PCB or not, the original company is not getting any money either way. It's not like you're downloading newly released games instead of going to the store and paying money. The exception, oddly, is when you CAN buy an emulated game (or, ported, in some cases with those console collections) with proceeds going to the company (Capcom did this, as did Atari - whomever they were owned by at the time anyhow.)

I'm not trying to encourage you to embrace emulation. It just slightly sounded like it was a moral high road decision by your wording, one that might be moot. And for the record, I have the same stance with console emulation. But it's more of a sickness I have that I don't enjoy an old NES/VCS/etc. game unless it's on original hardware. Couldn't explain why.

Anyway, my point: It seems to me that hunting down and spending a decent amount of money on a PCB of Arcade Game X just so you can allow yourself to play the emulated version to be very time/money wasting. If you're going that far, I don't know why you wouldn't just get a JAMMA harness and one of those six-board switchers or something (so you can have it all in one cabinet) instead? If you have that self-imposed limitation on what games you can play, why would you not just play the originals you already have?

[sandheaver]

I don't emulate games I don't own, as a rule.  There are very few exceptions to the rule, none of which are permanent.  I'll play a game I don't own when I decide whether or not I'm going to purchase it, for example.

You do know that whether you own the PCB or not, the original company is not getting any money either way. It's not like you're downloading newly released games instead of going to the store and paying money. The exception, oddly, is when you CAN buy an emulated game (or, ported, in some cases with those console collections) with proceeds going to the company (Capcom did this, as did Atari - whomever they were owned by at the time anyhow.)

I'm not trying to encourage you to embrace emulation. It just slightly sounded like it was a moral high road decision by your wording, one that might be moot. And for the record, I have the same stance with console emulation. But it's more of a sickness I have that I don't enjoy an old NES/VCS/etc. game unless it's on original hardware. Couldn't explain why.

Anyway, my point: It seems to me that hunting down and spending a decent amount of money on a PCB of Arcade Game X just so you can allow yourself to play the emulated version to be very time/money wasting. If you're going that far, I don't know why you wouldn't just get a JAMMA harness and one of those six-board switchers or something (so you can have it all in one cabinet) instead? If you have that self-imposed limitation on what games you can play, why would you not just play the originals you already have?

I do play the originals I have, that's why I bought them.

There is a lot of myth in this country about copyright.  It is straight-up illegal to emulate games you A) do not own a legally obtained copy of, and that B) you did not rip yourself.  Ask a copyright lawyer if you do not believe me.  That's what I did.  This is why I have kept all the PCBs I've ever owned.  I bought them to play them, I kept them to emulate them.  I borrow ripping equipment from a friend and I rip the ROM chips myself.  I don't live in Sweden; I can't just emulate whatever the hell I want and be legal.

Why do I care so much about being legal?  I just do.

[Malenko]

Why do I care so much about being legal?  I just do.

Well, do you play these?

http://www.mamedev.org/roms/

I actually like Robby Roto

[Hoopz]

I think this is an interesting idea and serves it's purpose for the OP.  My concern and why I don't think it's a viable option for me is because what happens to the desktop in between games?  If a user is changing the games via a phone/tablet/other connected device, is the player watching anything or just waiting? 

With a themed cabinet, I can see looking at a blank screen, screenshot, or desktop wallpaper of your favorite football team (San Dimas football rules!).  But that doesn't thrill me by any stretch.  I'd rather not look at Windows or the OS of choice.  That's one of the key functions of a front end as it hides the OS and creates the illusion of a more arcadeish experience IMOP (you reading CheffoJeffo?).  Even MameUI is a FE albeit a very Windowsy FE that makes little attempt to hide the OS, but that's not it's purpose. 

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

My two cents.  YMMV.   I look new and different ideas but I also understand what's good for me isn't what everybody likes.

 

[Le Chuck]

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

Playchoice ten and MVS multi carts in the wild. Racing games have menus for which track you want. Only ones I can think of.

[Vigo]

I'm also interested as to how it is set up to look between a game switch.

[Hoopz]

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

Playchoice ten and MVS multi carts in the wild. Racing games have menus for which track you want. Only ones I can think of.

I sucked at Playchoice and avoided those.  Thanks for bringing up those repressed memories of suckage.  Big meanie.

[Le Chuck]

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

Playchoice ten and MVS multi carts in the wild. Racing games have menus for which track you want. Only ones I can think of.

I sucked at Playchoice and avoided those.  Thanks for bringing up those repressed memories of suckage.  Big meanie.

That damn timer taunted me. I'm with you.

[Vigo]

Are you saying you weren't putting down your quarters to play the next game of Fester's Quest? 

[yotsuya]

Are you saying you weren't putting down your quarters to play the next game of Fester's Quest? 

 

[yotsuya]

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

Playchoice ten and MVS multi carts in the wild. Racing games have menus for which track you want. Only ones I can think of.

Don't forget the Namco games that let you choose 1 out of 6 games. I, Robot had a menu where you could choose what type of game you wanted to play.

[mcseforsale]

I believe that every arcade machine must contain at *LEAST* one 80's cliche.



This^^  while the game is changing.   

what about just a .jpeg or other type of file that defaults.

AJ

I'm also interested as to how it is set up to look between a game switch.

[yotsuya]

I believe that every arcade machine must contain at *LEAST* one 80's cliche.



This^^  while the game is changing.   

Totally agree. To the max, even.

[Gray_Area]

Wow, this has gotten a lot more, and a lot less, interesting.

Dear, you can make the distance, you just need more practicin.

Chucky baby. That graem is one of my favorites. That nose spew is, like, totally necessary.

[HaRuMaN]

Wow, this has gotten a lot more, and a lot less, interesting.

Dear, you can make the distance, you just need more practicin.

Chucky baby. That graem is one of my favorites. That nose spew is, like, totally necessary.

[sandheaver]

I think this is an interesting idea and serves it's purpose for the OP.  My concern and why I don't think it's a viable option for me is because what happens to the desktop in between games?  If a user is changing the games via a phone/tablet/other connected device, is the player watching anything or just waiting? 

With a themed cabinet, I can see looking at a blank screen, screenshot, or desktop wallpaper of your favorite football team (San Dimas football rules!).  But that doesn't thrill me by any stretch.  I'd rather not look at Windows or the OS of choice.  That's one of the key functions of a front end as it hides the OS and creates the illusion of a more arcadeish experience IMOP (you reading CheffoJeffo?).  Even MameUI is a FE albeit a very Windowsy FE that makes little attempt to hide the OS, but that's not it's purpose. 

No, no arcade game that I ever played had a menu where I could select a game, but it's a tradeoff (upgrade?) from all of the choices that are available to me.

My two cents.  YMMV.   I look new and different ideas but I also understand what's good for me isn't what everybody likes.

 

Currently the screen goes black between games, (Windows desktop set to black with the taskbar minimized and all desktop icons hidden,) but it takes less than a second for MAME to go away and the new game to launch.  Programmatically there is zero delay between them but process destruction time and MAME loading time do add up a slight bit. 

I can definitely add a delay, and I must admit I'm quite fond of the "winners don't do drugs" screen.  Perhaps I should add a delay in just so that can be appreciated for a moment.

In that light, how do you take an HLSL screenshot?  Nevermind.  ALT+F12.

[DaveMMR]

There is a lot of myth in this country about copyright.  It is straight-up illegal to emulate games you A) do not own a legally obtained copy of, and that B) you did not rip yourself.  Ask a copyright lawyer if you do not believe me.  That's what I did.  This is why I have kept all the PCBs I've ever owned.  I bought them to play them, I kept them to emulate them.  I borrow ripping equipment from a friend and I rip the ROM chips myself.  I don't live in Sweden; I can't just emulate whatever the hell I want and be legal.

Why do I care so much about being legal?  I just do.

Be careful canonizing thyself lest ye be scrutinized harshly. 

But in all seriousness it's not really a discussion about the legalities/morality of downloading ROMs I'm after.

Given the following:
a) You own original PCB's
b) You have a strong desire for authenticity
c) You have a strong dislike for any appearance of emulation on your cabinet

With all that, what I have trouble understanding is why you're even bothering creating your own ROMs, using MAME and writing a whole application in that case. Especially since you do not emulate unowned games anyhow. Because I can totally understand you're appreciation for the actual arcade experience, but I think you're taking a jet plane to go around the corner, so to speak.   Slap some PCBs in a JAMMA switcher, turn it on, *boom*, you're done. No messy front-end to muck it up, no complicated cell phone app, and no worries about any emulation accuracy issues.

I'm not trying to pee on your work or anything. I think the idea does hold a bit of merit for specific needs (locking kids out of a game, disabling game switching, etc.) But if it's to preserve the arcade integrity, the best way is still the simplest IMO.

At any rate good job getting it off the ground. It's still more than I'm able to do.

[BadMouth]

not bad for mspaint....

[sandheaver]

Slap some PCBs in a JAMMA switcher, turn it on, *boom*, you're done. No messy front-end to muck it up, no complicated cell phone app, and no worries about any emulation accuracy issues.

Yeah, I know, but there's still the 1 cabinet in which I want to play more than a JAMMA switcher can get me.  There's also mounting all those boards; if they're Neo-Geo or CPS2 I'm sure the JAMMA slots are too close together to accommodate that.

I'm not trying to pee on your work or anything. I think the idea does hold a bit of merit for specific needs (locking kids out of a game, disabling game switching, etc.) But if it's to preserve the arcade integrity, the best way is still the simplest IMO.

It's not a bad approach, but I'm really sure I'll grow beyond what a JAMMA switcher can do very quickly, if I haven't already.

At any rate good job getting it off the ground. It's still more than I'm able to do.

Learning to program is not hard.  If you've achieved any success at life at all (able to hold a job and do any kind of problem solving) then you can be a programmer.  You need only the ability to see the solution to any given problem as a series of small solutions to small problems, in the proper order.  The rest of it is a HIGHLY rewarding task of telling the computer what to do and then watching the computer do it.  You give the computer an instruction and the computer does it.  It really is amazing. 

The feeling one gets when one achieves success in a development endeavor provides a natural high, a rush so overwhelming that honestly I can't describe it.  The learning curve, though, can be the exact opposite, if you're not patient.  This usually weeds out the angriest of souls fairly early on.

If you can be a programmer, you can do anything.  You can plow through any problem within the computer or without.

You can be a programmer.  You may not want to, but you can.  Anyone can.

And I'll admit, the stuff I've written at home and most of the stuff I write at work is nothing to really be proud of, small utilities and automation bits, but I know that when I need to do something more substantial, that I have the skills to do it.

[sandheaver]

not bad for mspaint....

Here's a 4k resolution one I made.  Suitable for desktop backgrounds, maybe.

HLSL scanlines without pincushion.

same, but full HD this time, and with pincushion.  Looks good.

[yotsuya]

not bad for mspaint....

Here's a 4k resolution one I made.  Suitable for desktop backgrounds, maybe.

HLSL scanlines without pincushion.

same, but full HD this time, and with pincushion.  Looks good.

Nice, but why are they widescreen?

Edit: I'm assuming these are for a MAME cab.

[sandheaver]

Nice, but why are they widescreen?

Edit: I'm assuming these are for a MAME cab.

These are for my desktop PC.  I'll turn them into 4:3 if I put them on a cabinet.

[yotsuya]

Honestly, they look really good. You should make them 4:3 and post them anyway. 

[Vigo]

not bad for mspaint....

e

  I love it!

My new desktop background 

[sandheaver]

Honestly, they look really good. You should make them 4:3 and post them anyway. 

http://imgur.com/a/TxVj3

[Vigo]

Honestly, they look really good. You should make them 4:3 and post them anyway. 

http://imgur.com/a/TxVj3

Nice effects ! 

[sandheaver]

Nice effects ! 

Thanks.  I should have fiddled with the convergence just a little to get a bit more realistic.

[yotsuya]

You might want to post them without scanlines, for those that might use them in conjunction with a scanline generator.

Great job! 

[sandheaver]

You might want to post them without scanlines, for those that might use them in conjunction with a scanline generator.
Great job! 

Or for folks who run on an actual arcade monitor by themselves.

I'm off to work; I'll do this when I return home, if I remember.

[Gray_Area]

Hmmmm. After seeing that fishbowl image, I'm lightly re-considering the idea of my monitor acting as a glass cover rather than displayer of the image. Hmmmm.

[Vigo]

If you find that your displayer of image is irregular lines in fishbowl, your screen may be in parallel, and the screen image inward curve in the glass. Whether flat screen, it is more likely to occur in the bumps. However, these are used in monitor. Hmmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmm-mmmmm!

[sandheaver]

If you find that your displayer of image is irregular lines in fishbowl, your screen may be in parallel, and the screen image inward curve in the glass. Whether flat screen, it is more likely to occur in the bumps. However, these are used in monitor. Hmmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmm-mmmmm!

Hmmmm. After seeing that fishbowl image, I'm lightly re-considering the idea of my monitor acting as a glass cover rather than displayer of the image. Hmmmm.

wut

[Gray_Area]

If you find that your displayer of image is irregular lines in fishbowl, your screen may be in parallel, and the screen image inward curve in the glass. Whether flat screen, it is more likely to occur in the bumps. However, these are used in monitor. Hmmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmm-mmmmm!

I ain't got past lightly thinkin about it....also, I only use CRTs.

[sandheaver]

I ain't got past lightly thinkin about it....also, I only use CRTs.

That's cool.  I still don't know what you're thinking about, though.  I still can't parse the sentence.  This one:

Hmmmm. After seeing that fishbowl image, I'm lightly re-considering the idea of my monitor acting as a glass cover rather than displayer of the image. Hmmmm.

[Lilwolf]

Coming in late to the thread, and the first page seemed to get off topic.

but webmame can do this.  The web pages are very dull (but can be prettiafied with CSS using standards by cssgarden).  I haven't tried to put them on a phone yet.  The interface itself also is very simple.  All commands are just an URL on the arcade machine.

NOTE:  I add it and test this feature for deciding what games to add to each group, but I don't use it this way. 

but without reading the middle 5 pages, it might be someone else has already implemented this.

[sandheaver]

Coming in late to the thread, and the first page seemed to get off topic.

but webmame can do this.  The web pages are very dull (but can be prettiafied with CSS using standards by cssgarden).  I haven't tried to put them on a phone yet.  The interface itself also is very simple.  All commands are just an URL on the arcade machine.

NOTE:  I add it and test this feature for deciding what games to add to each group, but I don't use it this way. 

but without reading the middle 5 pages, it might be someone else has already implemented this.

That's pretty much what I did.  My app goes as far as I need it to go, WebMAME goes a bit further.  I have no need for categories and such; I have only a small list of ROMs that I use, and I now have a static list for the cabinet I emulate on.

My intention was to decouple (some prefer the word 'divorce') the front-end from the back-end.  After doing so, you can put them each in separate places, or move one or the other with little more than a configuration change.  My back-end (the node.js script/server) can be used alone, but is intended to be invoked by a front-end that presents a user with a game selection UI.

So, yeah.  WebMAME is very similar.

[marioxb]

This sounds pretty awesome to me, actually! I think this is exactly what I was looking for. In my case, I want to have a dual screen cab (a modified PlayChoice-10/ Punch-Out) and have the game selection be on the top screen, while the game plays on the bottom.

For some games, I want to use 2 screens (Punch-Out). For some games I want to only use the top, veritical screen (DK) and for some, only the bottom, horizontal screen (Vs. SMB).

Any idea if this would be able to launch (and close) 2 programs at the same time? For PC10 games, I want to have the instructions on the top screen with and NES emu running on the bottom, since PC10 games play better via an NES emu rather than mame, but I want to replicate the arcade experience since PC10 was my favorite arcade game.

[sandheaver]

This sounds pretty awesome to me, actually! I think this is exactly what I was looking for. In my case, I want to have a dual screen cab (a modified PlayChoice-10/ Punch-Out) and have the game selection be on the top screen, while the game plays on the bottom.

For some games, I want to use 2 screens (Punch-Out). For some games I want to only use the top, veritical screen (DK) and for some, only the bottom, horizontal screen (Vs. SMB).

Any idea if this would be able to launch (and close) 2 programs at the same time? For PC10 games, I want to have the instructions on the top screen with and NES emu running on the bottom, since PC10 games play better via an NES emu rather than mame, but I want to replicate the arcade experience since PC10 was my favorite arcade game.

I didn't write it with that in mind, but my software could be made to do this. if you know Javascript I can give you the code and let you have at it.

[Gray_Area]

My intention was to decouple (some prefer the word 'divorce') the front-end from the back-end. 

Decouple is more technically correct, whereas divorce is more vernacular. Are you hinting at something personal?

I still can't parse the sentence.  This one:

Hmmmm. After seeing that fishbowl image, I'm lightly re-considering the idea of my monitor acting as a glass cover rather than displayer of the image. Hmmmm.

Until the late 80s and particularly later, cabs' monitors had a piece of glass over/in front of them. Using the convex effect would be like your monitor being the piece of glass than the monitor itself.

[marioxb]

I didn't write it with that in mind (open and then close two programs), but my software could be made to do this. if you know Javascript I can give you the code and let you have at it.

Wish I did, but sadly no. What I want to do is have mame open on my top screen (with just the instruction screen) and and NES emu open with the same game on the bottom screen. When you exit the game, both programs will close.

[sandheaver]

My intention was to decouple (some prefer the word 'divorce') the front-end from the back-end. 

Decouple is more technically correct, whereas divorce is more vernacular. Are you hinting at something personal?

No, I just find that "divorce" is an easier word to understand than "decouple" for many audiences.  I used to train people on virtual machine platforms; when describing the relationship between hardware & OS, before & after virtualization became possible, "divorce" got a lot more comprehension than "decouple" ever did.  Folks always thought of an OS belonging to hardware, and with virtualization that wasn't true at all anymore.  "Decouple" never carried the weight that "divorce" carried, despite it being the proper technical term.

As you may know, with virtual machines you can change the server an OS is running on and keep the virtual machine running the whole time, or you can change what operating systems are running on a specific piece of hardware, again, without downtime.  Before I started using the term "divorce" this was a difficult concept to grasp, for some, and people were always asking me how I could uninstall and re-install an operating system so quickly.

[Gray_Area]

I don't know much about virtual machine stuff. I might've just said separate.....although people inherently thinking OS not as software is amusing.

[bradx]

i have the credit button and escape key locked inside the coin door.  i have shifted functions disabled.  once the game is selected, i can simply lock the door, and from the outside its impossible to change the game, so to the casual user it is no different than the game would have been in an arcade back in the 80s or whatever.  still, changing games is as easy as opening the coin door and pressing escape.  a front end on your phone is still a front end, in my opinion.  the only benefit i can see is not having to turn a key...

[CheffoJeffo]

So a guy goes away for a couple of months and you folks run people off in his absence?

* CheffoJeffo  is not sure whether to be sad or proud.

FWIW, I really like the idea (I have always had a bit of an issue with front-ends) and might consider extending it to cover multiple machines in a single interface. Doesn't really help me with 20 dedicated machines, but if there was something like this back when I was starting out, I expect my basement would look a lot different.

[Nephasth]

So a guy goes away for a couple of months and you folks run people off in his absence?

* CheffoJeffo  is not sure whether to be sad or proud.

Wait a minute... You were gone for a couple months?

[Howard_Casto]

Welcome back.... your dreams were your ticket out
Welcome back.... to that same old place that you laughed about

Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya ?
Back Here where we need ya!

Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've got him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

[hypernova]

So...she was too lazy to teach her daughter how to change the game?

[Hoopz]

She was too lazy to play with her.  And didnt want to get up to help.  Thats how I read it.

[Gray_Area]

I was wondering why someone who's married and has kids was spending so much time here....I mean, who was female....cos they got lots of chores to do you know....

[yotsuya]

She was too lazy to play with her.  And didnt want to get up to help.  Thats how I read it.

 

[Silverwind]

Where can we download the front end?   

[Malenko]

Where can we download the front end?   

iTunes?  Im kidding. AFAIK she took her ball and went home. Try MaLa or any of the many other front ends.

[Hoopz]

I posted it in one of the other threads. Will find it and post again when I have time.

[Rigby]

She put it here: https://mamelauncher.codeplex.com/

It hasn't been touched since late March.

[Malenko]

She put it here: https://mamelauncher.codeplex.com/

It hasn't been touched since late March.

tell her just because she doesnt play with the boys anymore doesnt mean she cant work on the project.

[404]

The sheer amount of trolling well over a month since Sandheaver left the site is quite appalling; At driverman levels no less.

Although i may not agree or disagree with her actions here, I commend her for at least putting something up and contributing.

[Malenko]

The sheer amount of trolling well over a month since Sandheaver left the site is quite appalling; At driverman levels no less.

Although i may not agree or disagree with her actions here, I commend her for at least putting something up and contributing.

I'll bite, you accusing me of trolling? 

[Hoopz]

Its no more or less than we give PBJ for pulling his posts.  We cant discriminate. We bust chops equally.

[404]

The sheer amount of trolling well over a month since Sandheaver left the site is quite appalling; At driverman levels no less.

Although i may not agree or disagree with her actions here, I commend her for at least putting something up and contributing.

I'll bite, you accusing me of trolling? 

There's ~15+ posts in this thread after Sandheaver's last post. There's two threads floating around about Sandheaver in other sections. One of which contains over 120+ posts. Yet, you claim I'm talking only about you.

Do me a huge favor, don't respond back. You're wasting my time, Again.



As for everyone else, there's always a time to let things go and move on.

[Malenko]

There's ~15+ posts in this thread after Sandheaver's last post. There's two threads floating around about Sandheaver in other sections. One of which contains over 120+ posts. Yet, you claim I'm talking only about you.

Do me a huge favor, don't respond back. You're wasting my time, Again.



As for everyone else, there's always a time to let things go and move on.

*sigh*
I asked , hence the question mark. I didnt accuse you of anything. Perhaps you should yield your own advice about letting go and moving on.

[Le Chuck]

One of those "other" threads, the one with a buncha posts, is a remarkably civil discussion for which Hoopz received a trophy.  It isn't trolling.  And we really got to know Rigby well, so all in all, I think it's value should be apparent. 

[Gray_Area]

Jeez, who ---smurfing--- cares??  I like 404, but sometimes he comes off as very proper, or plain gay.

[404]

One of those "other" threads, the one with a buncha posts, is a remarkably civil discussion for which Hoopz received a trophy.  It isn't trolling.  And we really got to know Rigby well, so all in all, I think it's value should be apparent.

Half of the posts here and on the other thread after announcing that she is leaving are catered towards either speaking about her gender or things from her personal life. None of which have anything to do with her situation here.

Jeez, who ---smurfing--- cares??  I like 404, but sometimes he comes off as very proper, or plain gay.

All I'm saying is that there is always a time and a place to stop beating a dead horse and move on. If that makes me 'very proper' or 'plain' then that's fine.

I have thick skin, I can take the criticism.

[Howard_Casto]

They really aren't, you need to take a second look.  She thought that she was being picked on for being a girl.  The discussions weren't about her gender, but rather how silly it was for her to think that.  It's a subtle but distinct difference.  Whenever somebody leaves we try to figure out why... it's as simple as that. 

Just ignore Gray_Area apparently everybody else does.   I have a personal rule never to seriously make fun of people or insult their character.  Now their ideas, that's all fair game, but you are correct, that was uncalled for. 

[Malenko]

They really aren't, you need to take a second look.  She thought that she was being picked on for being a girl.  The discussions weren't about her gender, but rather how silly it was for her to think that.  It's a subtle but distinct difference. 

Wastin your time bro, when he gets an idea of what he thinks a post means he'd rather die than consider perhaps he read something the wrong way. Yes this is a slightly trolly post.

[404]

They really aren't, you need to take a second look.  She thought that she was being picked on for being a girl.  The discussions weren't about her gender, but rather how silly it was for her to think that.  It's a subtle but distinct difference.  Whenever somebody leaves we try to figure out why... it's as simple as that. 

Just ignore Gray_Area apparently everybody else does.   I have a personal rule never to seriously make fun of people or insult their character.  Now their ideas, that's all fair game, but you are correct, that was uncalled for.

With respect, not sure how anyone can say that. There's nearly an entire thread dedicated to trashing her in another forum section. I'm just saying it's time to move on, that's all.

[404]

They really aren't, you need to take a second look.  She thought that she was being picked on for being a girl.  The discussions weren't about her gender, but rather how silly it was for her to think that.  It's a subtle but distinct difference. 

Wastin your time bro, when he gets an idea of what he thinks a post means he'd rather die than consider perhaps he read something the wrong way. Yes this is a slightly trolly post.

I'm convinced you have an e-boner for me. You just cant stop from mentioning me in just about every other post. You seemed far less pathetic when you were just the vertical bartop cop.