a no front-end front-end.

[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]