Is there a front-end for Mac?

[mushmouth]

I'm assuming not, but I thought I'd ask...

[SirPoonga]

For mamcmame, I don't think so, it has a built in gui.

For unix if you can get xmame running (the new OS X does X11 now, right?)  there are a couple.

[slycrel]

  Yes, especially if you are running OS X 10.3, you can use X11 apps under OS X.  10.3 makes them much more seamless.

[mushmouth]

Excuse my ignorance, but what are X11 apps? What's X11?

[SirPoonga]

X11 is the windowing system other unixes use, like linux.

http://www.x11.org/

With support for x11 in 10.3 it is important because if you want to run a modern day unix app you will need x11 support.  

That's why I mentioned xmame.  Xmame is unix mame.  It will probably work on OS X since OS X is an official unix.  It needed x11 support first though.  xmame is like dos mame, it is commandline driven.  There are some frontends for linux that are open source and "should" be able to compile on OS X.3 then.  Theoretically at least.  It will probably happen.

[slycrel]

  Actually, Mac OS X 10.2 could do the X11 stuff, but you had to manually start up an xterm session and then launch your apps there.  in 10.3 you just launch the app and if X11 needs to start it will.

  The unixy stuff in OS X is amazing.  If macs didn't cost so darn much I'd have one here at home.  =)

[Lilwolf]

my frontend (JFront) should work... its a java based frontend.

If you are willing to try it I would LOVE to hear if you have any problems / give tech support.

btw, I have a new version thats ready to go out... but because of the holidays I don't know if I can update the website (what lack I have of it)

email me if you would like a copy (drake@ergotech.com)

[)p(]

When I get my hands on a mac again...I will export a version of my fe...It used to export without the need to change one line of code...but that was before osx.

peter

[SirPoonga]

 The unixy stuff in OS X is amazing.  If macs didn't cost so darn much I'd have one here at home.  =)

Actually, in my Mac class we built comparable Mac Vs Dell and the Mac was $100 cheaper.  This assumes you don't use Apple's monitors, they are expensive but VERY good quality.

[Lilwolf]

OSX USED to be AMAZING... when it was openstep!  Developed on that professionally for 2 years before applet bought out NeXT (and we didn't have an OS to sell on for year when we had to move to java).

I hear they got rid of a lot of what I liked.  It was written in object-c (OO layer on C like C++).  The things you could do with that was great!  MUCH better then C++.  Somewhere between JAVA and SmallTalk.  

I heard they got rid of objectC which would have removed the ability to change the OS itself with a few commands... VERY nice features... but boy would that have been a security nightmare.  I could take a closed object (like String) and add a method to every one on the system...  And that method could access private data.  So I could in tern make every private variable accessable from the outside.  

Oh yeah... and they didn't have any private properties... other then what had to be.  It was nice to work with a framework with access to basically everything.   If it wasn't documented it was use at your own risk... But it was great when you had to get something to work...

I miss Object-C

[slycrel]

  I'm unfamiliar with "object-C", but the "official" language for MacOS X is "Objective C".  Could this be the same thing?  Doesn't matter to me, I'm still in the C/C++ world, though I program under MacOS 9 and X every day at work.  I'd guess that it's changed less than you think.

  I'll have to say that I'm VERY impressed with what Apple has done with OS X.  They've taken NeXT and merged it with FreeBSD and built a GUI layer on top of it.  Crazy stuff that.  =)

  If I understand correctly, Steve Jobs was more or less heading up NeXT and brought that to Apple with him when he went back.

  And to keep this on topic, check out http://www.emulation.net for a MAME frontend.  That's AFAIK the best mac emulation site.

[Zapper]

MacMAME is supposed to be reworked so that 3rd party frontends can be used, that might take a while though, the author doesn't have much free time to work on it. Any news about it would probably be found on the MacMAME message board. I'd love to see a Mac OS X version of Emulaxian someday