Creating a MAME Box

[The Man in Blak]

Now that I've got a new laptop, I want to turn my old computer into a big console. That is, I'd like to be able to just turn it on and boot into a front-end for MAME (or, miraculously, a front-end that covers all of the emulators). No windows crap, no need for a mouse - just a way for my comp to boot directly into the emulation program.

 

I would imagine this would be possible, since I've seen people build arcade cabinets around their PC box, but I've got no idea where to even begin looking.

 

Any insight?

[MrRant]

Linux is your friend.

[The Man in Blak]

Please tell me there's another way. I don't want to have to spend three days recompiling a kernel just so my graphics card can work.

[razazteca]

http://www.arcadeathome.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=6

[The Man in Blak]

Just as an update:

 

Apparently, there's a version of MAME for DOS that I wasn't aware of. I haven't tried it out yet, but I imagine that you could write a batch file or something along the lines to have it boot straight into the emulator.

 

So, if anybody's interested in trying...that may be your best shot, unfortunately. Thanks to Rant and raza for the suggestions, though.

[Guest Krazy Karter]

Here's the frontend you're looking for:

 

MAMEWah

 

It hides the Windows environment and boots straight into MAME. Looks to be updated quite frequently.

[Renegade]

Do a search on google, I'm sure I've seen something on it a few months back.

 

In slightly related news to that I'm going to try and make my own custom arcade stick.

[The Man in Blak]

Here's the frontend you're looking for:

 

MAMEWah

 

It hides the Windows environment and boots straight into MAME. Looks to be updated quite frequently.

I'll see your MameWah and raise you an ArcadeOS:

 

Check it out.

 

It's got MAME and ZSNES...and then a bunch of other really poor emulators. (Nesticle? yuck.)