Software
 What it runs, and how it runs it.

The TV I have got in the cabinet isn't the clearest of images.  Because it's only a TV, the Windows desktop size has to be 640 x 480.  After a couple of minutes manipulating windows and icons, your eyes are screaming at you to look away.  Upon discovering this, I realised that running the game ROMs from the Windows Mame32 application was going to be a big no no.

I looked around on the net and found that most people use a "front end" application for running mame and the ROM files.

I tried a few, but couldn't get on with any of them.  That is until I discovered AdvanceMenu.

This one wiped the floor with all the others.  Having said that, there's a couple of things I don't like about it, but it works, so that's good enough for me.

I have a shortcut to this program in my start-up directory, so when the computer comes on, it goes directly into this, and is ready to select a game.  The beauty of it is I don't need to get the keyboard or mouse out to work it.  You select your game by going up and down with the player 1 joystick.  Left and right moves the list a page up and down at a time.

When you have the game you want, you press the player 1 start button and it will load it up.  When the game says "Insert coin", you drop your 20p in and it gives you a credit.

When you have had enough, you press escape and it returns you to the screen displayed above.

I got 9 CDs worth of ROM files from a very generous person called Niall.  I thank him very much for this, as there's no way I could have downloaded all of them.  Cheers Niall, you're a star!

I have about 3100 games on the unit, and I don't have enough hours in the day to play them.