How the front end works

The front end is a Flash projector file that is displayed full-screen on the cabinet. The projector is set to capture all keyboard input. When the users moves the joystick (which is equivalent to pressing the arrow keys in MAME) the file shows a different game..

When the user presses the select key (1st player fire button, Ctrl in MAME) the front end executes a special Flash command to open a batch (.bet) file. The .bat file the front end opens depends on the game that was displayed when the Ctrl key is pressed. Each bat file contains the instructions to launch MAME32 with the appropriate ROM.

An example:

1. Move the joystick down (equivalent to pressing the down arrow) until Pacman is displayed on the screen.
2. Press the select (Ctrl) button
3. MAME32 opens, with the Pacman ROM loaded. This is full-screen, so the front end is hidden
4. Play Pacman.
5. Exit Pacman. This closes MAME.
6. The front end is displayed, still on the Pacman screen