how about an instruct.dat file for mame and/or frontends? please comment


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Posted by bill connolly on 28, 2000 at 7:12 AM:

see PALs post about 4 down for the start of this question.

How can we get game instructions and control descriptions on our cabinets to be viewed on the monitor?

I am brainstorming here so all ideas are welcome. How about an instruct.dat file similar to history.dat? The history.dat file is accessible from within MAMEs configuration menu I believe but what if we had a file that had control descriptions and game play instructions that could be used by front ends or maybe even directly from MAME for those who prevent access to the configuration menu.

Using the standard control descriptions of P1J, P1B1, etc. the file could describe the control functions then each person could either label their buttons or have a small control map on the cabinet somewhere. The file would need to be editable as individual players may want to change their controls from the MAME defaults.

Same goes for game description. Some players may want to add comments about cheats and others may want them removed. We could either ask the fine folks at KLOV if we could use their game instructions as a starting point or we could solicit the gamers to do writeups on their favorite game.

I might be willing to compile and maintain the instruct.dat file if other gamers would be interested/willing to do writeups on their favorite games.

What does everyone think about this idea?




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