MY RETRO LIFE
MAME SCROLLING
Paul Drury explores the outer limits
PERSONAL STORIES ABOUT OUR SHARED PASSION
can recall the exact moment I realised I was living in the future. My friend Matt Iplaced the Ouya console onto my outstretched palm and said with a smile, “You’re holding every arcade game ever made in your hand there.” I stared at the magic cube in hushed awe. I thought of the endless aisles of arcade cabinets I’d walked along during my childhood in the Seventies and Eighties and imagined them as tiny corridors inside the Ouya which now I could waltz along forever, without the need for an infinite supply of ten pence pieces. And it was all thanks to MAME.
This would be 2014 and of course MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) had been around since the mid-Nineties, its open-source philosophy meaning a community of dedicated enthusiasts had steadily improved its capabilities and increased the number of games it supported over the years. Yes, I was a late adopter but since then, I have acquired two MAME cabs, one tabletop, one full size, both crafted by my friend Craig, to make the experience feel even closer to that of my youth. I spend many an evening just scrolling down the vast list of titles, smiling at those I recognise and always staggered by the thousands I don’t, but can now discover.