MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. MAME's purpose is to preserve decades of software history. As electronic technology continues to rush forward, MAME prevents this important "vintage" software from being lost and forgotten. This is achieved by documenting the hardware and how it functions. The source code to MAME serves as this documentation. The fact that the software is usable serves primarily to validate the accuracy of the documentation (how else can you prove that you have recreated the hardware faithfully?).

Over time, MAME (originally stood for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) absorbed the sister-project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), so MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles and calculators, in addition to the arcade video games that were its initial focus.

What's New

MAME 0.261 will be the final MAME release of 2023, and it's a real ripper! We're ending the year with a bang! Over a hundred pull requests were merged this month, including several from first-time contributors as well as many familiar names. Following up on the work last month, two more Casio Phase Distortion synthesisers have been added: the high-end CZ-1 keyboard and the unreleased MZ-1 module. The Yamaha MU50 XG tone generator module is also working a lot better in this release.

Two home consoles with drawing features are now working: LJN's VideoArt from 1987 and Sega's Advanced Pico BEENA from 2005. Although they were both positioned as intellectually stimulating consoles for children and both had drawing features, they couldn't be more different. The VideoArt was universally derided for its poor controls and lack of entertainment value, drawing negative comparisons to the popular Etch-a-Sketch toy. On the other hand, the BEENA was a high-quality device using media combining a ROM cartridge with a picture book, and featured dual pen digitisers. Its ARM CPU is fairly demanding to emulate in MAME, so you'll need a fast PC to run it at full speed. We're aware that the current scans of the picture books are not perfect, but it's still quite usable apart from some peripherals that aren't emulated yet.

On a completely different note, some of the Taito gambling and medal games have started to come to life. The purpose of the games is to separate you from your money, and there isn't much gameplay value, but they're still interesting to see. Some of them feature characters from popular Taito franchises. Speaking of gambling games, a couple of Chinese-language mahjong gambling games from BMC have been dumped.

Systems with AVR8 CPUs now run up to 50% faster, including the Uzebox console, Linus Åkesson demos, and the homebrew Sega Master System paddle controller. A means of dumping the microcontrollers Jaleco used for protection in some Mega System 1 games has been discovered recently, allowing the protection simulation code to be retired for 64th St. - A Detective Story and Big Striker. Our understanding of the gate array protection used for some other Jaleco games has also improved. The internal Super A'Can now has its main CPU's internal ROM hooked up properly, improving the accuracy of its boot process.

Of course, there's far more in this release than we have time to talk about here, including newly dumped Korean versions of arcade games, bootlegs from Spain, support for PDS cards on the Mac Quadra/LC 630 family, more Heathkit Terminal Logic Board variants, and lots of new software list items. You can read all about it in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

MAME Testers bugs fixed

  • 05423: [Gameplay] (jaleco/megasys1.cpp) stdragon, stdragona: Text is not animated on start screen. (David Haywood)
  • 08541: [Crash/Freeze] (jaleco/megasys1.cpp) tshingen: Emulated game frequently crashes during the second fight. (David Haywood)
  • 08693: [Sound] (neogeo/neogeocd.cpp) neocdz [aof]: First bonus stage loads too slowly and corrupts audio samples. (dink)
  • 08781: [DIP/Input] (bandai/wswan.cpp) wswan, wscolor: Buttons are not numbered from left to right. (ICEknight)
  • 08787: [Graphics] (atari/pong.cpp) breakout: Scores over 200 are not displayed correctly. (AJR)
  • 08791: [Crash/Freeze] (taito/taitotz.cpp) landhigh, dendego3, possibly all games in the driver: Games fail to boot. (Windy Fairy)
  • 08792: [Sound] (snk/dmndrby.cpp) dmndrby: PSG sounds play continuously. (Angelo Salese)

New working systems

  • Casio CZ-1 [Mastropiero, Devin Acker]
  • CXG Systems / Newcrest Technology Enterprise "S" [hap, Sean Riddle, Lord Nightmare]
  • CXG Systems / Newcrest Technology Super Enterprise (model 210) [hap, Sean Riddle]
  • dreamGEAR My Arcade Plug And Play 220 Game Retro Controller (DGUN-2959) [TeamEurope, ChinnyVision]
  • Fengyun Hui [Guru, Dyq, little0]
  • Game Zone II 128-in-1 [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • Lexibook Noddy's TV Console [David Haywood, TeamEurope]
  • Lexibook Super TV Air Jet 6-in-1 (Lexibook Junior) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • LJN Toys VideoArt [hap, Sean Riddle, Phil Bennett]
  • Play Vision / Taikee Racing Challenge - 8 Games In 1 [David Haywood, TeamEurope]
  • Play Vision Joystick88 [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • SciSys Chess Companion II [hap, Sean Riddle]
  • WinFun / JungleTac Motorcycle 30-in-1 [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • Yamaha Portatone PSR-11 [Carl, Sean Riddle]

New working clones

  • Astro Fighter (Taito) [David Bosque, ClawGrip]
  • Bomb Jack (bootleg) [Alexforg83, bisboch]
  • Casio MZ-1 (prototype) [Mastropiero, Devin Acker]
  • Chimera Beast (Japan, prototype, set 2) [unknown]
  • Crazy Mazey [chaneman]
  • Forty-Love (bootleg) [Recreativas.org]
  • Grand Prix '98 (V100K, set 2) [Taksangs, charlie]
  • Hachoo! (set 2) [unknown]
  • Hyper Olympic (bugfixed) [Paul Swan]
  • Macro Winners (Play Vision license) Wireless Boxing (PAL, Play Vision) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • Mahjong Jong-Tei [BET] (Japan, Techno-Top license) [buffi]
  • Pili Shen Deng [Guru, Dyq, little0]
  • Pleiads (Irecsa, set 2) [David Bosque, Jose Gil Boria, ClawGrip]
  • Pole Position (Atari version 1 on Namco PCB) [andynumbers]
  • Puck Man (Alca bootleg) [Museo Arcade Vintage]
  • Quiz Channel Question (Korea, Ver 1.10) [Taksangs, Roberto Fresca]
  • Radica / Sega Mega Drive Collection Volume 1 (Radica, Arcade Legends) (UK) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
  • Rally X (Video Game bootleg) [Ricardo - Factory Arcade, Recreativas.org]
  • Red Bird (bootleg of Space Firebird) [Recreativas.org]
  • Sea Wolf (set 3) [Domenico Cervini]
  • SciSys Explorer Chess [hap, Sean Riddle]
  • Scrabble (Spanish bootleg of Scramble) [Ricardo - Factory Arcade, Recreativas.org]
  • Space Panic (set 4) [David Bosque, ClawGrip]
  • Spider (Buena Vision, with nudity) [jordigahan, ClawGrip]
  • Stadium Hero '96 (Korea, Dream Island license) [playero]
  • Street Fighter: The Movie (v1.12K, Korea) [Nomax, The Dumping Union]
  • Super Yutnori (bootleg of Major Poker) [Taksangs]
  • VTech Dora the Explorer - Dora TV Explorer Phone / L'anniversaire de Babouche (France) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]

Read the complete release notes here.