MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat

> > All that being said, I have often thought that what MAME really needs for any
> > individual game is a very clear and well documented specification of what needs to
> be
> > done to accurately represent that game in MAME.
>
> You're making the exact identical mistake as xiaou2: you're assuming MAME is a
> corporate product aimed at end users. MAME is not intended to be professional or
> saleable or ISO 9000 compliant. It is the vector sum of the interests and directions
> of all of the contributors, full stop.

Actually, I'm not. I realize that MAME is not anything other than a volunteer project with no guarantees on what will or won't be implemented. I'm just saying that if a user has a strong desire to see something happen in MAME, they should take it upon themselves to do some legwork of writing up clear and detailed descriptions of what they want. If Derrick Renaud does not have the time or inclination to fix it, then having a detailed request will give a different developer a fighting chance of implementing the requested feature.

However, even writing up a detailed request is no guarantee that anything will be done about it. Maybe no developer will be interested in helping even if the end user has presented the problem to them on a silver platter. I left out saying this in my previous message as I couldn't think of a good way to say it, and also because I didn't want to present discouragement along with the hopeful message that I thought I was giving, but maybe I should have included that disclaimer.

> If you want to fix this problem, talk to Derrick Renaud. He is the alpha and the
> omega of inputs and gear shifts. And that's why it was stupid for xiaou2 to piss him
> off.

I'm suggesting to xiao2 that his best chance at effecting change is to do his part and document things in a way that makes Derrick Renaud's job easier. I know I have been involved in discussions on these forums about gear shift controls and other controls over the past few months and if someone would take the time to track these issues, keep a summary of the options, and work towards having a description of a solution that could be coded up, then I think this problem would be alot closer to being solved (this implies that there really is a problem with the way that shifter controls and other controls are coded in MAME, which is of course debateable, but it's not the point I'm trying to make).