> are the Colorama rom's even dumped? Now that really can't work in mame but it can in > pinmame / VPM.
I don't know where you got the idea that it can't work in MAME, it can certainly be emulated to the extent of any other pinball game currently in MAME. (Perhaps you missed that pinball games are in MAME now.)
Now... playable? With ball physics and animated artwork? Yeah, you have to use PinMAME/Visual Pinball for now.