MAME

MAME is a computer software program for personal computers. The purpose of MAME is to faithfully and precisely emulate as many arcade games as possible, with the intent of preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The name is an acronym for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.

MAME Releases

There are several types of MAME release depending on how frequently users wish to update and the level of code maturity each user feels comfortable running:

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• The major releases of MAME occur approximately once a month. These releases are given a version number, e.g. 0.99. The Unix numbering scheme is used, i.e. the version after 0.99 is 0.100, which seems counter-intuitive to some. These major releases are the most mature and least frequent ones so are aimed at the average computer user who wants to try MAME. An executable version for Windows & DOS is released from the MAME Home Page.
• Smaller, incremental releases are released between major releases. These releases are denoted by a "u" number after the version number of the previous major release, e.g. 0.99u1 is the first development release after major version 0.99. There are usually about 5 new "u" releases in between major releases. These minor releases are not intended for average MAME users. Instead, they are aimed at people who take a close interest in MAME development and have access to compiler tools. As such, these minor releases are not made officially available as executables. They are available only as diffs against the MAME source code.
• For those users who must keep up with the absolute daily goings-on with MAME development, the MAME source code is kept on the Mess.org CVS server and may be downloaded at will by any member of the public. This is intended only for those who have access to compiler tools and feel comfortable building software from source code.