Cabinet friendly software

Note: this page descibes what is meant by the term "cabinet friendly software", if you are looking for cabinet friendly software, see the software overview.

Software is considered cabinet friendly when all commands required to operate the software are remappable or mapped to a set of default keys.

Cabinet buttons usually simulate a keypress (by use of a keyboard hack or an encoder. Thus 'firebutton 1' simulates the 'ctrl' key on a keyboard. The control panel of a cabinet can therefore be seen as a small keyboard with buttons and joysticks instead of ordinary keys. So for a game or emulator to be cabinet friendly, it has to be possible operate with that limited keyboard.

Cabinets with a trackball might be able to operate more software as the trackball can be used to move the mousepointer. Note that some encoders can change the button-to-key mapping on the fly also greatly increasing the number of cabinet friendly software possibilities.

Default cabinet friendly keys

Many BYOACers use MAME as their main emulator and have some (or limited) system buttons on the cabinet. Some emulators use the MAME control scheme as standard or have options to use a MAME friendly control scheme.

• Escape key (ESC) - quits the emulator

See also

• BYOAC forum thread discussing software that can be played on a cabinet.
• Software overview