It's hard to believe that arcades used to be prevalent, but nowadays you are hard pressed to stumble upon one... ever. Arcades used to represent the ultimate hangout for gamers, and it's sad that they are all but rare now. Even in my small city, I grew up with two different arcades, both now defunct. If you want to rekindle fond memories of your arcade addiction, your best bet is to head on over to Japan where they are still popular. Might as well get rid of your Pachinko craving while you are at it.

Luckily, most of the arcade games you grew up with are likely available online. MAME is the multi arcade emulator and handles a variety of machine emulations. This single emulator can handle games from the early 80s and even games in present day. If you played a game in the arcade, it's likely playable through MAME.

The most popular MAME emulator for Linux is AdvanceMAME, which hasn't had a new release in close to a year. The latest version of AdvanceMAME utilizes MAME 0.106, while the latest official version of MAME is 0.115. I am unsure the process of upgrading AdvanceMAME to utilize the latest version, but it might be worth searching for information if you are having problems running a game.

Once AdvanceMAME is installed, it won't take long to set up. Running advmame will tell you to set up a configuration file, which you can do with advmame --default. Once done that, you can to edit your ~/.advance/advmame.rc file. Under the dir_rom entry, you can change the directory if different than default, which is ~/.advance/roms/.

Starting up a game is as simple as advmame romname. As long as the ROM you want is in the right directory, it should start up quickly. At first, the navigation might seem a little complicated, but you will get a grasp on it quickly. Once inside, you can push your TAB key to open up a menu which allows configuration of all kinds, video, input, audio and so on. Luckily, gamepads are supported, so fun is only a few minutes away.

• AdvanceMAME - Official Site