**************************************************************************************
		                     Visual PinMAME
				    Version 0.99 Beta
			            (March 30, 2001)
                                http://pinmame.emuviews.com
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Latest Info
-----------
  See the whatsnewVPM.txt for latest additions to Visual PinMAME!

What is it?
-----------

Visual PinMAME is a totally new emulation project which is based on the current 
PinMAME source code. If you're new to PinMAME, check out the included pinmame.txt file.

Visual PinMAME is a Windows COM object which can be controlled by scripting languages 
such as Visual Basic Script. This allows other programs to 'control' Visual PinMAME. 

As an example, users can program their own front end for it, using Visual Basic,
or even an HTML front end. 

Any software that has VBS support and can create COM objects can interact and control 
Visual PinMAME. 

Control of Visual PinMAME includes setting which game to play, 
setting options for controlling gameplay, setting & reading the state of switches 
programmatically during gameplay, receiving programmatic information regarding the 
state of the lamp matrix and the solenoid matrix during gameplay.


What does it do?
----------------
 It allows programmers to control PinMAME emulation. Essentially PinMAME is entirely 
encapsulated into the Visual PinMAME object. Practically anything PinMAME can do, 
Visual PinMAME can do, only programmatically so the user has control over how certain
things work.


Instructions
-------------
 To install Visual PinMAME unzip the zipfile to a folder on your computer. As an example,
you can choose C:\VPinMAME. Once you've unzipped the files, launch the setup.bat file which
will register the VPinMAME.dll on your computer. You should see the message 
"DllRegisterServer in VPinMAME.dll succeeded!" If you do, then Visual PinMAME is 
properly installed. If you see a different message, then the installation failed, and you will
have to post your problems on the PinMAME forum so we may help you resolve them.

 To try it out, you can run either the VPinMAMEText.exe (which was created in Visual Basic 6.0 - source included)
or you can launch the VPinMAME.html file. Both are examples of how to control and use
Visual PinMAME.


How to Program Visual PinMAME
-----------------------------
We've included a file called interface.txt which describes all the properties and methods that are available
from Visual PinMAME to scripting languages. We've also included some samples to help demonstrate possible ways to
use Visual PinMAME.


Minimum System Requirements
---------------------------

To use:
Visual PinMAME is a Windows COM object, and as far as we know will only work on Win9x,NT,2000 computers.

To Program:
Any scripting language that can create COM objects, such as Visual Basic or Visual Basic Script.


Known Bugs
----------
  None yet, but we're sure you'll find them!


The Visual PinMAME Development Team
-----------------------------------

Steve Ellenoff     (sellenoff@hotmail.com)
Tom Haukap         (Tom.Haukap@t-online.de)
WPCMAME            (wpcmame@hotmail.com)




