> Inadvertently and unwittingly the MAME team member, Olivier Galibert, has set a
> date with fate.
>
> Galibert is a third-rate programmer.

Correction, third-world, first-rate, programmer.

No disputing the fact he can read computer
> language, but he is no way a particularly talented coder, not at all. He has
> been allotted the task of revising the SEGA drivers for MAME. This revision has
> been necessitated due to a critical modification to the core of MAME from which
> all games operate.

It does seem to be taking a while, but I'm sure that there's lots to do. Don't forget the addition of Sega System 24/32 support as well. I can't wait to play the real arcade versions of Crackdown and HotRod. Gain Ground looks interesting as well.

> Due to Salmorias’ growing apathy toward MAME, Salmoria has become quite
> unconcerned about who’s doing what and when (unless an especially popular and
> anticipated game comes their way). This lack of care has allowed Galibert a
> chance to glory in his role as a developer; it has allowed his ineptitude to be
> concealed; it has allowed him to behave condescendingly to end-users; it has
> allowed him to extend the date of completion of his task to 2006, a date he
> delights to dropping to the fans who play the games, so as to disappoint and
> ridicule them.

He does delight in ridiculing his fans.

> What he doesn’t realise, whilst he’s so slothfully gloating, is that he has set
> the date of his own death – he will not see the end of 2006. During the course
> of that year, justice will strike him in a way that will not be able to be
> foreseen (probably a fatal accident?). Arrogance always has its’ comeuppance and
> Galiberts is four years away. The end-users will have the last laugh…

What the hell are you saying man? I've never seen a sort of death threat posted about a MAMEdev before. That's pretty disturbing.

OTOH, adjusting for differences in calendar systems, isn't that supposed to be around the time of the planetary alignment/end-of-the-world sort of thing? Maybe the Sega rewrite, to include *all* Sega systems, is part of the conspiracy. Maybe the alien makers won't visit Earth until all Sega games are emulated properly.. or maybe there is a secret hidden in them all, that when combined, unlock the secret mysteries of the universe.

2006, indeed.