That's awesome.
I started out on MAME and a mouse, yes, being able to pin point a mouse pointer is the plus. I remember when I started several years ago, the MAME records on TG, both by RTM, was 275k TGTS, and only 730K on marathon, so that was my goal to get 810K, and I did and I think I ended it arounf 1.4M. Then went after the TGTS, which I got up to around 320k and is still the MAME record...mainly because no one plays MC MAME.
After getting a real machine my goal, after getting 810k, was to just see a 0x board, after that I think I rolled cities and it ended around 3.2M.