Thank you both for the replies. The rev 1 was a typo on my side, it's actually rev 2. It is from a MAME 2003 / 0.78 reference set. After reading your posts, I also tried steelta1, steeltag and steeltap and none of them work, so I'll just let this one go.

Since the Mame 078.dat from the Wiki doesn't have status entries like modern mame's listxml has, where can I lookup if a particular ROM runs with mame2003 at all? Is the Mame 078.dat mame2003's own listxml output? If not, how can I generate one?

@mitu said in Steel Talons (rev 1) doesn't start with MAME 2003:

For code formatting you can use http://commonmark.org/help/ as reference (linked from the Compose help link on the editor).

Thanks, I didn't notice the Compose link until you mentioned it. It is quite tiny and grey. :)