Emulator Release: System16 is now Open Source
14:34:  The System16 author has released the latest source code, along with the latest binary of his emulator. In this release, some things have been fixed and others have been broken. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: EMU+ 0.35 beta 13 for Win95
14:10:  This release brings the 32-bit version of EMU+ up to date with its DOS counterpart. You can get it at the MAME page. Thanks to Retrogames for the news.

Emulator News: Bleem! News
13:54:  The Bleem! page was updated. Here's what they had to say:

SUPPORT:VIDEO updated. Feel free to look around the section if you are having any problems with D3D. More updated to VIDEO, SOUND, and CD-ROM coming soon. I am currently working on regression testing for the new release of bleem full/beta. Many of the games crashing due to memory card problems are fixed now. Expect this out sometime soon (that isn't a hint for a certain time, as soon as it is "cleared" it will be released). Once I finish testing my games with the new version, I will update the compatibility list. If you sent a support email since the Hard Drive crash, and it hasn't been answered, it would probably be best to re-ask it now. Work In Progress also updated. More news as it happens... -Matt

Let me sum that up for you. New full Bleem! coming soon, video FAQ updated, and more FAQs will be updated soon. =)

Emulator Release: Hu-Go 0.94
13:42:  A new version of Hu-Go was released, and here's what's new:

Emulator News: UltraIni 1.0.16A
12:36:  The .ini file for UltraHLE has been updated, and this time with some nifty stuff. Take a look for yourselves:

Misc. News: Happy birthday to my mother
05:41:  It's my mom's birthday today. Well, actually, it was really yesterday, but today is the party... so sue me. :) So, happy birthday Mom!

Emulator News: Latest news on...
05:13:  Latest news on the Sega System 32 emulator and PSEmu. I visited iVilDeD's page and noticed some new screenshots of the System 32 emulator and some news about the new PSEmu. It seems as if PSEmu will rock really much when and if it gets released!

Misc. News: Jar Jar from Jamaica mon?
05:10:  People get sillier and siller all the time, don't they? Telekawaru was bored enough to send me 2 scans of Star Wars fanatics complaining that Jar Jar Blinks, a computer generated fish-like creature from Episode 1 of Star Wars, rui ned the movie. He was supposedly a mockery of jamaicans.

I mean, people, get a *life*! Heh. I saw Star Wars Episode 1 with a few friends the other day, and I didn't see any problem with Jar Jar, he was actually the best part of the movie. The rest of the movie was kind of dry, but Jar Jar was the comic relief.

Misc. News: Lunar: Silver Star Story due out in a few days!
03:53:  I can hardly contain my excitement as I type this, but the day is drawing near! I'm going to go out and finally purchase a PSX because of this. Lunar, the second most ultimate RPG in the entire known universe (the first being Luna r: Eternal Blue), has *finally* been translated by Working Designs, after years (literally) of delays. Lunar was first released in 1993 for the Sega CD, which I purchased when it first came out. Lunar: Eternal Blue was released in 1995, which I believe to be twice as good as the first, except for the fact that the battle system and enemies were kind of unbalanced.

When I get my hands on Lunar: Silver Star Story, the remake of the original Lunar for the PSX, I will probably not be online for quite some time. ;) Working Designs also plans to release Lunar: Eternal Blue remake for the PSX as well. They say it's due ou t in December of 1999, so it will probably be released in July of 2001.

Emulator Release: Basilisk II 0.5
03:15:  By popular demand, Basilisk II has been added to the Macintosh emulators page. Basilisk II is a 68k Mac emulator for Windows9X with freely available source.

5/30/99
Emulator News: Official confirmation: ZSNES is not dead
18:49:  Over the last half-year, I've received so many e-mails regarding the future of ZSNES that I could pass out. I'd like to officially say to everyone, with zsKnight & _Demo_'s blessings, that ZSNES is most certainly not discontinued. It is being worked on as we speak.

While I won't go into every single bugfix and new feature, I'll mention 2 just so you know that they're not dead: zipped ROM support, and interpolated sound have both been added.

Although I don't know when a new release will be made available, I hope that everyone calms down and patiently awaits the next release.

Emulator Release: Nestra v0.62
17:17:  A new version of Nestra, Unix NES emulator, was released recently. Supporting the most mappers for any NES emulator that I know of, it is easily one of the best for Unix systems. Anyway, what's new:

Emulator Release: True Reality Windows
15:11:  The first release of the True Reality port to Windows is now available! I've heard reports that it runs Mario Kart 64 and WaveRace 64. Though I can't confirm that, I can confirm that it runs Mario64 on a Celeron@375mhz at about 1 FPS. Still, it's the furthest along of the currently 'in progress' N64 emulators.

You can download it from the N64 emulators page.

Misc. News: Emulation FAQ updated
14:51:  The Scribe has issued a minor update to his Emulation FAQ, v1.0.22. This version corrects an error regarding Cloanto's Amiga Forever product. You can download the EmuFAQ v1.0.22 at the link below.

Emulator News: A very sad day: SuiCiDE discontinued
14:41:  Although many people did not know, there was a Sega CD emulator in progress for the last several months, coded by Leah. As everyone knows, I've been waiting over 3 years for my favorite system, the Sega CD, to be emulated. Just ab out every other system has... and it looks like I will be waiting even longer...

Well there is some news on SuiCiDE, finally. But it is not good news for the emulation community. I have completed SuiCiDE the Sega MegaCD emulator and submitted it to my university for my MSc in Computer Science, as yet it remains unmarked but I con fidently expect to receive a distinction. However, I have decided not to release this emulator to world at large, and for a number of reasons.

Firstly, because of the sceptics. The emulator was written to benefit me and me alone, as my project for my Masters degree. However, I have had to numerous snidy comments about my abilities as a programmer, and sexist comments from people who thought th at by chiding me, I would release the emulator as a Beta. What could I gain from this? I do not believe for one minute that it would have been sesible or beneficial to me to release it prior to my submitting it as my university project; do you the reade r believe it would have been sensible?

Secondly, I (and my stepfather Steve_W) have had to endure varying quantities of "begging" emails, some of which had been sent to my *private* university email address (I would like to know how they found this out), some of it teasing (Daemon_ etc!), some of it pleading and some of it downright nasty and vindictive. In total, between the various email accounts, there has been somewhere in the region of over 1000 emails.

Thirdly, both myself, and again Steve_W, have received a number of mailbomb attacks for the last 3 days, each account receiving somewhere in excess of 2000 mails *each* per day. This will not be endured at all. Note, that both I and Steve_W work at very high calibre universities with access to computer science departments second to none, the email bombers will be found and when we find you are for it. This action has cost us both in financial and personal terms; Steve_W for example losing details of for thcoming appointments with clients (for those who don't know Steve_W is a Clinical Psychologist), and myself losing a number of important emails regarding job interviews, and private correspondence from my partner, etc.

Fourthly, and finally, on the strength of my emulator I have been offered an extremely well paid job with a leading software games company, as it seems assembler programmers are few and far between! I intend to take this job, and I don't want to associat ed with the emulator any longer.

I'm sorry to disappoint anybody, but this is the way it's going to be. The emulator will not be released, and neither myself, Steve_W or the beta testers will be releasing it. In the meantime I hope another emulator comes along which you can all enjoy.< br>
Love Leah xxxx

I'm going to go sulk now, and probably won't update for a while. It's my mom's birthday, by the way... now I have to pretend to be in a good mood so I don't ruin her special day...

Translation News: Pinball Madness!
06:13:  A Pokemon Pinball translation has been added, this is a fairly new rom, from what I've heard, and appears enjoyable!

Get it off the Translations page.

Translation News: Burning Hero's
06:03:  Thanks to Hero Translations, We now have a patch for the great Enix game, Burning Heros.

Download the patch from the Translations Section.

Emulator Release: basicNES 0.15b1
05:45:  As promised, Don Jarrett has updated basicNES, his NES emulator that's being programmed in Visual Basic! This new version has support for paleette (now you get colors, whooo!) and even runs Super Mario Bros 2, although it's still kinda slow, hehe. But seriously I think this is a really good NES emulator for being programmed in VB.

You can go download it from the NES emulators page.

Utility News: Good and Bad News for XSPC
01:41:  The good news is that version 2.06, a bugfix version, of XSPC has been released. You can get it at the SPC Player page. Unfortunatly, though, it can't outshine the bad news. The source code to XSPC has been lost. Here's some of what the official site had to say:

"This is really a bad news. Today my puter got shocked by a short circuit problem in my house and destroyed most of my important files. XSPC source code is one of them. My COMMANDOS disappeared too. :("

The project may or may not be restarted.

Emulator Release: DGen/MacOS 1.0.9
01:11:  DGen/MacOS 1.0.9 has been released. Here's what's new specific to this version:

Emulator Release: A-Saturn 0.14c
00:14:  A new version of A-Saturn was released, and here's what's new:

5/29/99
Emulator Release: TOSBOX 1.09 beta
23:30:  A new beta of TOSBOX was released recently. The beta includes an installation program and a "smooth mouse" option for better mouse response. You can get it at the AtariST page.

Frontend News: Updated the frontend page
23:18:  As a favor to my man, _Bnu, I updated the Frontends page for him. I added CoMeT 3.5, a frontend for SNES9x, created by yours truly. You can get it from the SNES Frontends page.

Site News: MAME Page Renovated
23:06:  I thought that our MAME page was rather outdated, so I decided to do something about it =). I added EMU+ and a few foreign language translations. If there are any other version of MAME that you feel should be on the MAME page, p lease feel free to mail me.

Site News: Poll updated!
22:23:  For my first duty as Polls Maintainer, I've updated the poll. New subject is "Was Nintendo right in shutting down SNES9X.COM?". Cast your votes here. Last poll's topic was:

What next-generation system will you buy, if any?

Choice 1 was: "I will buy the Dreamcast because Sega r0x m3."
It received 90 votes (17.4 percent).

Choice 2 was: "The PSX2 is my next system of choice."
It received 191 votes (37 percent).

Choice 3 was: "The N2000 should be even better than the N64."
It received 83 votes (16.1 percent).

Choice 4 was: "I don't care. I'm going to play Super Mario Brothers on my NES."
It received 72 votes (14 percent).

Choice 5 was: "I have no money."
It received 80 votes (15.5 percent).

Emulator News: basicNES news
19:09:  A new version of Don Jarrett's NES Emulator basicNES is soon to be released! Here are some nice things you have to look forward to:

Misc. News: Re-Port of "Keith Courage in Alpha Zones"
17:15:  Eagan Rackley is re-porting the game "Keith Courage in Alpha Zones." He plans on including parallax scrolling, scaling, and sound. If you are interested in this project and would like more information, head on over to Eagan's home page.

Site News: Your new tech docs maintainer..
15:12:  Well, I'm finally doing something more than the poll. I'm going to do all the tech docs updates as a favor to Apocalypz, who is going to be a little occupied over the Summer months with various things I won't mention now. Apoc is taking my old position as Polls Maintainer, by the way.

Oh yeah, who likes my new image? :)

Tech Docs page.

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.35 beta 13
08:54:  Brad Oliver has updated his port of MAME for MacOS. Very little was changed with this new version:

Translation News: I am literally shaking in fear, as I write this
02:03:  Lina-chan, famous for her recent Magic Knight Rayearth translation by RPGe has given me a memo on a very important subject: Seiken Densetsu 3

"Seiken Densetsu 3 translation 80% Complete. This is *not* a joke, Neill Corlett, Nuku-Nuku and Lina-chan have been working on the SD3 translation. They've already done 80% of the overall work and they are expecting on finishing it sometime soon. No, t here is No beta patch available for the public. Yes, they have all the beta testers they need. So please refrain from asking these things to them. This translation will be done, when you ask? Soon. Go to this page: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~nscorlet/sd3/ for screenshots! We will keep you informed on this translation progress =) Have a nice day! ^_^

Well, that should explain most of it. At this time, I would also like to say this: Begging for a patch, or more info from Mr. Corlett or on any of the ZMD's is pointless, disruptive, and could cause you being banned from ZMD. Please, before you post about such a subject, think before you post it. Also, please do not email me asking about this project, I know as much as you do.

Translation News: Happy Anniversary Spoony!
01:09:  Today is the 2nd anniversary! Toma's been pumping out hacks and translations for 2 years now, and as a special treat, he has updated his Luigi Bros. hack.

You can get it off the Hacks page.

May many more years of great romhacking come for you Toma...

Emulator Release: XPac v1-2-3 released
00:19:  XPac is an extended version of Mike Balfour's Mini-Pac Pac-Man emulator. A version dubbed 1-2-3 has been released by the author, Mike Sweetser. The goal is to provide an example emulator to help aspiring Windows emulator authors. Download the emulator and source from the Multi Arcade Emulators page. Fans of WWF should recognize the name and version references.

5/27/99
Emulator Release: MAME32 0.35 beta 13
20:19:  MAME32 has caught up to its DOS counterpart and updated to version 0.35 beta 13. You can get it at the MAME page.

Misc. News: SNES9x status page updated
15:47:  Here is the update, straight from the page:

This is a request direct from the Teach.. if you can help then please do so. He is asking for some advice from US lawyers which are either intrested in emulation or know a lot about copyrights/trademarks/Intellectual property rights, these need to be valid lawyers... Basically before he considering bringing back Snes9x.com the Teach would like to know his legal standpoint. I must stress that right now the Teach is considering whether to bring back Snes9x.com or call it a day... you help might be vital. If you think you can help.. and serious offers only please.. then mail jkoot@euronet.nl. Also feel free to post your thoughts on the Snes9x development message board.

The SNES9x status page can be found here.

Misc. News: Best Buy interview
11:57:  Hello people, Zophar here with another dose of "chocolatey fun". I've taken off from work today because I have a job interview at Best Buy (Best Buy is an electronics superstore chain). I hope that all goes well, wish me luck!

The 2nd NSM contest will begin very soon. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed their ideas in. The prize should be something that everyone can use this time.

I'll be updating at weird times, off and on, until I have some sort of steady schedule. Thanks for visiting ZD!

Misc. News: Sorry lilac!
06:56:  A big "I'm sorry!" goes out to lilac for forgetting to credit him for his great program WonderTheme, a MEKA color theme creator. I feel like an idiot and I'm really sorry. I'd also like to say that I've somehow caught a cold and that I won't update this page that really much until I'm well. I myself hope that this is just one of those temporary colds. Well, once again thanks to lilac for making WonderTheme! Please mail him with mice comments and things and suggestions about his proggie! He's also correctly credited for it on the SMS/GG Emulators page.

Translation News: ZZzz.z....
06:43:  Ok, its 4am, I've searched through every link in the trans page, they should ALL work, if they dont Email me and i'll fix it.

Nini.

Translation News: blibber...farewell
06:14:  blibber, leader of TransBRC, famous for various Gameboy translations, has called it quits. This was his final message:

Well this is goodbye for me, at least for the summer. but probably for good. I tried to get back into translating DBZ over the weekend, and realized that I don't have the time, nor the heart to enjoy what I'm doing. Like alot of people I'm getting rather sick of the nasty little creatures I've been encountering in emulation recently, no I'm not talking about all the great people working on various projects and sites, but the idiot little warez junkies and pokemon thieves who quite frankly have destroyed the emulation experience for me. To that extent I'm changing my e-mail (no more spam lamers), and quite probably cancelling my internet account at the end of the month. To the nice people I've met along the way, I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you, to the rest of you, I'm glad I won't be doing anything more for you! As for my projects they're public domain, but my two unfinished works DBZ and Little Magic I'd be glad if somebody nice like Musashi would continue them. If not well who cares anyway... I'm goi ng to enjoy my summer before some thickheaded politician nukes us all!!!

BCNU

Blibber / May 99

Translation News: Dr. Hatio
06:09:  A new graphics hack, this one alters Dr. Mario for Gameboy and NES, further instructions can be read in the included readme.

Download it off the Hacks Section

Translation News: FF1 STA Hacking
06:06:  a Final Fantasy 1 savestate hacking guide has been added to the Rom hacking docs section. It goes over various character stat changes.

Get it off the Rom Hacking Document section.

Translation News: PokeCard v0.14 Released!
05:54:  Trans-Otaku has released a new PokeCard patch. Current percentile standings are:

Site News: Save archives updated
02:07:  Updated: CHT, NeoRAGEx, NSF, SPC, SRM, ZST archives.

Emulator News: DarcNES v19990525
00:25:  A new source release of DarcNES, NES, SMS, and PCE emulator. What's new:

5/26/99
Emulator Release: SASS 1.1
21:46:  A new version of SASS, the Speak and Spell Simulator, has been released. Here's what's new in 1.1 final:

Emulator Release: HiVE 1.03
20:33:  A new version of HiVE, the High Velocity Emulator, was released. Here's what's new in this version:

Misc. News: NeoCharity's Last Post?
20:08:  Could this be the last update from NeoCharity? Maybe...
Check it out here.

Thanks to Bl0odRoSE for the news.

Emulator Release: DGen v1.08 for Windows released
19:32:  Goodness gracious, is this guy fast or what?? Here is what is new in this release:

Misc. News: Super Mario RPG (English) Dumped!
16:55:  The moment all SMRPG fans have been waiting for: the game has been dumped in English. ZD will not provide the ROM for you, but you can check the links page for some ROM sites. This news is a day late, but better late than never, heh.

Utility News: WonderTheme 1.0
02:43:  "What's this?", you may ask. Well I'll tell you. It's a color theme editor for MEKA! If you've ever wanted to make your theme for MEKA, now is your chance.

It's available for download on the SMS/GG Emulators page, in the MEKA box. Have fun!

Emulator Release: DGen 1.07 for Windows
02:26:  The Windows port of DGen, a Sega Genesis emulator for Win9x, DOS and MacOS, has been updated and here are the news:

Frontend News: URL 0.98
04:35:  Zoop updated his universal frontend a while back and didn't bother to tell me, hehe. Well, anyway here's a "new" version of the most rocking universal frontend ever made. Remember, the description may be short, but it's excellent anyway! The news:

Misc. News: Daves Video Game Classics URL change
19:52:  Daves Video Game Classics can now be reached at http://www.davesvgc.com. It's still available at warzone.com, but update your bookmarks or whatever anyway.

Misc. News: System32 emu and sprites, hehe
19:27:  iVilDeD has updated his page's emulation section with some new screenshots of the System32 emulator that shows that it now has support for sprites. The colors are still a bit strange and there still seems to be several graphic bugs, but it's coming along!

Emulator Release: M.A.M.E 0.35b13
19:07:  M.A.M.E 0.35b13 is out, and this release supports a whopping 1400 games, not one more, not one less. Here's what's new:

0.35 BETA 13

New games supported:

Adventure Quiz 2 Hatena no Dai-Bouken, Cyberball 2072, Rampart, Shuuz, Skull & Crossbones, Bad Lands, Grobda, Phozon, Genpei ToumaDen, The Return of Ishtar, Wanted, Truxton / Tatsujin, Out Zone, Extermination, Minky Monkey, Marine Boy, Changes, Springer, Hoccer, Funky Bee, Sky Lancer, Zodiack, Dog Fight, Moguchan, Return of the Invaders, No Man's Land

New clones supported:

Ninja Kid 2, Rad Action, Crush Roller (Kural Samno), maketrax , Street Fighter II' (Red Wave), Shisensho (Joshiryo-Hen), Mouse Trap (version 3 and 4), Arabian (Sun Electronics), Dangar (bootleg), Bomb Jack (set 1), Cruisin (=City Connection), Hangly-Man (set 2), Head On (set 2), Quantum (prototype), Galaga '84, Zzyzzyxx (set 2), Pop Flamer (set 2) (note the different gameplay), Hit'n Miss (version 2.0)

These drivers have new or improved SOUND:

Emulator Release: PacSaver!
19:01:  PacSaver is another emulator in the "screensaver" series. It acts as a regular Windows screensaver but is actually a PacMan emulator. You can download it from ZD here, but if you want the ROMs you'll have to go to the PacSaver homepage. Have fun with it!

Emulator Release: SASS 1.1 beta
18:57:  A new beta of the Speak And Spell Simulator is out and ready for you to download. Since its just a beta, its still buggy, and I don't have a list of what's new, but go download it at the SASS page anyway.

Utility Release: UltraINI 1.0.15b
18:45:  We have another minor release of UltraINI, here's what's new:

Frontend News: StartRAINE 0.20.1
18:08:  A brand new RAINE frontend has been released by Dennis Piet. Even though RAINE has a nice GUI and all you might consider trying this frontend out since it's really nice. This is the initial release, so EVERYTHING is new, hehehe.

You can download it from the Arcade emulator frontends page.

Media News: The Register-Article on Nintendo and Emulation
12:38:  The Register, a UK IT online magazine, has posted an article on Nintendo and emulation. You can check it out here. Thanks to Retrogames for the news.

Misc. News: Our 3,000,000th visitor drawing near!
09:59:  If you are the 3,000,000th visitor to Zophar's Domain, I may have a prize for you. Now now, it's nothing too elegnant. Just take a screenshot if you're the lucky winner and email it to me. The 3,000,001st visitor might get an consolation prize.

Emulator Release: Retrocade 1.2 beta 2
00:38:  As promised, a new version of Retrocade was released tonight. The what's new list is very long, so check it out here. You can download retrocade at the multi arcade emulators page.

5/23/99
Misc. News: Owen Hart, you will be missed...
22:58:  As Zophar has already mentioned, WWF Superstar Owen Hart died tonight at the WWF's Over The Edge Pay-Per-View. This was very sad for me, as I have watched Owen Hart wrestle since the 80's, and have been a huge fan of his throughout the years. Owen, you will be missed. My thoughts and prayers go out to your family....

Misc. News: A horrible tragedy: RIP Owen Hart
22:21:  This isn't emulation-related news, but it's very upsetting nonetheless. Owen Hart, a pro-wrestler who has wrestled in the WWF for over a decade, has tragically died tonight. About 90 minutes ago, he was supposed to come down on a rope as "The Blue Blazer" on tonight's WWF PPV. Somehow, Owen Hart fell over 50 feet through the air and down. It wasn't announced where he fell. 30 minutes later, he died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.

I'm very upset about this, and I'm sure any wrestling fan, and maybe even people who only remember him from the 80s, are upset as well. I won't be doing any more ZD updates for the next 24 hours.

Rest in peace, Owen...

Emulator Release: Come Back 64 beta1 for Windows
21:38:  Martin Dufour, the guy who was porting CB64 to Windows, has stopped work on the project and released the most current version of the source and binary. You can get it at the Commodore 64 page. If you are interested in continuing the project, the CB64 author asks that you mail him.

Emulator Release: Ultee 0.9
21:07:  A new version of Ultee was released today, and here's what's new:

Emulator Release: RockNES updated
21:06:  RockNES recently had two minor updates, here they are:

Misc. News: UltraHLE INI file 1.0.15a released
20:42:  Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Help wanted, heh
19:51:  This may not be news related, but there's not much else going on... So, a while back, a friend of mine named [cx] and I started programming and drawing art for a game, although it's not very far in we're quite overwhelmed by our own best efforts and we're requiring the assitance of artists and musicians! We would appreciate people with ALOT of talent. So please mail me if you're interested, okie, thanks, bye.

Frontend News: StartM72 0.33.7
19:16:  StartM72, a good M72 Emulator frontend, has been updated and here's the news: (I'll post the news for 0.33.6 too, since I never got around to adding that)

Misc. News: Marble Madness remake
10:47:  Michael Boyko has made a 3D marble madness remake called Crazy Marbles. It uses Glide, so you have to have a 3dfx card to play it. You can download a 3 level demo for free, but the full version costs $15.99. Go check it out because its pretty cool.

Emulator Release: DGen/MacOS 1.0.3b1
08:47:  DGen has been ported to Mac, and let me say this, it's a beauty. It's the first Macintosh Genesis emulator to have FM sound support, aside from all the other features Dave put in there. This is the first release of DGen/MacOS. There is one bug, however:It only runs on MacOS 8.5. Richard Bannister and his team hope to have this bug fixed in the next release. Grab it below!

5/22/99
Misc. News: Two new documents by The Scribe
22:11:  The Scribe has updated a couple of his documents. "Scribe's Guide" which is a guide to rating emulators, and "Emulation: Right or Wrong?" which is an argument to the legality of emulators. They are both recommended reading; check them out below.

Misc. News: SNES9x info site
20:37:  The SNES9x info page has been updated with the good news that The Teach has found a new home for SNES9x. He hopes to have the site back up within a week. Want more? Check out the site.

Utility Release: Lewpy's Glide Plugin 1.0.19 released
20:34:  Here's what's new:

Emulator News: What's New in SMSFan PLUS v1.08
20:22:  Here's what's new in SMSFan Plus v1.08:

Emulator News: DBoy 0.50a
20:09:  The translation of the changes in DBoy 0.50a are now available! Here's what's new:

Site News: New staff member
19:58:  Hey, I'm emufreak, and I'll be updating news and articles.

If you have any news, feel free to submit it. :)

Site News: State of Macintosh Sections
19:36:  Hello faithful readers of Zophar's Domain. I know you may have been wondering what's up with the Macintosh sections that aren't up yet, and here's the scoop.

Okay, first of all, I've been extremely busy with school and work the past few weeks, and had little time to do much of anything. I'm working on the sections, and I decided that after I got the important (read: popular) ones up, I'd wait until the rest were finished before posting any of them. Slowly but surely, they're coming along.

There's also another obstacle. I have surgery on my tailbone on June 3, and needless to say, it's going to be painful to sit for awhile, so unless I can rent a laptop from the university, I won't be around for a week or two. I'm going to try my hardest to get the sections done before then, but I have finals the 1st and 2nd of June, which means my time is going to be even more limited.

Do not worry, the sections are coming. Continue to e-mail me with updates to Macintosh emulators and any other things that may pop up.

Your loyal Macintosh Sections Maintainer, RaEJaE

Emulator News: More Raine Screenshots
19:29:  The Raine homepage has been updated with some new screenshots of a game called Bomb Jack Twin:

Here are some screenshots from Bomb Jack Twin by NMK. I don't know what NMK stands for, but this is game is very faithful to the original Bomb Jack.

Get some more at the Raine homepage.

Emulator News: Bleem! vs. PSEmu, round 1
19:26:  Whoa... look out for this one. When being interviewed, Bleem somehow put down PSEmu in an attempt to make themselves look good and legal. Interested? Find more at Kazzuya's homepage.

Translation News: Hack and Hack Utility!
19:18:  A Super Mario Bros. 1 Hack Utility called YY Mario Editor for Windows95/98 has been added to the Translation Utility Page.

And the Super Mario Bros. Hack, Super Blob Bros. has been updated to the final beta!

Grab it off the Hacks page.

Misc. News: More wrath of Nintendo
18:25:  It looks as though the wrath of Nintendo is upon a popular ROMs site, Spirit in the Contraption. Kueller had the following to say:

We (SitC) received an e-mail late last night from good 'ole Nintendo Legal Department. Needless to say, they want to shut us down, so we've yanked all the Nintendo ROMs for now. Another interesting thing that they placed at the bottom of the e-mail was a statement saying that they would assist us in helping THEM shut down other ROM sites.

With the recent shutdown of snes9x.com as well, it seems that Nintendo is going after everything having to do with nintendo emulation.

Emulator News: Learning-Window simulator
18:18:  It looks like SASS, the Speak and Spell Simulator, isn't the only learning toy being simulated. nIRV has begun coding a Learning-Window simulator. You can read more about his simulator, which is currently a work-in-progress, from the link below.

Emulator Release: DBOY 0.50a
16:33:  A new version of DBOY was released today, but I don't really know what's new yet. I think it has something to do with CGB. Get it at the GameBoy page.

Emulator News: Speak and Spell Simulator release delayed
11:36:  Here is word from Sharon L. Smith, directly from the Speak and Spell Simulator website:

"Todays release has been unfortunately delayed!!! But dont despair! New release day is MONDAY at 8am BST (British Summer time) Which is GMT(+1)."

Until then, for all your Speak and Spelling need, check out the previous version in the Speak and Spell area.

Emulator Release: Bleem! Demo v1.0 build 22028 released
11:24:  The newest Bleem! demo is now available. It fixes a "Not Enough Memory" error some folks have been experiencing, as well as some "general overall improvements". Bleem! is a Sony Playstation emulator for your PC.

You can pick up the latest demo from the Playstation emulators area.

5/21/99
Emulator News: DGen for Mac?
23:33:  Yes, it's true. John Stiles, Richard Bannister, and Gil Pedersen are porting the DGen emulator to Macintosh. Expect a release sometime within the next week. For now, you can check out the DGen website.

DGen/DTMNT Homepage.

Misc. News: Site Plug: upstategames.com
23:33:  For anyone interested in consoles and bung products from places such as Bung Enterprises, you'll want to check out upstategames.com. It's a nice site for many of your console needs.

Emulator Release: DGen 1.04a Win/DOS
23:14:  Dave has just released an update version to his Genesis emulator for DOS and Win9X, DGen. This is the only known Genesis emulator with interlaced (split screen) support! Here's what's new in v1.04a:

Misc. News: New log
22:55:  [Wizard] emailed us a new log created by Gav (Edited to remove the parts/joins), of Randy Linden speaking in #bleem. You can get it here.

Misc. News: Poll Update -- finally.
20:42:  After an eternity of waiting, you can finally wiggle with joy -- I updated the poll, after nearly two weeks of Zophar asking me to update. Here's the last poll:

What do you think of ROM site disclaimers?

Choice 1 was: "They're needed so Nintendo, Sony, and the IDSA leave us alone."
It received 145 votes (23.7 percent).

Choice 2 was: "I think that they're dated Warez rules that are fake. They're useless."
It received 273 votes (44.6 percent).

Choice 3 was: "I download without actually reading the pages."
It received 120 votes (19.6 percent).

Choice 4 was: "I purely don't care. I wouldn't have it any other way."
It received 49 votes (8 percent).

Choice 5 was: "I've never downloaded a ROM in my life. I dump each and every one I've ever played on an emu."
It received 25 votes (4.1 percent).

All right, here's the next poll for your enjoyment:
What next-generation system will you buy, if any?

Wanna vote? Go vote already.

Emulator Release: KEGS v0.49
20:34:  A new version of KEGS, Kent's emulated GS (Apple IIGS, that is). A shame I already have an Apple IIGS machine... Anyway, what's new:

Emulator Release: VICE v1.0
20:34:  New version of VICE, C64 emulator. There are so many new things in this version, read them all (official what's new). Thanks to Zaney (on IRC) for the news.

Unix C64 page.

Emulator News: NEMU64 release delayed...
19:54:  Lemmy has decided to delay his release of the new version of NEMU64, an N64 emulator, because of Nintendo's recent action with taking down the SNES9x site. This isn't much fun, since I was really looking forward to the release of this one. You can read all about it on the NEMU64 homepage

Emulator News: SNES9x status page
19:39:  A small page with the current status of the SNES9x server is up at http://freespace.virgin.net/cm.wright that will contain the latest info about how it's going for SNES9x. Keep an eye on it if you want to know the latest about the SNES9x site.

Emulator Release: DGen 1.04 for Win/DOS
19:15:  DGen, a Sega Genesis emulator for Windows and DOS, has been updated this new version. What's new? According to Dave: "Interlace support!", hehe. This means that Sonic 2 should be a lot more playable in 2 player mode now.

Go download it from the Sega Genesis emulators page.

Emulator News: sixtyEMUfour screenshots
18:47:  Well. I don't know what to say. A few screenshots of sixtyEMUfour, an N64 emulator, has been posted at the sEMUf homepage. The screenshots look almost too good to be true, but it's not up to me to judge that. The UltraHLE team proved that it wasn't impossible so technically these might be real, go check them out.

Misc. News: SNES9X.com has been suspended
18:33:  The account for the SNES9x site has been suspended, likely due to an e-mail by a certain video company (which will remain unnamed) to their service provider. Jeremy Koot is currently searching for a new server, and until one is found, the SNES9x site will be unavailiable. Best of luck to Jeremy in finding a new server!

If you want to see a white screen that says "account suspended," follow this.

Emulator News: SEGA System 32 emulator?
18:24:  Well, it sounds like fun, heh. And judging by the source of these news (iVilDeD) it's real :) There's some screenshots with faulty palette available in the Emulation section on his homepage. Enjoy!

Misc. News: Ooops...
08:18:  Sorry about the SNES Chart error... My mind was wandering and I guess with all the other stuff I did, I forgot to upload the file. Well, it's there now, and the version number on the SNES page is right too. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused any reader of Zophar's Domain. :)

Misc. News: New Amiga, new Amiga! :)
05:38:  I don't know if you know what an Amiga is, but I know that I like my Amiga very much, hehehe. I took a visit to Daves Video Game classics and I found a link to a nice little article with some concept drawings for the new Amiga. It looks kinda nice, really go here and read it/ check out the pictures. I really hope that the new Amiga comes, as it's been my favourite computer through all time and the second kind of computer I ever tried. I really hope that the relaunch of Amiga, whenever it will occur, will be a big success. I will buy one if they're not too expensive, that's for sure. Darn, if I had a picture of the "Amiga ball" I'd put it here :) Thanks go to Dave for finding that article and posting about it, hehe.

Misc. News: Segu's D3D plugin 0.8B4
05:25:  Another PSEmu GPU plugin, this time one that uses Direct3D, has been updated. It seems to be a bit buggy but maybe it's worth to try out. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Snes Chart note
01:19:  It seems that v1.91 of the SNES Compatibility chart is offline for a little bit, since Raejae forgot to upload the file. ;) It will be uploaded tomorrow, when he realizes his error.

Emulator News: SNES9x Developers Journal Updated
01:05:  The SNES9X.COM website has been updated with a new entry in the Developer's journal concerning the Windows port of SNES9x.

Both Jerremy and I are still busy with the Windows port. Once I got past development environment problems and compiler problems I've managed to fix all sound generation problems, and added sync-sound mode - stand by for 16-bit 44KHz interpolated stereo sound on any DirectSound compatible sound card, rather than the 8-bit, 22KHz sound that most of you have to put up with on the DOS port. I've also fixed a very minor controller emulation bug, but is was stopping many games from being playable!

Jerremy has added the various Kreed image enhancer routines, the same as those in the DOS port, but they seem to be written for RGB 565 display modes, and all the machines I have access to only seem to support RGB 555 in Windows 16-bit screen modes, which results in colour fringing and areas of incorrect colours; I'll need to look into this to see if there's an easy fix. Also, two of the new routines seem exceptionally slow, but Kreed knows about this. I might try my luck and add D3D hardware image scaling and filtering as an additional option (only useful if you actually have a 3d card).

As you can see, work is progressing (slowly) but there are still several important issues to be resolved.

Again, you can go to snes9x.com by going here.

Emulator Release: SMSFan v1.08
00:43:  A new version of SMSFan, SMS emulator, released today. Not exactly sure what's new, my Japanese is a little rusty (translation anyone?).

DOS SMS/GG page

5/20/99
Utility Release: nosefart v0.7/v0.2 released
23:46:  Matt Conte, my NSF hero and author of Nofrendo, has updated nosefart, NSF player for DOS, to version 0.7, meaning that compatability and channel support has been tweaked and such.

Also, Matt Conte has released a version of nosefart for WinAmp, which allows you to play NSF files right in WinAmp. Yeah, you could've guessed that. What's new in nosefart (WinAmp plug-in) v0.2:

Misc. News: SNES Chart v1.91
23:39:  The Scribe has released SNES Chart v1.91. He has now tested 1,774 Super Nintendo/Super Famicom games. Here's the scoop:

Misc. News: MP3s for the hell of it
23:07:  Deakin Scott, a DJ, did a Speed Garage mix of "Bubble Bobble" titled "Speed Bubble Bobble". If you liked "Bubble Bobble", you might like this...

Bullet Proof Sounds

It was featured #9 out of a chart of 1000 songs, which can be viewed here.

Site News: Back again?
23:03:  My job sure is eating up a lot of my time, but at least I can go from 'poor' status to 'indentured servant'. ;) I want to thank everyone who e-mailed in about my birthday. I couldn't reply to all 413 birthday e-mails I received, so I want to publicly thank everyone, it was a great feeling to have!

I'll be doing a few updates tonight. Over the weekend, I'll be catching up on any missed updates, although I think my staff has been doing a tremendous job in my absence.

I can't wait for Lunar: complete to come out for the PSX. Guess I'll be buying a real PSX soon. That should do it for tonight's update. Remember, we're nothing without your support. Thanks for visiting ZD!

Misc. News: New emulation site
20:07:  NINTENDA has informed me that a new emulation site, Emu Alliance, is launching tonight at midnight, PST. It looks like a good site. I wish the best of luck to NINTENDA.
Emu Alliance

Media News: Emulation Article in Gamepro
18:24:  A few days ago I mentioned an article about VGS in Gamepro magazine. Well, xabbott has been kind enough to provide with a scan. It was actually on page 31 and was a review of VGS. Check it out.

Emulator Release: Z26 1.30
18:01:  A new version of Z26 was recently released, and here's what's new:

Utility News: It's coming.... UniROM 0.90C!
05:33:  That's RIGHT! And if you don't know what UniROM is, you suck. Hehe, just kidding. UniROM is a ROM hacking program which allows you to alter the text and the graphics in ROMs. It has support for DTE and Dual HEX value support. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this release and I really hope you will all like it. UniROM has changed so much since version 0.60. It's no longer coded in sloow QB but in C, which leaves possibilities for a lot of stuff that would have been too slow to do in QB. (IE: Fast searching, better support for DTE, etc.) I've also made an optional really flashy GUI with that uses either VESA1 or VESA2, but don't fear: If you liked the old text-only GUI you can still have it. It has not been removed. UniROM 0.90 currently supports everything the old 0.60 did. Which is: File requester, Text editing with support for DTE, Script dumping, Bookmarks and of course the cool gfx effects :) New is the flashy GUI which has support for UniROM GUISkins, Script inserting, GFX editing for various systems, Some games to waste your time and it's now a lot more stable. But before I release this I need your help. Mail me and tell me what you want in UniROM 0.90. I could probably put in some more games to make the exe bigger, hehe, but I'd really want some cool ideas about what you want to be in it.

Emulator News: PSEmu news
05:16:  According to a very reliable source *cough*iVilDeD*cough* PSEmu has had a new beta release (while my computer was dead, of course. My computer still dead, though so don't misunderstand me) or maybe quite a few, hehe. This new beta has better compability, is faster and has perfect or near perfect MDEC! I really hope this gets released. Mainly because I've followed the development of PSEmu ever since its first release, heh.

Emulator Release: TrueReality 1995051700
05:08:  TrueReality, an N64 emulator for Unix/X, has been updated. This new version can run some 3d demos and had some RSP worked into it, so go try it! N64 emulators seem to get further and further on into developing and becoming great programs. On the other hand about 10 new fake ones are created per day and therefor it feels nice to have emulators such as TrueReality, NEmu64 and etc. that we know are real. You can go download it from the N64 emulators for Unix page.

Media News: Small article about Bleem! in EGM
04:38:  Emulation is becoming more and more known. The question is if it's good or bad? :) Anyway, things are still reasonably calm. EGM has had a new, albeit small, article about Bleem! winning against Sony in court. It's so small that I can actually post the whole article here, hehe. And thanks go out to hyperX for mailing it to me!

"Bleem One, SCEA Nothing
Los Angeles, Calif.-basesd Bleem, LLC, were able to fend off a temporary restraining orfder filed by Sony Computer Entertainment Americas in mid-April. Bleem is a start-up company which utilizes 3D graphics accelerators to enhance game graphics. The program will run you about $50. You can find more information about bleem! at www.bleem.com."

Emulator Release: fMSX 2.2 Beta3 for Amiga!
04:30:  fMSX, the a really good MSX emulator for Amiga, has been updated. If you have an Amiga 1200 or an Amiga 4000/3000 you should really try this one out, as it's happy and content om my nice little Amiga 1200 which really isn't ANYTHING to brag about, hehe. Anyways, here are the news:

Emulator Release: Meka 0.13.1
18:44:  A new version of Meka was released today. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: Moonlit Coalition's latest announcment
03:46:  Lews Therin Telamon, the lead programmer for Sunset, issued a statement on the development of the emulator. Basically, it's about features such as OpenGL, GLIDE, and Direct3D. Go to the Moonlit Coalition site for details.

Emulator News: FF8 US Demo screenshots!
07:42:  TeleKawaru was nice enought to inform me that a few screenshots of Bleem! running the FF8 US demo were up on GreenImp's website. And I must say this: I will buy this game! I saw some pictures before, but they were small and grainy. Considering that I liked FF7 a real lot I don't think this game will be an exception. Now go check out those pictures taken from and incredible emulator running an incredible game! I did notice something, though. The shadows in the battle picture aren't shadowing the ground but rather lighting it up, hehe. Thanks go out once again to TeleKawaru!

Emulator Release: 1964 0.0.13
07:17:  The source code for the newest version of the N64 emulator 1964 has been released. This N64 emulator might actually become something some day, since there's a load of people working on it. Here's the news:

Emulator News: Randy of Bleem speaks on IRC
22:57:  Feel free to browse through the log of the chat with Randy of Bleem.

Thanks to [Wizard] for the news!

Translation News: Moo! Wheres my Trans?
20:53:  Demi has put together a small, yet very informative "Guide" for the popular translations you're looking for, such as Pokemon and Tales of Phantasia.

Check Demi's MiniFAQ here.

Emulator Release: First Atari 7800 emulator!
20:25:  Straight from Dave's Classics, this is the news about an Atari 7800 emulator.

Dan Boris, author of the first Atari 2600 emulator Virtual 2600, as well as the first Atari 5200 emulator V5200, has now released the first known Atari 7800 emulator! ;-) The code for this emulator was originally written by Dan for MESS, but he decided to release a stand alone emulator while MESS is still in development. Since this is the first release of the emulator, you should expect to see some bugs, and the emulation is not "perfect". However, games are playable and it does have sound.

I've added a new Atari 7800 section. Thanks to Dave's Classics for the emulator news.

Technical Docs News: Genesis and 32x Docs up
17:12:  I'm back, I found some spare time to do two tech docs, the Sega Genesis and the Sega 32x. I'll get more documents done, soon as I get those finals out of the way. You can get to the docs by going Tech Docs Page.

Misc. News: Go vote!
09:06:  The EmuStars voting for the most popular person and stuff in emulation is now up and going! If you feel that someone deserves your vote, then please go vote, hehe. Many of the BIG names are there (Zophar, Dave, Jim Pragit) but there aren't too many of us small people :) But go visit EmuStars and vote anyway!

Misc. News: A retraction and an apology
06:22:  I messed up big time on an update concerning MSX and MasterSystem. Thanks to Zophar and Mad Irishman for notifying me of this screwup. I'm sorry if it caused you any confusion.

Emulator News: Need help with Bleem?
05:06:  As fate would have it people are having trouble with Bleem!, hehe. And until ZD has a way of helping you with Bleem! in a good way, you might want to visit the EmuHQ Bleem! help page and hopefully get some answers to your questions about Bleem!.

Emulator News: A bleem! review
00:04:  Operationsports.com has reviewed the full release of bleem! v1.00, and it's easy to see that the author of the review isn't too pleased about the performance of bleem! on his PC. Check out the link below for the full article.

5/16/99
Emulator Release: Come Back 64 0.9A
23:32:  A new version of Come Back 64 has been released, but I have yet to figure out what's new. If you know, mail me. You can get Come Back 64 at the Commodore 64 page.

Emulator Release: WinUAE 0.8.8 Release 5
22:54:  WinUAE 0.8.8 Release 5 is out. Here's what's new:

Media News: Sony to make proprietary Linux workstations for PSX2
22:26:  Wired.com has posted a story about Sony's intention to use proprietary Linux (!) workstations to code its games.

Sony will begin shipping the development workstation in September, said Phil Harrison, Sony's vice president of research and development. The machine, to be priced under US$20,000, will be based on the same chipset as the PlayStation II, including the 128-bit "Emotion Engine" and graphic chips.

Get more here. Does Linus know about this yet? :)

Emulator News: RockNES 0.90 What's New
21:53:  Here's the missing what's new from RockNES 0.90:

Site News: iNES 1.0.1 Changes
20:02:  As it turns out, the only changes in 1.0.1 of iNES for Mac were increased compatibility and you use Mapper #8 for Punchout. Thanks to JustinR for the info

Utility Release: XSPC v2.05 released
18:22:  XSPC is a Windows SPC player by Ray McKnight. What's new:

Emulator Release: RockNES 0.90
18:18:  Fx3 has released a new version of his NES emulator for DOS, RockNES. The readme for version 0.90 only says the changelist in 0.82, so if anyone knows what's new, please e-mail me.

Thanks to emufreak for the news. You can download RockNES 0.90 from the NES emulators page.

Interview News: Atila interviewed in e-mail wars #54
16:42:  Emuunlim has recently interviewed Atila of Retrogames. There was a very interesting part of the interview that goes like this:

9. In a steel cage grudge match who would win between yourself and Zophar?

Me and Zophar? I would whoop his ass in 5 seconds. There is no escape from Atila once I get a hold of you.

ha. Ha. HAH! I say. I challenge Atila to a duel then. :)

Emulator News: Bleem! problems?
15:10:  I've been receiving a lot of e-mails regarding problems with bleem! (in fact, our own XiP is having some problems with his bleem! CD), the full registered version. I can't help you, as I don't own bleem!, but feel free to discuss any bleem! issues you may be having on the ZD Next-Generation message board.

Media News: Disney Removes Violent Video Games
14:49:  Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida have removed violent video games from their parks and hotels. They said, "We try to maintain a wholesome, family environment here at Disneyland". Heh, sure. Go read the full article at CNN.

Emulator News: What's new in SMSFan Plus v1.07b
13:50:  Thanks to Steven Livingston, we now know what's new in SMSFan Plus v1.07b:

Site News: MacMAME 0.35b12a
13:35:  OK, I know I'm really REALLY late on this one, but MacMame 0.35b12a was released last week. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: JFF v0.21
13:30:  A new release of JFF (Just-for-fun), a multi-arcade emulator for DOS, is now available. Here are the 3 new games supported in v0.21:

Misc. News: E-mail address change
13:28:  I have finally gotten around to changing my e-mail address over to the Zophar.net address. My new e-mail address is now nitro@zophar.net. So if you want to send me e-mail, or whatever... send it over to this address instead.

Thanks... and the e-mail address again is nitro@zophar.net

Emulator Release: GalEmu (Windows) 0.40 Beta 5
13:14:  A new release of GalEmu, a multi-arcade emulator for Windows, is now available. Here's the list of additions and fixes in GalEmu v0.40 Beta 5:

Emulator Release: SMSFan Plus v1.07b
12:58:  A new demo of SMSFan Plus, a commercial Sega Master System emulator for Windows, is now available. I don't know what's new, being that it's in japanese, so I'll wait for Steven Livingston to e-mail us in the changelist.

Thanks to Pikaraichu for the news. You can download SMSFan Plus v1.07b from the Master System & GameGear emulators page.

Misc. News: Article on emulation.
12:58:  Check out this article on Emulation from the Ottawa Computes website (http://www.ottawacomputes.com). It covers everything from UltraHLE to Bleem! and more!

Written by |voNES|.

You can see the article over here.

Media News: President of Sony speaks out about emulation
12:32:  EBworld.com is reporting that the president of Sony, Kazuo Hirai, has spoken out about some things, including his take on VGS and bleem!. From the article:

"What else are they going to say?" a suddenly very stoic Hirai says. "It's a matter of principal to us. What they are saying sounds well and good, but I don't think I would want to be, principally, in a position where I am profiting from sales of software to run on something that is based on copyrights and intellectual properties that are, by the way, being stepped all over! I would say 'okay, we don't need that extra unit sale' if that means I get to protect my copyrights."

Thanks to hyperX for the news. You can read the full article at the link below.

Utility Release: XCheatED version 2.0 Final
12:23:  A new version of XCheatED has been released. Here is a list of what's new in the final release of version 2.0:

Emulator Release: DGen 1.02
12:18:  A new version of DGen, a Genesis emulator for Windows, is now available. Here's what's new in DGen v1.02:

Links Update: 11 sites added
12:12:  After over a week of no updates, I've finally updated the links. Sorry about that. I have just been working, and no time for links. But, they are fully updated now, so go ahead and take a look over at the Links Page.

Media News: Creative makes Glide wrapper?
12:09:  I wanted to post about this a few days ago, but a job that I leave for at 7:15am and arrive home at 6pm for doesn't leave much time for posting on ZD. Creative Labs has created Glide wrappers for their TNT video products! From the press release:

Creative Technology, Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF), the renowned innovator of market-leading multimedia solutions for personal entertainment, today announced a beta version of Unified™, a new technology for use in conjunction with its award-winning line of Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT graphics accelerators. This new technology allows the limited number of remaining "GLIDE only" legacy games to run on Creative's Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT line of products. Subsequent releases of Unified are expected to support the entire line of Creative's upcoming graphics cards.

Thanks to DavesClassics for the news. Be sure to read the full press release at the link below.

Emulator Release: Bleem! v1.0
12:04:  Whenever I go away for an extended period of time, I always miss the fun released. After months and months of planning, debugging, frustrations and other colorful terms which I would need a thesarus for, the first release of bleem! has been made available. I know this was reported on yesterday, but I wouldn't feel right unless I made a post about it myself. Right from the official page:

WILL ANYONE READ THIS?
Sure hope so - but I bet most of you saw the headline above and jumped straight to the download.... I would, too. But if you are still with us - here's one thing you should know: you don't need a password. After running the test scripts with the demo, we found that many of you have changed ISPs or other info since we took your order (and probably got married, had kids, and put them through college, too). So the password thing looked to be more trouble than it was worth. To keep ANY of you from getting upset because you can't get to the download site while the CD is just burning a hole in your hands, we thought it would be best to make it as easy as possible. But we do ask one thing - please don't mirror the final build on your website. This is the final, full product and should only be available via our page.

If you're living in a cave, only visit ZD, or other flattering things, then you better head over to the official bleem! page and grab it while it's still hot! Assuming you have the CD. If you didn't buy the CD, then don't, it's pointless.

Emulator Release: RuMSX 0.17
11:59:  A new version of RuMSX, an MSX emulator for DOS, has been released. Here's the list of changes in v0.17:

Emulator Release: Hu-Go! 0.92
11:55:  To clear up some confusion, Hu-Go! 0.92, which was released a few days ago, is the new version of the renamed 'FPCE', a TG-16 emulator for DOS. Here's the list of changes in 0.92:

Site News: Where I've been
11:50:  I just started my summer job on Thursday, so I haven't had a chance to do too many updates. As you've seen in the past, whenever I go anywhere, CGI mysteriously breaks, boards vanish, and updates suffer. So, bear with me while I bring ZD back to the splendor that you've all come to enjoy. ;)

Thanks for visiting ZD!

Site News: Some slight CGI problems fixed
11:25:  There have been some slight problems throughout ZD (seems to have occured when the box ZD is on went down for a little bit), they have (hopefully) been fixed.

5/15/99
Emulator News: Correct link for Bleem! screenshots
20:17:  Here it is. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Thanks to aardWolf for bringing the problem to my attention.

Media News: Sony stops Bleem! at E3
18:35:  Well, what do you know. The Bleem! team went to E3 and brought a few screenshots with them comparing Bleem! in Direct3D and a real PSX. Sony sent their legal people and made the Bleem! team take down all their stuff. They stayed, though. They just stopped using any Sony games in their demonstrations. Read more at Gamespot.com.

Emulator News: Another one?
18:26:  Well, it seems as if a new N64 emulator might be on its way. But as usual it might be fake. Well, I'm in no position to judge this since there isn't that much on it's homepage. It has its own domain, though so who knows? It might as well be a serious project. It's called Pretendo64 and if you feel like it you can check out http://www.pretendo.com

Emulator Release: Space Invaders screensaver 2.00 :)
18:20:  Tony Docherty has released version 2.00 of his screensaver that is actually an emulator! This is a really interesting new concept I must say, hehe. Here's the news:

You can get them off the Translation and Hacks page.

5/11/99
Misc. News: The Mummy
23:42:  I just came back from seeing "The Mummy", and I have to say, it was great! It was an excellent mix of horror and humour, and some parts had me busting out laughing, while mixed in with tense moments. I urge you all to go see it if you haven't already.

Emulator News: CD-i Emulator in the Works
15:49:  CD-i was a rather unsuccessful console that was made by Philips. It used CDs for media and had hardware similar to a Genesis. This is the first attempt that I've seen to emulate this system, so I hope it works out. Check out the page.

Emulator Release: EMU+ and a word on MAME versions
15:27:  A new version of EMU+, one of many MAME builds with a few changes/features, has been released. This version adds support for Last Blade 2 and Quiz King of Fighters. You can check it out at the official homepage.

I'd like to make a statement regarding MAME. As of right now, the only builds of MAME we carry on ZD are: MAME DOS, MAME32, MacMAME, XMAME, and the unofficial versions we support are: AMAME, PMAME, and KBMAME. We also carry IMAME, for Italian emulator users, all of which are at the MAME page.

The reason I cannot support more is a)I don't have the time to maintain 30+ versions of MAME, all which are very similar except for a couple games, and b)it takes time away from other updates that I could be doing.

Thanks for visiting ZD!

Emulator News: Quick note on UltraHLE and the Voodoo Rush
15:03:  Some people have been e-mailing me about problems they've been having with UltraHLE when using the Voodoo Rush. So, to solve that problem, head on over to EmuHQ's UltraHLE download page, and grab the "HLE Rush" patch to solve your problems.

Misc. News: Nintendo not backing down anyime soon
14:50:  I received an e-mail from someone who mailed Nintendo about their FAQ, pointing out things he felt were incorrect. Here's what Nintendo had to say:

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions, but many of your statements are based on computer disk based software. The primary difference is that the cartridge based software uses proprietary (copyrighted and patented) processes which are protected under international law. We stand behind our statements.

Nintendo of America Inc.
Mike Chandler

I can't say it's a surprise.

Emulator Release: Virtual TI 2.00a4
14:41:  A new version of Virtual TI was released a few days ago. Here's what's new:

Media News: Dallas Morning news: article on emulation
14:21:  The Dalls Morning news has written an article about emulation (although some of the information they give is incorrect, and thus I contacted them about it. Hopefully, I'll get a reply) today. You can check it out at the link below. Thanks to Shih Tzu for the news.

Utility Release: nosefart v0.3
14:09:  Matt Conte has informed me that he's released a new version of his NSF audio player for DOS, nosefart. He actually released v0.3 and v0.2 within hours of each other, so here's the combined list of what's new:

Emulator Release: CalcEm 0.51
13:53:  A new version of CalcEm has been added to ZD. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Shel Silverstien dies & CIH cure found?
13:35:  In today's non-emulation related news, we have 2 important stories. First off, Shel Silverstien, author of many children's books and poem collections, such as "The Giving Tree", "A Light in the Attic", and "Where the Sidewalk ends" was found dead yesterday morning. He died of a heart attack. When I was in elementary school, his books and poems were among my favorites. He will be missed. You can read the full article at Yahoo.com. Thanks to James Chu for this sad news.

Second, hackernews.com is reporting the following about the CIH virus:

A student in Bangladesh claims to have found a cure for the CIH or Chernobyl virus that wipes out thousands of systems world wide last month. Monirul Islam Sharif, an undergraduate computer science student claims that a 70K-byte C language program he has named MRECOVER will recover the FAT table and the first partition of a FAT16 table.

Thanks to InVerse for this news. What a crazy week this is becoming, eh? Just last night, police cars were all over my neighbourhood for no particular reason... it's definitely 1999, people.

Emulator Release: Snes9X 1.19b (DOS GUI)
13:22:  Telekawaru has released a new version of Snes9X 1.19b, DOS with GUI version. Here's what's new:

Interview News: Project Global
13:10:  Bwb of EmuHQ has interviewed the Project Global team. Go check it out now!

Emulator Release: DarcNES 990508 Source
12:46:  A new version of the DarcNES source was released a few days ago, and here's what's new:

Emulator Release: DarcNES 990502 DOS Binary
12:43:  A new version of Sephiroth's DOS binary of DarcNES has been released, and it includes everything that its Linux counterpart has plus:

Emulator News: bleem! news & new demo!
12:30:  There's more news on the official bleem! page on its current status:

Actually, I wanted to get an update up last night or this morning, but have been wrestling with getting our new host site set up. Those of you who've been with us for a while know of the joys of heavy traffic on this shared-server set up. So we've been configuring a new dedicated box, but are waiting to switch over entirely until after the full version ships, just in case the DNS system caches take a little while to update - we don't want you to think we've skipped town.

But we ARE going to use it to serve the full download, and I've been working on getting it set up for that use. We'd appreciate your help in testing the server to make sure it will be able to handle the loads placed on it by CGI scripts and the download traffic. The other day, I mentioned that Randy had things working nicely again and had built a new demo to test the basic code and make sure everything was working properly again - the beta folks have given it the green light.

They have released a new demo, with no time limit. You can download this new bleem! demo from the PSX emulators page. Thanks to everyone who mailed in!

Site News: Save archives updated
02:24:  Updated: NeoRAGEx, NSF, SPC, ZST archives.

5/10/99
Misc. News: The Flyer and Poster Archive for MAME
23:41:  The Flyer and Poster Archive for MAME has updated its site to "version 3.0" and added 31 new flyers. Go check it out.

Misc. News: News-u-lator Returns
23:29:  News-u-lator is back! We got a message from Cleric, and he had this to say:

Hey boys,
Been a while since I mailed you guys like this, and guess what? I have relaunched the news-u-lator. I got sick of the delays on the news updater so some of it doesn't work yet, but it's still better than the old site. If you can't remember already, it's www.lator.com. Post a blurb on your sites if you would like to.
Regards,
Cleric

Emulator News: Meka 0.13 for Registered Users
23:21:  A new version of Meka was released for registered users, and the public version will be availible in a few days. The new version includes Colecovision emulation, a way to create your own GUI themes, and many bugfixes. For more info, visit the Meka homepage.

Frontend News: iD 5.0
18:16:  iD, a DBOY frontend, has been updated. This new version is a vast improvement over 3.0. Here's the news:

Misc. News: Dana Plato dead at 34
10:05:  This isn't emulation-related, but I felt the need to post this. Dana Plato, known mostly in the tv world as Kimberly in Diff'rent Strokes, and as Kelly in the controversial 1992 Sega CD game, Night Trap. She died of an apparant drug overdose:

Ms. Plato, 34, apparently took the painkiller Loritab along with Valium on Saturday while visiting the home of her fiance's parents.

"The death appears to be an accidental overdose. We don't suspect suicide," police Sgt. Scott Singer said Sunday.

She'll be missed. (Thanks to InVerse for this news, was a definite shocker.) In emulation-related news, I just saw Doug Lowenstein (of the IDSA) on CNN, defending video games. Wheee.

Misc. News: SNES Chart v1.90
09:19:  The Scribe has released v1.90 of the most comprehensive SNES compatibility chart there is, the SNES Chart. You can download the SNES Chart v1.90 from the SNES emulators page.

Misc. News: Ultra.ini 1.0.15
08:36:  A new release of the unofficial ultra.ini file (for UltraHLE) is now available. Note that this is not an arcade-at-home release. Here's what's new in Ultra.ini 1.0.15:

Emulator Release: nosefart v0.1 & document on NSF ripping
08:23:  This is a two part update, dealing with NSFs. First of all, Matt Conte (author of Nofrendo, a NES emulator for DOS) has released version 0.1 of his new NSF audio player for DOS, nosefart (creative name). Although I had some trouble running it, you should check it out at the NSF players/utilities page anyway; you may have better luck.

Second, Chris Covell has provided ZD with a *very* detailed document on how to rip NSFs from NES ROMs, and an overview of the NSF file format. Beware, however, this is NOT for the average user. You must have some knowledge of 6502 programming. You can download the document at the NSF players/utilities page.

Emulator News: Small note on SIDs
08:04:  I received a few e-mails asking me exactly what a SID is, and I even received an e-mail with a link to a page with tons of SIDs. Basically, if you know what an NSF is (NES music file), then you know what a SID is. Just pretend it's the same thing, but it contains music for the C64, rather than the NES. It's been around a while, and there are thousands of SIDs already.

After discussing the possibility of adding SIDs to ZD, we think it would be a little difficult to provide them, since there are thousands and thousands of them already. We may carry them in the future. In the meantime, check out the page at the link below (thanks to Ruiner for this link); it contains a bunch of SID files for your enjoyment.

Misc. News: VERGE 2!
02:46:  If I'm allowed to do only 1 non-emulationg related update per year and freak out about it, this is the one! There's probably a LOT of you people who don't know what VERGE is. Well, it's short for Vecna's Extraordinary Roleplay Game Engine. It's been a source to the making of quite a few excellent RPGs and even a platform game. But with the release of VERGE 2, heaven has come down on earth. This is the thing I've been waiting for ever since I heard that the project had started, and that was several months ago. Something really nice about VERGE 2 is the ability to use the scripting "programming" language which enables you, if you know your coding, to create virtually any game you want: Platform, RPG, Strategy, etc. Maybe even some crappy 3D game, eh? Hehe. Anyway, if you feel like you want to make an RPG or whatever go visit the homepage of the greatest RPG engine on earth and beyond!

Go here: http://www.Verge-RPG.com, NOW! :P

5/9/99
Site News: Save archives updated, NeoRAGEx and NSF archives added
20:23:  Added: NeoRAGEx, NSF archives.
Updated: CHT, NSM archives.

Emulator Release: PC88Win 1.14 added
17:43:  I've added the, according to sources, best PC8801 emulator that exists. It's called PC88Win and is in Japanese. As with all of them you'll need the PC8801 system ROMs to use it. Thanks to Yohji FUSE for the mail.

It's available for download on the PC8801 Emulators page.

Site News: Pulling my hair out over NSMs
15:53:  OK people, listen up. I will say this one time. If you want to view ANY NSM on ZD, including the winning metroid NSM, you *MUST MUST MUST* use NESticle x.xx. Using the Windows version, or any old DOS version, will not work with these NSMs, because they are incompatible with older versions.

When submitting NSMs, PLEASE use NESticle x.xx. If you don't we won't accept your NSMs. Thank you for listening, and for visiting ZD!

Emulator News: DTMNT/DGen author changes e-mail
15:27:  The author of DTMNT and DGen has changed his e-mail address to dave@dtmnt.com. The official DGen page is also now at www.dtmnt.com. Be sure to update your bookmarks & e-mail lists. Thanks to ChiPPy for the news.

Emulator News: Project Global status report
14:25:  Project Global, a work-in-progress Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows (which utilizes OpenGL), can now run WaveRace 64! To see a screenshot of the emulator running it, as well as more information on this emulator's progress, be sure to check out the official Project Global status report at the link below.

Misc. News: NSF format debuts; 2 players available
05:46:  There is a new music format, similar to C64 .SID and SNES .SPC. Dubbed NSF (NES sound format), this new format is remarkably small (a single 20KB NSF, for example, could hold 10 songs, 20 songs, or more!), so you won't have to waste time download logged WAVs of tunes, when you can download the MUCH smaller NSF! NES music enthusiasts, rejoice!

Basically, an NSF contains samples, data to play which samples, and it can contain multiple songs. I had a long chat with Chris Covell, who is responsible for ripping a large number of NSFs (22 so far). You should all realize that currently, you need to know 6502 assembly if you want to join in on the NSF ripping project. If you don't, you can always wait for NSFs to be released. However, if you know 6502 assembly, I urge you to contact Chris, and see what you can help out with.

There are currently two NSF players available, but keep in mind that both are buggy. One is a plugin for Winamp, the other is a DOS player with a command-line interface. Both are available at the ZD NSF players/utilities page.

Thanks go out to Marcus for informing me about this, and Chris Covell, for answering all of my annoying NSF-related questions. ;) I guess I'm off to NESamp!

Emulator News: I think it's going to Raine soon
03:56:  The latest news from the Raine (a multi-arcade emulator for DOS) front:

Not many updates in the last few weeks. Incase you didn't notice, Raine 0.20 includes two extra games: Puzznic (very addictive game) and Atomic Robokid (nice gfx style). Anyway, here are some screenshots for Puzznic and Atomic Robo-Kid. And guess what? another vertical shoot-em-up game (classic arcade material): Omega Fighter by UPL.

Yes! I loved Atomic Robo-kid, hehe. (Hi Jer!)

You can check out the screenshots from the official Raine page, at the link below.

Misc. News: The Scribe's response to the Nintendo FAQ
03:51:  As most of you know by now, Nintendo.com has updated their FAQ to include all the latest 'legal information' about emulation. Simply put, everything having to do with emulation, ROMs, and console copiers are illegal.

This response from The Scribe, who is the guru of compatibility charts, is the only one out of the MANY submissions I got. Why? Because I feel that this one explains the issues the best, and I feel that The Scribe knows more about the issue than any of the other authors of responses out there.

You can check out his response at the link below. I urge you to read it.

Site News: Modified logo
03:43:  Even though I feel sick as a gameboy (the old greenish one, not the new color gameboy), and I look even worse, I'll keep on pumping these updates out until I drop dead by the keyboard.

Z. Kelling has modified the current ZD logo. He has darkened the colors, and made them sharper and clearer. He's also reduced the filesize down a few KB, which should make ZD load slightly faster. Thanks Z. Kelling, we appreciate it. :)

I've officially determined that Sudafed doesn't work. Hmph.

Media News: The fight against 'blame everyone but the parents' continues
03:25:  Next-Generation.com is reporting that at this year's E3, many vendors will be pulling violent segments out of the demos that they show. Some, however, like Sony, are not going to pull anything but will instead show statistical facts that show that a very small number of games are rated M, and an even smaller number were on the Top 20 list.

I wonder if video game companies are learning how it feels to be hounded, pushed around, threatened and bullied yet. If you'd like to express your opinions, you can post on our Non-Emulation board.

Thanks to Krishna Manohar for the news. You can read this entire article at the link below.

Emulator News: More bleem! news
03:16:  The official bleem! homepage has been updated with more information on the latest delay, and what bugs have been worked out. Here's a piece of that update:

-Randy cleaned out the "scars" from the deadline-panic edits to concentrate on fixing the root problems, not just mitigating them for a rushed release.

-He's pounding through them at a fast pace and things are looking good. It turns out our original supposition was right - most everything is twiddly-little-stuff that is nonetheless a pain to track down.

-He explained to me why some of this stuff is such a bother. I, like most of you probably, wondered what the big deal was - just look at the edits he made and find the mistake or, when the program freaks out, look at where it freaked out and fix that bit (oooh, he LOVED that.. heheh..) Seems that the edits span thousands of lines of code, here and there, and just looking at where the program crashes my have nothing to do with what MADE it crash - it could have been a faulty command thousands, or millions, or processor-cycles previously. So it's a pain. Better him than me.

-But he's doing it - with the same methodical logic and patience that allowed him to make bleem! in the first place. He's tackling the problems one step at a time and has already reached the point where he's able to build working demos again that include the improved logic and the final code that ties them together. You might say, "big whup, we already have demos" but it's a great sign of progress, from a programming standpoint; the demo represents a large portion of bleem!.

Thanks to Bob Miller for the news. You can check out the full story at the link below.

Site News: Boards fixed, AOL unbanned
02:58:  Thanks to Brian, the ZD message boards are now operative, Y2K compliant, and flood-proof (the boards won't die if malicious posters try to flood it to death). AOL users are now able to post on the boards again. We at ZD apologize for any inconvenience caused by these recent events. I'm glad everything is back to normal now. Thanks for visiting ZD!

Emulator Release: 1964 0.0.11
01:17:  Here's what's new in the latest version of 1964, the open-source N64 emulator for Windows:

5/8/99
Site News: Save archives updated
15:56:  Updated: SPC, SRM, NSM, STA, CHT archives.

Site News: Concerning the ZD message boards
15:52:  It has come to my attention that a xSukoy (who has posed as Zack Lopez, who has nothing to do with it), has been abusing the ZD message boards, finding security holes, and other non-fun problems. As a result, I've been forced to ban all AOL users from accessing any of the boards, until I can either a)pinpoint this exact bug, or b)replace all of the boards with new boards that are not exploitable (is there such a thing?).

I apologize for having to ban AOL from the boards, but until I fix this exploit, I've had no choice. I want all AOL users to know that I am glad you visit ZD, and other than the boards, you are welcome in all other areas of the site. I promise you that when I find this bug, AOL will be unbanned from the boards, and all will return to normal.

Emulator Release: WinUAE 0.8.8 Release 4
15:12:  A new version of WinUAE, an Amiga emulator for windows, has been released. (Actually, it was released a few days ago, but we somehow missed it.) Here's what's new in WinUAE 0.8.8 Release 4:

Emulator Release: HiVE 1.02
14:01:  A new version of HiVE was released today, and here's what's new:

Site News: NSM contest #1: and the winner is...
10:16:  After 2 weeks of reviewing various Metroid NSMs, I have to say that I hope I never see another game of Metroid every again. :) There weren't nearly as many submissions as I thought they would be. I guess that when I posted the fastest time so far last week, it scared a lot of people off. I won't reveal the best time so far in future contests, so that more people submit.

Before I announce the winner, I'd like to thank everyone who did submit an entry. There were 2 runner-ups that I'd like to mention, because their times were still extraordinary. The second runner up is Paladin, who beat the game in 57 minutes, 17 seconds. The first runner up is anubis-][, who scored an incredible time of 46 minutes, 00 seconds.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. The winner of the first annual ZD NSM contest is... blazemore! Blazemore won the game in only 42 minutes, 50 seconds! We'll be adding his NSM to the NSM archive page for everyone to see later today. Until it's added to the page, you can download blazemore's NSM here.

Blazemore has won a free 3 month shell account on ztnet.com. Congratulations!

I'm accepting ideas for the next NSM contest game. To submit your ideas, send me an e-mail.

See you next time!

Utility News: XSPC technical help
09:59:  The author of XSPC, an SPC player for Windows9X, is looking for any help on porting the AT&T assembly used in the SNEeSe SPC core to Intel style assembly. If you can help him in any way, drop him a line at r.mcknight@iname.com.

Emulator Release: Ultee 0.6a
03:34:  A new version of Ultee, a NES emulator for Win9X, has been released. Several new mappers and bugfixes are added in this version. Download it at the NES page.

5/7/99
Emulator Release: Two new PC8801 emulators added
18:38:  Hehe, the PC8801 page grows and a PC8801 emulators for Unix page has been added. The first one is called Project X88000 and is for Windows and is in Japanese, so I have no idea what's new or anything. However, it's available for download on the PC8801 emulators page The second one is for Unix and is called Quasi88. This one's also in Japanese, but it should be OK anyway, hehe. It's available for download on the PC8801 Emulators for Unix page. You might have noticed that I stopped calling it PC88 and started calling it PC8801 and that's because FUSI Yohji was kind enough to correct me and send me the news about these emulators. Thanks!

Misc. News: Dream Quest 2000 PC demo 1.01 released
17:50:  Hi everyone! Miss me? :P Anyways. While this is loosely emulation related, I myself was very impressed when I downloaded this gem of a project. Firebell Soft has release their first demo of Dream Quest 2000 for Windows. What it is is a game based around the Final Fantasy series. Most of the graphics used come straight out of some out favorite SNES versions. I feel that for any of you that are Final Fantasy fans should definitely go check this one out!

Go check it out at Fireball Soft.

Misc. News: New e-mail address
16:02:  I changed my email addres from apocalypse_666@hotmail.com to apoc_zd@hotmail.com. The reason for this is, I felt weird having the 666, so I changed it. I hope some of you don't think I'm a satan worshipper, heh.

Site News: NSM Contest #1 over in 17 hours
07:02:  In about 17 hours, the first ZD NSM contest will come to a close. This is the last reminder that your entries are due! If you still haven't started, you can check out the rules here.

By the way, the winner will also get his NSM up on the NESticle NSM archive. We'll also probably put up an NSM contest page with past winners.

Good luck!

Emulator Release: SASS v1.00
05:51:  Actually, this should read "Simulator Release", but it's close enough. SASS is a Speak & Spell simulator for Windows. For those of you who never owned a Speak & Spell, it was an electronic toy created by Texas Instruments that let you push letters and taught you how to spell words. Remember to copy the ttf font, included with this archive, over to your fonts directory.

You can download Mike Green's SASS v1.00 from the Speak & Spell simulators page.

Emulator News: More news from the bleem! camp
05:25:  The official Bleem homepage has been updated with the latest information on bleem!'s delay situation, due to new bugs that cropped up in the code. From the page:

So now the good news - what seemed insurmountable after hours and hours of debugging yesterday, seems at least approachable today. And even more so tomorrow. Randy called me to say that one of the problems that was causing him fits for hours yesterday took only 45minutes to track down and correct today -- with a clearer head and better perspective. So I'm feeling optimistic and have absolute faith in Randy's abilities - you should too, if you've seen the demo.

But I don't want to make the mistake of putting out another "guaranteed" date after yesterday's fiasco, since who knows what flood, famine, or act-of-Windows will befall us -- but things look good (meaning NOT months or even weeks, as some folks have suggested).

To read the whole post, check out the official Bleem! homepage at the link below.

5/6/99
Utility Release: Mario Improvement 3 version 2.0
20:26:  A new version of that cool utility for that awsome NES game called Mario Brothers 3 has been released. This version supports editing of all levels! Check it out. Here is whats new:

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.35b12
17:29:  Brad Oliver has updated his Macintosh port of MAME to 0.35b12; here's what's new specific to the mac version:

Media News: Gore announces internet safety plan
17:20:  In his ongoing quest to being remembered for doing SOMETHING useful, Al Gore is trying to get an agreement worked out with ISPs about safety. From the article:

Under the agreement, Internet companies will include on their home pages a link to a new site featuring a long list of aids for parents. Included will be technology that allows parents to restrict their children's access to Internet sites and keep tabs on which sites youngsters are visiting. It also would allow them to limit the time children spend online, and would provide access to a ``guide to good content'' and safety tips for youngsters and parents interested in surfing the Internet.

The article also goes on to mention how the Littleton murderers... GASP.. played... DOOM! (Now if only the government would try lecturing parents instead of video game makers... you have to love America).

Thanks to Steve Sawyer for the news. Check it out at the link below.

Emulator Release: Snes9x Solaris (Sparc)/SunOS(Sparc) v1.19a
17:19:  New ports of Snes9x for Solaris (Sparc) and SunOS (Sparc) released. This version is the same as v1.19 except for a couple fixed compiler warnings, speaking of which, for Linux users that were having problems with v1.19, it is suggested that you download the v1.19a source and compile your own version.

Unix SNES page

Emulator Release: System16 DX 0.80
17:12:  The Windows95/98 DirectX version of System 16, a multi-arcade emulator, has been updated to version 0.80. This will be the final release, since the porter lost the source code. There is currently no homepage for the Windows version of System 16.

Thanks to Atila for the news. You can download System 16 DX 0.80 from the Multi-Arcade emulators page.

Emulator News: Nemu64 progress report
13:16:  Nemu64 is a Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows (for those who didn't know), and it's coming along quite nicely. The following is taken from the official Nemu64 page; it tells of its current progress:

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Currently we are preparing the next release. It will be able to play some 2D games, like Mortal Kombat, NBA Hangtime and maybe some more. I have started working on HLE, which greatly increased performance. As HLE can be toggled on and off on the fly, you can see the speed difference really well.

I also want to officially announce, that our team expanded once again. hWnd, who is well know from the glide wrapper GLČIDE is rewriting the graphics engine to Direct3D. But as this is a huge change, it will take some time.

Please be patient, I hope it won't take too long. The release after the next one will be able to play 3D games.

For more information, be sure to visit the official Nemu64 page at the link below. Thanks to RedRider for the news.

Misc. News: Arcade Warehouse
13:07:  A new website has just gone up. It's called the Arcade Warehouse, and they sell... you guessed it, arcade machines! You can check out the site at the link below.

Emulator News: Log of Dave from the bleem! team
12:59:  Sonikku_a of elitegamer.com was kind enough to send me an IRC log of Dave (wwwhhhaaa was his nick at the time), who is the the CEO of bleem!, in #bleem on efnet explaining why the release was delayed.

Beware, however, the log is a little tricky to read, and I guess it would get an MA rating for language. ;)

Emulator Release: IMAME 0.35 Beta 12 DOS & Beta 10 Win
12:46:  IMAME, the Italian translation of MAME, has been updated to Beta 12 for DOS. I also noticed that Beta 10 for Windows has been available for some time, but was never added to ZD, so I added that too.

By the way, does anyone know if NeoMAME has been discontinued? It hasn't been updated in a while, and I'm wondering if it was discontinued due to KBMAME. If anyone knows, please e-mail me.

You can download IMAME 0.35 Beta 12 DOS and Beta 10 Windows from the MAME page.

Emulator News: Your room is such a MESS
12:07:  After nearly half a year of silence, the MESS team has decided to come out of hiding! For those who don't remember, MESS is a multiple system emulator for such consoles as the NES and Genesis, computers like the TRS80, and more! It's also open source, and has been ported to multiple platforms.

The MESS page has moved to http://mess.emuverse.com. Here's what the MESS team had to say on their WIP page:

So what are we doing, then? Well, a new MESS beta is definitely on the way, although an E.T.A at this stage is not practical. I can reveal, however, that two new systems are under development for MESS, namely the Enterprise 128K and the Amstrad CPC 6128. Both of these drivers are being developed by Kevin Thacker - better known for Arnold, an extremely solid CPC/CPC+ emulator for Windows (and now Macintosh).

If you'd like to grab the old version of MESS while you wait for the newer one to be released, you can get it from our MESS page. Thanks to QuackBot for the news.

Emulator News: MAME Beta 12 source added
11:57:  I just noticed that we still had old versions of the MAME source online, so I added the latest Beta 12 build source code to the MAME page for both the DOS and Windows builds. The source for DOS beta 12 source is an upgrade, just copy it over your Beta 11 source. The Windows beta 12 source should just be copied over the DOS beta 12 source.

Emulator News: Take me to Saturn and back
11:44:  This post is 100% dedicated to Saturn emulators (even though not one can even show a title screen yet).

First off, the following Saturn emulators have been discontinued:

Emulator News: Boycott & Pcott homepage moves
11:18:  Emu5Ever, Gollum's webpage dedicated to emulation (which also hosts 2 of his emulators, Boycott and Pcott) has moved to http://emu5ever.emulationworld.com. I'd like to welcome Emu5Ever go the emulationworld family. ;)

The new URLs for Boycott and Pcott have been changed on the Gameboy and PC emulator pages.

Gollum has also indicated that he's working on the Boycott GUI and it may become open source! He's looking for help to add sound in Boycott, so give him a hand if you can.

Site News: What a day
10:59:  Hello everyone, Zophar here with another dose of Zophar-itis. Today was my last final at CCP (It was my Psyc 101 final). I'm going to be doing a bunch of updates today, so bear with me.

The NSM contest is over tommorow night at 11:59pm EST. Anything received after that will be discarded, so get your entries in! By the way, someone may have beaten the 57 minute 17 second record. I'll be checking a bunch of entries today. If you forgot the rules, or want participate, you can read them right here.

As you all know, the release of retail bleem! was delayed again. When I find out more information on the next release-candidate date, I'll let all of you know. As always, please don't e-mail me asking when bleem! is coming out, I have no idea.

I talked to alamone yesterday, and I think we'll be added a NeorageX save state archive in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled. We're also working on the "ZD's pick award" to rate the best emulators, in our eyes, for each particular emulator section.

Finally, remember that ZD is here for your benefit, not ours. We're a 100% non-profit org. Without your support, we wouldn't exist. Thanks for visiting ZD!

Emulator News: More Jaguar emulators?
10:40:  Yet another Jaguar emulator has been discovered, although I'm beginning to wonder if any of these are really going to go anywhere...

This one's called Jade, and all there is right now is a GUI. You can check it out at the link below. Thanks to Boba Fett for the news.

Media News: Doug Lowenstein speaks on behalf of video games
10:25:  There is an ongoing debate in the Senate about violence in video games. Doug Lowenstein, long time foe to emulation, is currently defending video games in the Senate. While he still doesn't and probably never will support emulators, this is still important to hear. Check it out at the link below if you have Real Audio 5.0 or higher.

Thanks to www.retrogames.com for the news.

5/5/99
Emulator News: A-Saturn homepage moved
23:32:  A-Saturn has relocated it's homepage here. Along with that I noticed that the file on there is asat014b.zip and is dated the 12'th of April, SO since ours was dated the 4'th I downloaded this one and added it to the Saturn page. It doesn't say anywhere what is new and or changed in this 014b release.

Anyhow, the Saturn page can be found here and the new A-Saturn homepage can be found here.

Emulator Release: MAME32 0.35b12
21:57:  OK, your faithful Win32 version of MAME has been released. There's nothing new specific to the 32-bit version, so check the MAME 0.35b12 update if you want to see the what's new for all the MAMEs. Grab it at the MAME page.

Emulator Release: Snes9x 1.19a Source
20:56:  A new version of the Snes9x soruce code has been released. Everything that was listed as new in the Linux version are new in this source too. If you want it, download it at the SNES page. Thanks to EvilPaul13 for the IM.

Emulator News: The Bleem! Countdown Has Been Aborted
20:40:  Sorry folks, its just not going to happen tonight. Some problems crept up in the final build of Bleem!, and the programmer hasn't gotten any sleep in 3 days. For the whole story, check out the Bleem! page.

Feel free to post your thoughts on the latest bleem! delay on the Next-Generation message board.

Emulator News: SASS - Speak and Spell Simulator
07:34:  Well, more of a simulator than an emulator, SASS simulates something that no one has thought of... until now. SASS, the Speak and Spell Simulator, (coded by Mike Green) simulates Texas Instrument's Speak and Spell. I've tried it myself, and I've got to say... this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

It comes with a ton of sampled voices from the actual Speak and Spell unit. The 'GUI' is a picture of the speak and spell, and you move your mouse to click the different letters and so forth.

When it's officially released, it will be added to ZD. I guess I have to create a new section for this. ;)

Utility Release: XSPC v2.00
04:24:  Ray McKnight has released v2.00 of his spectacular SPC player for Windows95/98, XSPC. Yes, it's even more featured than our very own ZD-SPC, though I'm sure Nitro will be hard at work after this release. ;)

The coolest feature of this version is the support for RARs! Yes, this means that you can download RARs off of our SPC archive page, and play them right in XSPC without having to decompress them. Great space saver! Here's the full list of what's new:

Emulator Release: fMSX for Amiga 2.2b2!
03:31:  fMSX, a really good MSX emulator for Amiga has been updated. We don't carry emulators for the Amiga (yet, hehe) but I'll post about it anyway. The previous version worked really good on my Amiga, so I guess this one can't be worse, huh? Here are the news:

5/4/99
Emulator Release: DGen 1.01
22:13:  A new version of DGen is out, featuring a small change. It added a DGen.ini file. Get it at the Genesis page. Thanks to ChiPPy for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: SNES9x for Mac 1.1.9
20:51:  OK, I know I'm a little behind the times here, but I've been extremely-deadly-busy these past few days. SNES9x 1.1.9 for Mac has been released, and here's what's new specific to the Mac version:

Emulator Release: 1964 0.0.10
20:12:  A new version of the 1964 source was released today. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Some corrections and DBoy news
18:04:  First, a two small corrections. The new N64 emulator that had news about it posted yesterday is said to be DirectX based and therefore can't REQUIRE a Voodoo based gfx card to work since DirectX is hardware independant. Thanks to HippyFrog for bringing this mistake to our attention.

Second, Jagged isn't being continued by BobaFett, this was a pure misunderstanding, ok? Sorry for any stuffle that might have been caused. Thanks to BobaFett for clearing this up.

Also, I've received news that DBoy 0.50 supports multiple real time saves (1234 to save, 6789 to load). Thanks to The Lost One for this info.

Have a nice day, hehe.

Emulator Release: DBOY 0.50
15:23:  A new version of DBOY was released today, but the English documentation isn't out yet. Download it at the GameBoy page. Thanks to Pikaraichu for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: milliEmu v0.0.2
09:07:  Don Jarrett (not to be confused with Jeff Jarrett) has released version 0.0.2 of his VB Millipede emulator for Windows95. Here's what's new:

5/3/99
Emulator News: Developing Jaguar emulators not the first of their kind
23:45:  Apparently, the two Jaguar emulators now in development aren't the first. As it has been brought to out attention, the original Jaguar emulator, Jagged (long since discontinued), was, in fact, the original. In it's time, it emulated 2 out of 4 of the Jaguar chips completely and was close to emulating the other two, but, it was mysteriously discontinued. However, 'BobaFett' is working on continuing this old Jaguar emulator. Thanks to 'BobaFett' for the news.

Emulator News: New Nintendo64 emulator, sixtyEMUfour
23:45:  DcCool has begun work on a new Nintendo64 emulator called sixtyEMUfour (s(EMU)f). This new emulator is supposed to be DirectX-based and will require either a Voodoo-based graphics card or glide wrappers. An initial release is expected in the near future, keep an eye on it and check the homepage for more info. Thanks to 'HippyFrog' for the info...

Emulator Release: NeoRAGE X 0.5c
20:05:  Woohoo! a new version of NeoRAGE X has been released. Although there's not too much new, here's what's been updated:

Misc. News: PC88 ROMs found
18:23:  For those of you out there who were as dumbfounded as I was on where to find PC88 System ROMs, fear no more! Azrail was kind enough to provide me (and you) with a link to a page that has these available for download. That page is available here: http://web.onyxnet.co.uk/John.Stringer-Oxford.onyxnet.co.uk/index.html. Thank's again to Azrail for the mail. If you're a fan of old computers (like me) I recommend you to try out M88, which is available for download on the PC88 Emulators page.

Emulator News: New Jaguar emulator announced
14:45:  FlySwat has announced a new Atati Jaguar emulator, named JagEmu. Here is what he told me:

I have been working on a Jaguar emulator for some time. It is called JagEmu. Currently it only emulates a small amount of the TOM and JERRY chips and almost all of the 68k. There is no display of anything yet. I hope to release it sometime this month.

Be on the lookout for this emulator!

Utility Release: PSEmu GPU Plugins
12:32:  Two PSEmu Pro GPU plugins have been released recently. One is a OpenGL plugin made specifically for the Riva TNT. The other uses D3D. If you're interested, pick them up at the PSEmu Pro plugin page.

Site News: Some e-mail reminders
12:07:  Hi everyone, Zophar here. I'd just like to post a few quick things about what not to e-mail me:

1) Don't e-mail me questions about retail bleem! I don't own it, mainly because I can't afford it. (Yes, the almighty Zophar is $2500 in debt, and can't even afford a $29.99 CD. You think I make money off of ZD? HAH!) If you have questions, try visiting the official Bleem! website.
2) ROM requests. This is very bad. Your e-mail might end up here.
3) 'please send me xxx'. I have no problem helping people with technical issues, but i won't send you any files, sorry.

That's all. If you have any questions (or wish to donate your bleem! CDs, heh heh), feel free to e-mail me. Have a nice day, and thanks for visiting ZD!

Emulator Release: M88 2.04
04:25:  A new emulator has been released and it's called M88. It emulates the Japanese computer PC88. To run this emulator you need a PC88 ROM, though and I have NO idea where you could find one. I don't know what's new either, since the homepage is in Japanese or Korean or whatever.

It's available for download on the PC88 Emulators page.

Emulator Release: DosUAE v0.7.5d
00:29:  A new version of The Un*x Amiga Emulator port to DOS, yeah, that's right. Apparently this version is just an update of documentation, nothing wrong with extensive documentation though...

DOS Amiga page.

5/2/99
Emulator Release: 1964 v0.0.9
23:40:  A new source release of 1964, an open-source multi-platform Nintendo 64 emulator is now available. Here's what's new in v0.0.9:

Misc. News: UltraINI version 1c
23:06:  Wooo. For those still into UltraHLE, here is whats new in the newest ini:

Utility Release: GYMPLAY version 0.1.0 alpha
22:22:  Well here is something new. The first ever GYM player. This will play Genecyst .GYM files on your PC (DOS) without converting it first. It lacks YM2612 emulation, so they don't sound too good. But check it out anyway.

You can download the new version at the Genesis Utility page.

Emulator Release: DarcNES v19990501
15:27:  Another version of DarcNES, NES, SMS, and PCE emulator for Unix, was released yesterday. It may've just regained it's position as most updated Unix emulator, I'd have to check... The author has also compiled some new binaries. Anyway, what's new in this version:

Emulator Release: X-Mame v0.35b12.1
15:09:  A new version of the X-Mame, multiple arcade machine emulator for Unix, was released today. What's new since v0.35b10.2:

5/1/99
Emulator Release: milliEmu Version 0.0.1
23:39:  A brand new Millipede Emulator was released! It was coded in Visual Basic, but nevertheless, it serves its purpose. Here's a list of stuff:

Emulator Release: DGen 1.0b
23:33:  Dave has released a follow-up beta to his Genesis emulator for Windows, DGen. Sound is disabled in 1.0b, and a full screen mode has been added. This is only for people with slow (P166 or less) computers though.

Thanks to DkKnight for the news. You can download DGen 1.0b from the Genesis emulators page.

Emulator News: New emulators for... Jaguar?
23:06:  Yes! 2 of them in fact. One is being coded by Reality Man of UltraHLE fame, and the other is being coded by a currently anonymous author. The latter, named Cheetah, will be released for beta-test sometime within a month. Thanks to Retrogames for the news.

Emulator Release: MAME Version 0.35 BETA 12
22:24:  A new version of MAME, a multi-arcade emulator, was released. The list of what's new is quite long, so I'll include major points of the new stuff. Anyway, here's the news:

NEW GAMES SUPPORTED:

Utility Release: MSP version .20
22:14:  A new version of that DOS multiple sound player has been released. Here is what's new:

Links Update: 6 sites added
21:59:  I've added 6 new sites to the links page. I have also taken off 2. I would like to remind all the link senders, to please send a description along with your link. I'm running out of ideas.

You can check out the links over here.

Thanks goes out to ArmyMario and HyruleKnight for the help.

Emulator News: Bleem! release date confirmed
16:37:  Yes, the CDs have been shipped, and most people who ordered have already received them, but now we finally have a confirmation on the date that the exe will be uploaded to the official website. Straight from www.bleem.com:

The FINAL release will be available on the site just in time for Margaritas, cervezas, and all that Cinco de Mayo revelry at precisely:

Emulator Release: Snes9x v1.19 for Linux, v1.16a for BeOS
14:40:  The first release of Snes9x v1.19, this being the Linux port (libc6). There are many things added, fixed, et cetera in this version that I put them all in a seperate text file. Among other things, this version adds 3DFX support.

I also added the newer BeOS port (v1.16a) that was released a few days ago.

Unix SNES page.

Emulator Release: DGen v1.00
12:59:  A new Genesis emulator, DGen, was released yesterday. This a freeware emulator, although there are some voluntary stipulations, Dave has asked that this be included when him emulator was added:

"The author of DGen, DTMNT (and the future DTMNT2) has had his partition table corrupted by Windows NT4.0. If you believe you may be able to help, please read the second text file included with DGen for a description of the problem."

I never did have any success retrieving data after my primary partition was erased, but, if you can be of any help, download DGen and read the included "DGen_Please_help_Dave_fix_his_computer.txt" file.

DOS/Win Genesis page.

Site News: NSM Contest reminder & status
03:32:  The ZD NSM contest (if you don't know what this is, or if you forgot the rules, read this: nsm.txt) is coming to a close in just 7 days! May 7, 1999 is right around the corner, so you might want to finish up and get those entries in.

I decided to release the best time so far, just to show the people who e-mailed in telling me that no one would sit through the game and beat it in one sitting, that you never can tell. :)

Best time so far: 0 hours, 57 minutes, 17 seconds.

Good luck, and may the best man win!

Emulator News: NESticle 0.30 2nd anniversary
03:24:  I don't know if anyone noticed, but today (a few hours ago actually) marks the second anniversary that NESticle came out of retirement after the source scandal erupted. NESticle 0.30 was the first emulator to feature netplay.

For the heck of it, if you just want a taste of nostalgia you can download the 2 year old NESticle 0.30 right here. You can also check out the NESticle shrine page at the link below.

Misc. News: CIH author being questioned
03:18:  Many of you (myself included) may have been infected by this virus at one time or another. When it hit me last year, it was really devestating, and it happened at a time when, some of you might remember, malicia.com was close to booting ZD off of their servers.

But now, I think justice may exist after all. The author of the Windows CIH virus, Chen Ing-hau (his initials - CIH) is being questioned by Taiwanese police. If he is tried and convicted, he could face up to three years in jail. You can read the full CNN report at the link below.