News Archive

November 1999

11/30/1999
Emulator News: Sega: Emulation's Best Buddy.

23:02: Well, in another bold move by Sega in FAVOR of emulation, Sega of Japan has announced that they're going to release 300 Master System and PC Engine ROMs for use on the Dreamcast. You have to pay for them, of course, but the price is very inconsequential (100-300 Yen). Essentially, thanks to the Dreamcast modem, you can pay for the ROMs, download them over the internet, and play them on emulators for the Dreamcast.

This little bit of information was taken from The Magic Box, a nice little news site that I'd like to promote. :)

Thanks to Aderack for the news.

Misc. News: Newsletter Volume 1, Issue #4
21:57: Yes, that's right! Your fourth issue of the Zophar's Domain Newsletter has been released. First things first. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting this and giving me positive and even negative feedback. It helps me create a better newsletter. Second, I'd like to congratulate Greg Hackmann for winning last issues puzzles. Nice work! Included in his issue is:

SITE OF THE WEEK: T.R.O.U.B.L.E. - The Rare and Often Unreleased BLockade of Emulation

FILE OF THE WEEK: NO$GMB

INTERVIEW: uzplayer from EmuCamp

And much, much more.

Go get your copy of the Newsletter .

Emulator News: MagicEngine news
16:40: The MagicEngine homepage has been updated with a load of news. A release date for the new version has been set, December 15th, so now you all have something nice to look forward too. The price isn't high either, only $16. You also get a 10% discount if you preorder MagicEngine now, so don't hesitate. They also had some nice ideas submitted on how to improve MagicEngine and they have added most of them into the program:

Support for 16-bit video modes - no more 256 colors limitation!

Video gamma correction!

New graphical user interface in high resolution!

Localized user interface - in 7 languages!

Game screenshot preview in the load menu!

TV mode - a la NeoRageX (50% scanlines mode + interpolation)!

Sound interpolation!

So go visit the MagicEngine homepage and preorder your copy today!

Misc. News: $100,000 for solution to Pac-Man
07:15: A company which manufactures hot sauce, is offering $100,000 to the first Pac-Man player who can solve the mysterious split-screen that ends everybody's game at the 256th board before January 1, 2000. In addition to this prize, $95,000 is also being set aside for players who can break decades-old high scores on 15 other classic games before the forementioned date.

You see, on the 256th board, the screen is split by a vertical line down the middle. On the left side of the line, the maze is normal, but, on the right side, the screen is obscured with small, colorful boxes, symbols and random numbers. This makes it hard for you to see that side.

The split-screen controversy has raged since 1982. Many have claimed that they figured out "puzzle" but there is no proof to back up this claim.

Also, a further prize category promises $1,000 to the first players to break the world record on any of these fifteen games: Carnival 221,000, Crystal Castles 910,722, Berzerk 224,880, Dig Dug 4,129,600, Donkey Kong 874,300, Frogger 442,330, Hypersports 538,340, Joust 1,537,050, Kung-Fu Master 1,349,040, Missile Command 1,695,265, Ms. Pac-Man 920,310, Pole Position 67,310, QIX 1,666,604, Rally-X 250,160 and Tutankham 244,920.

If you would like more information on this event, go to Twin Galaxies or, contact Billy Mitchell at Rickey¹s World Famous Sauce c/o Rickey¹s Restaurant, 4799 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, FL 33021 Ph: (954)966-1424.

Thanks to Walter Day for this e-mail.

11/29/1999
Emulator News: More info on REW's NES compatibility
22:49: From the info that I've been recieving, I'd say that REW is not only an excellent Gameboy emulator, but an excellent NES emulator also. According to information on Vintage Gaming, REW supports the following mappers:

0-5, 7-11, 15-19, 21-26, 64, 66-67, 73-74, 83, 90, and 91.
It also partially supports these mappers:

1, 7, 19, 21, 69, and 90.
It also has good sound and supports the VRC6 sound channel used for the Japanese Castlevania III. Also, according to Sugam it runs with perfect timing on a P166 - P3 500. You can get it at the NES page or the Gameboy page. Thanks to everyone who mailed us with news!

Emulator News: REW supports NES games
18:15: According to Retrogames, REW, a Gameboy emulator for Windows, also runs NES games. I tested it and it really works. I don't know anything about the compatibility, though, because all of the documentation is in Japanese. You can get REW at the Gameboy page.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 2.0
09:33: A new version of Super Jukebox, a great SPC player for Windows, has been released, and here's what's new:

Added the options to have the installation program create a shortcut to Super Jukebox on the Desktop and to create a program group in the Start Menu.

Now you can browse archives containing sub-directories as if they were ordinary directories. Again, I should have done this a long time ago, but it DID require quite a few changes.

I had hoped version 2.0 to be a bit more spectacular, but then I never even thought I'd get to version 2.0, anyway it should be pretty much finished now. :-) Thanks for hanging in there.

Get it at the Super Jukebox page or the SPC players page.

Utility Release: NesToy 2.1b!
03:55: NesToy, a NES ROM verification tool, has been updated to version 2.1b and here's what's new:

Increased the maximum number of ROMs NesToy can read in one directory from 3000 to 4000. Even though there are less than 2500 legitimate ROMs, some people seemed to have 3500+ ROMs in one directory. Wow!

When finished, NesToy will now tell you how long it took.

Changed the database file name to NESDBASE.DAT.

You can download it from the NES utilities page.

Emulator Release: DBOY 0.55ap!
03:51: DBOY, a Gameboy/Super Gameboy/Color Gameboy emulator for DOS, has been updated and here, if you can read it, is the what's new list:

The world's first (?) Hybrid Archive.

Can now decompress even LHA and Unzips. (hey hey!)

(Quality and other contents are the same as 0.55a)

You can download it from the Gameboy emulators page. Thanks to Maiko Herajin for translating the what's new list!

Emulator Release: AX68k r991124!
02:55: AX68k, an X68000 emulator that's being programmed by the A-Saturn team, has been updated to release 991124. And, if you can read it, here's what's new in this release:

Updated 11/24/99

Interupt reports implimented

Ported over the Real Time Interupt Routine from A-SATURN

You can download it from the X68000 emulators page. Thanks to Maiko Herajin for translating the what's new list!

Emulator Release: GeoMAME 0.36b10
02:42: GeoMAME, an enhanced version of MacMAME that only has support for the Neo*Geo games (which makes it a bit faster than regular MAME when playing Neo*Geo games), has been updated and is now in sync with the newest MAME beta.

You can download it from the multi arcade game emulators for Macintosh page.

Site News: ZSNES Shrine and Mirror updated
01:06: I have updated the ZSNES shrine, and mirror to be in sync with the last 2 releases.

Go ahead and look at the ZSNES Mirror or the ZSNES Shrine.

Emulator Release: swNES 0.15
00:37: A new version of swNES, a NES emulator for Windows, has been released. I don't know anything about this version other then that. It's in a different language (maybe Japanese?). Download it at the NES page.

Site News: Che's Ultimate Cheater 1.20
00:04: A new version of the ultimate cheater for SNES has been released. Here are the new cheats that were added:

Sailor Moon 1.06 - LAP for both Sram and Zsnes

The King of Dragons 1.01

Pokémon 1.04 - Time & Coins

Breath of Fire II 1.01 - Changed Layout

Phantasy Star IV 1.01 - Stats

7th Saga

You can download the new version at the Facelift utilities page.

11/28/1999
Emulator Release: MAME32ASM 0.36 beta 10
23:59: MAME32ASM, the unofficial version of MAME32 with an assembly core, has been brought up-to-date with the official version of MAME32. Get it at the MAME page.

Utility Release: inSNESt version 1.0
23:54: A new SNES utility for SNES copiers has been released. This SNES copier is written for DOS, and soon will have a Windows version. This utility will help you edit headers, and what not for use with your SNES copier. This being its first release, you might expect it to have very little features, but they have been making this utility for a year and a half, and is quite good. Have a look for yourself.

You can download it at the SNES Utilities page.

Emulator Release: AMAME & PMAME 0.36 beta 10
23:42: AMAME and PMAME have been brought up-to-date with the official version of MAME. Get them at the MAME page.

Emulator Release: REW 0.9LC
22:48: A new version of REW, the Gameboy emulator for Windows, has been released. This version has many bug-fixes. You can get it at the Gameboy page.

Utility Release: UIPS v1.0 for BeOS Released!
18:16: An IPS patching utility has been released for BeOS at last. It is command line only but it gets the job done. It was a quick port from another IPS patching utility by Neil Corlett, apperantly. This is the first release.

You may find UIPS here, on the BeOS utilities page.

Emulator Release: DarcNES v991127!
15:52: DarcNES, a NES/SMS/PC Engine emulator for DOS/Unix, has been updated and here's what's new in this version (since I missed the 991126 version I'll post the what's new for that one here, too):

Rebuilt the system detection to guess based on filename instead of content.

Created a separate system type for Gamegear (no more detect problems. Yaay).

Changed tiledraw.c to treat null tile pointers as blank tiles.

Changed sms9918.c to take advantage of null pointers in the tile renderer.

Changed the tms9918 VDP interface not to use procpointers.

Cleaned up some logic in tms9918.c.

Fixed tms9918 graphics mode 2 to support color semi-correctly.

Added preliminary sprite implementation to tms9918.c.

Added preliminary SG1000 support (it's only as good as the tms9918 support).

Moved sound quality control out to the UI layer.

Fixed some bugs that were missed when converting mz80 over to using ranged mmu for opcode fetch.

Fixed a number of nasty bugs in nes_ppu.c dating back to the addition of the NES tilecache.

Changed the sms9918 VDP interface not to use procpointers.

Tweaked the tiledraw code somewhat.

Fixed an overrun screw with SMS sprites in 8-bit display modes.

Added a nametable cache to the SMS VDP.

Still no luck for me on compiling a working DOS version, though, but you can download the source code from the NES emulators for Unix page. Thanks to Destination Emulation and nyef for the news.

Emulator Release: Raine 0.27 alpha
03:15: A new version of Raine has finally been released. There's a huge list of new features, so you should go to the Raine page to see it. You can get Raine at the multi arcade page.

11/27/1999
Emulator Release: Basilisk II build 101
16:00: A new version of Basilisk II, a 68040 open-source Macintosh emulator, has been released. Here's what's new:

Fixed a bug that caused colors to be incorrect in the Win9x compatible version (color depths 15,16,24 and 32). Note that these color depths are still incorrect in the NT version when using GDI mode; this is a completely different problem, just happens to look similar.

You can get it from the Macintosh Emulators page.

Misc. News: Newsletter Volume 1, Issue #3 - WINNER
00:48: I'd like to thank everyone that submitted answers to the puzzle in issue #3. Obviously, we can only have one winner, and the prize goes to Greg Hackmann. Good going, Greg!

I've had quite a few e-mails regarding the answers to previous puzzles. The puzzle answers will go out on the newsletter page every 4 issues. So, sit tight.

Next issue goes out on Tuesday of next week.

Stay tuned!

11/26/1999
Emulator Release: Hu-Go 1.05
23:43: A new version of Hu-Go has been released, and here's what's new:

The CD emulation is now way better. Better synchronisation and bugs removed in CD launching.

The begin of gui will allow people to test their skins (even if now, I've not seen aby of your creations ...). And all kind of nice things you've already seen or on the verge on seeing :)

Get it at the TurboGrafx 16 page.

Misc. News: WinAMP skins added
23:39: A pile of skins were added to the WinAMP page. Four of them are anime skins, so if you're an anime fan, then these skins are for you. The other is a Final Fantasy VII skin. Here's what was added:

Ah! Megami-sama AMP

Battle Athletes Sakari AMP

CaitSith AMP

Evangalion AMP

Shoryu Asuka Langly AMP

Go get your own copies of these skins at the WinAMP page.

Thanks to Mr. Saturn and Neo for these submissions.

Emulator Release: ZSNES v.987
18:43: A new version of ZSNES, the ever-popular SNES emulator, was released. Just one minor fix with this version. Here's what was updated:

Forgot to re-enable pitch modulation after disabling it for debugging purposes.

Go get yourself a copy of this fine emulator over at the SNES emulators page.

Misc. News: DarkMazda's Domain breaks the 40 mark for Neo Geo CD covers
13:05: Just like the topic says, Darkmazda's Domain has collected over 40 scans of different Neo Geo CD covers. Actually, he now has 41. If you want to look at them or contribute, visit DarkMazda's Domain.

Emulator Release: Ami99 1.0
03:39: Ami99, a TI-99 emulator for Windows, has been updated and here's what's new in this version:

Fixed a crash bug - illegal opcodes no longer generate errors on exit as they used to.

Added some of the menu options - QUIT, actually. ;)

Added preliminary AVI support - currently it just saves the AVI as C:\AMI99AVI.AVI. There is no sound, nor is there likely to ever be any, I'm afraid. It eats up disk rather quickly, too, as it's uncompressed and 16-bit color. I'm not sure at the moment how to reduce it or how to compress it, the MSDN docs are vague as best (and difficult to search through.) ;) Expect about 70-80mb a minute (!!) Your desktop must be in 16-bit mode for this to work correctly.

Added 50/60hz switch.

Found a big bug in the interrupt routine - it was being called far too often. Made a small change that makes a lot more sense than the original version (flagging the interrupt in the timer routine), and things are (a) correct, and (b) Much faster! ;) I hoped it might fix some
crash bugs, but no, sorry.

This version works on Windows 95 now. Grr.

You can download it from the TI-99 emulators page.

Emulator Release: Quasi88 0.3.2!
03:03: Quasi88, currently the only PC8801 emulator for Unix that I know about, has been updated to version 0.3.2. Unfortunately I can't really tell you what's new since the readme is in Japanese, but you can download it from the PC8801 emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: STonX 0.6.7-epsilon prerelease added
02:55: I've added the prerelease version of STonX, an Atari ST emulator for Unix/X11, to the Atari ST emulators for Unix page. The last time this emulator was updated was in 1997, so don't expect to see a new official release any time soon. That's a shame, though, since this is a good Atari ST emulator.

Emulator Release: Kegs 0.56
02:45: Kegs, an Apple 2/GS emulator for Unix, has been updated to version 0.56 and here's what's new:

Faster Apple //e bank switch emulation.

Simplified number of global variables for various softswitches.

Fix a bug which made 3.5" and 5.25" disk access much slower than necessary.

Improved scan-line interrupt accuracy (lets MEGADEMO run).

Improved sound interrupt accuracy (was hoping this would fix some sound issues, but it doesn't seem to help).

Add Mode_switch as an alias for the Option key

I noticed the //gs self-tests were broken again--fixed.

You can download it from the Apple 2 emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: DarcNES v991125
02:27: Version 991125 of the source code for the NES/SMS/PC Engine emulator DarcNES has been released, and here's what's new:

Rebuilt cal_create() (it needed it).

Started adding ranged mmu support to m6502.

Disabled the ASM 6280 core (m6280 has fewer bugs anyway).

Moved NES palette code from nes.c to nes_ppu.c.

Moved all cached tile rendering (NES, SMS/GG, and PCE) to a separate file.

Removed the non-tilecache renderer from pce_vdp.c.

Fixed a scrolling bug with the right side of the GG screen.

Broke the left column display disable on the SMS.

Fixed the DOS version to work again.

Partially fixed the GTK version (pass the wrong command line and *boom*).

You can download the source code from the NES emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: DBOY 0.55a
02:13: DBOY, a Gameboy/Super Gameboy/Gameboy color emulator for DOS, has been updated, and if you can read it, here's what's new:

Fixed a part of the LCD display that was a bit messed

Seems like a bugfix release if you ask me. Anyway, you can download it from the Gameboy emulators page. Thanks to Kosh for the news! Thanks to Dalamar for translating what was new!

11/25/1999
Misc. News: Video Games Under Attack Again?
17:32: A new article published on ZDNet regarding video game violence. We've all seen the same things before, but this has been summed up into a 1-article mix.

Read the article on ZDNet News

Emulator Release: Bleem! v1.5b Full Version Released
11:29: The full version of Bleem!, for people who have purchased the CD-Key, has been updated to version 1.5b. In this release, a bug has been corrected that would cause Bleem! to stop running mid-game. Also, they changed DirectX Error Message Logic for older 3D Hardware (Voodoo 1,2,Rush).

You can grab a copy of the full version from the Bleem! website.
The demo still remains at version 1.4, and can be obtained here on ZD in the Playstation emulators area.

Misc. News: Eidolon's Inn Ad
03:10: Eidolon sent us a little Genesis demo ROM advertising his site. It features a large logo, with some sprites. Grab it on the Genesis Free ROMs page.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, I've taken over the position of Free ROMs maintainer from BDLou, so if you sent your ROMs to BDLou, send them to me. Thanks!

Misc. News: 2 new NES demos by Chris Covell
02:50: Chris Covell, the author of the Solar Wars game for NES, has released two new NES demos. One is of Megaman flying among the clouds on his jet from MegaMan 2, and the other shows the capability of the NES to do transparency, through something the author calls "Color Emphasis" bits. Be sure to check them both out.

Grab them on the Free NES ROMs page.

Interview News: Interview Inundation
01:52: Total Emulationworld has three new, brief interviews. One of Atila, who we all know and love. Another of uzplayer who co-owns Emucamp. The last is of Zophar, who created and runs the site you are reading at the moment. Atila and Zophar give lighter interviews, while uzplayer goes a bit more indepth on each of the questions. They are all worth the reading time.

Thank you, Khang, for the information! Incidentally, Khang interviewed the three of them.

Misc. News: Correction to Chrono Cross news
01:09: Yesterday, I made a post about the japanese sequel to Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, which many sites have been reporting on. However, while my mind said "sequel", my fingers typed "remake"! I'd like to thank everyone who e-mailed in and caught my error. For clarification, Chrono Cross is the sequel, not a remake.

On the lighter side of things, I purchased Gabriel Knight III: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned today, and it's incredible! So I'll be immersing myself in that for the Thanksgiving weekend. Happy Thanksgiving for those who live in the U.S.!

Emulator Release: Pagan 0.1.2
00:21: A new version of Pagan, a N64 emulator for Windows, has been released. There is now sound. You can get it at the N64 page.

Emulator Release: DBoy v0.55
00:15: A new version of DBoy, a Gameboy emulator, was released. Here's a quick list of what's new:

The MBC3 clock function is added in a full scale. The TDF file is changed to the output only of the cartridge for the clock function.

You can get yourself a copy of this emulator by going on over to the Gameboy emulator page.

11/24/1999
Utility Release: Nosefart plugin v1.6
11:32: Matt Conte's amazing NSF (NES sound format) plugin for Winamp 2.x has been updated to version 1.6. Here's what's new:

Version is no longer 1.5

16-bit mixing enabled (note: DSP EQ only works with 16-bit)

More accurate (!) noise

Improved the look of the trackbar

clicking in the trackbar now advances/retreats song by 1

Improved the look of the file info dialog (thanks, Nitro)

As a side note, ZD's very own Matthew Flewelling (Nitro) is now involved in coding the GUI of Matt Conte's NSF plugin. You can download Nosefart plugin version 1.6 from the NSF players page.

Site News: Come back 64 for Windows beta 4
09:08: Come back 64, a really good freeware Commodor 64 emulator for Windows, has been updated, and here's what's new:

Sound is emulated (YES!!!!)

Fixed some minor bugs

You can download it from the C64 emulators page.

Utility Release: NesToy 2.0b!
08:41: NesToy, a NES ROM management tool, has been updated to version 2.0b, and here's what's new:

Fixed a bug where NesToy would not attach a country code to any Canadian ROMs (which there is only one.)

Bad [] will now contain a "T", as shown in the docs, when a ROM contains trailing garbage instead of an "F".

The extended info line will now show Ren [] instead of Renamed, or Rep [] instead of Repaired. This way, you can look inside the brackets and see why the rom needed to be fixed.

Fixed a bug in the missing.txt output routines.

You can now adjust in the nestoy.cfg, whether or not NesToy will include hacks, pirates, translations, or bad dumps when creating or updating the missing.txt file.

Added the [n] option to (-missing).

You can download it from the NES utilities page.

Emulator Release: ZSNES 0.986!
02:07: ZSNES, the fastest SNES emulator in existence, has been updated to version 0.986, and here's what's new:

Re-added Sound Buffering. I was hoping to re-write it, but later found out that it wasn't worth the trouble.

Fixed some Triple Buffering bugs, but I can't figure out that flicker glitch on NVidia cards

Added Simulated Triple Buffering for cards without VESA 3.0 Hardware triple buffering. This method does some lose frames, but should be faster than v-sync. This only works on VESA 2.0 modes.

Fixed up directory sorting to always put ./.. at the top.

You can download it from the SNES emulators page. Thanks to everyone who mailed us about this!

Emulator Release: MAME32 0.36 Beta 10
01:02: MAME32 0.36b10 is out. Here's what's new:

Updated sample code to handle the new sample structures.

Cleaned up the display of the Manufacturer folders. It now will add the games the company Licensed from someone else in both folders.

Added auto depth to the UI.

Modified the folder and filter mechanism to not explicitly display list of missing roms.

Get it at the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulators section.

Emulator Release: MESS 0.36 Beta 10
01:01: MESS, the Multi Console and Computer Emulator based on MAME sources, has been updated to 0.36b10. Here's what's new:

incorporated all features of MAME 0.36b10

palette fixed in TI99 [Ben Bruscella]

Get it at the MESS section.

11/23/1999
Interview News: Zophar interviewed by Genesis Temple
21:13: MD Master of the Genesis Temple has posted an interview of Zophar on his site, Genesis Temple. In this interview, MD Master and Zophar discuss ZD's third birthday, Vintage Gaming, and many other things.

Check it out here.

Emulator Release: Starscream 0.26a
20:35: Starscream 0.26a, Neill Corlett's 68000/68010 CPU emulator, has been added to ZD, and also a new page has been created for it. The 68000 is the processor used in popular home computers such as the Amiga and Atari ST, in the Jaguar and Saturn, and also in the most cool computer the Sharp X68000. If anyone out there decides to write an X68000 emulator based on Neill's cpu core I would be very happy, hehe.

You can download it from the 68000 CPU emulators page. Thanks to PinCushion Man for the news!

Misc. News: Newsletter Volume 1, Issue #3
10:18: Before I get into the third issue, I would like to thank everyone that has been giving me good feedback about the letter, and to everyone who enters the contest included. There can only be one winner, and the winner was Mark Parsons. Congrats, Mark!

Now, on to the third issue. This issue features the following:

SITE OF THE WEEK: Retrogames

FILE OF THE WEEK: Nosefart

INTERVIEW: Brad Levicoff (Zophar.)

And more!

So, don't delay. Go get your copy of the Zophar's Domain Newsletter today!

Emulator Release: FCE Ultra 0.18 for Unix
03:02: FCE Ultra, a NES emulator for DOS and Unix, has been updated to version 0.18! I was actually going to add this one and DarcNES yesterday, but I couldn't get online. Anyway, here's what's new:

Linux port.

Mapper 18 improved.

Mapper 19 improved.

Mapper 68 improved.

Various mapper code rewritten to be more accurate.

You can download it from the NES emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: MAMED 36b91b for Digita
02:58: MAMED, the version of MAME for Digital Cameras has been updated to 36b91b. Here's what's new:

supports high resolution games

game options menu for quick selection of pad orientation and display rotation

Slightly different set of games supported, as usual

Used a larger font for better reading but it gets small in high resolution mode

Sound is not implemented in this version but it finally sounds right, thanks to XMAME, the unix version of MAME. It's still is choppy due to some low level driver digita issues which we are going to have to rewrite to correct. Hopefully soon.

Get it at the MAME for Digita section.

Site News: Jackal site moved
02:57: Jackal's site, the site of the PSX emulator, moved. Its new site is Jackal.

You can get the current version of Jackal by going on over to the PSX page.

Thanks to Akumax for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: DarcNES v991120
02:37: DarcNES, a NES/Sega Master System/PC Engine emulator for Unix, has been updated and here's what's new:

Added a rule to the makefile to generate .s files from .c files.

Added preliminary support for ranged memory definitions.

Modified mz80 to use ranged memory for opcode fetches (may have introduced some bugs).

Completely rebuilt NES mapper handling (disabled mappers 15, 20, and 32).

Rebuilt CHR-ROM mapper interface to allow for adding a tilecache.

Added a tilecache to the NES PPU (not as much of a speedup as I had hoped).

Rebuilt ROM file handling (broke GTK and DOS/Allegro versions).

You can download the source code from the NES emulators for Unix page.

Emulator News: About AX68k
02:14: AX68k is an X68000 home computer emulator in heavy development and doesn't run any games yet. Perhaps you've noticed that this emulator is being coded by the A-Saturn team, and they prioritize the A-Saturn emulator higher than AX68k, but if we're lucky maybe it'll play some games one day.

Misc. News: WinAMP skin added
01:58: A new skin was added to the WinAMP page. Here's what was added:

Seiken Densetsu 3

You can get this fine skin by heading on over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks to REDMOOGLEXIII for the submission.

Emulator Release: AK68k r991012
01:15: A new x68K emulator has been located! Little is known about this emulator, and only the source is available at the moment. All the same, do give it a try.

You can get AK68k at the x68000 emulators page.

Thank you, Cutriss for the information!

11/22/1999
Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.36 Beta 10a
17:31: MacMAME 0.36b10a is out. Here's what's new:

Fixed crashing bug with Pong. [Brad Oliver]
Fixed issue where "Force 16-bit video" wasn't working. Note that not all drivers will render correctly if you force this depth, so report any oddities (we already know about Pong) to the appropriate places. [Brad Oliver]

Get it at the Macintosh Multiple Arcade Machine Emulators section.

Utility Release: Nosefart 1.5 WinAMP plug-in
10:37: A new version of the Nosefart WinAMP plug-in, a NSF player, has been released, and here's what's new:

Bugfix in VRCVI emulation (high frequency cutoff)

Trackbar moved off of Winamp window

Trackbar 'sticks' to Winamp window (may you suffer historically, Justin Frankel & co.)

Trackbar correctly resizes itself in doublesize mode and back

About box and config dialog, with gracious assistance from Nitro

Configuration dialog loads/saves settings to plugin.ini

Selectable sample rates of 22050, 24000, 44100, and 48000 Hz. Visualization doesn't work under 441000 Hz because of a mind-numbingly ridiculous implementation on Winamp's part

Selectable sound decoding thread priority

Get it at the NSF players page or the WinAMP page.

Emulator Release: WOOM! 0.2 beta
09:54: A new version of WOOM!, the MSX emulator for Windows, has been released. I don't have a what's new list, but I would be happy to post one if someone sends it. You can get WOOM! at the MSX page. Thanks to Fony for the news.

Misc. News: RIP Mary Kay Bergman
02:27: Mary Kay Bergman, the voice of nearly every female character on South Park, committed suicide Thursday at the age of 38. You may have heard her voice in over 400 commercials, the voice of Snow White in the Disney movie, Star Wars Episode 1, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Iron Giant. Below is a memorial banner that beef-cake.com has put up for South Park fans.

Misc. News: Neo-Geo Pocket color icons
01:57: Here are some icons Emulation-X has made for the Neo-Geo pocket color. You can use them for what ever you like.

You can download them here.

Emulator Release: C64S 2.25
01:55: A new version of C64S, a Commodore 64 emulator, was released. It was updated some time ago, but was overlooked for some reason. Additionally, it neglects to include what's new documentation, so you'll have to check it out for yourself.

You can get a copy of this emulator by going on over to the C64 page.

Thanks to Sephirstein for the e-mail.

Misc. News: WinAMP skin added
00:56: A new skin was added to the WinAMP section. Here's what was added:

BalambAMP

You can pick up this fine skin by going on over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks to Larry for this submission.

Site News: Solar Wars source released
00:37: Chris Covell has just released the source to his homebrewn NES game, Solar Wars. He has also released a development library which can be read on his page. Solar Wars is a Battle Tank-like game for NES.

Grab the source and binary here.

11/21/1999
Site News: Save archives updated, FCE Ultra archive added
19:49: Updated: NSF, NSM, STA, SPC, ZMV, ZST archives. Thanks to necrosaro, old school Final Fantasy fans will find (two) treats waiting for them in the NSF Archive...
With the permission of the author, I have added the FC0 (FCE Ultra) Save Archive. FCE Ultra is a multi-platform NES/Famicom emulator. Show your support by contributing to the archive!

Site News: Site plug
19:37: Yep, yep, that's right, hehe. I suggest you take a look at an emulation news page called EmuScene.com. It has a nice clean layout, up to date news and also has a what looks like it will become a Nintendo 64 and a Dreamcast emulator. And when I say Dreamcast emulator I do not mean that it will emulate the CDs. It will simply be an emulator to emulate those homebrewn demos and such. If you want to play Dreamcast games, go buy a Dreamcast. They also have some nice interviews up for your reading pleasure, so go check out EmuScene.com.

Interview News: David Lloyd interviewed at Emulation Camp!
19:26: For those of you who don't know who David Lloyd is, he's the author of the online emulation related comic Overclocked. Anyways, uzplayer and Mr_X, in a joint project with Emulation Camp GeoShock and Total Emulation, done an interview with David Lloyd and asked him a questions about his comic and other stuff.

Go read the interview at Emulation Camp!

Emulator Release: Pagan 0.1.1
15:48: A new version of Pagan, the N64 emulator for Windows, has been released. A controller bug has been fixed. You can get it at the N64 page.

Utility Release: Pete's OpenGL GPU plug-in for PSEmu Pro
15:39: A new version of Pete's OpenGL GPU has been released, and here's what's new:

Tststs... my MS compiler screwed it... that's what you call 'optimizations', Bill? Well, the ChangeDisplaySettings() func worked much faster in version 1.24... of course, because it didn't change any desktop settings at all. Yeah, I didn't notice that bug (I don't use the 'change desktop settings' option very often, and because I didn't touch a line of code in that function, I never thought to test it). Well, thanks to all who reported me that issue, it's fixed.

Get it at the PSEmu Pro plug-ins page.

Emulator Release: VisualBoy 1.2
15:25: A new version of VisualBoy, a Gameboy emulator for Windows, has been released, and here's what's new:

bug fixes in CPU and HDMA

Joystick support and configuration

new user interface

DDraw fixes

MBC3 Timer

Get it at the GameBoy page.

Misc. News: US Speak and Spell Simulator v1.3b released
13:23: An American version of the Speak and Spell simulator has been released. The samples are not all cleaned up yet, but it runs just fine.

Grab it from the Speak and Spell Simulator area.

Misc. News: 3DFX announces Voodoo4 and Voodoo5
11:48: 3DFX has announced several new Voodoo cards in response to the GeForce.

Voodoo 4 4500 AGP and 4500 PCI
32MB Graphics Memory
337-367 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering

Voodoo 5 5000 PCI
32MB Graphics Memory
667-733 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
64MB Graphics Memory
667-733 Megapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

Voodoo 5 6000 AGP
128MB Graphics Memory
1.33 - 1.47 Gigapixels per second
32-bit color rendering
T-Buffer Digital Cinematic Effects

The Voodoo5 6000 is also $600 expensive, so don't count on getting it cheap. 3DFX says they'll release those cards on March 2000.

3DFX.

Frontend News: Calliope 1.42
11:42: Calliope, which is my favorite frontend for MAME, has been updated to version 1.42. It supports the latest version of MAME. Here are the new features:

Icon support, Calliope can load Mame32 Icons

Fix for large fonts displays, Calliope stretches background images.

Skins are even more configurable!

Favorites are easier to sort

Calliope can search for Mame on your hard drive.

Lots of bugfixes

You can get it at the Arcade Frontends page.

Emulator Release: ThePi Release 4 for Macintosh
06:37: ThePi Release 4 is out. Here's what's new:

Some GPU bugs fixed.

Some Interrupts bugs fixed.

Some CPU improvements.

Get it at the Macintosh Playstation section.

Misc. News: 4 WinAMP skins added
04:27: New skins were added to the WinAMP page. They're really nice and I believe you would enjoy them. Here's what was added to the page:

ChocoAMP (Chocobo!)

CreativeAMP

Dragon Quest VI AMP

ManaAMP (A Secret of Mana skin.)

You can get these fine skins over at the WinAMP page.

Thanks to BadMuJu, Riku Sutinen, Solomon/FGM, and Thanatos for their submissions.

11/20/1999
Emulator Release: MAME 0.36 beta 10
17:40: MAME has been updated to beta 10 and here's what's new:

New games supported:

Pong (this game has no ROMs) [Juergen Buchmueller]

I, Robot (suggestion: turn off autoframeskip) [Dan Boris, John Dickson]

Baraduke [Manuel Abadia]

Metro-Cross [Manuel Abadia]

Flak Attack [Manuel Abadia]

D-Con [Bryan McPhail]

Dr. Toppel Tankentai [Quench]

Double Dragon 3 [Carlos A. Lozano, Richard Bush, Bryan McPhail]

Combatribes [Carlos A. Lozano, Richard Bush, Bryan McPhail]

Dynamite Duke (play it with sound disabled) [Bryan McPhail]

New clones supported:

Frogger (Konami)

Spaltan X (= Kung Fu Master)

Joyful Road (= Munch Mobile)

Majuu no Ohkoku (= Devil World)

Rock 'n Rope (Konami)

Samurai (set 2)

Kaiketsu Yanchamaru (= Kid Niki)

These drivers have improved GRAPHICS:

Fixed lots of drivers for -depth 16 support. [Zsolt Vasvari]

These drivers have new or improved SOUND:

Fixed music in cworld2j [CAB]

Other drivers changes:

Fixed Go Go Mr. Yamaguchi [Takahiro Nogi]

Fixed controls in Ikari III level 2. [Nicola Salmoria]

Fixed hangs in TNZS. [Quench]

Changes to the main program:

[DOS] Adjusted the autoframeskip code, to make it increase frameskip a little faster, but not as fast as it was before the previous change. Let's see how this performs. [Nicola Salmoria]

Support for gzipped (NOT zipped) cheat files. Uncompressed files still work. [Mathis Rosenhauer]

You can download it from the MAME page.

Emulator Release: MAME32ASM 0.36 beta 9.1
14:29: MAME32ASM, the unofficial version of MAME32 with an assembly core, has been brought up-to-date with the latest official version. You can get it at the MAME page. Thanks to Forenaite for the news.

Emulator Release: Mess 0.36b9.1
13:00: Mess has been updated to reflect MAME 0.36b9.1. Here's what's new:

PCSpeaker changed into custom sound driver and activated Adlib soundcard (YM3812 chip) implemented in PC driver. [Peter]

slight changes to the PDP1 driver.

TI99 keyboard fix! [Raphael Nabet]

Various fixes to the amstrad, enterprise and spectrum drivers [Kev Thacker]

Corrected and extended recognition of sectors/track, heads, bytes/sector parameters in PC driver. Common formats in images are now detected without looking at DOS boot sector structures. [Peter]

Get it at the MESS section.

Emulator Release: EmuDX Public Beta 2
12:44: EmuDX has been updated to Beta 2. Here's what's new:

Fixed in game music start position in Pacman.

Fixed Ms Pacman sprite problem, which made mspacman look weird in certain poses.

Added more command line switches.

Added a "no dx" option, which can be changed on the fly between "DX" and "Original" modes.

Transparency level of the ghosts can now be changed by the user via the -trans command line option.

You can get it at the Multi-Arcade section.

Misc. News: WinAMP skins added and submission procedure
02:42: 2 new skins were added to the WinAMP page. Here is what was added:

NinjaAMP

NinjaAMP 2.01

Screenshots and the skins are available for download at the WinAMP page and thanks go out to Kai Spitzley for the submission.

Now, on to the deal with submitting skins. I would appreciate it if you would take the time to include screen shots of the skins you send me. It would make my job easier and faster. Here's criteria for submitting skins in the future:

You must include screen shots of the skins you submit. Failure to do so, may result in rejection of the skins.

WinAMP MUST be kept at normal size for the screen shots. Double size just won't cut it as many skins quality deteriorates with this mode.

Skins must have a color depth of 256.

You must include a name for me to post on the page. If I don't get a name, I will simply use the name thats attached to the e-mail I get.

So, there you have it. Keep submitting more! This section is getting quite popular.

11/19/1999
Frontend News: sMESS Beta 2
14:42: A new version of sMESS, now in Beta 2, has been released. Here are the new features:

mess.cfg options supported

supports different settings per system

full screen via directx

alias support

resides in its own directory

cleaner graphics

You can get it from the Universal Frontends page.

Utility Release: Pete's OpenGL plugin 1.24
13:19: Pete Bernert has updated his OpenGL pulgin for PSEmu to 1.24 and here's what's new in this version:

Improved filtering

FF7 battle menus

Anti-aliasing

And some more goodies...

You can download it from Pete's Homepage. Be sure to get this one if you want speedy graphics when using PSEmu with an OpenGL card.

Utility News: NesToy 1.9b
13:07: NesToy, a NES ROM tool, has been updated to version 1.9b, and here's what's new:

Added support for translations.

Added directory support to (-sort) for translations and pirates.

Pirates are defined as a rom with the title or copyright information changed, defaced, or removed. If any other changes have been made to the rom, then it is a hack.

You can now specify whether or not bad dumps, pirates, or hacks will be moved into their own directories or into their corresponding country directory.

Fixed a bug thats been around for a while that would cause the missing.txt and output.txt files to fail to be created if you were in a directory with long pathnames.

Pressing ESC will now abort NesToy. NesToy will stop on the rom it is at and then quit.

Massive database update, make sure you delete you missing.txt and have NesToy create a new one or you may never know what is new.

You can download it from the NES utilities page.

Misc. News: New hosted page!
12:56: That's right, Zophar's Domain now hosts another page: Cleric's Emulator Homepage, and it has links to a LOT of emulator homepages, some ROM pages and it has a few interviews up for your reading pleasure, pay it a visit!

Cleric's Emulator Homepage

Misc. News: Happy birthday, Nitro!
08:38: Nitro turns 19 today and I'd like to wish him a happy birthday. Have a good one, Nitro.

Emulator Release: MacMame 0.36 Beta 9.1
05:06: MacMame 0.36b9.1 puts MacMame in synch with the latest DOS version. Here's what's new:

Many bug fixes to the reporting and audit code. [John Butler]

You can now force 16-bit color for all games via a new checkbox in the video tab of the front-end. Note that doing so for games which use less than 256 colors will most likely cause a speed hit. Games which require 16-bit color will use 16-bit color regardless of the setting. [Brad Oliver]

Added extremely tacky workaround for bugs in the ATi RAVE drivers in MacOS 9 and/or OpenGL 1.1.2. {Brad Oliver]

Added keyboard shortcut for grabbing screenshots - Command-G. Thanks for George Warner for the suggestion. [Brad Oliver]

You can get it at the Macintosh Multiple Arcade Machine Emulators section.

Misc. News: New ZD logo
02:22: I took it upon myself to create a new ZD logo. We'll see the reaction we get from this one. I hope it gets a good reaction. Enjoy!

Translation News: Super Tecmo Bowl
01:24: Our friend Carl has made a hack of Super Tecmo Bowl for NES which updates rosters, stats and teams for the year 1999/2000.

Download it off the Hacks page.

11/18/1999
Misc. News: Brian's Emulation World Celebrates 3rd Anniversary
23:43: Brian's Emulation World is celebrating its 3rd anniversary today. Congratulations and good luck in the future!

Emulator Release: TOSBOX 1.09
18:20: TOSBOX, an Atari ST emulator for DOS, has been updated to version 1.09 (from 1.09 beta) and here's what's new:

A configuration program has been provided, making it no longer necessary to hand-edit the initialization file.

Much of the information from this documentation file has been moved into the config program.

Mouse response is now significantly smoother.

The key combination [Control]+[keypad Enter] is now properly recognized.

The "nag" features have been removed, so registration is entirely under the honor system.

You can download it from the Atari ST emulators page. I saw this at www.emuhq.com.

Site News: DBoy 0.54
05:56: DBoy 0.54 is out. Here is what's new:

Save data (Excluding a real-time saving) with F10

Get it at the Gameboy section.

Emulator Release: WinXZX 2.1.3b
03:15: WinXZX, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator for Windows, has been added to Zophar's Domain. It does a decent job emulating the ZX, but it's a bit slow, so you might need a Pentium 2 class computer to fully enjoy it.

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

11/17/1999
Misc. News: Research Paper
22:33: This has nothing to do with emulation. It's just a personal thing that I'm doing. I'm doing my ENGL 103 research paper on "why emulators don't hurt videogame companies". I figured that a poll would be a good kind of research for it. What I need you to do is simple; answer the following question yes or no. E-mail me your answer. Here it is:

"Have you ever not bought a console system game because you could get the ROM and play it on an emulator instead?"

Hopefully that makes sense. Please e-mail me your answers. Thanks in advance.

Misc. News: Nintendo Domain
21:03: Nintendo Domain is a site that is dedicated entirely to Nintendo, has opened a new section. It now serves scans of game ads. According to Josh, over 250 games have already been scanned. I encourage you to visit Nintendo Domain, it's a great site!

Nintendo Domain

Emulator Release: Nin64 0.02b
20:59: One of the newest N64 emulator to hit ZD has been updated. It's now up to 0.02b, and comes in 2 versions, English and Spanish. Here's the new features:

v0.02 Beta 1 (November 14, 1999):

Start RSP emu.

Add sound emu. (Not Operative)

Fix some several bugs.

More speed. (Not much)

You can get it at the Nintendo64 page. Thanks to Krackbaby for the news.

Emulator Release: EmuDX Public Release 0.1
20:51: The first public release of EmuDX is out. This combines PacDX and MsPacDX into one package. It now has sound and joystick support, as well a new Z80 core, and 800x600 and 640x480 graphics modes.

Get it at the Multi-arcade section.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 1.9
15:58: A new version of Super Jukebox has been released, and here's what's new:

v1.9 (November 17, 1999)

Now displaying the names and icons for files, folders and drives as assigned by the shell, my apologies for not doing this in the first place, I guess I must be sloppy. :-( But after all, Super Jukebox is only my second Windows program.

v1.8 (November 16, 1999)

Fixed up a few minor bugs, and cleaned up the source code some more.

Made the handling of playlists more portable. When looking for the skin and the SPC files, it first looks in the directory specified in the playlist, then in the same directory as the playlist and last, in the same directory as the program.

Added a 'Statistics...' command to the playlist context menu, which is nothing more than a shortcut for the 'About...' button. :-)

Get it at the Super Jukebox homepage or the SPC players page.

Emulator Release: Bochs v991114a
07:26: Bochs, a PC emulator for Unix, Windows, etc, has been updated to v99991114a, and here's what's new:

CDROM emulation works on win32. Mods from Nick Behnken.

Cleaned up some problems with win32 compile with VC++.

Fixed ::call_protected() for protected mode call to same level via call gate.

You can download it from the PC emulators for Unix page.

Utility Release: SPCPlay 0.600
00:50: A new version of SPCPlay has been released by zsKnight and _Demo_. The sound engine has been updated to the Zsnes 0.985 sound engine. You can get it at the SPC players page.

11/16/1999
Emulator Release: Pagan 0.0.1
22:10: Progress on Pagan, the N64 emulator, has resumed, and a new version has been released. The new version includes some bug fixes. You can get it at the N64 page.

Emulator News: UltraHLE website updated
20:14: RealityMan of UltraHLE has finally updated his site after months of inactivity. Here's what he said:

"So much to say, so little time.....keep the faith.....In Development"

RealityMan

UltraHLE Website.

Emulator Release: NGPocket Trial
16:42: This is the first public NeoGeo Pocket emulator. There is no sound, and it must be run in 16-bit color. It is shareware; the price to register is 500 yen (about $5). It emulates both the NeoGeo Pocket and the NeoGeo Pocket Color.

Get it at the NeoGeo Pocket page.

Misc. News: Newsletter Volume 1, Issue #2
01:17: The next issue of the Zophar's Domain newsletter has been released. I'd like to thank everyone for their positive feedback regarding the first issue as it was a nice treat to see that the majority of you liked it. So, to tempt your taste buds, I've released a second issue. Additionally, I've set up a section especially for the newsletter. I'm still working on the newsletter sign up that will deliver the newsletter to your mailboxes every week, so sit tight, and enjoy this issue.

You can get a copy at the Newsletter page.

Misc. News: WinAMP skin added
01:05: That's right, folks. Another skin has been added to the WinAMP section. Here's what was added:

Secret of Mana skin

You can get this skin by going on over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks to Mark Beckerton for this submission.

Misc. News: DarkMazda releases 30th NeoGeo CD cover
01:03: "Super Sidekicks" marks the 30th CD cover in DarkMazda's ever growing collection of NeoGeo CD covers. If you want to looks at them, go to DarkMazda's Domain.

Emulator Release: ZSNES .985
00:46: zsKnight, _Demo_, and Pharos have released a brand new version of the ever-popular SNES emulator, ZSNES. Get comfy, because this list of what's new is long:

Added some more speedups to the SA-1

SA-1: Fixed a branch problem with the BRL instruction

Implemented Save Ram support into netplay. Thanks to The Minder for help testing this!

Added a hack to get Mario Paint trainered rom with the trainer removed to work with the snes mouse instead of the keyboard/joystick

Prevented Joystick Keys/Buttons to be selected as the diagonal keys in the GUI

Fixed some crashing problems with the Modem Mode

Implemented a key combination editor in the GUI

Sped up V-Sync

Fixed an SA-1 memory map bug! Fixes DBZ:HD.

Added an small speed hack for DBZ:HD

Implemented SA-1 Super MMC

Finally, after many, many hours of hacking. Figured out what caused the odd noise sounds! So far, simulated noise is implemented since the true nature of how this noise is produced is unknown so it will sound somewhat off compared to the original sounds. There is also a slight chance that some sounds will become noise incorrectly and vice versa.

Fixed up Pitch Modulation

Fixed SNES Mouse/Super Scope support when Pl3/4 as Pl1/2 option is enabled

ADSR/GAIN overhaul (Sound DSP) :

Fixed several GAIN bugs

Implemented Increase Bentline/Decrease Exp GAIN modes properly

Rewrote Decay/Sustain modes in ADSR

Fixed a restarting ADSR bug

Removed Sound Buffering. I don't think it's worth losing the quality of the sound for a small amount of speed boost.

Implemented an option to disable the Noise Simulation for those games that aren't working properly because of it

Implemented Triple Buffering. You can enable this through the Video

Options in the GUI. Unfortunately, Triple Buffering won't work with 2xSaI/Super Eagle engine at the moment since they rely on the previous screen for updating nor will it work properly with high resolution games in the old gfx engine. Thanks to GreenImp for patiently helping through testing!

Implemented Full Screen Interpolation

Implemented Cheat Code Reflector (See Guinotes.txt for details)

Any proper VESA 2 error messages now doesn't exit the program when in the GUI but instead display the error message in a box and allows the user to continue.

Thanks to Daniel for lending me his copier which helped me hack the SNES Sound Noise/ADSR stuff!

You can pick up this fine emulator at the SNES page.

11/15/1999
Misc. News: Play US/Pal Dreamcast Games on your Japanese Dreamcast
20:05: Fixo of EmuGaming.com has posted 3 different methods to allow you to play US and Pal Dreamcast games on your Japanese Sega Dreamcast. The easiest method involves opening your Dreamcast, taping the switch that tells the DC that the lid is closed, uplugging and replugging in a small ribbon cable, and having a few minutes of patience. This is the method I used on mine, and, though I had a few problems with King of Fighters '99, this method seems to be the temporary fix without cutting any wires inside of your DC.

For all the information, check out Fixo's How to play US/PAL games on your imported Dreamcast tutorial.

Emulator Release: MAME32ASM 0.36 beta 9
15:10: MAME32ASM, the unofficial build of MAME32 with a faster assembly core, has been updated to version 0.36 beta 9. You can get it at the MAME page.

Emulator Release: AMAME & PMAME 0.36 beta 9.1
15:05: AMAME and PMAME have been brought up-to-date with the newest version of MAME. You can get them at the MAME page.

Emulator News: PC98 sections added
04:01: I've added sections for emulators that emulate the Japanese PC98 computers. The sections can not be found on the sidebar yet, but they will be added shortly.

Here's a list of the emulators in the PC98 emulators for Windows/DOS section:

Anex86

PC98E

T98

Virtual 98

Here's a list of the emulators in the PC98 emulators for Unix section:

PC98E

The system ROMs for this computer are not available for download, as I don't know if it's legal or not. You should actually be able to find them yourself, though, just use AltaVista or something.

Emulator Release: Warajevo 2.51
02:37: Warajevo, a good Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48/128k and Timex 2068 emulator that we've somehow missed, has been added to Zophar's Domain now, and if you're one of the people stuck on a computer like, let's say a Pentium 120, like I currently am (school), I really recommend you to try it out, since it's really fast.

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

Misc. News: More WinAMP skins added
02:35: ZeRo has contributed some Mortal Kombat skins to the WinAMP section. The file includes:

The entire crew of Mortal Kombat characters

CageAMP

KangAMP

RaidenAMP

ScorpionAMP

SonyaAMP

SubZeroAMP

You can get these goodies by heading on over to the WinAMP page.

I had a request to include a screenshot of these skins so you could preview them. I might do this, but I haven't decided, yet. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks to ZeRo for the e-mail and submission.

11/14/1999
Misc. News: Futurama
20:39: I was just watching Futurama, a cartoon made by Matt Groening, the same person that did The Simpsons, and I noticed something really hilarious. When Fry flashed a F-Ray at Bender's head, it revealed a square with the lettering "6502" all over it! In case you didn't know, that is the processor on the original Nintendo Entertainment System and the Commodore 64. I thought it was really hilarious.

Site News: Save archives updated
19:14: Updated: NSF, STA, SPC archives. All the save archives now sport the navigation toolbar at the top.

Emulator Release: MAME 0.36 beta 9.1
15:09: The MAME team has posted a small update to their previous beta. This release fixes some bugs in TMS34010 games. Note that the MAME license has also been changed (VII. Derivative Works). You can get it at the MAME page.

Misc. News: bleem! CDs
14:17: Randy of bleem! has posted on their message board, which can be read here that he has put up 2 more of his bleem! test CDs for auction on eBay. On the posting, he said:

I'm not sure if there's much interest in this, but I've got 2 more of the original TEST CDs...
They function exactly the same as the Internet Key CDs (which means that they work with all versions of bleem!).

These are from the original first 10 CDs that were produced by the manufacturing plant as a test run.

They have "BLEEM TEST #1" *WITHOUT* the CMCA etching, and they have *NO* silkscreening on them (basically, it's like a double-sided silver disc).

We'll pick 2 charities and auction them off to the highest bidder, all proceeds to go to the charities.

Rand.

Auction 1

Auction 2

Frontend News: DBE 4.0.0
14:11: DBE is a DBOY frontend, and I'm surprised that I've never caught it before. Here's what's new:

Support for all DBoy command line options

Supports all versions of DBoy

Easily change DBoy borders

Gameboy border and screenshot previews

Supports .GB, .SGB, .GBC, .CGB, .RT* & .ZIP files

Easily converts ROMs to .ZIP format, and back

Complete Gameboy database (checklist)

Supports Gameboy boxart files (167 built-in)

Supports Game Genie codes (468 built-in)

View / print Gameboy manuals (36 built-in)

Saves up to 5 of your favorites Gameboy games

Save / restore custom sett ings for each gameboy game

Run DBF in your system tray, with one-click access to your favorite games

Plus many more options...

You can get it at the Gameboy Frontends page.

Emulator Release: PC Atari 2.2
14:02: PC Atari, an emulator long thought to be dead, has been updated. Over a year since it's last update, here are what's new:

Main game menu can be configured to display filename and extension, filename only, or real game title

Games can be highlighted by game type, alphabetically, or by alternating rows

Game menu colors can be changed for alternating modes

Main gam e screen can be displayed in 80x25 text mode, 80x30 text mode, or high-resolution VESA graphics modes

Option for slightly more realistic Pitfall II music

Debugger supports breakpoint on symbolic equation

Major TIA fixes-emulation is much more acc urate

Emulator settings moved to industry-standard .INI file

Completely new controller support allowing mouse, keyboard, and joystick functions to be remapped

Fully re-mappable Gravis GrIP controller support (requires Gravis DOS driver-see chapte r 2)

Fully re-mappable Microsoft SideWinder controller support-can be expanded to support future SideWinder controllers

PCAE and PCAE160 have been combined into a single executable

Additional game resolution modes for PAL games and greater compat ibility with various video cards

Several emulator bug fixes

Experimental program to assist in detecting new SideWinder controller packet structures

Improved debugger online help

During emulation, pressing F8 allows the user to type in a game t itle. Title, game type, controller information, and the vertical position (as set with the plus and minus keys) are saved to the profile file. Thus the emulator "remembers" where the last vertical position was set by the user.

Improved joystick calibra tion routine that should be more friendly to "jittery" joysticks

Thrustmaster FCS, CH Flightstick Pro, and some multi-button gamepads supported (all but the FCS are untested)

Improved external interface board design

Minus key in debugger moved to equals (plus) key, and also shows the CRT horizontal position

Hitting the minus key in the debugger shows the positions of the player objects, missiles, and ball (when the game screen is being displayed)

Slightly improved disassembler should be mor e compatible with backswitched images

You can get PC Atari at the Atari 2600 page.

Emulator Release: Unofficial MAME32 v.36b9
13:51: A new version of Unofficial MAME32 was released. The new features are synonymous with yesterday's release of MAME. You can get it at the MAME page.

11/13/1999
Emulator Release: QLAY 0.90 for DOS/Windows and QLAY 0.83 for Unix
19:13: QLAY, a Sinclair QL emulator for DOS, Windows and Unix, has been added to Zophar's Domain. This emulator features emulation of all the original I/O hardware and direct access to the files on your hard drive. There are no plans on emulating stuff like hard drives, disk drives, video cards, etc, but it's still a good emulator since it's freeware and lets you access your files and stuff.

You can download the DOS and Windows version from the Sinclair computer emulators page, and the Unix version from the Sinclair computer emulators for Unix page. Thanks to gandalf for the news!

Emulator Release: MAME v0.36 Beta 9
16:18: MAME, the Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator, premiers a new beta today. Here's what's new:

Graphics:

Fixed raster effects in Turf Masters and Zed Blade
Improved Super Sidekicks 2

Other Changes:

Fixes to Lazer Command and Meadows Lanes

Main Program:

16 bit support in the tilemap manager
Changed the -depth option behaviour
Fixed a few bugs in the NEC CPU core
Several changes and improvements to the TMS34010 emulation and to the Williams games using CVSD sound

Source:

Now compiled with Allegro 3.9.27 WIP
Replaced MachineDriver->video_attributes VIDEO_SUPPORTS_16BIT with GameDriver->flags GAME_REQUIRES_16BIT
Calling palette_recalc() is now *MANDATORY* in all drivers that modify the palette
Removed adpcm_sample_list, palette and colortable from struct GameDriver
Updated the TMS9900 emulator

New Games:

Kick and Run, KiKi KaiKai, Perfect Soldiers, Big Striker, Kick Off, Dream Soccer '94, Kageki, Mega Zone, Donkey Kong 3, Ajax, Ring no Ohja, Thunder Blaster,
Fantasy, Blue Print, X-Men, Checkman, Contra, Karate Dou, Undercover Cops, Dump Matsumoto

Snag a copy from the MAME page!

Misc. News: Help needed
15:12: Can anyone tell me how I can go about writing a midi file using VC++? (can be MFC, or C++) I am thinking of writing a program, and need to know how to write one.

You can write me at nitro@zophar.net.

Site News: A new image for ZD
14:03: Do not believe the rumors, I do still live! Seems as though I missed all the birthday festivities but hey at least I did up a nice new image for ZD. Any questions/comments on it feel free to email me

Emulator Release: Bochs v991107
08:18: Bochs, a PC emulator for Unix/X11, has been updated, and since I missed v991102 I'll post the what's new list for that version, too:

Bochs v991107c:
Sound Blaster 16 emulation.

Integrated Sound Blaster 16 emulation from Josef Drexler.

Check out sound.html for SB16 notes.

Added configure option --enable-sb16=.

Started work on special guest driver to host interface, which will ultimately be used by disk/video/network etc drivers to enhance performance in bochs. Not usable yet.

Bochs v991102a:

NT4.0 installs in bochs (Pentium+FPU+CDROM options).

Please wait until next release for running NT unless you really need it.

Created (incomplete) docs-html/guestNT.html to outline process of installing NT4.0 in bochs.

More fixes to ::exception().

Fixes to ::stack_return_to_v86().

Mods to configure to handle win32 config again.

Integrates mods from win32 developers.

vga.cc handles variable number of lines in text mode. Updated GUI code for all platforms, to receive number of lines of text in ::text_update().

You can download it from the PC emulators for Unix page.

Translation News: Strange Bros
01:30: The Super Mario Bros. Strange Bros hack has been updated.

Download it from the Hacks page.

Misc. News: WinAMP skins explosion
01:25: Just as I predicted, this is going to be a hot section to the WinAMP page. I added more skins to the WinAMP page.
Here's a quick list of what skins I included:

AmigaAMP

AmpBoy

AtariAMP

CommodoreAMP

Final Fantasy 8

GotchAMP

MacAMP

MogAMP

PikachuAMP

PilotAMP

Playstation Zone

SailorAMP

ST AMP

Star Trek

TouchMate

TronAMP

VecAMP

WinAmp 64

ZXamp.

You can get these great skins by heading over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks go out to Lynx and ZeRo for providing us with those skins.

Translation News: SD Splatterhouse Translation
01:13: Spinner_8's SD Splatterhouse Translation has been completed. It's a very fun platformer for NES. I appologize, as this was actually added yesterday, but was too tired to do the news post.

Download it off the Translations page.

11/12/1999
Utility Release: NesToy 1.81b
22:05: A new version of NesToy, an NES ROM management utility has been released. New in this version is as follows:

Database update, fixed spelling on about 40 japanese roms.

Added (-sn) parameter. When used, shorter file names will be used for some roms. (Example: Instead of "Zelda 2 -

The Adventure of Link.nes", the rom will be named "Zelda 2.nes".)

Added extra options to (-missing) parameter. (c) will sort the missing.txt file by country codes and (b) will output the missing.txt with a bare format only (Name, checksum, and country codes)

Fixed a small bug that would cause a failure of the missing file to be created in a root directory or in some cases, at all.

(-ren) now has an option to rename roms to all lowercase names. (This feature was added by request)

You can now add command line parameters to the nestoy.cfg file.

You can download the new version at the NES Utilities page.

Thanks goes out to Stuart, and smcn for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: CPC4X 0.11
19:41: CPC4X 0.11, an Amstrad CPC emulator for Unix, has been released. This is the initial release and it features emulation of most of the CPC hardware except for sound.

You can download it from the CPC emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: ZX Plus 0.23
19:21: ZX Plus, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k and 128k emulator, has been updated and here's what's new:

128K Soundchip implemented without enveloping.

48K and 128K sound using Direct Sound (tested with a Sound Blaster AWE64).

Randomised Spectrum memory on startup.

DirectX 7 Required.

Fixed all known memory leaks.

Various code optimisation.

More Z80 bugs fixed so games like Antiriad now work.

Correctly fixed corrupted display for some video
cards using display mode cache.

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page. Thanks to the ZX Plus team for the news!

Emulator Release: E++ 1.03 added
05:23: Another emulator has been added to the multi console/computer section, and this one is called E++. Some of you may remember that there was an old programming language for the Amiga that was called E++, but this is not it. This is a ZX Spectrum, Space Inva ders arcade game, Phoenix and Pleiads arcade game and Centipede arcade game emulator. It comes with source code and 6502 and Z80 cores so you can try adding some new systems or something if you want to, considering that it hasn't been updated for 2 years.

You can download E++ and its source code from the E++ page.

Utility News: Cheet! - Bleem! add-on
04:14: With the release of Bleem! v1.5 comes a cheat add-on for the PSX emulator. This is a commercial product and will be available on November 15th. 1999. The cost of this goodie will be $15 USD. Here's a small list of what this add-on features:

compatible with normal PSX-cheat-codes

powerful search-functions

multiple cheat-codes

save/load cheats

database with tons of cheats

There is a demo of the product available at the Add-on Factory for you to check out.

Thanks Bobbi for the e-mail.

Misc. News: Challenge Games Opens Hackers Forum
03:31: x-4000, head of Challenge Games has opened a new hacking forum called 'Hackers Forum':

This section is a place for hackers to submit their work to be rated and posted, with a description, and with links to their site and e-mail address. So far, there are 5 hacks posted, four of which are for Smb3, and one of which is for the Goonies 2. T here are about 4 other hacks in the lineup to be added, but they are not up yet.

They're looking for people to submit their hacks, to share with everyone. There are also many experianced NES romhackers available on the message boards for newbies who need a helping hand.

Visit the Hacker's Forum

Also, x-4000 expects a new version of Super Mario Bros. 3 Challenge to be released soon!

Utility News: The Unveiling of the first FF3/6 Editor!
03:05: Yousei has created a utility which allows you to change almost any visual aspect of Final Fantasy 3 for SNES. Currently, he only has screenshots on his webpage, but expects a beta release soon.

Yousei's Homepage

Emulator Release: XTender 1 1.17 and XTender 2 beta 7 added
03:04: Well, these two aren't really new emulators, but we didn't have them, so I added them. They are both Sinclair ZX80/81 emulators for DOS. XTender 1 is programmed to run well on XT/AT/286/386 computers while XTender 2 is a newer emulator that is programmed to run well on a Pentium 133, but that shouldn't be a problem for most of you.

You can download both of them from Sinclair computer emulators page.

Misc. News: New WinAMP skin added
01:39: Looks like this is going to be a large section on the WinAMP page. A new skin was added to the page. The skin is:

EarthBound (SNES version.)

You can get this skin by going over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks to sKaNkPiT for this skin.

11/11/1999
Site News: ...and the winner of the quiz is...
23:58: David Timko! Yes, the man who starred in the first ever ZD "reflections", and who helped in the early days of the translating/ROM hacking community, has answered all 15 quiz questions correctly, including 4 out of 5 of the Bonus questions. His name was drawn from a hat with only one other person who also got 15/15, Jandar. Unfortunately, Jandar won't win anything, but he does get an honorable mention. Give them a round of applause folks, they were the only two who could answer all 15 correct.

Following are the questions that gave people the most trouble, and their answers:

2) Who was the first Zophar's Domain staff member (not including Zophar)?

Evilhomer. Infe didn't join until December of 1996; Evilhomer was there on the 9th of November.

6) From the following list, pick out the two nicknames who were never a part of ZD:

_ a) Total
X b) atila
_ c) IceWizard
_ d) crispana
_ e) demi
_ f) DarkMazda
X g) Daria

(Explanation: Total was our utilities maintainer at one point, IceWizard maintained an old news section for a week or two, crispana designed some graphics, Demi ran the translations sections for a few weeks, DarkMazda ran the links page for a few weeks).

7) From the following list, which section is not and has never been a part of ZD?

_ a) IRC Quotes page
_ b) ROMS page
X c) Video game FAQs page
_ d) Emulators for the PSX2 page
_ e) All have been a part of ZD

(Explanation: We don't have a FAQ for video games, only emulators! The emulators for PSX2 page does exist, although it sounds crazy: www.zophar.net/psx2/x86.html.)

The full answers can be found below. Thanks to all who entered!

Quiz Answers

Misc. News: Newsletter puzzle contest over.
23:32: I received a lot of answers for the puzzle that was included in the newsletter, however, only one person came up with the right answers. Derek Williams got EVERY single answer right, and I am impressed. I would like to thank everyone that participated. The next newsletter should be out by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. So, stay tuned!

Utility Release: NeoJukebox 2.7
19:34: A new version of NeoJukebox has been released. There is a lot new in this version, but I don't understand that language.

You can download the new version at the NeoGeo Utilities page.

Misc. News: WinAMP Skins
08:27: A new sub-section opened up on the WinAMP page. It contains 7 skins created by Ryu. Here's a list of what games the skins feature:

Zelda

Street Fighter II

Lion King

Mario

Link

Ryu and Ken

Dragon Punch

You can get these skins by going on over to the WinAMP page.

Thanks to Ryu for the e-mail.

Utility Release: NESToy 1.7b
07:22: NESToy, a program that can fix NES ROM headers and do other neat stuff to the ROMs, has been updated and here's what's new:

When a MISSING.TXT file exists, NesToy will no longer overwrite it, but instead update it by removing roms that now exist. Now you no longer have to scan your entire rom collection every time you add a few new roms to update your missing file.

NesToy will now create a .cfg file (nestoy.cfg) the first time you run it. You can customize the directories NesToy uses when moving around files in the .cfg file.

Directories with names like USA\, Japan\, etc. are now placed inside the current directory (The one you run NesToy from.) instead of under the directory where the rom being moved is located.

NesToy will no longer try to move a file if the directory it originated from is the same directory it is being moved to. This caused a bunch of .NE1, .NE2, etc. files in previous releases when this was done.

A file with an extension like .NE1 or .BA1 is created when NesToy moves a file to a directory and a file with the same name already exists. These should now only appear in the backup and duplicate directories.

Roms moved to the duplicate directory are now renamed properly when moved.

You can now use (-sort) on a directory located on a CD-ROM drive (or any other unwriteable media) and it will sort the roms into directories and optionally rename them if renaming is active. NesToy currently cannot repair the roms this way, but it will move any roms that need repairing into a directory called 'Repair' in the current directory and you can then run NesToy a second time on this directory to finish the repair. This will be fixed in a future release of NesToy.

Many other changes have been made to improve the way NesToy handles the moving of roms.

Received a nice list of japanese spelling errors and fixes which have been incorporated into the database. I accidentally deleted the e-mail so I have no idea who to give credit to. Sorry.

You can download it from the NES utilities page.

Emulator Release: GalEMU v0.40 DOS/Windows
06:53: A new version of GalEMU, a Galaxian hardware emulator, was released. It's available in both DOS and Windows. Here's a quick list of what's new:

Added Orbitron

Full-screen mode now centered.

Go to the Multi Arcade page and get yourself a copy.

Emulator Release: UQLX 102999
03:51: I have added UQLX, a Sinclair QL emulator for Unix based on the source code of Q-emuLator. But instead of being shareware like Q-emuLator, this one is freeware. Here's what was new in this version:

some more x86 and SPARC optimisations. These break some compilers so must be explicitly enabled with BUILDFLAGS+=NEWOPT or similar, will add autoconfiguration when I know what compilers are broken..

DEF_CPU has been changed slightly, correct format is now eg DEF_CPU=-mcpu=i586 Still looking for ways to guess SPARC cpu models.

Some previously done changes I have forgotten to announce, eg setting/adjusting QL time works and more..

Benchmark tests changed (esp bench1) so the numbers are just old numbers..

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators for Unix page.

Emulator Release: Q-emuLator 1.1
03:36: Ok, now our Sinclair computer emulators pagefinally has a QL emulator. This emulator is shareware and costs $40 to register or $60 if you want future updates, too. But honestly I don't know if it's worth it, but if you like the evaluation version maybe it is. Here's what was new in version 1.1:

Up to 16 MB of QL RAM.

Read-only access to QXL.WIN files.
Level II file device drivers, with support for sub-directories.

Faster graphics.

Acceleration of some QDOS grahics commands (CLS, SCROLL, PAN, MODE, BLOCK).

Better control of sharing permissions when accessing files.

You can download the evaluation version from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

Emulator News: 2 new emulator sections added
03:16: I noticed that we had a TI-99 emulators section for Macintosh, but not for Unix or DOS/Windows so I figured I'd go hunt some down. I only found 3 working ones, 2 for DOS/Windows and 1 for Unix, but I figured that was enough to start a new section.

TI-99 Emulators for DOS/Windows
TI-99 Emulators for Unix

Utility Release: PsxPlay 1.33
01:18: A new version of the great PSX movie viewer has been released. I don't know what is new in this version. If someone could translate, I would appreciate it.

You can download it at the PSX Utilities page.

Misc. News: ZD-spc skins page updated
01:09: With the new release of ZD-spc, I have updated the skin page with more skins. I have added 2 of Trevor's skins, and another package with 7 skins within. I hope you enjoy them.

You can download ZD-spc at the ZD-spc HomePage.
And you can download the ZD-spc skins at the ZD-spc skins page.

Utility Release: Nosefart v1.4
00:55: A new version of Nosefart, an NSF plug-in for WinAmp, was released. Here's what's new in this version:

Temporary hack to make _broken_ SMB3 rip work correctly

Bugfix in NSF initialization (made some NSFs not play on first try)

Increased apu processing thread priority (NSFs play correctly when you're debugging in a DOS session =)

You can give your ears some nice soothing NSF music by heading on over to the NSF Players/Utilities page.

Thanks to CheatMan for the message.

Utility Release: ZD-spc 2.1
00:14: I have released a new version of ZD-spc. Here is whats new in this version:

Fixed MANY bugs dealing with loading ZD-spc, and the Plugin

Added a line to the plugin, so you can specify if will play when loaded or not

Fixed Windows NT bug (It NOW works on Windows NT, but no Volume control)

Fixed IE compatibility

Fixed DLL search (ZD-spc couldn't find the DLL if opened with an SPC)

Added a Plug-IN directory search in case ZD-spc cant find it

Sorry for all of you that had troubles, I just wanted to get the release out on time. Remember to open ZD-spc.exe first. Then you don't have to open it again, until next release. :)

You can download the new version at the ZD-spc HomePage.

11/10/1999
Emulator Release: MacV9T9 0.2.1a2 for Macintosh
23:49: MacV9T9 0.2.1a2, a TI-99 emulator is out. Here's what's new:

will work again with pre-Appearance-Manager and pre-Navigation-Services Macs.

Fixed a dangerous bug on 68k.

Thanks to Kerry Kigh.
You can get it at the Macintosh TI99 page.

Emulator Release: ThePi Release 3 for Macintosh
23:36: ThePi has been updated to Release 3. Here's what's new:

almost perfect GPU emulation

still no CD-ROM support, so no commercial games work yet

You can get ThePi at the Macintosh Playstation page.

Site News: Bleep! 1.02
18:07: Neill Corlett has updated his NSF Winamp plugin Bleep! to version 1.02 and this new version fixes the problems with the drums in NSFs from games like Super Mario Bros 3 and Crystalis.

You can download it from the NSF players page.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 1.7
16:05: A new version of Super Jukebox has been released, and here's what's new:

v1.6

Made the installation program more flexible as to what it does.

Added support to the MCI driver for the ZSNES WinAMP plugin. You can specify which engine you want to use by selecting 'Properties' on the 'Device' menu in Media Player.

Added support for archives that contain SPCs within sub-directories.

Now extracting SPCs from archives to temporary filenames, so there's no chance of file conflicts.

The hilite bar in the left pane behaves a little more intelligently, such as automatically positioning itself on the parent direcotry when you switch into a direcotry and repositioning itself to the current directory once you go back out to its parent.

Added icons to the list views. Note, however, that these aren't the actual icons as assigned by the shell, but rather are hardcoded into the program. If anybody can tell me how to obtain the actual icons for files and directories as assigned by the shell I'd be very grateful.

Added a context menu for the playlist entries, click on a playlist entry with the right mouse button to bring it up.

Now that new additions are starting to come to an end and things are working well, I've taken the time to clean up the source code considerably. I would really like to thank all the people who took the time to write me, because of you I've been able to make this program much better than I ever could have on my own.

v1.7

Due to request, I have finally added support for...tada..."skins"! Let me know what you think.

You can get it at the SPC players page or the Super Jukebox homepage.

Misc. News: New Unix section maintainer.
07:15: Since rouge quit I have become the new Unix sections maintainer, so if you have some news concerning emulators for Linux you should mail me. Ok, now you all know.

Emulator Release: WSpecEm 1.4b
07:11: WSpecEm, a kind of old Sinclair Spectrum emulator for Windows has been added to the Sinclair computer emulators page. It emulates the Spectrum 48k computer and has good compability. There's no what's new file included with the emulator, and I couldn't find anything on the homepage either, but I tried it and it worked pretty good, so feel free to try it out.

Emulator Release: SVI 318/328 Emulator 0.31!
05:06: And with this new emulator comes a new section, too, hehe. Anyway, this new emulator emulator a home computer similiar to the MSX1 called Spectravideo. Currently it emulates the basic system features, tape recorder and the RAM expansion card. Here's what was new in version 0.31 when it was released:

Emu doesn't crash if other sound programs are active upon start.

Fixed a sprite bug with sprites having negative Y values [Knightmare]

You can download it from the Spectravideo emulators page. If you want games or technical docs you should visit the emulator's homepage and check out the links on it. Thanks to Martin for the news!

Emulator Release: VZEM v0.4
02:16: A new emulator called the VZEM for the VZ200/300 computers also known as the Laser 200 & Texet TX8000 was released. It was coded by Guy Thomason in Borand C++, and it looks sort of like the old Tandy systems.

Version 0.4 emulates the following VZ hardware:

34k RAM (maximum available)

mode0 & mode1 graphics

sound (via PC speaker)

keyboard

joystick (via PC arrow keys)

user selectable CPU speed

Keep in mind that you should have a Pentium 200 while running this.

You can download it at the VZ200/300 page.

Thanks to MrNukem for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: Z80 Stealth 0.079
02:05: Z80 Stealth, a Sinclair Spectrum 128k emulator, has been updated and here's what's new:

SLT files support (SLT is a special snapshot format for multilevel games). If slt snapshot is opened then slt is the default format for saving.

Now you can change drive to browse you files (F1->Load... -> Alt-D to change drive).

Rewrote procedures working with tape images. This fixes crashes caused by custom loaders.

File browser fixes ('attr=0' and 'xxx.yyy dir' bugs fixed)

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

Emulator Release: Bleem 1.5a
00:17: Bleem 1.5a fixes a bug found in 1.5 that could cause bleem to hang. Here's a list of what's new:

Minor speed improvements

Corrected bug in Emulation Logic (FF8 and others)

Error messages for unsupported Direct3D 24- / 32-bit modes

Get Bleem 1.5a at the Bleem Site
Get the newest demo version at the Playstation section.

Site News: Farewell, cruel world.
00:03: Greetings, it must be about one year and a few weeks since I've spoken to you all. This'll be my last update for awhile, I am taking my leave of Zophar's Domain. I'd like to thank Zophar for giving me the chance to tenure here, all of the ZD staff (most of them ;), the authors of DGen Unix, NextFCE, and ckmame for being the only emu/util. authors who ever gave me any news. As a parting gift, I've prepared some final updates.

X-Mame v0.36b8.1. A new version of the multiple acade machine emulator for Unix, but that's not very accurate, X-Mame now includes xMESS in the source tree. What's new:

Everything from mame-msdos 0.36b7 & mess-msdos 0.36b7 & mame-msdos 0.36b8 & mess-msdos 0.36b8

Merged in the new 0.36b7 mess release. You can now specify if you want to build mess or mame at the top of the makefile.

Xmess and xmame are built in a seperate obj dir so you can safely build both in the same tree, even at the same time if you want to.

Renamed lotts of doc files for the mess merge, see the doc dir.

Replaced all occurances of j.w.r.degoede@et.tudelft.nl with hans@highrise.nl which is my new email the old one will disappear soon. Also fixed any url's still referring to the old homepage.

Replaced #include by #include . So you nolonger have to specify /usr/include/glide as additional include path.

Fixed xmame setting the root cursor to invisible when switching to fullscreen with the mouse grabbed.

Fixed xmame forgetting that it had the mouse grabbed when to focus was switched away with the keyboard under enlightenment.

You can't grab the mouse anymore when you specify -nomouse.

Changes the svgalib tweaked mode code a bit, the 240x272 mode has been removed since it was broken. Added some more tweaked modes from the dos team including some planar tweaked modes:

384x256
384x240
384x224
336x240
256x240
256x256 vertical orientation
240x256

Note if you use -noplanar you won't get the tweaked planar modes either.

Added -centerx <#> -centery <#> with these you can change the center of all tweaked modes.

Added scanline support to 320x240

Svgalib version now restores textmode when mame exits with: Error: gfx[0] extends past allocated memory

Changed -list output to seperate the different games with spaces

Added romalizer 0.53 to the contrib dir this is a tcl script for cleaning up your rom collection by: Christopher Stone. For more info see tkmame.retrogames.com.

The asm68000 core is know to cause problems, and the speed gain is not impressive. Documented this.

Sunos is now on the supported list, thanks to Saga

Rethinked the way the rompath was handled, if you want the old behaviour and your rompath was: rompath /foo:/bar change it into: rompath /foo/roms:/foo/samples:/foo/artwork:/bar/roms:/bar/samples:/bar/artwork For an exact description of the new rompath handling for both xmame and xmess see readme.unix.

Experimental sample synchronysing code in src/unix/sound.c should decrease the incident of dropped/skipped samples. This is disabled by default you can enable it with -samplesynch, see readme.unix for more info. Please give it a spin and mail your experiences to the xmame-list. Thanks to William A. Barath.

Updated barath frameskip code with load detection. Thanks to William A. Barath.

Added a alsa-sound driver to the contrib dir as alsa.c copy it over src/unix/sound-drivers/oss.c and add -lasound to EXTRA_LIBS in makefile.unix. Thanks to "Who Wants to Know?"

You can now run xmame / xmess in your root-window as screen-saver / background. This can be enabled with -run-in-root-window.

Added random game support option, specify random as game to play a random game ;)

New openstep video code supporting scaling and 16bpp video modes Thanks to Bat

New openstep makefile entries now with support for:

OpenStep for Intel
OpenStep for Motorola
OpenStep for Sparc
Mac OS X for Intel
Mac OS X for PPC

Thanks to Bat

Completly rewritten ggi video code with:

scaling
16bpp support
works on 8, 16, 24 and 32 bpp X servers

Thanks to Christian

DarcNES v991031. A new version of the NES, SMS, and PCE emulator for Unix. What's new:

Added preliminary support for VRC6 IRQs.

Added support for VRC6 mirroring.

Moved responsibility for handling NES bank wrapping to nes.c.

Moved all os-dependant sound code out to separate files.

Fixed a minor issue with the GG palette address control.

Unix MAME page.
Unix NES page.

Goodbye, thanks for all the fish, and keep your eyes peeled for a future project of mine (if I ever finish it). And, finally, I'd like to wish everyone who had a birthday in the last year a happy birthday ;). I bid you adieux.

11/9/1999
Misc. News: Before it is too late
23:55: I just wanted to make sure I got in a Happy Birthday to Zophar's Domain. I'm proud to be a very small part of such an excellent piece of work. Great job everyone! And thanks to all of you who visit the site and help make it what it is!

Misc. News: Newsletter Volume #1, Issue #1.
23:44: About 2 months ago, a poll was conducted regarding a newsletter. The response was overwhelming as the majority of you wanted to see one. I will be responsible for delivering to you a newsletter every week. I'll be setting up a listbot so you can sign up to it and it will be delivered to your mailbox every week. Now, keep in mind, that it may take a while before I can get this set up, so, I'll have the newsletter on ZD until I can iron out the details of a mailing list for it.

What's in the newsletter, you ask? Well, here's a list of what I'll present to you every week:

Site of the week: A featured site that will include a short description of the site and the highlights of it including the URL.

File of the week: A featured file of the week that will include a description of what the file is, what it does, who wrote it, and where you can go to download it.

An Interview: I will interview someone involved with emulation, and give you an inside scoop about the person in question thats being interviewed, how they feel about emulation, how they feel regarding certain topics, and where they feel emulation is going.

A puzzle: I will feature a puzzle for you to ponder over. Everyone that participates will get a mention in the next newsletter and a mention on ZD. The first person to get all answers right will recieve a check for $20.00! Thats right, folks. 20 dollars for you brainiacs.

A quote of the week: I will include a humorous quote from #ZopharsDomain on EFNET. So, if you feel you are funny, pop in there and shoot your mouth off and who knows? It may appear in next weeks newsletter.

Horoscopes: I will wrack my brain trying to come up with witty and humorous horoscopes. Don't take these seriously, as they are intended purely as comical relief.

I might include other sections for the newsletter, but for now, this is the general idea of it. So, there you have it.

So, you asked for it, and you got it. Go get your copy of the Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 1 today!

Misc. News: Oh, you didn't know?
23:34: Yes, thats right. I'm back on Zophar's Domain. I was re-hired by Brad as the newsletter maintainer and to do other odd jobs.

I would like to thank Brad for re-hiring me and for giving us the best emulation site there is. Happy birthday, Zophar's Domain and may we see another 3 years of pure emulation!

Emulator Release: BasicNES 0.16 beta 1
21:59: Don Jarrett has released BasicNES 0.16 beta 1. This will be the final version of BasicNES, and Don was kind enough to dedicate it to us here at ZD.

If you'd like to check out this NES emulator written in Visual Basic, check out the NES Emulators page.

Site News: ZD Video show Volume I
21:07: With only three hours left to go on November 9, 1999, I decided that now was an appropriate time to post the first-ever ZD video show: "Zophar's Underworld". Everyone here at ZD hopes you enjoy the show, and maybe even get a kick out of my "umms". :) This show was done without a script, but I am pleased with the end-result (other than the fact that I wasn't facing the camera directly and thus I look like I'm staring to the side).

You'll need Real Player G2 to view this clip. If you don't have it, you can get it for free at Real.com. Note that there's a user limit on this file, so if you can't get in now, try back later.

Enjoy!

ZD Video show Volume I

Utility Release: SPCPlay v0.500
20:57: After quite a hiatus, the ZSNES team has updated their DOS SPC Player SPCPlay to v0.500 in celebration of ZD's birthday! Now with header display (.SPC v0.30, ID666) and new sound engine based on ZSNES v0.980 (unreleased). You'll notice more accurate sound playback with this new version! Download it from the SPC Players page.

Emulator Release: USNES 0.1b
18:14: I had NO idea the homepage for this really old and really crappy SNES emulator was still up, hehe. But Neil_ found the homepage and I figured I might as well add it to the SNES emulators page simply for nostalgic reasons. Don't go download this if you want to play commercial games, though, as it only runs a few demos and has no sound. But on the other hand if you want to relive those old days with SNES emulators that had to be run at frameskip 3 to be even close to playable (all except VSMC, that is) you should go download it, hehehe.

Site News: ZD turns three!
17:53: Well, it's been three long years, but I can finally say that we've made it. It's been a long, hard road for myself and the entire ZD staff, but those of us that hung around have made it to the third year of operation of Zophar's Domain! So, to all of the people that made ZD possible, give yourselves a pat on the back; you deserve it!

I'd like to take this oppurtunity to thank all of the people that made Zophar's Domain possible. While I won't be able to list everyone by name, I'll try to group together as many as possible:

The entire staff of Zophar's Domain.

The past members of Zophar's Domain.

The members of the following IRC channels: #retrogamers, #ZopharsDomain, #emuunlim, #emu, #zsnes, and any others I am forgetting.

The staff of the following websites: Archaic Ruins, Retrogames, VintageGaming, EmuViews, EmuCamp, EmuHQ, EmuUnlim, EmuGaming, and any other websites who have supported ZD over the years.

Icer Addis, Ethan Petty, zsKnight, _Demo_, The_Teacher, Marat Fayzullin, and all other authors of every emulator in existance. Each one helps the emulation community grow stronger.

Mike Jacobson, Ross, Ed, and all of my other Philly friends.

Jeremy Schwartz, who's somewhere in the world right now, hopefully reading this.

And most importantly... all of you!

Once again, I'd like to remind you all that without each and every one of you supporting us, through messages on our message boards, e-mails, and update news, we would never be where we are today.

From the bottom depths of the ZD heart... Thanks for visiting ZD!

Translation News: Sanrio World Smashball!
17:25: Suicidal Translations has released a complete patch for Sanrio World Smashball, a cute sports type game for Super Famicom.

You can download it from the Translations page.

Misc. News: Happy Birthday ZD
17:08: First off, I'd like to wish a happy third birthday to Zophar's Domain. I Believe. :)

As a kind of tribute, I have opened my page here on Zophar's Domain today, in honor of ZD's birthday. It will contain interviews and game reviews. So come in and enjoy the first interview with James Surine, the person who ported MAME to Digita.

Lopantu's Classic Archive

Utility Release: ZD-spc 2.00 has finally arrived!
12:01: A new version of ZD-spc has been released. This is the version you all have been waiting for. This new version will bring life to SPC's again. Not only is the ZSNES core in ZD-spc, but I have also created an Internet browser Plug-IN for Netscape \ IE!!! Yes, it is true. You can now play SPC's on your web page, for people to listen to, while they are viewing your page! I can't believe no one has made a Plug-IN yet but, seems how there isn't one, I have decided to make one for all of you people out there. So go ahead and download the new version of ZD-spc, and remember, ZD-spc is the creator of the ID666 tag, and the Plug-IN called ZD-spc Plug-IN.

Here is what's new in this major release of ZD-spc:

Added the ZSNES core, provided by _demo_ and zsKnight. Thanks a lot!

Included an Internet browser Plug-IN for Netscape\IE (ZSNES core)

Included a Windows Explorer info tip DLL

Added fully functional RAR support (thanks to the WinRAR's crappy example)

Added a new memory Skin. (Flare) Thanks go out to Mystiq.

Added support for automatic stopping SPC's (thanks to Marius)

Added a new dialog box with the following: (SNES9x)
- Channel muting
- Tempo rate

Added an Archive directory selection

Added RAR loading in File open, and Drag & Drop

Made DDE Server compatible with ZSNES core

Fixed Drag & Drop bmp bug

Fixed Skin support bug

Fixed many loading bugs

Fixed Title Scroller (wasn't being displayed properly)

Fixed "Read Only files" bug.... Oops.

Fixed memory leak with title scroller

Fixed timer bug

Fixed bug when "Display internal name" was disabled

About 7% less CPU hungry (SNES9x)

Just read the help file, it will explain any problems you might have.

You can download the new ZD-spc, at the ZD-spc home page.

If you would like to test the Plug-IN after installing it, you can go here.

Site News: Poll updated
09:52: In honor of the fact that Zophar's Domain is celebrating a birthday, it is my duty to update the poll. Here are the results from the last poll:

What feature of ZD do you think could use the most improvement?

Choice 1 was: "I don't like the message boards, they're kinda screwy."
It received 47 votes (11.9 percent).

Choice 2 was: "The news updates don't seem to be as great as they should be."
It received 48 votes (12.1 percent).

Choice 3 was: "Some of the emulator descriptions should be rewritten."
It received 206 votes (52 percent).

Choice 4 was: "There's always that annoying poll.."
It received 11 votes (2.8 percent).

Choice 5 was: "I don't think that the Links are up to snuff."
It received 39 votes (9.8 percent).

Choice 6 was: "I don't like the news updater."
It received 5 votes (1.3 percent).

Choice 7 was: "Do I look like I care?"
It received 40 votes (10.1 percent).

We also had one write-in vote, saying "I think ZD is great the way it is".

As you can see, XiP has already been hard at work writing new descriptions up for a large percentage of the pages, so your wish has been granted.

Here's the new poll:
What do you think of the new additions to the layout?

Now, I'm not going to tell you what to do -- oh wait, yes I am. Go vote.

Oh yeah, one more thing: I put a bunch of wacky junk up for auction if anyone is interested.

Frontend News: Frontends, hehe
03:38: Yes, I know I'm not the frontend maintainer anymore, but I figured I might as well go back to the golden age of frontends a bit by checking out all the frontend pages and see what we've missed. So basically I will add all the versions of various frontends that we've missed for one reason or another:

Atari 2600 frontends:

Z26Front 0.03 (Made all the options go into tabstrips, takes up less space and looks better. Added picture for if there is no picture to go with a rom.

Arcade frontends:

Fixed the URL to MAMELOAD's homepage

MAMEFront 0.9.95 WIP (WIP version of one of the best MAME frontends ever made)

StartM72 0.33.8 (Very good M72 frontend from the excellent frontend author Dennis Piet)

Gameboy frontends:

DBOYFront (Excellent DBOY frontend by the author of MAMEFront, RAINEFront, etc.)

Odyssey 2 frontends:

Oxygen 0.65.3 (The one and only frontend ever made for O2EM)

Universal frontends:

Emulator Runner 4.3

Yes, I know there are still a load of MAME frontends out there waiting to be added, but you'll have to nag at Apocalypz about that, hehehe. Anyway, have a nice day and I hope you like the new logo & navigation bar. Happy birthday ZD!

Emulator Release: Pang 3 (Japan CPS-1) Callus Patch V. 1.1
02:26: Well, someone thought enough of our site's birthday to release something in honor of it. That would be Shernand of the CPS Patch Team, who was nice enough to send us the new version of his Pang 3 (Japan CPS-1) Callus Patch. Here's what's new in Version 1.1:

Happy 3th birthday Zophar! This release is dedicated to all of you at that great emu site! We really wish you people the best of luck ;)

Speed is 30% - 40% increased due to now renaming the roms instead of copying them.

Used new gcc version, that should speed up things a little and fix some problems might having, also used the last UPX ;)

Hopefully fixed the "XXX file used by this patch was not found due to patch files located in different drives than where the patch files are stored. (Remember to run this patch in a DOS Windows, not from Start... Run... etc.

Used Videoman's chopfile (Thanks Videoman) instead of Ivan's rom cruncher, about 40% or more faster in rom conversion ;)

Slighty smaller patch (hopefully) due to removing of some debuging code.

You can go pick it up on the Multi-Arcade Emulators page.

Oh yeah, later today, I plan on doing a poll update and mentioning an auction of mine people might be interested in.

Happy Birthday, ZD! :) (Don't Believe too much, because the government is watching you.)

Misc. News: This is for you W1CCA: Phantom, REVEALED!
02:23: lev: If you are, then do an update.

That's correct folks. For those of you who don't know me (lev), I am the owner of the company called ZTNet. Most of you know it, as Emulation World. We host ZD, Retrogames, Emuunlim, and others. It was fun being the phantom for sure. A few of you guessed correctly, and the other guesses were an enjoyable read in my inbox! I hope not too many of you are dissapointed, and if you are, well, I hope you won't hold a grudge against ZD for it. I had a great time as phantom, throwing my bits out for everyone to read. It was great doing some updates for a site again, as it had been quite a long time.

Well, this is the last post from me for a while, and I hope you all enjoyed the return of Bloodlust. Happy gaming, and happy emulating everyone!

Phantom, AKA Lev,
-Signing off.

Site News: How about those aweful descriptions?
01:40: I'm sure many of you have noticed that the descriptions on the emulator pages are somewhat sub par. Well, I've been working on updating some of them, and I figured that this would be a good day to add the new descriptions to the site. So far, I've fixed the descriptions on the NES, SNES, N64, and Genesis pages. If there's anything wrong with any of them, make sure you mail me.

Misc. News: New Section Brings New Staff member
01:02: That is right, the phantom staffer is.....someone else. I, however, am going to maintain the new BeOS emulation section. It is small, and it grows slowly, but someone has to look after it. Check out the two new sections-console, and computer-, for the, hopefully, deffinitive list of BeOS emulators, Snes9x included. Happy birthday, ZD. Bringing us the best and worst in Emulation news for a third of a decade!

Site News: Could it be? Is it he?
00:52: Yes, that's right. It's RaEJaE, in the flesh. In case you hadn't noticed, personal problems and time constraints had kept me from posting more than a few times in the past couple of months. With all those problems now out of the way, I figured what better time to re-introduce myself than on ZD's third birthday!

I will remain senior assistant maintainer, so don't be afraid to e-mail me about updates. And yes, I promise, I will be around. Just not all the time. And if you want to send me a love letter, here's my e-mail address. Later.

RaEJaE

Site News: Believe.
00:46: Time for talk is over.

The return of Bloodlust.

Site News: Phantom: Bringing you Believe
00:39: In only a few moments.... it will be revealed. "I" have brought to ZD, what you are to believe. And soon, my identity will also be revealed.

Site News: Save archives updated
00:37: Updated: GS0, NeoRAGEx, NSF, NSM, STA, SRM, CHT, SPC, ZMV, ZST archives. The SPC and NSF archives no longer have individual links to the players, but still point to their respective player pages. Special thanks goes to TNSe^1999 for contributing "birthday NSFs" for ZD's 3rd anniversary!

Misc. News: New Genesis Charts and More!
00:29: In honor of ZD's 3rd birthday, The Scribe has released several charts today. The first is the final version of G3, the Genesis/MegaDrive game guide. The second is a new version of the MegaChart, a reference for Sega Genesis/MegaDrive/32X/CD games. The third is something new. It's D2, the Dreamcast database. It's a catalog of all the Dreamcast titles released anywhere. You can download any of the Genesis files at the Genesis page from now on. All of us at ZD would like to give lots of thanks to The Scribe for his continuing support of ZD! BTW, here's a little clip from the new MegaChart:

There will be no more upgrades to KGen as it now stands. KGen 98 release v0.34b is the final DOS edition, according to Steve Snake himself. "I am no longer working on KGen because it has got as good as it can get without taking a completely new direc tion, not to mention rewriting it completely.... I will be starting a completely new emulator at some point in the ... near future, - probably January 2000, as all my current headaches should be out of the way by then." Hurray for the Snake, and my apologies to him, the folks at Sega, and all KGen fans worldwide for ever doubting the continuing development of Snake's emulation efforts.

Utility News: ZD-spc 2.00 on its way....
00:05: Get ready, only 12 more hours until the next ZD-spc release. I am just doing the final touch ups on ZD-spc now, to make it an even better release. Until then, here are a couple features to water your taste buds.

Added the ZSNES core, provided by _demo_ and zsKnight. Thanks a lot!

Included a Windows Explorer info tip DLL

Added fully functional RAR support (thanks to the WinRAR's crappy example)

Added a new dialog box with the following: (SNES9x)
- Channel muting
- Tempo rate

There is much, much more. Including a feature, I KNOW you all will love. Just visit back here today, at 12PM EST, and you will Believe.

By the way, I hope you like the new 'News Only' picture I created.

Site News: Happy Birthday ZD! New facelift!
00:00: Happy birthday ZD! As you can already see, new features are popping up, such as the pull down menus and that the HTML work is now compatible with all browsers (Opera bug fixed). This is only a temporary layout, however. Netscape still is giving trouble with the javascript, and Netscape people are still discussing things with me, so we figured we will save the java enhancements until a Netscape version works as well as the already completed IE version.

Once again, happy birthday ZD, and thanks to all my fellow staffers for making this a great experience for me and all of you.

11/8/1999
Site News: Reflections IV: Coming to emulationworld.com
23:59: I remember a year ago, when I was still with Malicia.com, we went down on November 9, 1998, for almost the entire day. It was then that I decided to come to emulationworld.com. Since that day, ZD has expanded and grown to such heights that even I cannot b elieve it.

See you in 5 minutes! It's going to be quite a fun night.

Emulator Release: MAME32ASM 0.36 beta 8
20:11: A new unofficial version of MAME has been released. It's called MAME32ASM, and it's just MAME32 with an assembly core. This makes it faster but more unstable. You can get it at the MAME page. Thanks to JohnS for the news.

Emulator Release: NeoCD 0.70
20:00: NeoCD 0.70 was just released. Here's what's new, according to their page:

Recompiled using Allegro 3.9.26 WIP

Added Z80 emulation

Added CDDA emulation

You can get it at the Neo Geo Emulators page.

Misc. News: DarkMazda's NeoGeo CD cover project is progressing
08:18: DarkMazda has now amassed 21 NeoGeo CD cover scans on his website. The list includes the following:

Alpha Mission 2

Art of Fighting

Art of Fighting 2

Breakers

Fatal Fury

Fatal Fury 3

Fatal Fury Special

Galaxy Fight

King of Fighters '94

King of Fighters '95

King of Fighters '96

King of Fighters '97

Last Resort

Metal Slug 1

Metal Slug 2

Puzzle Bobble

Real Bout Fatal Fury Special

Samurai Shodown

Samurai Shodown 2

ViewPoint

World Heroes 2 Jet

If you want to view them or have one to contribute, visit DarkMazda's Domain.

Emulator Release: M88 2.13
04:29: M88, a PC8801 emulator that is in Japanese, has been updated. I have no idea what's new, but you can download it from the PC8801 emulators page.

Emulator Release: Bochs for Windows v991102a
04:22: Bochs, a PC emulator for Windows, has been updated, and here's what's new:

Pentium emulation

New VGA mode support -- fixes Win95 boot screen display

Support for 1.76MB floppies

BIOS fixes

Variable line text mode

Many other misc fixes

You can download it from the PC emulators page.

Emulator Release: XGS DOS 0.50.6
04:04: XGS DOS, an Apple II emulator, was updated some time in september 1998 to version 0.50.6, but somehow we missed that one too, hehe. Anyways, now it's been added and here's what was new in that version:

Joystick support FIXED!

"Rudimentary" slowdown added for faster Pentium-II computers !

Bug fixes into the M65816, allowing GSBUG, Splat and GNO/ME to work ! (Thanks to : Kelwin W. Serlock )

You can download it from the Apple II emulators page.

Emulator Release: Apple II Oasis 2.22s
03:56: Apple II Oasis, an Apple II emulator for Windows was updated in September this year, we missed the release then, but it's been added now. Here's what's new in version 2.22s:

Apple II Disk Manager supports copy/move for directory tree.

You can download it from the Apple II emulators page.

Utility Release: Nosefart plugin v1.3 released
03:22: A new version of Matt Conte's WinAMP plugin for NSFs has been released. What's new:

Bankswitching fix

Fixed problems with 'load optimized NSFs'

Less bleepin' CPU usage

Download it from the NSF Players page.

Misc. News: Less than 24 hours until the 9th...
01:24: Well, as you all know, the time is close at hand. All shall be revealed on the 9th, including my identity. Some of you will laugh, some of you will be dissapointed, others will cheer because they know they were right! While I can't assure everyone that 'Believe' or 'Phantom' are worth the hype they were given, I urge everyone to take it with a grain of salt, and just have fun. :) In the meantime, I invite you to take a look at a comic that I came across.

Overclocked

Enjoy! And, as always... Believe. ;)

Misc. News: Genesis/MegaDrive ROM listing
01:19: Chris from EmuCamp has released a Genesis/MegaDrive known ROM list of 932 released and unrealeased games. Packaged with it comes a list of known aliases for the names of games that vary by country.

Check it out in the Genesis Emulators section.

11/7/1999
Site News: Reflections '99 III: The NES wars of 1996
23:20: 1996 was a big year for emulation. During this year, we saw the first games run on SNES emulators, the first Sega Genesis emulators, and playable Gameboy emulation. But perhaps the most memorable emulation events in 1996 would be the war between 2 NES emu lators (which at the time were very popular): iNES and Pasofami.

Both of these emulators had some similarities, and some differences. They both were commercial (iNES cost $35, Pasofami cost 4000 yen, which was somewhere around the same amount), and both had crippled demos available for it. They also were both the only NES emulators at the time that ran Windows, had sound, and ran a great deal of games. But the similarities ended here.

The way iNES produced sound was digitally (although the sound was not very accurate in early versions), which was more accurate to a real NES. Pasofami produced sound via MIDI, so what a NES game would sound like on Pasofami was really up to the sound car d that a person had installed on their computer. Pasofami was also faster than iNES, but was less stable. A downside of Pasofami for english-speaking users was that the emulator was japanese only. Although independant patches were later released for Pasof ami, they tended to be inaccurate translations, and could also cause a great deal of emulation errors due to copy protection in the emulator.

Although other NES emulators did exist at the time, iNES and Pasofami were really the only two that anyone considered using to play games, mainly due to the fact that the others did not have sound. NESA was a distant third place emulator: it had no sound, only ran a handful of games, and was rather slow for computers at the time. LandyNES was another one which ran even less games than NESA, and did not have sound or playable speed for computers at the time.

It's amazing how far NES emulation has come over the years. It's hard to understand how amazed emulation users were in the community in the early days: you had to have experienced it to fully appreciate it. For those who want a little peek at nostalgia, t ake a look at the different incantations of ZD's NES emulators page, and how far NES emulators have come at the links below.

See you tomorrow for Reflections '99 IV!

ZD NES emulators page in early 1997

ZD NES emulators page in early 1998

ZD NES emulators page: current

Emulator Release: Multipac 0.1 for Digita
21:05: The author of MAMED has released another arcade emulator for Digita, a port of Multipac. This emulator was released so owners of a Kodak DC220 or DC260 with less RAM can have some fun too. It only plays Namco PacMan right now, but more will be added lat er.

Get it at the Single Arcade Emulators for Digita section.

Misc. News: Bleem in the Press...Again
20:01: I thought you would all like to know that Bleem 1.5 was reviewed on
ZDTV, a computer channel I get via satellite.
They showed the differences between high and low res, and give it some pretty good praise.
Their overall review for Bleem 1.5 was four out of five stars, and the article
is here.

As a side note, I recently purchased Bleem, and have mixed opinions for it. Older
and less 3D intense games seem to run full speed on my P200 with Voodoo3 2000, but
newer games simply crawl along. Not only that, but after you actually pay for it,
having to insert a CD key every SINGLE time you run Bleem is very, very tiresome. It
could benefit from at LEAST only putting the key in say, each time you change the game.
Many times I will close Bleem wanting to play the same game later on, get annoyed by
Bleem needing me to do the CD shuffle, and just drop the idea and forget about playing.
Other than the nags though, once you get it going, if the game is fully compatible (a
big if), Bleem does give a nice gameplay experience.

Emulator Release: PC-Dragon II 2.06!
19:04: The upgrade version of PC-Dragon II, a Coco I and II emulator, has been released. Here's what's new in this version:

Updates to DRAGON.EXE

Now provides emulation of disk drives. Please see DISKS.TXT for full details. From v2.06 the emulator prompts for confirmation before exit or certain file operations if there may be unsaved virtual disk data which could be lost.

Bugs in the display of screens based in the upper 32K RAM have been fixed.

Now defines text mode graphics characters so that they are the same as a real Dragon or CoCo. If run in a DOS box under Windows, this feature usually only operates correctly in full-screen mode. It may be disabled by using the /NG command line option. The "Gfx=" setting on the information screen (CTRL-F10) indicates whether the feature is on or off.

Now accepts long filenames when run in a DOS box under Windows 95/98. Spaces may also be used in filenames, but the other additional characters remain forbidden. Please note that command line arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in double quot es. If long filenames are available then "Filename Prompt:" will show "(LFN)" on the information screen.

Minor improvements have been made to the PC joystick handling (slightly more accurate and future proof). Also, previous upgrades always gave a division by zero error which has been fixed from v2.06.

A bug in the printer status translation has been corrected.

A bug in the code which updates the keyboard rollover table has been corrected.
Updates to DC.EXE

Now accepts long filenames when run in a DOS box under Windows 95/98. Spaces and the other additional characters may also be used in filenames so long as the filenames are enclosed in double quotes.

Now accepts relative pathnames and filenames with multiple extensions.

Now prompts before overwriting files.
Updates to WHATIS.EXE

Can now display some information about virtual disk files.

Now accepts long filenames when run in a DOS box under Windows 95/98. Spaces and the other additional characters may also be used in filenames so long as the filenames are enclosed in double quotes.

Now accepts relative pathnames and filenames with multiple extensions.

Can now recognise and describe T3.INI (the T3 emulator settings file).

A bug causing the program to hang when examining virtual cassette files with the character 'C' between blocks has been fixed.
Updates to COPYCAS.EXE

Now accepts a long filename for the second argument when run in a DOS box under Windows 95/98. Spaces and the other additional characters may also be used in this filename so long as it is enclosed in double quotes.

Now displays the old and new header filenames as confirmation of the renaming that has been performed.

Now prompts before overwriting files.
Updates to VCOPY.EXE

This is a new tool for reading and writing Dragon floppy disks in PC floppy drives. Please see VCOPY.TXT for full details.

You can download it from the COCO and Tandy Dragon emulators page.

Site News: MAMED 0.2 for Digita
17:53: MAMED, the version of MAME for Digita, has been updated to 0.2. What's new:

Works on Kodak DC290 and DC265 cameras now

updated for the MAME 0.36 Beta 8 source

more games are supported

You can get MAMED at the MAME for Digita section.

Emulator Release: Vboy version 1.1 released
00:15: Vboy version 1.1, a Gameboy emulator for Win9x, has been released. Here is what is new in this version:

Hi-Color support

SGB support

Bug fixes in CGB support (more games playable)

Screen capture to PNG file pressing F12

ROM directory is now saved

Save games

The author also notes that he plans on adding joystick support and configuration in the version 1.2 release.

Grab your copy of Vboy from the Gameboy Emulators area.

Utility Release: TaBuLar 1.0
00:07: A new file editor for windows has been released. This program will let you edit Hexposure, Thingy, and tables that have already been created. It features conversions, and a 16-bit table entry editor. There are many more features this utility has, take a look.

You can download this utility from the Translation utilites page.

11/6/1999
Utility Release: Che's Ultimate Cheater 1.19
23:08: A new version of the ultimate cheater has been released. Here is a list of what's new:

Added a limit to all programs, this will reduce the risk of a savestate messing up =Þ

Sailor Moon: Another Story editor that does Sram & Zsnes saves

Secret of Mana

The King of Dragons

Pokémon-can do coins now(I think)

Tales of Phantasia

You can download the new version from the FaceLift utilities page.

Utility Release: Bleep 1.01
21:31: A new WinAMP Plug-IN that plays NSF files has been released named Bleep. (not Bleem) This Plug-IN, unlike all other NSF Plug-IN's can be configured. You can change the way the name of the song is displayed (like MP3's) and you can change the frequency. Not only that, but it takes a LOT less CPU. Check it out. Here is what's new in this version:

Problems regarding "optimized" NSFs have been resolved.

You can download the new version at the NSF players/utilities page.

Remember to delete your old NSF Plug-INs from your WinAMP Plug-INs directory if you are going to try this!

Misc. News: A new episode of Back In Time
20:55: Here is the e-mail I received:

The new episode of the Back In Time webcast has been posted. This episode marks the second anniversary of the Back In Time web site.

Many gaming companies have been jumping on the "classic gaming" bandwagon this year. Hasbro Interactive has been making use of their Atari brand by re-releasing such titles as Pong, Tetris, and Missile Command. This episode is very special, as it was recorded at the Atari offices located at Hasbro Interactive. My guest on this episode is Rich Cleveland, the head of marketing for the Atari division of Hasbro Interactive. Rich and I discuss all of their new "classic" titles, including Q*Bert, Pong, and the new 3D Arena Blast game which is based on the Unreal engine. Rich talks quite a bit about the creative process that goes into recreating the classic games. He also goes into some detail on all of the pro projects that are in the works for next year. These titles have not been announced publicly yet, and Back In Time has the EXCLUSIVE news. Can anyone say "Galaga?" I also take a look at a few of the other "classic" games that have hit the store shelves over the last few months including Pac-Man World, and Space Invaders. Finally, I cover some classic pinball machines that I have recently added to my collection.

Mike Stulir, Webmaster
Back In Time
Back In Time.

You can visit this page, by going Back In Time. Heheh.

Emulator Release: GeoMAME 1.1b3 for Macintosh
17:57: With the release of MacMAME 0.36 Beta 8 comes a new version of GeoMAME, the Neo Geo only version of MAME for the Macintosh. This release is updated for the MacMAME 0.36 Beta 8 sources. As with MacMAME, there are compatibility issues in GeoMAME with MacOS 9.

Get it at the Macintosh Multi Arcade page.

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.36 Beta 8
17:53: MacMAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator for MacOS, has been updated to 0.36 Beta 8. It is now up to speed with the DOS and Win32 versions. If you are having problems using an ATI card, visit the MacMAME page for help. Also, MacMAME has compatibility issues under MacOS 9. The authors are working on this issue.

Get it at the Macintosh Multi Arcade section.

Utility Release: NesToy 1.6 released
12:44: NesToy, a NES/Famicom ROM utility, has been updated to version 1.6. Here's what's new in this release:

The database now includes known bad dumps. When using (-sort), these roms will be moved into a directory called BAD. Bad dumps will not show up on your missing list when using (-missing).

A bad dump is now indicated by a 'b' in the far left column in a rom listing.

Database format has been altered slightly to allow for rom entries with additional resize information when needed.

You can grab a copy from the NES Utilities area.

Site News: Reflections '99 II: Staff members unknown
01:58: I've decided that for the second installment of Reflections '99, I'll be focusing on staff members that were either never mentioned in any news archive or post, or staff members that very few people know worked at ZD.

eV|Lh0mEr: The first staff member (other than myself) who worked at ZD was this man. He designed the original layout & graphics to ZD (which you can visit at the old ZD remains site), which lasted for over half a year. He was rarely mentioned, if at all.

Demi: Demi, who was responsible for many translations patches and well known for his knowledge of Japanese, rom hacking, and graphics, used to work at ZD. It was not for very long, and although only a few news posts of his were left, he was with ZD at one point and many people new to ZD probably never knew this.

DarkMazda: It's true. The same DarkMazda who runs the emulation website DarkMazda's Domain used to work at Zophar's Domain as a links page maintainer. He was not a frequent updater, and was only with ZD for a short time. Most people never even knew he was a part of the domain.

IceWizard: Any Efnet IRCer knows who IceWizard is. Not every Efnet IRCer knows that he worked at ZD for a period of two weeks as a maintainer of the short-lived "Zophar's Domain news page". He posted a total of two news items in his short tenure.

There were other staff members that ZD has obtained and lost over the years, but the above were the ones that really stick in my mind the most. All of their efforts won't be forgotten, as ZD gets stronger with every passing day, due to the support of all of our past & present staff, as well as all of our visitors.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow (or late tonight, since it's now early Saturday morning EST) for Reflections '99 III.

11/5/1999
Media News: Microsoft declared a monopoly!
19:35: I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it. Not even hours ago, Microsoft corporation was declared a monopoly by a federal judge. From the CNN.com article:

A federal judge declared Friday that Microsoft Corp. possesses monopoly power in the market for PC operating systems, giving the government a pivotal victory in the long-running antitrust trial.

"Viewed together, three main facts indicate that Microsoft enjoys monopoly power," Jackson wrote. "First, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems is extremely large and stable. Second, Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by a high barrier to entry. Third, and largely as a result of that barrier, Microsoft's customers lack a commercially viable alternative to Windows.

We'll have more on this incredible decision as it unfolds, and a final decision is made. You can read the full article below.

MSFT ruled a monopoly

Emulator Release: Speccyal 0.86 beta
18:57: Speccyal, a Sinclair Spectrum 48k emulator, has been updated and here's what's new in this version:

I just finished to code the scanline graphics routines. Just try this version and tell me what you think about it.

So basically it's just a minor beta, but please give the author feedback on the new graphics routines! You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

Emulator Release: R80 0.21
18:49: R80, a Sinclair Spectrum emulator, has been updated and here's what's new in this version:

R80.INI updates:

ActivationArea=1/2 selects TR-DOS activation area 3Dxx/3Cxx
DEBUGGER updates:

F2 (Memory): Shows characters.
GUI updates:

CONTROL+F10 and ALT+F10 now quits without asking confirmation.
Command line updates:

Now R80 doesn't ask to hit a key to start emulation unless you use -pause command.
Bug Fixes:

Fixed (I hope) problems with Sound Blaster support.

Fixed SB emulation of AY-3-8912, Robocop speech was not playing right. Also fixed Hostages and Light Corridor speech.

Loading tapes in Spectrum 16k was not working.

Scorpion memory mapping fixed.

You can download it from the Sinclair computer emulators page.

Misc. News: Explosion Net Emulation 1 year anniversary
18:38: Other sites than Zophar's Domain are having anniversaries, hehe. Emulation Explosion Net is celebrating their 1 year anniversary, so go visit them and look at the nice colored text saying "Happy birthday to us", hehehe.

Emulator Release: smyNES 0.1
16:06: smyNES was written by the same author that did smyGB, and it supports only mappers 0 and 24. He is planning for it to be shareware, and this is a demo. You can get it from the NES page.

Emulator Release: MAME32 0.36 Beta 8
16:00: MAME32 has just been updated to 0.36 Beta 8. It is now in-line with the DOS version.

Get it at the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulators section.

Emulator Release: Two new HP emulators
15:40: First... HP49 Emulator

Another emulator straight from Hewlett Packard themselves, HP49 Emulator supports most of the functions of a real HP49 calculator. Their homepage is here.

Now the second one, emu48

emu48 seems to be another calculator emulator from HP, this one emulates the HP48. The homepage is here.

Thanks to Andreas for the news. You can download the emulators at the HP Calculators emulators page.

Emulator Release: JGB 0.6
15:24: This is the world's first Gameboy emulator made in JAVA. It's based on the VGB source. The homepage can be found here.

You can get JGB at our JAVA Gameboy Emulators page.

11/4/1999
Translation News: Front Mission Update
22:35: Stories has updated his Front Mission page with a progress update of the patch:

-85% of the game is roughly translated.
Here is a list of features that are in the new patch :-)

Variable Width Font

ASM expanded and fully ready for 100% text insertion.

~95% of menus are translated.

All of the item status boxes are translated.

Items/Weapons/Inventory is Completed.

~85% of battle commands have been translated.

~98% of the names have been translated.

Text Block #6 50% Translated, 0% Inserted.

Text Blocks #1 (104k), #2, (20k), #3 (20k), #4 (7k), and #5 (2k) fully completed and inserted.

Check back at ZD for info as it arrives.

Site News: Reflections '99 I: The good ol' BBS days
19:05: November 4, 1999: today's date. Rather than reprint last year's Reflections on this day, I've decided to spend a little time reflecting on the days prior to the great WWW rush.

Back in 1995 and early 1996 (seems so long ago), when I didn't even have a PPP internet account and had never visited a single website, there were BBSs. The BBS, or bulletin board system, was what everyone logged onto before the internet craze hit the world, and I was no different.

I remember there being two main types of BBSs that I would log onto. One type (most of these ran Major BBS) were your mainstream boards, which were usually used for chatting with others and playing MUDs. And not just any MUD, but Major MUD. Who can forget the fantastic fun of taking a party of a few low-level characters, saying you'll beat the Hellion for them and that they'll get some EXP, and then leaving them there to die? :)

The second type were, ahem, more 'underground' BBSs. They typically ranged from names like "Devil's Advocate" to "The Fourth Dimension". They were used mostly for file downloads, and sometimes, door games. My favorite of these door games was Legend of the Red Dragon, or LORD. If you've never met Violet, you don't know what you're missing!

The most common of these BBSs usually ran Renegade or PCBoard. Personally, I preferred Iniquity BBSs, which ran similar to Renegade but had really nice ANSI art included with it. I don't know if ZD would ever exist had it not been for my time spent on BBSs.

More about the BBS craze that I survived in the mid 90s can be read in the upcoming "Chronicles" Volume I. Volume I will be released on November 9, 1999, so be sure to visit! You can visit the links below for more BBS fun.

Legend of the Red Dragon Domain

Iniquity Support page

Utility Release: Redump 2.3
18:45: A new version of ReDump has been released. This utility lets you convert the "old" MGD2 NeoGeo dumps, to the MVS format. Very handy for those who want to play Sengoku, and other games. Get it now.

You can download it from the Arcade utilities page.

Misc. News: Gamepics reaches 3,000!
17:15: Gamepics, one of the sites we host, has reached a total of 3,000 pictures last night. Congratulations, Mek!

http://gamepics.zophar.net

Interview News: Zoop interviewed
16:30: MD Master of Genesis Temple has done it again! He interviewed Zoop, the creator of MEKA. You can read the interview by going to http://zap.to/genesistemple.

Utility Release: Nosefart WinAMP plugin 1.2
15:34: Matt Conte has released another version of his great NSF plugin for WinAMP. Here's what's new:

1.2 (11.4.99)

Severely reduced size of .DLL

1.1 (11.4.99)

VRCVI (Castlevania 3j, etc.) sound support

Minor trackbar fixes (ha ha)

Sound engine fixes

More descriptive header display

Get it at the NSF players page or the WinAMP page. Thanks to CheatMan for the news.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 1.5
15:24: A new version of Super Jukebox has been released, and here's what's new:

Made the installation program a little more robust, checks for more errors.

Removed dependency on DCOM in the installation program, should help people with Windows 95 and no Internet Explorer. Let me know how this works, in particular the "Browse..." button.

Added some specific support for systems that have more than one mixer driver.

Now it only reminds you that a playlist needs to be saved when it actually contains some songs.

Some archives contain SPCs with the read-only attribute set, this made it impossible for Super Jukebox to delete them after extracting them, so now after extracting a file it sets its attributes to normal so it can delete it.

Get it at the SPC players page or the Super Jukebox homepage.

Frontend News: Z26Front 0.2
14:58: Z26Front is a new frontend for the Atari 2600 emulator, Z26. It supports the latest version, which is 1.35. You can get it at the A2600 Frontends page.

11/3/1999
Emulator Release: Mac1964 0.3.0
23:32: Mac1964 0.3.0 is now out. What's new:

the new mac1964 plays mario, almost mariokart, and star fox a little. Big step over trmac too

This version has diverged a bit from the original 1964 project - Based on a technique that's "not entirely unlike dynamic recompilation", the new core is several times faster with higher compatibility to boot. :)

Faster video, fullscreen mode, and several new debugging options

new graphics produced by the new (and VERY rough) RCP implementation.

Get it at the Macintosh Nintendo 64 section.

Site News: *REPRINT* Reflections I: The Translation wars *REPRINT*
10:09: The following was posted on November 3, 1998

This is the first part in a series of nostalgic ZD updates. I'll be randomly picking news posts that we've done over the past few years, and posting them here.

The following updates were posted on the 'News page' (which was merged with another page; we used to have 2 pages: a what's new page, and a news page) from June 11-12, 1997. They're in relation to the FF5 translation, way before RPGe existed, and Timko was at 'war' with Shadow...

[Begin ancient news]

06/11/97
--------
Shadow steals parts of FF5j from Timko's translation!

Shadow of dragonfire.net from the homepage http://www.dragonfire.net/~shadow1/netscape.html has stolen parts of David Timko's FF5j translation, which is at silent.darkening.com/~zophar/ff5e. Also, on his readme he has made it quite clear that he is in war with David Timko. I think shadow should be ashamed of himself.
---------------------------
- The 16x16 tiles are being edited in pure HEX to binary code by moi. In your face David Timko! A stupid *** like you will never get it.
---------------------------
Feel free to email this person with your comments >:]
Shadow alleges Timko lied!

Shadow says that he did NOT steal the translation, and in fact says he's been working on it for 2 months. Who is telling the truth? Beats me.

06/12/97
--------
Timko & Shadow merge!!

They have joined forces now! See the FF5e mirror on my page at http://silent.darkening.com/~zophar for furthur details on this great merge! Now maybe some work will get done :)

[End ancient News]

You can see the old, ancient "News" page at the link below. Be warned, however, it's like looking at the first draft of the Magna Carta ;)

Ancient News Page (1/24/97 - 9/29/97)

End of reprint

Site News: More News on November 9, 1999
09:40: Plans are nearly complete for the November 9, 1999 ZD celebration! I have begun to put the finishing touches on "The Chronicles of Zophar, Volume I", and it should be ready for a release on the 9th. If it gets a good reaction, I'll be writing future volumes which will continue where the first volume left off. So far, I've been getting a great reaction, so we'll see where we go from there.

The first-ever ZD video show will be taped sometime between now and November 8th. It will be about 15 minutes, and if it's received well by our visitors, I'll be taping more shows in the future, and it may turn into a live show. Who knows? Anything is possible when it comes to what the visitors of ZD want. ;)

The new index design is almost complete. Everyone here at ZD feels that you'll like it (assuming Sam can work out the last of the bugs that still dwell). We're also going to be getting a new front logo, since it's ZD tradition to change the logo on the 9th. I think you'll like who designs this graphic.

Speaking of Believe... if you haven't figured it out by now, I pity you. I've put so many clues up, that it's now even more predictable than the WCW when it was led by Eric Bischoff. However, what everyone doesn't know is what will happen when Believe is finally unleashed. Keep your eyes peeled.

Does anyone remember the "Reflections" posts from last year? I'll be reprinting last year's Reflections each day until the 9th, as well as this year's new set of Reflections.

Questions? Comments? Reach me at zophar@voicenet.com. See you all next post! And remember... tell all of your friends, your enemies, your lovers, your dominatrix... be here on the 9th!

Site News: ZD: The 3rd year quiz
09:28: To celebrate 3 years of ZD (as if we're not doing tons already), I am now posting the quiz that the results of the last poll indicated that everyone wanted. There are 15 questions (5 short answer, 5 multiple choice and 5 fill-in-the-blanks). You must have all 15 questions correct to be entered into the drawing. In the event that no one can answer all 15 questions, the next highest scores will be entered into the drawing. The winner of the drawing receives a $100 cheque from myself. If you answer the bonus question that I've provided for you, get all of the other 15 correct, and you win the drawing, you'll receive an additional $20.

Hints will be given throughout the week, as we countdown to November 9, 1999. The quiz is due November 8, 1999. Anything later than 11:59pm on that day will not be accepted. The winner will be announced on the 9th. Send in your submissions to me by then.

May the best ZDaholic win! Remember, NS users, to shift-click to download the text file.

ZD third-year quiz

Misc. News: Macintosh Emulation Site
00:04: Check out EmuMac, for Macintosh news and information. It is a good site, and worth the visit.

11/2/1999
Links Update: Unofficial Chrono Trigger 2
19:26: A friend of mine is doing a project called Unofficial Chrono Trigger 2, it's a sequel to the Chrono Trigger RPG, which features the same characters, same rooms, and a fresh storyline. Their site has screenshots and more information, which can be accessed here. Also, they have a mailing list with day-to-day updates on UCT2.

Emulator News: KGB
14:59: The KGB website has been updated with news about the Gameboy emulator. Instant saves have been fixed along with various other bugs. The maximum ROM size has been raised to 32Mbit, and there's a new GUI added. Also, the author is working on Internet-linked play. He is having problems with implementing sound, though, so mail him if you can help.

Emulator Release: Virtual TI 2.5b4
14:52: A new version of VirtualTI has been released. On their site, they said:

Virtual TI beta 4 has been released! This beta comes with many improvements over even the recent beta 3. Custom skin creating has been included in simple form for now so users can create their own skins. Certain disabled features will be enabled with final version. Bugs fixed include saving lists,etc to HD from VTI in 82/83; resizing now works(esp 2x in 92); completely fixed ROM dumps, now all ROM dumps should work just fine, no matter cable, etc. Please do NOT email about the skin editor, it is a simple release for now to quiet some users :) Future addition to this site will include a vti skin database(by authors with final release) soon after new skins are started to be created. Hope you like all the new updates we are giving you :), VTI, Site, weeee.

You can get it at the TI Emulators page.

11/1/1999
Site News: iGS 0.53r6 for Macintosh
23:59: iGS 0.53r6 is out. Here's what's new:

Redesigned from scratch, using the 0.53 core with abstractions to allow for improved CPU debugging.

A floating disk management window

A console for debug output, and more!

See iGS History for what to watch for in future

releases and the revisions in the current release.

Get it at the Macintosh Apple ][ page.

Utility Release: Nosefart 1.0
22:43: After a long wait, Nosefart 1.0 has been released! Here is what is new in this version:

100% new sound engine, providing much more accurate sound

Output volume now more consistent with other plugins, less consistent with air raid siren

Trackbar no longer hangs around if you open up a file with a different sound format

Bug where track 1 sometimes did not play at startup fixed

You can download the new version at the NSF Players \ Utilities page.

Thanks goes out to Zeus for the e-mail.

Emulator Release: N64 VM Beta 2
19:06: A new beta of N64 VM (N64 Virtual Machine) has been released, and this is the first version to play commercial games, so you might want to try it out if you like to try Mario 64 or Mario Kart 64 on different emulators and compare it to the real thing or something, hehe.

Anyways, it can be downloaded from the N64 emulators page. Thanks to _Oz_ for the news!

Misc. News: MAME Flyers updated
19:03: According to Xray1 of MAME Flyers, he has updated his site again. This brings them up to a total of 870 flyers! You can check them out at their site.

Emulator Release: EMU+ 0.36b8
18:30: A new version of EMU+, which is an enchanced version of MAME, is out. The new features are basically the same as in MAME .36b8, so I won't post the LONG whatsnew.txt here. Enjoy!

EMU+ can be found at the MAME page.

Emulator Release: GalEmu 0.40 beta 6
15:26: A new version of GalEmu, the multi arcade emulator, has been released, and here's what's new:

Nope, it's another beta...

Back after a bit of an unexpected break. Any bugs? Let me know...

Added fullscreen modes. Press TAB to toggle between fullscreen and the GUI.

Used colour PROM from original version of Devil Fish, not accurate, but at least level 3 is visible now.

Changed japirem folder to gteikoku to reflect the same change in MAME.

Changed FX sample, it is now a 1000Hz Sine wave sampled at 22050Hz, sounds a bit more pleasant at times.

Added Azurian Attack.

Get it at the multi arcade page.

Emulator Release: AMAME & PMAME 0.36 beta 8
15:13: A new version of AMAME & PMAME, the AMD and Pentium optimized versions of MAME, has been released. You can get them at the MAME page.

Emulator Release: MESS 0.36b8
15:00: A new version of MESS, the multiple console/computer emulator, has been released. You can view what's new, or download it at the MESS page.

Misc. News: DarkMazda's NeoGeo CD Covers
12:09: DarkMazda's Domain now has a total of 16 NeoGeo CD covers, including KoF '94 - '97. Go check them out.

DarkMazda's Domain

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 1.4
12:05: A new version of Super Jukebox has been released, and here's what's new:

Added an Uninstall.exe program for removing Super Jukebox, now the only file you will have to remove manually is Uninstall.exe. Before this was done with Super Jukebox.exe, but that left Super Jukebox.exe and all related DLL files undeleted.

Added the ability to detect when a song has ended, and then proceed automatically. I have tested this on 8 songs, but let me know how it works. OK, la-li?

Now extracting SPCs from archives into the TEMP directory instead of the current directory, useful if you have your archives on CD-ROMs.

Now saving the current directory in the registry upon exit, and restores it upon startup.

Get it at the Super Jukebox page or the SPC players page.

zophar@voicenet.com