Site News: RomNet with ZD
04:17:  A few posts back you may recall we mentioned RomNet, a program designed to work like Napster only for ROM images. I'm proud to announce that RomNet has joined the ZD family and is now located at romnet.zophar.net.

So make sure you grab a copy of it, and let it sit in your systray next to Napster.

Media News: Hellgamers.com Connectix VGS Review
01:20:  Hellgamers.com, an up-and-coming gaming news site which sure caught my attention, recently posted a review of Connectix's Playstation emulator, Virtual Game Station. Here's an excerpt:

This review is useful for those that are insecure of buying this Emulator. We know that Emulation is free everywhere, Maybe you are wondering yourself "Why should I pay for an Emulator?" well I think the answer is very easy, sometimes people need to make some money and if they works too hard making an Emulator (not an easy work at all), they have all the rights to sell it.

Anyway, check out the review and the site as well.

7/30/2000
Emulator Release: MAME32 0.37 Beta 5
23:54:  MAME32 has been updated to 0.37 Beta 5. It is now inline with the DOS version.

You can download it from our MAME section.

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.37 Beta 5
23:54:  MacMAME has been updated to 0.37 Beta 5. It is now inline with the DOS version.

You can download it from our Macintosh Multi Arcade section.

Misc. News: Life in America
11:31:  You'll never believe what I saw in the Sunday morning paper here (The Patriot)...

Let's just say, it'll give you something to do if your harddrive crashes.

Misc. News: Freeware Emulators included with FreeBSD 4.0
10:06:  Bl0odRoSE tells us that he was installing FreeBSD 4.0 the other night, and was going through some of the packages. He came across several emulators packaged with the OS, including:

• iNes
• Mastergear
  
• Snes9x
  
• Truereality

Media News: X-Box to Debut With Lots of Bill's Money
06:19:  I'm a little tired right now, but I figured I'd post one or two more things tonight before I went to bed. Anyway, here's the comic relief for tonight, thanks to torvus:

X-Box to Lanuch With Half a Billion Dollars

Nothing against our resident Microsoft employee BDLou, but the fact remains: If the X-Box fails with that kind of budget behind it, it'll be the biggest flop in video game history.

Emulator News: Java Arcade Emulator -- More Games Supported!
06:05:  The Java Arcade Emulator, found on Norbert's Emulator Software now features support for three new games:

- Pengo (Sega 1982)
- Amidar (Stern/Konami 1982)
- Ms. Pacman (Midway 1980/1981)

The JAE Pacman emulator has also recently had some bugfix updates.

Anyway, check out JAE at Norbert's Emulator Software.

Misc. News: Final Warrior RPG
05:24:  Anthony J. Comberiate recently sent us some news about a Java game he's been working on called Final Warrior RPG, and here's what he had to say about it:

So far, I've finished putting together a demo of the game, and it's available on my webpage. The idea of Final Warrior is that it's a classic RPG, much like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. It's kind of a parody of those games, but it's also a new game in its own right. I'm trying to combine Working Designs style humorous dialogue with a deep and serious plot. So far, the demo shows off a lot of humor, without starting on the main plot yet.

Anyway, another reason people might find this worth their time (about 5-10 minutes just to play through the demo, but lots of extra options to play around with too), is that I'm still accepting ideas for the final version of the game. Playing classic NES RPGs (and other classic RPGs) can be a lot of fun, but actually being able to tell the designers what you think they should include? Well, that generally doesn't happen.

Fortunately, I'm not making money off of this, so I can't worry about presumably stealing people's ideas and keeping the profits. So, without such typical restrictions present here, hopefully this project will offer some people a chance to see some of their ideas in a game, who wouldn't get that opportunity otherwise.

Comberiate goes on to mention his role as the author of another Java-based game with roots in classic video games, Gamefighter 2000.

Anyway, check out Final Warrior's site, which features a good deal more info about the game.

Media News: GameCritics.com new feature -- The Great Games
05:01:  A game review site, GameCritics.com recently began a new section on their site called The Great Games, a retrospective site of some old-school games. The first game they look at is the classic Blaster Master. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Among the many NES classics we've all played and forgotten about, Blaster Master is one that still manages to amaze today. I remember marveling at the game's remarkable special effects when it came out 12 years ago, and even as I play it now, I'm astonished at how cool the shots and explosions look. Even the sound effects and music hold up well in an age where video game audio is so good that it's not even worth talking about anymore."

Anyway, make sure you check out the full article.

Thanks to Chi Kong Lui for the news.

Misc. News: ROM Grafitti
04:44:  A while back, the ROM site romseeker.com requested that its users send them pictures of grafitti drawings with the word "ROM" in them, almost as a joke.

Lo and behold, some people actually sent them some. Take a look, because you might just get a kick out of seeing them.

Thanks to nintenda for the news.

Utility News: RomNet - Filesharing at its emufinest!
02:49:  The Napster controversy, one of monumental[ly annoying] proportion, is one that won't go away anytime soon. It's a current media buzzword, and it's not likely to be resolved without a lot of people being hurt. But until a decision is either made to outlaw filesharing altogether or transform the internet into a p.l.u.r. extravaganza, rest assured that you can DOWNLOAD ROMS the same way! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Napster for Roms. Jeffrey Freeman has programmed a utility that makes it possible to share rom images with the "community" directly from your hard drive. This could possibly mean the end of clicking on banner-infested web links just to find XOOM 404s.

Download the software from Freemo's site; it's in heavy development now, but I've contacted the author - hopefully we'll have it available for download here very soon. Big-ups to Erik for the lead.

7/29/2000
Emulator News: Concrete proof of the KI emulator
23:41:  No sooner do I post this info, I see over at Emulation HQ that bwb has tried the beta, and has even posted an AVI file of the emulator in action. Granted, the emulation doesn't run at full speed, but, it's progress looks tremendous!

Emulator News: Killer Instinct Arcade Emulation soon?
23:34:  Though under heavy skepticism by many emulation sites and emulation junkies, there appears to be major progress on an emulator for the arcade version of Killer Instinct. The crew over at KIAME have quite a few screen shots up of the emulator running, with progress reports. The site also answers back to all the critics of this project. I'd personally like to ask that the emulation community not be so critical of every single project that seems too good to be true. This is a sure fire way to make sure projects like this never see the light of day. For now, head to their site and decide for yourself.

Misc. News: Could CPS2 emulation be a reality soon?
23:25:  The folks over at CPS2 Shock! have updated their work in progress page with the following:

"From the testing done so far using the new EEPROM emulator we are already able to get non encrypted values for any encrypted value we choose at a set address."

Does this mean we'll see CPS2 emulation in the near future? Only time will tell.

7/28/2000
Media News: Napster injunction has been stayed!
17:44:  Breaking news from CNN.com! They've just reported that Napster, the biggest online music trading program which has a user base of over 20 million people, received a temporary injunction which ordered Napster to stop its servers tonight at midnight a few days ago. Napster appealed the decision and just minutes ago, this was posted at CNN's website:

BREAKING NEWS: The injunction barring Napster from trading music online has been stayed. Details to come.

This means that Napster's servers will NOT go offline tonight. More details as we find out about them.

Update @ 6:22pm EST: CNN has posted the full story on the breaking news of the appeal. From the article:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Friday against a preliminary injunction that would have required that the popular, music-sharing Internet service Napster shut by midnight Friday (3 a.m. EDT).

Napster is an Internet site that allows users to upload and download recorded music. It claims 20 million users and hundreds of millions of downloads this year. The recording industry and artists have sued Napster claiming the service threatens the financial integrity of their business.

Be sure to read the full article below.

Misc. News: Happy Sysadmin Appreciation Day!
11:23:  I'd just to give all of you sysadmins out there a hand for the excellent work you do, especially our own Swampgas, who works day in and day out for us, keeping the site running smoothly, as well as introducing New and Better Things (TM) all of the time. Thanks Swamp, and all you sysadmins out there. Just remember: the web would be nothing without you.

Emulator Release: CCS64 2.0 B
11:21:  CCS64, an excellent Commodore 64 emulator for Windows and DOS, has been updated. Here's the scoop:

Fixed:

7/27/2000
Emulator Release: Z26 V. 1.37
22:38:  That's right, my friends. Another version of the great Atari 2600 emulator Z26 was recently released. Here's what's new in V. 1.37:

Emulator Release: MAME 0.37 Beta 5
17:21:  MAME has been updated to 0.37 Beta 5. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: FPSE 0.8 build 1
17:11:  FPSE, the Free PlayStation Emulator for Windows has been updated to 0.8 build 1. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Gens 0.78
17:10:  Gens, a great Genesis emulator for Windows was updated to 0.78. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Laser 0.8
15:29:  Laser 0.8 has been released. Here's what's new:

7/26/2000
Translation News: Seiken Densetsu 3 French 100%
23:35:  Terminus Traduction has released a 100% French patch for the RPG Seiken Densetsu 3. The intro and the main title aren't translated, but the entire rest of the game is done, so the author considers that 100% complete (and I do too!)

Get it from our French Translations page.

Emulator Release: Laser 0.7
22:02:  Laser is released for the second time in two days. Here's what's new in 0.7:

Misc. News: Napster Loses Temporary Injunction Ruling
20:12:  Just a few hours ago, it was reported that a judge in California granted the record companies a temporary injunction against Napster. From Wired.com:

In a scathing decision Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel granted the recording industry a temporary injunction to pull the service, effective Friday at 12 a.m. PDT.

Leech while you can...

Also, the people at Napster are going to be doing a live webcast to address the issues at hand at 7pm PDT tonight.

Emulator Release: Atari800 Win 2.6c
18:01:  Atari800 Win has been updated to 2.6c. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Hu-Go! 1.28
00:02:  Hu-Go! has been updated to 1.28. Here's what's new:

7/25/2000
Emulator Release: Laser 0.21 Beta 1
17:51:  In celebration of David Lloyd of OverClocked's birthday, I have released Laser 0.21 Beta 1 ;). Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Raine 20000725
13:08:  Raine has been updated to 20000725. The future looks bright for this newly open sourced multiple arcade emulator for DOS. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Virt's Domain - Gratuitous Plug
07:03:  While searching madly for something, anything to bring to your attention, I realized I still hadn't spammed my own site as promised long ago. It occurred to me that since most of you reading this page are gamers and like game music, you'd be [delighted, frightened] to know that that's what I do! I figure, then, it's a pretty valid news report.

Check some tunes out, and then come back here and visit our NSF, SPC, and GYM music archives to see how the real masters did it.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox v2.6
06:01:  Marius Fodor let us know that he released version 2.6 of his SPC player, Super Jukebox. Here's the changes:

7/24/2000
Translation News: Secret of Mana Spoof
22:37:  K-Plex Rom Hacks, which was just added to our links page, has a patch on their site that is a spoof of Secret of Mana. According to the author, it is spoofed up until the point that you leave Potos village.

Get it at our ROM Hacks page.

Emulator News: RADARnes v1.15
19:24:  The author of RADARnes contacted us regarding my post yesterday about it, and clarified a few things:

This post is in releation to Yesterday's post on RADARnes v0.2 posted by swampgas. In the post it said that I (th author) [sic] did not yet update my website and therefore you could not make the emulaor [sic] available for download. However, i did actually release the emulator on my website http://weapon.twistedgaming.co [sic] in the downloads section but listed it under v0.15 as was the original version number for it.I later changed the version numbe [sic] to v0.2 and have not yet updated my site since then.

We've updated ZD accordingly, and you can always fetch the latest RADARnes from the NES emulators.

Links Update: Links Page Updated
16:51:  Okay kiddies, I'm happy to say that the links page is completely caught up, and you'll be able to enjoy your links in ultimate splender. I spent most of the afternoon getting the rest of the links out of the way, and I've checked each and every one, babied it, and then posted it online. :D

So, what are you waiting for? Check out the Links page now!

Emulator Release: Pasofami v1.3w6 Released
11:16:  Pasofami, a japanese NES emulator, has been updated to v1.3w6. If anyone speaks Japanese and would like to tell us what's new, please do.

You can download the latest version at our NES Emulators page. Thanks to LordHunter for the news.

Misc. News: Jail House Live
08:01:  Since nearly all of us could be hauled off to jail for computer crime, theft, or just having pirated material laying around, I figured this might be neat. The Madison Street jail in Maricopa County (Phoenix, AZ) will install a web cam on their web site starting at noon. It'll show the intake area of the jail, and it's purpose is to prove that the detention staff at the facility is a "responsible group of professionals". They also hope it'll serve as a deterrent to crime.

Site News: Emu-NL has a new home
07:29:  Arjan let us know that his site, Emu-NL has a new home. With some help from The Emulator Zone, it's back up and better than ever. This is one of the few sites that is in 100% Dutch and maintained a regular basis.

The only Dutch I know: lik je klompen.

Utility Release: ROM Doctor v1.15
07:21:  The Flash let us know a new version of ROM Doctor, a ROM renaming utility, is out. Here's the changes:

• Improved ROM List Generation
  • Added Option to Match by Checksum
  • Now can Generate Lists that Span CD-ROMs
  
  
• Fixed Disappearing Dupe Bug
  
• Fixed Extensionless ROM Bug
  
• Added "Unknown ROMs" Folder for each System
  
• Slight GUI Changes
  
• Added Option to Rename Files Inside Zips

Media News: Sony vs. Sega
07:05:  uzplayer of Gamer's Uplink let us know of a new feature by their executive editor kilik123 called The State of the Console Union, which discusses the competition between Sony and Sega. An excerpt follows:

The first major player is camp Sega. Right now Sega is doing great in the us and Europe, however the same can not be said for Japan. With around 2 million consoles sold here and in japan with another million in the european market, Sega has established as small foot hold on the market. With only 2 million units in japan sold, the japanse side of the company is in some serious trouble. They wanted to have wice that amount sold by now and had hoped to be back in the black ink. But this is just not the case. Sony has already sold 1 million PS2 units over there and have already sold out of pre-orders over here for the 1 million units they plan to have for our launch."

Misc. News: Sound Blaster Emulation in WinNT/2k?
07:00:  Pavel Chernikov writes:

This is not really new, but a VERY useful utility - SoundFX by Software Systems - a Sound Blaster emulator for Windows NT and 2000. This is so far the only SB emulator I've came across that is working. Most of the MS-DOS games I've tried with it under NT work fine, with sound. Also I tried a couple of DOS emulators - works great too! Their page is http://www.softsystem.co.uk.

Anyone with WinNT/2k that's having trouble with SB emulation may want to check this out.

Misc. News: On ASUS VGA Cheats...
06:57:  Bytoro writes:

There is a large Contriversy over the New Geforce 2 Drivers that will allow players to "cheat" while playing 3d online Games. The new features include:

Transparent View -- After pressing the hot key of Transparent View, users can see through the walls while playing 3D games.

Wireframe View -- Users of ASUS VGA cards are also equipped with the weapon - Wireframe View. Users can see his enemy behind the wall, take an aim in advance, and then kill it easily. Especially when you use ASUS 3D stereo glasses, the scene becomes more stereognostic and crystal.

Extra Light -- Besides, there is still a super weapon, Extra Light, to give the benefit in almost every 3D game. Users can use Extra Light to define an additional spotlight with self-defined direction, size, color, and brightness. It makes the 3D scene more bright, clear, and colorful.

(this was taken from an artical on GameSpy.com)
http://www.gamespy.com/news/july00/7-20-00-asus.shtm

This is a good topic for disscution at the Talk of the Town

Sounds good to me...feel free to post comments on our Message Board.

Site News: New Java Arcade Emulator Game
06:52:  Norbert Kehrer emailed us about a new edition to his Java Arcade Emulator page (he sent the email yesterday, and I got too involved in the games to post on it, and then I had to go to work...go figure).

The new edition to JAE is Scramble from Konami in 1981. There's a ton of other games, so it's definitely worth a look.

Emulator Release: NO$GMB v2.5
06:43:  Apparently the NO$GMB author decided to continue working on his emulator, as a new version is out. Here's the changes:

7/23/2000
Emulator News: NeoPocott v0.34b
20:27:  I don't know how this slipped by us, but Karzon let us know that NeoPocott v0.34b was released on the 17th. Here's the changes:

Media News: Gamers Uplink Article
18:48:  uzplayer of Gamers Uplink recently notified us about a new article on their site, called "What?! No Video Game Awards?!", written by staff writer Draven. The title is relatively self-explanatory, asking why video games don't have their own televised awards show similar to the Emmy or Grammy Awards (where there's emotion and a cheese factor involved), and suggesting ideas for a show similar to that.

You can read the article here.

Emulator Release: WinGorf V. 1.1
18:33:  Another version of the Gorf emulator, WinGorf V. 1.1, was released. Here's what you'll find in the latest version:

-Added overlays
-Added Space Rank display
-Added Spanish menu option
-Added High Score save

Go pick it up at the Single Arcade Emulators page.

Emulator Release: Snes9x v1.30
17:44:  New s9x is out...here's what's new:

Emulator Release: RADARnes v0.20
17:38:  RADARnes, one of the newest NES emulators around has been updated to v0.20. Here's the changes:

Translation News: Romancing Saga 3 Patch Released
14:23:  Mana Sword has released version .30 of his English patch for Romancing Saga 3. This is the first public release of the patch, and the author esimates its completion at 99%. Here's what has changed since the last version (released only to beta testers):

• First public release, update fixes to Z-Song and Sheex's final report
• Ruling Game and War Game completely fixed (well, say 98%)
• Business Game now playable. Though the look is not very satisfactory due to some technical difficulties, players should have no problem finishing the game.
  
• Japanese in the Tournament is translated and inserted. Only the "miss", "dark", "stun" in the battles and the ending credits contain Japanese.
  
• Release name editor with the patch so that the player can enter their names with a better look.
  
• A secret hack has been inserted.

Links Update: Challenge Games Wants ROM Hacks!
01:17:  Challenge Games, a ROM hacking-related site, has placed a call to arms to any ROM hackers with released hacks:

We over at Challenge Games (http://smb3c.darkmazda.com/) have been at it once again! The site's look and layout has been completely redone once again. Why, you may ask?

The answer is simple: to be able to display the 120 hacks in the Showcase to the best effect that they can be.

The Showcase is something that I have been working on behind the scenes for a while now, and I am pleased to finally unveil what is now (by a good bit) the largest archive of hacks on the internet. And of course, we all know that it will only grow. So far, there are 120 hacks for 39 games, across 5 different systems (Zophar's Domain has 95 hacks, which I believe is the second largest archive). The screenshots and reviews that we used to carry on-site were a noble ideal, I think, but in practice they really just slowed down and eventually halted the process of updates.

Thus you now have a Showcase divided into sections by game (Smb1 may eventually have to be sub-divided again, there are so many hacks for it!), and within each section you have the hack name, its version number, the creator of the hack, and this person's homepage (if available), or email address (if available). Lastly, there is either a very short one-line description of the hack (very rare), or else I have included a .txt, .nfo, or .html file by the author that details the hack, or else a link to a spot on their homepage that has description, screenshots, etc.

All of this goes both to give our staff members a break, and to let us work more efficiently--and that means that we should be able to achieve (if we have not already) our goal of becoming the one-stop shop for romhacks. Over the next few days I'll be out scouring the internet for more hacks to put up, along with the normal (plenty high) number of author submissions that we get in. If you are a hacker, and your work is not displayed somewhere in the http://smb3c.darkmazda.com/showcase/ directory, then be sure to send it on over to cghack@yahoo.com

If it should ever come to the point where it seems like we have all the hacks that there are, then we might move into translations, as well.

Best Regards,
x-4000

Finally, CG has been added to the ZD Links Page, under the Translations & Hacking section.

This will not be my last Links update of the night. ;)

Utility Release: Meridian V. 0.34
00:32:  A new version of the neat faux-stereo NSF player, Meridian, was recently released. This version now features the ability to play GYM files, among other things. Here's what's new:

7/22/2000
Emulator Release: NLMSX V. 0.27
23:42:  Yet another version of the popular MSX emu, NLMSX V. 0.27, has been released. Here's what's new in this version:

- Solved a bug in the horizontal scrolling.
- Reworking the switching between 192/212 lines.
- Resized the window to fit the emulation screen.
- Added some support for a normal SCC. Just select a konami
cartridge of type 5 and a SCC will be added. The sound
isn't very good, but you can hear it.

You can pick it up at the Emulators for MSX page.

Media News: The "Utopian" Solution
23:07:  As you may have heard recently, a hacker group named "Utopia" released a method of letting Dreamcasts play burned CDs, and therefore pirated copies of Dreamcast games.

Sega hasn't taken this news sitting down. Case in point, according to an ABC News article:

Sega announced Thursday it had crushed more than 60 illegal Web sites and 125 auction sites selling pirated versions of its Dreamcast games which, until recently, was viewed as one of the most secure digital entertainment systems on the market.

Go check out the full article, and post comments about it in our favorite watering trough, Talk of the Town.

Thanks to Bytoro, who holds the award for giving ZD the most news. :P

Emulator Release: WinBoycott V. 0.63b
22:54:  I'm sorry to say this, but we missed a new version of an excellent emulator a while back. The latest version of WinBoycott, V. 0.63b, was released back in May, but here's what you'll find that's new in that version, as well as the unreleased V. 0.62b:

"Ghost Release ;-)" 0.63b :

7/21/2000
Media News: The Name of the Game!
17:07:  Zounds. In a unique twist, a developer/publisher team asked for help with none other than naming their upcoming Game Boy Color title. Paragon 5 and Sunsoft are near completion of a top-down flying shooter, and recently ran a contest with The Nintendo Project to name the whole thing.

They've selected the four best titles - Now it's time to vote on which you think is the slickest. And drool over the yummy screenshots. Go have a look.

Utility Release: PKHack Updated to v0.20
16:47:  Back with a vengeance! A few weeks ago, the folks at Starmen released this fantastic Earthbound SNES editor. Tomato has just written to let us know that the latest version is out! Here's the skinny:

• Completely redone GUI
  
• More fields editable for enemies and items
  
• Enemy graphics are displayed now, which makes things a lot nicer
  
• PSI names are editable
  
• PSI Teleport data is editable
  
• Phone lists and text is editable
  
• Battle menu is editable
  
• Status ailment names are editable
  
• IPS creator
  
• Searching and sorting functions
  
• Enemy and item stats can be dumped to text files
  
• Miscellaneous hidden goodies

Translation News: Dragoon X Omega
14:25:  Sliver X has updated his Dragon Warrior hack to version 0.98. Here's what has changed since the last version:

• Rewrote the ending.
• Got rid of the ugly "shadow" tiles in the towns.
• Made a few minor map fixes.
  
• Redrew the metal brick walls.
  
• Remapped some people on a few levels. (Now there shouldn't be any more people in walls.)
  
• Altered some of the monster and weapon/armor/shield stats.
  
• Made the last battle MUCH harder.
  
• Rewrote some of the dialouge to make some points of the plot make more sense.
  
• And a few small changes "under the hood" you probably won't notice.

Emulator News: ZSNES running Megaman X2 & X3
14:17:  The ZSNES webpage has some screenshots of ZSNES running Megaman X2 & X3.

"The emulation itself still seems to be a bit far from perfect, but it's getting somewhere nevertheless. We do not know when this version will be released."

You can get the current version of ZSNES at the SNES page. Thanks to Ozar for the news.

Translation News: Dragon Ball Z: Gokutuden 2 Update
14:16:  Commando Ginew has updated his patch for Dragon Ball Z: Gokutuden 2 to version 0.18. Here's what is new according to the homepage:

• Corrected all the names of attacks and most of the mistakes before the fight with Piccolo.
• Now all is perfect before the fight with Piccolo whatever you do!

Emulator Release: SMYNES 1.1
13:43:  SMYNES has been updated to 1.1. Here's what's new:

Translation News: Rockman Battle and Fighters English 0.05
12:54:  The Neo Geo pocket may no longer be available to the United States and Europe, but now there is hope, with translation patches. Rockman Battle and Fighters is the first Neo Geo Pocket game to be translated to English. Version 0.05 is not very complete, but it does have the following areas translated:

7/20/2000
Emulator Release: RockNES 1.100 for DOS Released
23:44:  Fx3 has updated his DOS version of RockNES to 1.100. Here's what has changed:

• Rebuilt ROM images loading (memory allocation);
• PSG optimizations and fixes;
  
• PCM channel finally fixed, working good with all games;
  
• Fixed 22.05MHz sample rate support;
  
• Added 48.00MHz sample rate support (if supported);
  
• Added sprite RAM dumping;
  
• Fixed color RAM dumping;
  
• Fixed inputs setup (weird);
  
• Fixed some GUI problems;
  
• Fixed FDS support, still preliminary;
  
• Fixed save/load state to FDS games;
  
• Added VS Platoon and VS Golf/Lady Golf palettes (partial);
  
• Added full mapper #13 using 16k CHR RAM support (Videomation works fine);
  
• Added mapper #42 (bootleg Mario Baby), untested, may be wrong;
  
• Added mapper #234 (Maxi-15, no dumps work well);
  
• Fixed MMC5 CHR bankswitching, added Fill mode (still preliminary);
  
• Mapper #90 slightly improved;
  
• Some PPU tweaks to improve the things;
  
• More changes and fixes that I don't remember...

Site News: Snes9x.com back!
22:27:  Red Chaos let us know that just a few minutes ago, snes9x.com's DNS issues are no more. You can visit the Snes9x website at www.snes9x.com again.

Translation News: DBZ: Hyper Dimension Netplay Tournament
22:05:  DBZ Translations is having a netplay tournament for Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension, and it's starting soon. Sign up by e-mailing netplay@dbztrans.net. Please include your nickname and ICQ or AIM chat client info.)

Emulator Release: FCE Ultra 0.22
21:04:  FCE Ultra, a NES emulator for MS-DOS and Linux SVGALib, has been updated to version 0.22. Here's what's new in this version:

Misc. News: OJ Online
20:48:  I'm sure OJ Simpson is part of everyone's vocabulary since the "trial of the century". Well, he's at it again. Entertainment Network, Inc has opened up AskOJ.com, where they plan to let OJ tell his side of the Nicole Brown/Ron Goldman murder story....totally live and uneditted.

It costs $9.95 USD for 30 days of access, and if you order early they'll give you a $2 discount. Entertainment Network also is developing another site, Theirside.com. It'll give people a chance to give their side of a story.

Utility Release: Dragon Warrior 4 Savestate Editor V. 1.5
18:55:  Here's another cool item for those of you who like to chea... errm, get an advantage in your favorite games. This time, it's a Savestate editor for Dragon Warrior 4. Here's what it edits:

Utility Release: ROM Doctor V. 1.10
18:22:  Whenever we see a new emu or utility, we like to cuddle it, and treat it like a newborn baby. This is our latest opportunity to do that. ROM Doctor, a ROM-renaming utility, was recently released. Unfortunately, we missed the initial update, but that was the only one we missed.

The program features the ability to standardize the names of ROMs for 40 (!) systems, using database (RDB) files found on the program's home page. The latest version, V. 1.10, includes these features:

Site News: Shining Force Campaign update
17:48:  A campaign that we recently posted about, which is making an attempt to get Sega to create a new Shining Force game for the Dreamcast or PC, seems to be making a full-scale effort.

The site now has five different reps mailing five different sources that will have a say in creating a new Shining Force game, and the site has received a number of hits over the past few days. They've also expanded the campaign by a month, in hopes of getting more coverage for the cause. Personally, I'm impressed by the site, and by the creators' ability to get things done. I hope that their effort pays off, not just because I believe they can do it, but because Shining Force is a hell of a series. ;)

Anyway, you can go view the campaign web site here, and take some time to check it out. Maybe you can help.

Thanks to Moogie for the info.

Misc. News: ICQ Emulator Group?
17:17:  airety writes:

Recently, I created a new ICQ Activelist revolving around Emulator Netplay. The goal is to create a community where people can always find a partner to play a game with, and to eventually incorporate tournaments and much more to enrich the Netplay experience that SNES9x and Nesticle currently have. I feel right now its difficult to find people to play a ROM with, even though the ability to do so is there. With the new community group I am attempting to form, I am hoping that the difficulty to find someone to play with disappears, and people can enjoy playing Contra, Blades of Steel, Street Fighter 2, Jackal, or NBA Jam with another person.

Information on how to join, and different ideas/concerns that are associated with this list are located at http://sgc.emu2k.com/articles/icqlist.html.

I'd also encourage all of you to join. If you already have ICQ2000a, and know how to add an Activelist, the Activelist number is 82508654.

Media News: Retrogaming Times Issue #35
17:12:  Another issue of the classic-gaming online 'zine, Retrogaming Times, was recently released. Here's what you'll find in this issue:

Links Update: Home of the Underdogs
16:39:  It's not every day that a link update impresses me so much that I feel the need to make a post about it alone, but this page has impressed me beyond belief. Recently, we were sent a link to a just-redesigned website called Home of the Underdogs.

While it has little, if anything, to do with emulation, it has a good load to do with old-school gaming for the PC. The concept is this: Remember those games that you bought on a lark for your PC that you thought were great but were never big sellers? This site works as a catalog of sorts for these old games. Shoulda-been classics like "The Legend of Kyrandia" (one of my old favorites) and even games that shouldn't have even seen the light of day get their props here. Nearly all of the games on here that are out of print are available as a download, and those still in print (such as 1998's Blade Runner, probably the most recent well-known game in the list) are linked to an online store for purchase.

The site's excellent design only makes the idea all the better. Best of luck to these guys, because the amount of work put into the site looks like it should pay off handsomely in terms of return visits, and I hope the site gets a huge following due to that.

Anyway, check out Home of the Underdogs, and check out the Links page, which I'm in the process of giving a big update right now.

Emulator News: UltraHLE screenshots
10:55:  The UltraHLE webapge is reporting that two new games are now working. They are 'Automobilli Lamborghini' and 'Virtual Chess', and there are screenshots to show for it.

Emulator Release: Java Arcade Emulator
07:12:  The Java Arcade Emulator has received an update. Here's what's new:

Translation News: Romancing Saga Translation Coming Soon
00:59:  Romancing Saga 3 English Translation group has announced that they will release a public translation patch for Romancing Saga 3 (imagine that!) very soon... The TENTATIVE release date to the public is July 23rd (which means don't go bugging the author if it's not out by then.) Check out their page at:

        http://www.geocities.com/mana_sword/rs3.htm

Thanks to TREZguy of RPG Emulation Zone for the news!

7/19/2000
Translation News: FF6j Translation Updated
23:21:  Sky Render has updated his FF6j English translation to Beta 8. Here's what has changed according to the author (Sky Render):
All that remains to be changed is inserting the script (which stands at 11% translated at this point), inserting the battle script (which is almost untouched), and improving the in-battle font and text.

Download it from our SNES Translations page.

Emulator Release: Prototype-D 0.1LP
21:37:  A new version of Prototype-D, a Gameboy emulator for Windows, has been released, but the documentation is in Japanese. You can get it at the Gameboy page. Thanks to Falcon for the news.

Emulator Release: Raine is now Open Source
11:16:  Richard Bush has decided to release the source code to Raine after long talks with Haze, katharsis, and the other people on the Raine development list. As a result, katharsis has made the source code to his 0.28h build available to anyone who might want to take a look at it. If you do plan on using the Raine sourcecode, be sure to take a look at source.txt, contained in the ZIP archive.

You can download it at our Multiple Arcade section.

Media News: New 3DGaming.Net Emu Article and Some Nostalgia
10:55:  3DGaming.Net, a site that I personally used to write for, recently posted an article on emulation, written by Wildgoose. This seems to be the first in a series, focusing on MAME.

You can read that article here.

Also, as I was reading this article, it hit me that Wildgoose was not the first to write an article about emulation for the site. Back in the day, I had this neatly written (well, I think the writing sucks now) article about the subject on the site. While vastly outdated, it happens to be a bit more encompassing than Wildgoose's article.

You can read that article here.

Thanks to my old site for telling Retrogames but not telling us. ;)

7/18/2000
Emulator Release: Neko Project II 0.19
18:13:  Neko project II, a PC-98 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.19. Here's what's new in this version:

Emulator Release: GNES 0.35 and GNSF 0.22
17:54:  GNES, a NES emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.35. GIGO also released his NSF Player GNSF, version 0.22. GNSF can be downloaded from the NSF players page. Here (from Retrogames) is what's new in this version of GNES:

Emulator Release: BasicNES 2000 debug level 1.2
16:37:  BasicNES, a NES emulator written in Visual Basic by Don Jarrett, has been updated to version 2000 debug level 1.2. Here's what's new in this version:

Utility Release: Mr. Click's TilEd 0.3
16:24:  Mr. Click's TilEd, the graphics hacking utility formerly known as Gameboy Tile Editor, has been updated to version 0.3 and with this new release comes quite a few good things:

Emulator News: Little John New Generation 0.2 coming soon!
15:40:  A new release of the NES/SNES emulator Little John for X11 and Windows is coming up! Here's, among other things, what will be in the new version:

Emulator News: Apollo64 news
15:37:  Azimer has updated the Apollo64 website with a screenshot and news about progress on the video plugin. So far the wireframes and stuff are pretty distorted, but at least it's progress!

Thanks to Azimer for the news!

Utility Release: Good2600 0.9991
10:03:  Good2600, a GoodXXXX utility to check and rename your Atari 2600 ROMs, has been updated to version 0.9991. Here's what's new in this version:

Utility Release: GoodWindows 1.5
07:03:  GoodWindows, a kind of frontend for all the GoodXXXX utilities, has been updated to version 1.5. Here's what's new in this version:

Site News: Submitting News
06:00:  Just wanted to let everyone know that the email submissions have been coming through fine, so that's an official part of ZD now.

Incase you missed my post a few days ago, I mentioned how you can now email news@zophar.net with your news, rather than using our news submission form (it doesn't get emailed to all the staffers...it goes into the incoming news database just like from the submission form). It's good for authors to include in their mass emailings about new releases, and it supports file attachments incase you feel like sending us your new release.

Remember, sending news to a particular staffer only slows down the time it'll take for it to appear on the page (which includes emailing Zophar about stuff...he's busy running the site and can't do all the news stuff). If you're into the email thing, the place to send news is news@zophar.net.

And here's my cryptic message to confuse everyone:

V2VcJ3JlIHNob3J0ZW5pbmcgdXAgdGhlIHNpZGUgYmFyIGFzIGEgdGVtcG9yYXJ5IGZpeCB1bnRpbCB3ZSBjYW
4gZ2V0IE5leHQgR2VuZXJhdGlvbiBaRCBvbmxpbmUuIFRoZSB0ZXN0IHNpdGUgZm9yIE5leHRHZW4gc2hvdWxkIGJlIHVwIH
Nvb24sIGFuZCB3ZVwnbGwgcHJvYmFibHkgbmVlZCB0ZXN0ZXJzLiBJdCBpbmNsdWRlcyBhIFNsYXNoZG90LXR5cGUgY29tbW
VudGluZyBzeXN0ZW0sIGRhdGFiYXNlZCBmaWxlcyAoZm9yIGVhc2llciBhY2Nlc3MpLCBhbmQgYSBuZXcgZGVzaWduLiBQaG
F0LiAgT2ggeWVhaCwgYW5vdGhlciBjcnlwdGljIG1lc3NhZ2UgaW5zaWRlIGEgY3J5cHRpYyBvbmUgcGVydGFpbmluZyB0by
B0aGUgZnV0dXJlIG9mIFpELiAgMSAxIDIgNCA4IDEzIDIxLiAuIC4=

Misc. News: Arcade Quiz
05:54:  There's a nice site up called ArcadeQuiz.com where you get to answer questions about arcade and video games and look at screenshots and then tell what game it is. Pretty fun, in my humble opinion.

Thanks to Bytoro for the news!

Emulator Release: Goby 1.0
05:39:  Goby, the first Gameboy emulator for the EPOC platform has been released. It can run most games at near full speed on Psion Palmtops over 36MHz. There's no color support yet, but the emulator will continue to be developed over the coming months improving both the compatability and speed.

You can download it over at BackLitGames.com.

7/17/2000
Site News: Diablo II is HOT
19:37:  Blizzard has recently announced that its super popular game, Diablo II, has sold over 1 million copies in just 2 weeks. That makes it the fastest selling computer game of all time! It accounted for 39% of all computer game sales the week it was released.

Thanks to BetaNews for the info.

The best selling video game, is currently Final Fantasy IX. The game has sold in about 2.5 million copies in less than one week.

Thanks to Mohamed Saad for the news.

(Post edited by _Bnu)

Emulator Release: MacMESS 0.37 Beta 4a
19:26:  MacMESS has recieved a bugfix update to 0.37 Beta 4a. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Snes9x DNS Problems
17:22:  You have probably all noticed that the Snes9x server has been having some problems lately. Jeremy Koot (the author of Snes9x) has told us that they've moved to a new IP address (216.205.158.16), and seem to be having problems with DNS. So, for now, you can reach the Snes9x homepage at http://216.205.158.16.

Translation News: Dragoon X Omega Bugfix v.91
17:15:  SliverX has released a bugfix for his Dragon Warrior 1 hack enabling you to finish the game.

Get it from our Rom Hacks page.

Emulator Release: Z80 Stealth 0.300
17:05:  Z80, a Sinclair Spectrum emulator for DOS, has been updated to version 0.300. Here's what's new in this version:

Misc. News: MUGEN v.2000.06.27 released!!
12:28:  The great folks over at Elecbyte have finally given us an update to the ultimate fighting game engine for PC, MUGEN! The what's new file reads like a novel, and can be viewed here. If you haven't ever tried this outstanding piece of software, are are a fighting game fan, this is your opportunity to experience the ultimate in customizable fighting games!

Misc. News: Arcade section up at Gamers Uplink
12:23:  A new arcade section has been added over at GamersUplink.com. It has 6 Java games online, and more are to be added over the following weeks.

uzplayer also notes that if anyone has a Java, ActiveX or Flash game that they would like to see added, then they should mail him at uzplayer@cenetworks.com.

Gamers Uplink arcade section

7/16/2000
Translation News: Super Mario Brothers 2 Fun Updated
22:34:  Jazz411 has updated his hack for Super Mario Brothers 2. The latest version goes up to level 4-3, and a few of the game properties have been changed around (such as what happens when you get 5 cherries...)

Get it from our Rom Hacks page.

Translation News: New SMB 1 Hack
18:50:  Sir Elric has released a new version of his Super Mario Brothers 1 hack. Mario and Luigi are replaced by "Boo" ghosts that transform into Bullet Bills when they get mushrooms. The levels are complete up to 2-4.

Download it from our Rom Hacks page.

Emulator Release: BasicNES 2000 debug level 1.1
16:14:  BasicNES, a NES emulator for Windows written in Visual Basic, has been updated to version 2000 debug level 1.1. Here's what's new in this version:

Emulator Release: TRWin 2.36 WIP
13:34:  A new work-in-progress version of TRWin has been released. There's no information on what's new. You can get TRWin at the N64 page. Thanks to EmuCamp for the news.

Misc. News: Napster 2.0 beta 7 released
13:15:  Napster has released a new verison of its awesome mp3 sharing program. I don't have a list of what's new, but I bet you'll get it anyway. =) Get Napster at the Napster homepage. Thanks to Jason for the news.

Utility Release: New GoodXXXX versions
09:03:  The following GoodXXXX utilities by Cowering have been updated and added to the Good utilities page:

Misc. News: Final Fantasy IX out in Japan
00:52:  That's right, kids. The game you've all been waiting for, Final Fantasy IX, is now released in the Land of the Rising Sun. It's been a great seller there, having sold 2.6 million copies in less than a week. (Putting that into perspective, the new 'N Sync album sold 2.3 million copies in its first week, and that was across the entire U.S.)

This version takes on a more fantasy style of storyline, much like the first six versions of the game. If you're wetting your pants in anticipation, don't worry, because the game will be out Stateside in only a few months.

If interested on any further news or info on the game, check out Final Fantasy Online, the source for all that is Final Fantasy. (The page will soon be included on ZD as a link.)

Thanks to Tobias Fridell for all the FFIX info.

7/15/2000
Translation News: New Dragon Warrior 1 Hack
15:30:  Sliver X has released a hack for Dragon Warrior today that he has been working on for a year. It's called Dragoon X Omega, and has new towns, dungeons, monsters, music, and much more!

Download it from our Rom Hacks page.

Site News: Prototype-D 0.1+5/8
14:16:  Prototype-D, a Gameboy emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.1+5/8. Here (borrowed from RetroGames) is what's new in this version:

Emulator News: BleemCast FAQ
14:07:  GamersUplink.com has posted a FAQ about BleemCast, the upcoming Playstation emulator for Dreamcast. This FAQ answers some interesting questions, such as how it compares to the backwards compability of the Playstation 2.

Read the interview here: http://www.gamersuplink.com/html/bleemfaq.htm. Thanks to uzplayer for the news!

Utility Release: Dragon Warrior 2 savestate editor 1.5 and also..
14:02:  casmaster has created another savestate editor, and this one is for Dragon Warrior 2. It lets you edit the following things in the savestate:

Emulator Release: Pagan 0.2.0 WIP
12:25:  In June, pagan 0.2.0 was released. I don't know why we missed it, but thanks to SephirothBCH for letting us know. It's a WIP (work in progress) release, and the author doesn't even consider it a new version.
Here's what is new according to the author:

• Removed Dynamic Recompilation engine for now.. (=slow booting)
• Using an old version of icepir8's D3D plugin for H.L. graphics.
  
• Oh yeah, and pagan now emulates the N64 OS H.L (like UltraHLE). This is just started and pagan only runs demos right now (some 2D and almost all 3D.)

Misc. News: Nintendo to reveal Dolphin at Space World under a new name.
01:31:  Nintendo is preparing to reveal it's Dolphin system at the Space World expo in August. One surprising bit of info is the name that the Dolphin will be revealed under: the Star Cube. In an article at Computer and Video Games, sources close to Nintendo are quoted as saying that the name for the new system will indeed be Star Cube. In addition, Nintendo is planning to have a press conference the afternoon before Space World, at which they intend to reveal the Star Cube to the world.

Check out the Computer and Video Games site, or head straight to the article.

Emulator Release: Emu64 v1.00B
01:26:  Emu64, a German C64 emulator, has been updated to version 1.00 Beta. I can't tell what's new, because I can't read German, and the babelfish doesn't seem to want to work tonight.

Grab Emu64 from the Commodore 64 emulators page.

Emulator News: New UltraHLE screenshots
01:14:  The UltraHLE page has been updated with some new screenshots, which show the game Body Harvest being played. 21 more screenshots were also released, and can be found on the UltraHLE screenshots page.

Check out the UltraHLE homepage.

Emulator News: DarcNES DOS news
00:52:  It seems there won't be a new release of DarcNES DOS on July 17th as planned. Here's the scoop from the DarcNES homepage:

Well, things have gotten a little out of control, and there will be no release on July 17, as I thought. I've spent a LOT of time preparing some demos to be presented at Fenasoft (Our national computer expo, somewhat like Comdex, but smaller), and had little time to work on DarcNES. Today I've had some free time, and fixed some bugs/improved some things, but there's still some pieces missing, like Frameskip. Also, a nasty bug popped out on the last days that would crash or restart the X server if DarcNES was invoked from an XTerm. Well, I don't know exactly why it happened, but it's fixed now (maybe X 4.0 was the cause, now I'm using X 4.01). As soon as frameskip is implemented I'll make a release. Meanwhile, if you live in Brazil and/or happen to be in Săo Paulo during July 24 to 29, go to the Anhembi Expo Center and visit the Conectiva booth at Fenasoft. I'll be there demoing Linux on the Mac, USB devices on Linux, etc... Nothing too flashy or spectacular, but interesting anyways. See you there!

For more info, check out the DarcNES DOS homepage or download DarcNES from the NES emulators page.

Emulator News: TRWin News
00:49:  The homepage for the Windows port of TrueReality has been updated with some release info. Here's a quote from the page.

TRWin2.36 was released to testers and found to be ok, with a couple of issues that needed to be resolved. TRWin2.37 was then released to testers to see if those problems were resolved. For some strange reason, 2.37 crashed after opening the display window for any rom on the tester's puters... but not on my puter. So i've no idea what the problems is. So... 2.36 was to be released instead. However, slacka didn't get it posted, he is now out of town and my copy is gone. So when slacka comes back he should be posting 2.36. I probably will not be working on the strange bug in 2.37 as i've already moved on to working on the plugin system and a new gfx code. I doubt there will be anything released from this new effort until the end of the summer, as this is not an 'update' but really a complete rewrite of the gfx and cpu core.

For more info check out the TRWin homepage or you can download TRWin on the N64 Emulators page.

7/14/2000
Misc. News: Indrema site up
17:50:  Indrema, the new video game console based on the Linux operating system, has now gotten itself a site with a picture of it and some other stuff you might want to check out.

Visit Indrema.com and have a look around! Thanks to bytoro for the news!

Emulator Release: BasicNES 2000 debug level 1
17:11:  BasicNES, a NES emulator for Windows written in Visual Basic, has been updated to version 2000 debug level. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Campaign at shining.zophar.net
12:41:  A campaign/petition is going to be starting over at Shining.Zophar.net to bring out a new Shining Force for either PC or DC. Here's the mail from Moogie:

"Wondered if you might be so kind as to mention the new campaign myself and the other Shining fans are planning. We're going to do a huge organised letter writing campaign to Sega to release a new Shining game, on DC or PC...

Info at http://shining.zophar.net/campaign

It's still in planning stages, but support so far seems good and looks like we'll be beginning very soon!

Cheers,

~Moogie~ "

Go check it out and keep an eye on when the campaign will start!

Site News: Site Direction & Lunar: Etnernal Blue Complete Demo news
08:18:  Yo!

The last few weeks have been pretty interesting over here at ZD, as we've been planning to take ourselves in new, exciting directions. Most of you have voted on our latest poll about changing the name of "Zophar's Domain" to something else. The vast majority of you seem to hate the idea, but I ask you to hear me out.

When I started Zophar's Domain back in November of 1996, I borrowed the name from a role-playing video game by the name of Lunar: Eternal Blue. It was released on the Sega CD platform by GameArts and translated by Working Designs in 1995. The arch-villian's name was Zophar, and his goal was to destroy the entire world and create a new one of pure evil. The final battleground where you had to face Zophar was, you guessed it, "Zophar's Domain". (As a side note, the top of Zophar's Domain was aptly named "Zophar's Inner Sanctum").

During the time I built the website that you're currently staring at (with lots of help) up into something great, there were no new U.S. releases of Lunar games, and it looked like the remake versions of Lunar might not make it to the shores. I chose the nickname "Zophar" and the site's name "Zophar's Domain" as a way to keep Lunar alive in everyone's memory.

There's a few issues now, however. First of all, everyone should know that "Zophar's Domain" was inspired by the GameArts RPG, Lunar: Eternal Blue - not the other way around! Many first time players of the remake demo (which just came out 2 weeks ago) are getting confused when they hear about a "Zophar" in the game. The Lord of evil came over a year before I took the nickname - and one of Job's 10 sons had it even way before then. :)

I purchased Vanguard Bandits yesterday (PSX strategy RPG) and the Lunar 2 Eternal Blue complete demo CD came with it. I stuck that sucker in my PSX and in 4 hours, 30 minutes I had completed it. Afterwards, I had some odd, compelling urge to search GameFAQs.com for a FAQ of the demo, and look what I found under the "Description of each character" section for one of the Lunar 2 demo walkthroughs:

Zophar-Brad Levicoff, the webmaster of Zophar's Domain (http://www.zophar.net). No, wait... you meant the character in Lunar: EB! He's a powerful evil entity who has come to the world of Lunar. He doesn't like Lucia very much. Oh, and his voice sounds REALLY cool :)

Yikes! Somehow, I didn't picture myself in 1995 being mentioned in a remake of Lunar2 walkthrough five years later. For those who'd like to check out the walkthrough (though I recommend you beat the demo first - spoiling really stinks) - here's the FAQ.

Myself and the rest of the Zophar's Domain staff feels that it's nearing time to shed the "evil god of doom" gimmick for a more professional outlook. We were all teenagers in 1996, but now the time has come for something different. Don't worry - we're not removing any sections, we're only going to expand them! Imagine coming to this site and in addition to complete emulation coverage, you'd have hardware reviews, PC and console video game reviews, codes... imagine the possibilites if we moved into the general gaming realm.

I know that many of you don't use our message boards, but for anyone and everyone that wants to put in their two cents on the 'new image' that we're proposing, please - make a post on The ZD Suggestions Board - we promise that everyone who speaks will be heard. But if you don't speak up, we won't know what you guys think!

Thanks to everyone for your continued support of ZD and remember - we're only what you guys make us.

7/13/2000
Emulator Release: WinX68k 0.45
14:32:  WinX68k, an X68000 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.45. From RetroGames.com, here's what's new in this version:

Site News: Handy v0.80
08:28:  Handy has been updated to 0.80. Here's what's new:

Utility Release: IPSWin 2.0
01:01:  IPSWin, an IPS patching program for Windows, has been updated to version 2.0. Here's what's new in this release:

Utility Release: WonderTheme 1.4
00:59:  WonderTheme, the Theme editor for the Sega 8 bit systems and Colecovision emulator MEKA, has been updated to 1.4. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: MEKA 0.54b
00:45:  MEKA has been updated to 0.54b. Here's what's new:

7/12/2000
Emulator Release: Boycott 0.63b for Macintosh
17:23:  Boycott for MacOS has been updated to v0.63b. Here's what's new:

Site News: New contact method...
13:47:  I thought to myself, wouldn't it be excellent to have an email address that people can email with news, rather than having to go through our submission system? Wouldn't authors love to include ZD in their mass emails about new releases?

So, I sat home and spent a few hours coding an email to news submission engine. If you email news@zophar.net, it will go right in with the rest of the submissions we get via the contact page. The advantage is, it handles MIME, so you're not required to send mail in plain text (although the plain text is what it uses), and it supports attachments, so authors can send us their new versions.

Let's see if this works...never tested it before. Happy mailing.

Site News: About Dragon Warrior 1 savestate editor 1.1
13:33:  I moved it to the correct page, the Cheating utilities page. Sorry for putting it on the NES utilities page in the first place, but I'm not really the utilities maintainer anyway.

Thanks to Woodus for pointing this out to me!

Site News: UltraHLE screenshots
13:20:  There's a bunch of new screenshots up at UltraHLE.com that shows off the power of the new OpenGL core. The core itself is now near completion, and who knows, maybe we'll see a new release of UltraHLE sometime soon.

Thanks to Sugam of gspot.gamingnews.net for the news!

Site News: MAME article at SecurityFocus.com
13:10:  There's a really good, although a bit short, article about MAME on SecurityFocus.com. For once, emulators aren't put in a bad light and the biggest MAME ROM site doesn't get any complaints either, so this is a fair article.

Read it at: http://www.securityfocus.com/commentary/57. Thanks to Splat_Man for the news!

Emulator Release: A new version of Liberty released
13:01:  A new version of Liberty, a Gameboy/Gameboy Color emulator for PalmOS, has been updated. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: Internet Explorer 5.5 and Internet Tools Released
13:00:  Microsoft is pleased to bring you the latest release of Internet Explorer. Here's what's new from the Microsoft website:

"The newest version of Internet Explorer includes improved support for DHTML and CSS, giving Web architects greater control over browser appearance and behavior. You’ll also enjoy the ability to preview Web pages exactly as they’ll appear when printed. Internet Explorer 5.5 makes it easier than ever to connect to the Internet and find the information you need. This latest version of Internet Explorer includes 128-bit encryption."

You can download it now from the Internet Explorer Product Downloads website.

Utility Release: Super Jukebox 2.5
06:14:  Super Jokebox, an SPC player for Windows, has been updated to version 2.5. Here's what's new:

Utility Release: Dragon Warrior 1 savestate editor 1.1
01:02:  casmaster has released another one of his savestate editors, this one is for Dragon Warrior 1 and lets you edit these stats: Gold, Exp, items, Weapons and
armor.

You can download it from the NES utilities page. Thanks to casmaster for the news!

7/11/2000
Site News: BeOS/Digita Maintainer
22:34:  As of today, I handle the BeOS and Digita sections. So, if you have any news regarding emulators for these Operating Systems, be sure to send mail to me.

Site News: Prototype-D 0.1+1/3
22:27:  Boukichi's Gameboy emulator Prototype-D has been updated to 0.1+1/3. Here's what's new:

Translation News: 3 New Hacks
22:13:  I've added 3 news hacks to our hacks page.
They are:

• Chipmunk Ninjas (TMNT2 Hack)
• Super Link Brothers (SMB 1 Hack)
  
• SouthPark Zelda (Zelda 1 Hack)
  

Translation News: 100% Rockman & Forte patch released
21:43:  R&F Translations has released version 1.5 of their English Rockman & Forte patch for the SNES. This patch is 100% complete! Thanks to Tekno for the news.

Get it at our SNES Translations page.

Emulator News: Frogger added to JAE
17:39:  Another arcade classic has been added to Norbert Kehrer's online arcade game emulator JAE, and this time it's Frogger! Now you can play this great arcade classic over the web, wheter you have an emulator to play it or not. Visit Norbert's Emulator Software and play a few games in JAE!

Thanks to Norbert Kehrer for the news!

Utility Release: Gameboy Tile Editor 0.22
17:33:  Gameboy Tile Editor, a graphics editor for Gameboy ROMs, has been updated to version 0.22. Here's what's new:

Site News: Fun stuff at cybernet.dyndns.org
15:50:  There's a few fun things to do over at CyberNet.dyndns.org, for example you can play Tradewars, just telnet to cybernet.dyndns.org and play away!

Also, they have Jamicom, a NES emulator written in Java, up and also a few games to choose from, on this page: http://cybernet.dyndns.org/nes.html. For example, you can play games such as Super Mario bros 1, Megaman 1 & 2 and a few others.

Enjoy, and thanks to marcux for the news!

Emulator News: RealityMan needs help with UltraHLE
12:09:  More specifically, he needs help from people that are good with programming OpenGL and has some time to spare helping with the UltraHLE project. He especially requires help with OpenGL Extensions such as 'EXT_texture_env_combine'.

Visit UltraHLE.com and mail RealitMan if you feel that you are capable of helping him! Thanks to Ayeka for the news!

Site News: SNES9x uninstall problems
05:34:  Well, seems like the SNES9x uninstall problem wasn't that big after all. In fact, there's apparently only one person who has had problems with it. I suggest you read the Developer's Journal over at SNES9x.com for the full story.

Thanks to mickey for the news!

Utility Release: XSPC 2.19 public test version
05:30:  Brian has released a public 2.19 test version of XSPC so that people can try it out and tell him what they think of it before he decides if he wants to put a massive load of work into it. Here's a list of what's done, and what's been planned on and might be done if the response is good and informative:

What's done:

Utility Release: BnuView 1.0
01:04:  BnuView, a binary viewer/editor for Unix that supports NES/GB/1BPP format programmed by prez, and hereby the first public ROM graphics hacking tool for Unix, has been released! With this program you can edit the graphics in NES ROMs. Gameboy ROMs and also, the 1 Bit Per Pixel graphics in both. I'm sorry I was so slow with adding it, prez.

You can download it from the Utilities for Unix page! Thanks to Kay-Bosh for the news!

7/10/2000
Misc. News: LASIK Page
20:22:  Well, through several sessions of sitting at my monitor until my eyes were exhausted, I've put together my LASIK diary, which you can view at http://www.zophar.net/personal/aardwolf/lasik.html. I'll be updating that page as I progress along, but this is the only time you'll see the link from our front page.

Translation News: Nanboku Shounen Papuwa-kun SNES Translation 1.0
20:11:  An English translation for the SNES Enix game, Nanboku Shounen Papuwa-kun, has been released.

You can get it at our SNES English Translations section.

Emulator Release: Neko Project II 0.18
17:17:  Neko Project II, a PC-98 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.18. Here's what's new:

Translation News: SNES9x 1.30 and Visual Boy 1.44 in French
14:04:  Copernic has translated the newest versions of the two emulators Visual Boy, a Gameboy emulator for Windows, and the Windows version of SNES9x, an SNES emulator, to French.

If you want to download them, drop by his site: http://terminus.romhack.net.

Utility Release: PSXPlay 1.44
14:00:  PSXPlay, a PSX video player, has been updated to version 1.44. I don't have any idea what's new, though, since the readme is in Japanese.

You can download it from the PSX utilities page. Thanks to Aussie for the news!

Emulator News: Don't uninstall SNES9x 1.30 for Windows
13:50:  Or you'll be sorry, hehe. As you might have seen on Emulation Camp, if you run the uninstall, some Windows system files will be deleted and your desktop will be cleared. I guess the uninstall hasn't quite got all the bugs worked out of it. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would want to uninstall an emulator, though. Just delete it if you want to get rid of it instead.

And, uh, thanks to oifuj;lskd for the news!

Emulator News: Callus95 Patch 2.3
13:45:  Another patch for the Windows version of Callus has been released, and here's what's new in this version:

Technical Docs News: SegaBase Build 20000709
09:39:  Sam Pettus (aka the Scribe), a long time contributor to the emulation community and Zophar's Domain, has released a documentation entitled SegaBase. Directly from the docs:

SegaBase(tm) is intended to be the ultimate reference for all programs created by Sega for its own computer systems and videogame consoles, as well as those it creates or ports to other systems. In addition, it serves as a reference for all programs created for or licensed by Sega for use on its own computer systems and videogame consoles. In plain English, if it was made by Sega or made for Sega hardware, then you should be able to look it up in SegaBase(tm).

He provides a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, a Microsoft Word document, and a comma delimited "generic" spreadsheet.

The only place to obtain SegaBase is at the official site, SegaBase.com. However, since ZD and Sam Pettus go way back, he's given us special third party vendor status, and we are allowed to mirror it in our Sega Tech Docs section.

Emulator Release: MAME32 v0.37 Beta 4
09:22:  The Win32 port of MAME has been updated to v0.37 Beta 4. Any developers should read the source section carefully because of some API changes. Here's the changes:

Graphics:

Site News: Poll Updated Again -- Should ZD Change its Name?
08:05:  Well, the poll has been updated once again for you happy folk. First of all, here are the results from the last poll:

What's your favorite section of ZD?
1. Emulator File Archives 862 30%
2. Utilities and/or Frontends 130 4%
3. Music Files and/or Save States 418 14%
4. News 757 27%
5. Boards 35 1%
6. Translations 538 19%
7. Other 50 1%

The bread-and-butter sections are the most popular, obviously.

Anyway, here's the new question for the poll:
What would you think if ZD got a name change?

It's an interesting concept, and we'd like to know how you guys would feel about it. We've been thinking about it for a few weeks, and we hope we get a good responce from this poll.

For those of you using the news-only page, you can vote in the poll here.

Emulator Release: Apollo 0.01c
05:10:  Apollo, a Nintendo 64 emulator for Win32, has been updated to 0.01c. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Hyperion Beta 0.3
04:43:  Speaking of Hyperion, I noticed that our Saturn section was missing this emulator, so I decided to remedy that situation.

Hyperion is the farthest along of any of the public Saturn emulators still in development. It displays the Saturn menu and the Sega Saturn CD Player.

You can download it at our Sega Saturn section.

Emulator Release: PC-Saturn 0.1.1a
04:42:  PC-Saturn, the Saturn emulator that is the second farthest along of the emulators still in development behind Hyperion, has been updated to 0.1.1a. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: VisualBoy 1.4.4
03:08:  VisualBoy has been updated to 1.4.4. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Mimic 1.2
03:06:  Mimichas been updated to version 1.2. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: DarcNES v9a0701
00:58:  The source code of DarcNES, a multiple system emulator, has been updated to version v9a0701. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: LASIK Surgery Monday Morning
00:51:  Tomorrow (actually, today... it's late, OK?) I'll be having LASIK surgery on my eyes so that I can see without contacts/glasses. As a result, I'll be basically blind for the next 24+ hours. So, if you submit some translation/frontend news in the next 24 hours or so and it isn't posted immediately, that's what is going on.

On a side note, my hard drive at home decided to self destruct, and somehow I've lost all e-mails sent to my account at aardwolf@zophar.net. So, if you've sent me any e-mails recently that haven't been either replied to or posted, please send it again if possible. I apologize in advance for any inconveniences I've caused...

Translation News: German Final Fantasy 1 - 100%
00:44:  PhoenixDown has released the finished German language patch for Final Fantasy 1 on the NES.

Get it from our German Translations page.

7/9/2000
Site News: Hi Kids, You Like Links?
20:02:  Okay, fellow ZD visitors, I know you were all depressed when you found out that Omar left his post as ZD Links maintainer after only a few glorious weeks. Omar built a dying section into what can be called one of the best links sections this side of the emulation border.

Now that he's gone, I'm sure the critics among you are waiting for the links section to falter once again. It's not going to happen. That's because, as of today, I have officially taken over as the Zophar's Domain Links maintainer, on top of my previous positions as Poll (top of the menu bar) and Articles maintainer.

The links section has improved greatly not only thanks to the work of Ben Funk (Omar), but also to the great code work of Sam Michaels (SwampGas), who recently re-designed the entire links system. I'd like to thank him for the hard work I know he put into getting the system up and running.

I've only put up one link as of right now, because Mr. Funk kept the links section very well-caught-up, and that is to an excellent RPG satire site called Salamando's Stove. It's a funny site, and it's worthy of checking out.

Anyway, if you have any questions about adding links, suggestions for the poll, or (I beggeth of you) ideas for articles, please go to the Contact Us page, and (preferably) send a news submission or send me an e-mail.

Anyway, thanks to all of the regular ZD visitors, and I hope my tenure as links maintainer rocks your world. ;)

Site News: SNES9x 1.30 for Windows
17:34:  The Windows version of SNES9x, an SNES emulator, has been updated to version 1.30. This release has been long awaited and here is the changes list:

Site News: TuxNES 0.74 glibc binary
16:46:  I've added the TuxNES 0.74 glibc binary to the NES emulators for Unix page, thanks to The Mighty Mike Master, who compiled it, hehe.

Emulator Release: Hu-Go! 1.27
15:55:  Hu-Go!, a Turbo Grafx 16/PC Engine emulator for DOS and Linux has been updated to version 1.27. There is no precompiled Linux binary, though, so you will have to download the source code and compile it yourself. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Donkey Kong Java emulator
15:24:  Another classic arcade game had been emulated by Norbert Kehrer, and this time it's Donkey Kong. This game has been added to his emulator JAE and can be played online over at Norbert's Emulator Software. It even has sound, so go ahead and pay Norbert's site a visit!

Thanks to Norbert Kehrer for the news!

Emulator Release: Pasofami 1.3w5
15:20:  Pasofami, a NES emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 1.3w5. From RetroGames.com, here's what's new:

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.37b4
11:53:  MacMAME, the Macintosh port of MAME, has been brought in sync with the DOS version, and here's a list of other improvements, Mac specific:

Utility News: Good Utilities
11:39:  In order to get ZD up to date with the GoodXXXX utilities made by Cowering, I have removed the GoodXXXX programs from their respective system utilities page and instead I made a GoodXXXX utilities page where you can download all of them.

Thanks to Bytoro for telling us that we were a bit outdated on these great utilities!

Misc. News: Unofficial Chrono Trigger 2 movie
11:36:  The UCT2 team has released a sample movie of UCT2 being played, you can go get it over at Chrono.ZTNet.com. I was unable to view the movie due to file transfer problems (crappy ISP), but go ahead and take a look.

Thanks to The Madman for the news!

7/8/2000
Emulator Release: TuxNES 0.74
17:23:  The source code of TuxNES, a NES emulator for Unix/X11/FreeBSD, has been updated to version 0.74. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: BeSnowBros 1.0
13:55:  David Rainegard, author of BeGameboy and BePCEngine, has unleashed a new BeOS emulator upon us: BeSnowBros. This is just a sample of his arcade emulators, and there is no sound yet. Hopefully, BeSystem16 should be released soon.

You can download this at our Arcade Emulators for BeOS section.

Emulator Release: MSX Emulator v0.10b for AtariST released
11:45:  Here is a unique little gem. This emulator runs MSX-1 software on the AtariST! While this is an old emulator, today is its initial release to the public. Here is the info:

This emulator emulates & supports:

Site News: What a trip...
09:48:  I know this was a quick tenure, but after some really hard thinking the last couple of days, I've elected to leave ZD. Check out the links section for the most up-to-date links section around, though, as I made the final update this morning.

Thanks, everyone. Take care!

Free ROMs News: Hi-color on GBC
05:36:  Well, this looks very good for Gameboy Color demo/game development, now doesn't it?

"Over at Icarus Productions they have come up with a way to display high color graphics on the Game Boy Color as well as a utility for converting bitmaps and .avi to a format playable by their high color library for the GBC; heads up GBC developers, FMV on the Game Boy. They also have a few demo roms that implement some of this trickery on the site http://icarus.ticalc.org/ most of which are in the calculator style of simple math-class compatible game play. It looks positively peachy as far as I can tell."

It could be noted that this is kind of old news, but I'm sure there were some of you out there who didn't know about this.

Thanks to The Constable for the news!

Utility Release: Meridian 0.33a
05:27:  Meridian, an NSF player for Windows, has been updated to version 0.33a. Here's what's new:

Utility Release: Gameboy Tile Editor 0.12
05:10:  Mr. Click has updated his Gameboy Tile Editor, a program to hack the graphics in Gameboy ROMs. Mr. Click urges you to take a look at his page, here: http://members.tripod.de/MrClick/Tileeditor/index.html, where he keeps an online manual and other nice things. Here's what's new:

7/7/2000
Emulator Release: Xtender 2 beta 9
18:01:  Xtender 2, a Sinclair Spectrum emulator for DOS, has been updated to beta 9. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Speccyal 0.75 WIP
17:38:  Speccyal, a Sinclair Spectrum emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.75 WIP. This is kind of a beta-ish release, so if you want to avoid bugs, stick to the old
0.72 version. Anyway, here's what's new:

Emulator Release: RuMSX 0.21
17:20:  RuMSX, an MSX emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.21. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: NLMSX 0.26
16:48:  NLMSX, an MSX emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.26. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: New Executor demo
16:29:  Well, the fact that we haven't updated about this emulator for a while is because it's so expensive, hehe. $279 is nothing that a normal human can afford paying for an emulator. But if you're rich, you might want to check out some of the many demo versions of Executor. Versions for different platform include: Windows (3.x/95/98/NT4/2000), various Linux versions, DOS and O/S 2 Warp. Here's the changes list for the newest version, 2.1 pre-release 11:

Changes in all versions:

Emulator Release: FPSE 0.8!
16:15:  FPSE, a Sony Playstation emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.8. What's new? Too many things to list! I suggest you grab this emulator, read the docs, and try it out!

Go get it from the Playstation emulators page! Thansks to Darkzone for the news!

Emulator Release: MESS 0.37b4 for Macintosh
16:14:  MESS 0.37b4 for Macintosh has been released. It is now in-line with the DOS version.

You can download it at our MESS for Macintosh section.

Emulator Release: SMS Plus 0.9.3 for Macintosh
16:11:  SMS Plus 0.9.3 for Macintosh has been released. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Prototype-D V. 0.1
16:07:  A new version of Boukichi's Gameboy emulator, Prototype-D, was released today. Here's what's new in V. 0.1:

Emulator Release: CaPriCe32 beta
14:31:  A public beta version of CaPriCe, an Amstrad CPC emulator for MS-DOS, has been released. This is a beta version and it might be buggy, so if you want a better working version, don't use the beta, hehe. Here's what's been changed from the last version (1.11):

Emulator Release: Past-O-Rama 0.01
14:13:  Past-O-Rama, a new SG-1000 emulator for Windows, has now been released. It's programmed by NeoZeed and it's hosted over at the System16 Emulator site. This is the initial release and it features basic SG-1000 emulation, try it out.

You can download it from the Sega Master System/Game Gear emulators page. Thanks to Xeon3D for the news!

Emulator Release: AMESS / PMESS 0.37 beta 4
14:07:  AMESS, the AMD optimized version of MESS, and PMESS, the Pentium optimized version of MESS, have both been updated to version 0.37 beta 4 and they are now both up to speed with the regular DOS version. Only PMESS is currently available for download at the moment, because I'm having some trouble downloading the newest AMESS.

You can download it from the MESS page. Thanks to Xeon3D for the news!

Misc. News: CrixIRC
00:54:  Don Jarrett, author of BasicNES and PCSloMo, has made an IRC client, and I must say that I find it quite impressive. It's not as feature cluttered as mIRC, but for the regular IRC chatter it's quite good. Don is also working on the IRC client and updating it regularly.

So, check out the CrixIRC homepage at http://home.att.net/~r.jarrett/crixIRC.html and download the IRC client, try it out. You might like it, hehe. Also, you might want to bookmark the page and keep an eye on it for updates.

Utility Release: NEZPlug 0.92a2
00:48:  NEZPlug, a NSF player plugin for Winamp, has been updated to version 0.92a2. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Liberty now available for download
00:35:  Liberty, the Gameboy emulator for Palm OS, is now available for download as a shareware demo version over at GambitStudios.com. Registering the emulator costs $16.95, so it isn't that expensive to buy. The shareware version only has the limitations of having no sound and to only play 32KB carts. So think about it, it might be worth registering.

Thanks to Matt Snelgrove for the news!

Emulator Release: TOSBox 1.10
00:27:  TOSBox, an Atari ST emulator for DOS, has been updated to version 1.10. Here's what's new in this version:

7/6/2000
Translation News: Rudora no Hihou Hack
23:22:  Well, it's not a traditional translation... Basically, the original Japanese katakana letters in Rudora no Hihou have been converted to english characters (making them pronounceable.) For instance, the name of a tidal wave like spell, virtually unreadable, becomes "Tsunami". Anyway... you'll just have to check it out for yourself.

Download it from our SNES Translations page.

Media News: Dreamcast release group Utopia about to be arrested?
19:20:  It looks as if Sega has located members of the group Utopia, who have released pirate ISOs of Dreamcast titles. Apparently, they are residents of Germany, and the German Police are ready to move in.

Check out the article at Gaming Age.

Utility Release: Gameboy Tile Editor 0.11
17:31:  Gameboy Tile Editor, an utility that can edit the graphics stored in Gameboy/Super Gameboy/Color Gameboy ROMs, has been updated to version 0.11. Mr. Click has also set up a homepage and an online manual for it, be sure to check that out! Here's what's new:

Utility Release: Meridian 0.33
17:25:  Meridian, an NSF player for Windows, has been updated to version 0.33. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: SixtyForce 0.5.5
12:43:  SixtyForce, an N64 emulator for PowerPC Macintoshes, formerly mac1964, has been renamed and updated to version 0.5.5. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: WinSTOn 0.3
12:31:  WinSTOn, an Atari ST emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.3. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: MAME WIP updated
12:17:  The MAME WIP page has been updated with some really nice news, including that more work has been done on getting Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam to run. Now, Mortal Kombat II runs, also!

Thanks to duckie for the news!

Misc. News: Bit Age Times #9 is up
12:00:  The #9 issue of the online second generation video games and beyond magazine, Bit Age Times is up. Featuring, among other things, these topics:

Emulator News: News on Liberty
11:47:  GambitStudios.com has been updated a bit with screenshots of their Gameboy emulator for Palm OS called Liberty. Looks very nice, if you ask me.

Thanks to Maddog for the news!

Emulator Release: 1964 0.5.0
11:42:  1964, an N64 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.5.0. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: NEmu64 has a new graphics coder!
11:35:  Good news! The NEmu team has now gotten a graphics coder to take over the work of hWnd, the former graphics coder. So who know, maybe we'll see a version of NEmu that likes 3DFX cards a bit better in the future.

Go to the NEmu64 homepage for the full story. Thanks to Tulkk for the news!

Utility Release: Nosefart 1.92
11:31:  Nosefart, an NSF player available both as standalone executable for DOS and Winamp plugin, has been updated to version 1.92. The source code has also been released. And if you download the source code you can compile your own Linux version of it. Here's what's new:

Free ROMs News: New NeoGeo Pocket Color Game
02:01:  A new game, Thieves, was released recently. Since my computer is too old to run NeoGeo Pocket Color games properly, I can't check it out.

You can check out the game at http://www.chiltonox.freeserve.co.uk/ngp/. There's also a game called Snake on the page, it's a Nibbler clone.

Thanks to Yukio for the news.

Utility Release: Gameboy Tile Editor 0.1
00:56:  MrClick has released the initial version of his Gameboy graphics editing tool, the Gameboy Tile Editor. This program can edit all the graphics in monochrome Gameboy games and almost all of the graphics in Super Gameboy/Gameboy Color games.

You can download it from the Gameboy utilities page.

7/5/2000
Emulator News: SNES9x Update
23:19:  A new version of SNES9x should be out in a day or two, supporting Netplay:

Instead of sending out the new Windows Snes9X release to a select few beta testers, I've decided to release the beta to the world at large - in a day or two, once the server has stabilised.

You can read the news at the SNES9x Homepage.

Emulator Release: Advance MAME 0.37 Beta 4
23:08:  Advance MAME was updated to version 0.37 Beta 4. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: More useless information...
17:59:  Swampgas posted a 'blue screen of death'-related haiku earlier, and, as it turns out, there is a webpage that has several more Windows error-related haikus.

You can view the page at http://www.jzine.com/poetry/haiku.html

Thanks to Anguirel for the link.

Media News: Eidolon's Inn celebrates 3 years
17:56:  Eidolon's Inn, a site dedicated to emulation of classic computers and console systems of the 1980's and 1990's, celebrates it's third birthday.

You can visit it at www.eidolons-inn.de

Thanks to Christian Schiller for the news.

Misc. News: The Return of the Shade Eagle
17:49:  Yep, that's right. I'm back and better than ever. I'll be catching up on stuff I've missed and stuff like that. I apologise again for those who have e-mailed me in the past few weeks, but I am gradually getting through the hundreds of e-mails to all my accounts. Anyway, I'm back - that's the important thing.

Misc. News: Useless Information
09:26:  While in the official Zophar's Domain chat channel on EsperNet, UltraMoogleMan recited the funniest haiku I'd ever heard, and I thought I'd share it with you...

I am the blue screen.
You must restart everything.
No-one hears your screams.

Ain't dat purdy? Special thanks to Windows for making this haiku possible.

Media News: X-Box Programmer Explains...
08:47:  I saw an article over on Dr. Dobb's Journal from a programmer at Microsoft who worked on X-Box graphics. He explains just about everything you need to know about the X-Box graphics. Lots of technical stuff.

Emulator Release: Pac-Man emulator in Java
00:45:  There is, among several others, a Pac-Man emulator written in Java over at Norbert's Emulator Software. It's really fast and fun to play if you're at work or school some day, where you can't play MAME, hehe.

So go visit Norbert's Emulator Software and play some arcade games! Thanks to Norbert for the news!

7/4/2000
Emulator Release: RADARnes V. 0.1 -- Initial Release
13:01:  That's right kids, we've been blessed. A NEW emulator has fallen into our laps today. This is the first emulator from the RADARemu team, and it has these features:

Site News: Corn V. 0.2 Uploaded
12:46:  We recently re-uploaded V. 0.2 of Corn, due to the fact that V. 0.29 requires it to work. We apologize for any difficulty that this caused.

You can go pick it up at the N64 Emulators page.

Thanks go to Alexiyies for notifying us of the problem.

Media News: New Videogames.com Top Ten List
11:46:  Videogames.com has done another great top ten list, this time talking about the top ten video game soundtracks. This one includes sound samples as well as screen shots of the games.

You can go check it out here.

I'd like to give someone credit for this piece of news, but they didn't leave their name.

Site News: Video Game Museum surpasses 2000 scans!
00:52:  The Video Game Museum hsa now got over 2000 scanned images of video game related stuff! Cheers, and good luck in the future!

Thanks to Mek for the news!

Emulator News: What was new in GNES 0.34
00:49:  For those of you who wondered what was new in version 0.34 of GNES, a NES emulator for Windows, here it is:

7/3/2000
Translation News: SNESamp released in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese
20:55:  Datschge of CherryRoms has just released French, German, Spanish and Portuguese versions of SNESamp. The actual translations were done by Top50 (French), Datschge (German), AcidZero (Portuguese), and Edward Carnby (Spanish).

Download your favorite language translation at our SPC Players/Utilities page.

Emulator Release: DBoy 0.63
16:54:  DBoy, BouKiChi's excellent gameboy emulator for DOS, has been updated to 0.63. The documentation is in Japanese, so I can't tell what's new.

You can download it at our Gameboy page.

Emulator Release: Boycott 0.6.3a for Macintosh
16:50:  Boycott for MacOS has been updated to 0.6.3a. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: SMS Plus 0.93 for DOS and Playstation
16:48:  SMS Plus has been updated to 0.93. Here's what's new:

Stereo Game Gear sound.
Save states, 10 per game.
Sound logging, output is .GYM compatible.
Optimized memory access for improved speed.
Screen snapshots in PCX format.
Stereo swap option for left and right speakers.
Added FPS meter.
Added some option toggle keys for in-game configuration.
Definable video driver.
Tweaked display modes for full-screen gameplay.
More of the usual internal changes and bug fixes.

You can get the DOS version at our Sega Master System section.

You can download the Playstation version at the SMS Plus Homepage.

Translation News: Translhextion 1.5 Released
16:40:  Januschan has released version 1.5 of his translation utility, Translhextion. Here's what is new according to the readme:

• By request, a new feature called "Thingy IME" allows you to directly enter dynamically table-encoded text into a file
• After dumping a Japanese script you will now be given the option to merge punctuation characters with the characters they modify which produces a more Thingy-like script
  
• By request, added the ability to hide/show the hex pane for easy script viewing
  
• Now any bytes that get changed are displayed in a different, user-selectable color so they are easy to see
  
• Extended Thingy Table functionality with ' ^ ' which you can use to highlight specific bytes in a user-selectable highlight color
  
• Changed "Color Settings" dialog to accommodate new colors
  
• Fixed a majority of the selection color bugs
  
• Translhextion will now attempt to automatically install the included Japanese font when it runs for the first time
  
• A number of aesthetic changes have been made
  
• The documentation has not only been updated but is now in HTML Help format thanks to Kitsune Sniper

7/2/2000
Translation News: Wonder Boy 6 - 100% English Translation
14:21:  Demi of Demiforce translations has released a 100% patch for the game Wonder Boy 6 for the Genesis.

Download it from our Translations page.

Emulator Release: WinX68k 0.43
12:00:  Another day, another WinX68k release, hehe. WinX68k, an X68000 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.43. And here, slightly borrowed from RetroGames and in their turn from GeoShock, is what's new in this release:

Emulator Release: GNES 0.34
05:33:  GNES, a NES emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.34. I don't know what's new though, since I couldn't find any release notes anywhere.

You can download it from the NES emulators page. Thanks to kb for the news!

Utility Release: Gl2ideal 1.4
05:31:  Gl2ideal, a Glide wrapper that utilizes OpenGL, has been updated to version 1.4 to deal with the problems people had with the 5.22 reference drivers.

You can download it from the Glide wrappers page. Thanks to DiZZY for the news!

7/1/2000
Misc. News: Nintendo announces GameBoy Advance in France
21:16:  Nintendo's official French website has a press release on the GameBoy Advance. AltaVista's Babelfish translated it for me.

What it basically says is that the GBA will be able to display 511 colors out of a palette of 65,000. The release also states that it will be Internet-compatible, with the designers' intentions being videoconferencing via an external video camera.

Interesting to note that the U.S. page has not been updated with the same information.

Thanks to Tambok99 for the news.

Emulator Release: Smiff's Nemu64 INI
21:00:  Smiff informed us that he updated his Nemu64 INI to go with Nemu64 0.7a. A total of 224 ROMs are now playable with this emulator. Get it now from the Nintendo 64 webpage.

Emulator Release: WinGorf V. 1.0
18:42:  It's a good day for emulation today, only made better by the initial release of Mark Hazelwood's WinGorf emulator.

This emulates the game Gorf as well as Gorf Program 1. Its main feature is the ability to emulate Gorf in a window, something which no other Gorf emulator (such as MAME) can claim to do.

Go pick it up at the Single Arcade Emulators page.

Site News: ASCIIStein 3D, now in color!
16:23:  ASCIIStein 3D, a nice little 3D ASCII game made by FlySwat, regular in #zsnes on EfNet, has received a nice little update. It now has color and a status bar! If you want to have some fun walking around in an ASCII 3D world, download ASCIIStein 3D! Remember to mail FlySwat at Flyswat99@hotmail.com and give him your compliments! Maybe we'll even see some enemies and stuff in this game later on, hehe.

Emulator Release: WinX68k 0.40
14:57:  WinX68k, an X68000 emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 040. I don't know what's new since the site, readme and everything else about it is in Japanese.

You can download it from the X68000 emulators page.

Emulator Release: T98 Next beta 1
14:39:  A brand new PC-98 emulator has been released to the public, T98 Next! Since the readme and other text files are in Japanese I can't specifically tell you about its features, but since T98 is an excellent PC-98 emulator I'll expect this one to become nothing less, at least in future versions. It doesn't work in Windows 2000, though, keep that in mind.

You can download it from the PC-98 emulators page.

Emulator Release: VisualBoy 1.4.3
14:18:  VisualBoy, a Gameboy/Super Gameboy/Gameboy Color emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 1.4.3. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: DBOY 0.62U
14:14:  DBOY, a Gameboy/Super Gameboy/Gameboy Color emulator for DOS, has been updated to version 0.62U. I don't know exactly what's new, since the readme is in Japanese, but there are 3 new command line switches (-ifsega, -exjoy and -joyset). Don't know what they do, though. There's also something that has to do with Allegro, he probably started using a new version or something.

Anyway, you can download it from the Gameboy emulators page. Thanks to kb for the news!

Emulator Release: Ages 0.20 (Nebula)
14:06:  Ages, a SEGA Genesis/32X emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.20 (Nebula). Here's what's new:

Translation News: Lunar: Strolling School
13:41:  A group of translators known as Rebecca, Naflign and Nyef (RNN) have released an English translation of Lunar: Strolling School. According to Naflign, the translation should be complete through chapter 2, except for a bit of garbled combat messages.

Download the patch from our Translations page.

Translation News: dbz:Gokutuden 2 - 17% Translation
13:31:  Vipas has released an english translation of Dragon Ball Z: Gokutuden 2. He estimates its completion at 17%.

Download it from our SNES Translations page.

Emulator Release: WinFellow 0.4.1a build 1
13:26:  The alpha release of WinFellow, an Amiga emulator for Windows, has been updated to version 0.4.1a build 1. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: Vortendo news
12:59:  The Vortendo homepage has been updated with some nice news. The emulator now has up and coming mapper #3 support and in so, Chris Covell's new demo works. Head over to the Vortendo homepage for the full story and a few screenshots! For those of you who don't know, Vortendo is a NES emulator for Windows written in Visual Basic.

Thanks to Ti-B0ne for the news!

Emulator News: Pocketstation emulator
12:51:  On this page: http://www.tripmode.com/pocketstation, a Pocketstation devkit and emulator are publicly available for download, so if you want to try out coding or playing some small and oftenly slightly crappy Pocketstation games, feel free to visit the page, hehe.

Thanks to Daniel Davis for the news!

Site News: More emulators for PSX
12:40:  More and more emulators for PSX seem to be coming into the focus of the general emulation peeps and here's two more emulators, by Anthony Ball. These two emulators emulate the classic arcade games Phoenix and Pleiads.

Go to http://www.doubledutchdesigns.co.uk/ and grab them! Thanks to Anthony Ball for the news!

Site News: New Links
01:46:  Since Omar is working so hard to get our links section update to date, I figured I may as well make his life easier and have the links use a database, rather than straight html.

The new URL to the links section is http://www.zophar.net/links.phtml, and all links are accessable via that page.

Any functional errors should be directed to me, and anything regarding the actual links (new links, updates, etc) should be sent to Omar.