Free ROMs News: Mic releases 2 more Gameboy Advance demos
05:50:  Mic has released 2 more Gameboy Advance demos, one is a Pallete Rotation demo, and the other is to promote #GBADev on EFNet. :) You can go grab them both from the Gameboy Advance Public Domain ROMS section.

Thanks to Kojote of Kojote's Freeware ROMs homepage for notifying me of these 2 gems.

Emulator Release: YAPE v0.25
02:39:  Just a few days after the last release of YAPE, more bugfixes are complete:

Translation News: Metroid 100% Translation
03:44:  Clomax Dominion has translated Metroid for NES into Italian. Thanks to Roberto Fontanarosa for the news.

Download the patch from the Italian translations.

Misc. News: Preorder your X-Box?
03:12:  Yakko just sent us a link to preoder an X-Box...from the site:

This special bundle includes the Xbox game console and 3 of the hottest games available at launch (we'll ask for your game selection next year). Pricing is estimated and will be adjusted if necessary after offical pricing announcements.

Price? US$499.99.

Emulator News: basicNES discontinued
03:10:  Well, just hours after announcing a new version, Don Jarrett, the author, has discontinued basicNES for the same basic reason Pretendo was discontinued: too many emulators.

I disagreed and emailed him..here's my $0.02:

Just a quick note from the guy from ZD...

I wholeheartedly disagree with your motivation for quitting...How many other NES emulators are written in VB that work as well as yours? What you did was an acomplishment...they said it couldn't be done...and you did it.

basicNES isn't just "another emulator"...it's an NES emulator in VB. I think it's safe to assume ZD has the majority of emulators on it...and theres only 4 emulators written in VB for the NES section. Only 1 works. Yours.

-Sam

We'll see what happens...if you'd like to email him yourself, it's d.jarrett@worldnet.att.net.

Update (3:43a):

The author responded to my email:

What's to come in the future is uncertain. The world is a twisted place of events and decisions. Coding basicNES was always just a measure of my ability and Visual Basic's. Is it really over? One can not say for sure. But a lot would have to change for me to simply bring it back.

peace,
Don Jarrett

Emulator News: XZX v3.0.0
00:36:  Whilst browsing Retrogames, I saw some news about a Sinclair Spectrum emulator for Unix that we didn't have. It's called XZX, written in C, and is based on XZX 1.0.2 by Des Herriott. Seems like a lot of hard work went into it...here's what it emulates:

Emulator Release: basicNES v0 (dbg 1.51)
00:10:  Don Jarrett just emailed us about a new release of basicNES. I saw in the changelog that it now runs full speed on his p2/400, and the emulator is 100% Visual Basic..and you guys said it couldn't be done.

Download it from the NES emulators.

Emulator Release: RockNES v1.600
00:03:  Ready for this long list?

11/24/2000
Misc. News: Centipede Record Broken
21:53:  Walter Day sent us news about an article at Twin Galaxies. From the article:

Donald Hayes' ordeal is over. After months of repeated attempts, he has finally broken the 14-year-old world record on Atari's classic arcade video game, Centipede. He has almost nine hours of videotape to prove he earned the new world record and every last one of his 7,111,111 points.

He willingly ended the game after nearly half a day of non-stop cyber warfare at the famous Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Hayes, 32, of Salem, New Hampshire, gained video game immortality on Sunday, November 5, when he earned 7,111,111 points -eclipsing the former world record of 5,500,000 points established by G. Ben Carter, Jr., on June 28, 1986 at the Aladdin's Castle in Fremont, Nebraska.

In further recognition of the greatness of his accomplishment, Hayes will be honored by the Mayor of Salem in late November, 2000 at Salem City Hall, where he will receive a framed certificate created by Twin Galaxies to commemorate the accomplishment.

Emulator Release: SupraHLE Updated
21:38:  SupraHLE (the hack of UltraHLE) has been updated to version 1.0.d. Here is what has changed since the last version (in SupraHLE, SupraINI, and SupraFAQ):

• SupraHLE
  • No more Escape key problem. Load/Save reactivated.
  • All games that used to work with Ultra Hle are now Supra Hle compatible.
  • Previous speed hacks optimized. New speed hacks added. Sound glitches almost disappeared.
    

• SupraINI
  • Doreamon Jap patched. The game is now playable.
  • Killer Instinct Gold : Intro starts then freezes (WIP).
  • Some patches have been modified. Some games will now take full profit of the Supra Hle enhancements (level of MIPS->X86 compiler optimizations required differs from Ultra Hle) & extra patched added.
    
  • Brought back patches & cheats from ultra ini since all games are now playable.
    
  • Chamelon Twist Intro patch redone (read notes)
    
  • Added comments to several non working games.
    

• SupraFAQ
  • A few questions/answers based upon beta testers reports, users reports and our Forum.
  • List of the enhancements reported by users and beta testers.

Utility Release: Soundfonts Added
21:24:  I've just added two soundfonts to our Soundfont page. The first on is a general Soundfont for various SNES games made by Setzer-, and the second is a Soundfont for Final Fantasy V created by Steven Rhodes. Get them both at our Soundfont page.

Free ROMs News: 2 new Gameboy Advance demos
21:03:  2 neat little Gameboy Advance demos released today. Mic released a "Lag/Mic" demo(that's all I know to call it since I didn't see an actual name for it anywhere), and Subice/Chakoo released a demo in celebration of Thanksgiving : the "Turkey Demo".

You can grab them both from the Gameboy Advance Public Domain ROMs section. And thanks to the only Gameboy Advance developement site that I know of GBA Dev! :)

Emulator Release: InfoNES v0.68
19:02:  The Japanese emulator InfoNES v0.68 was released today. Here's what's new:

• Mapper(iNES#94) was added. （00/11/24）
• Mapper(iNES#73) was added. （00/11/24）
• Mapper(iNES#72) was added. （00/11/22）
• Mapper(iNES#76) was added. （00/11/21）
• The Sprite#0 Hit judgment was corrected. （00/11/21）

Misc. News: Bad DVD Player, Bad!
14:57:  Been getting a lot of emails about some new DVD player capable of playing SMS games. We got the first news about a week ago, and we didn't post on it because something didn't seem right. From Retrogames' quote of Michael:

"According to Sega's legal people, they didn't license the titles out. Since this is only available mail order, purchasers could potentially be charged for buying stolen merchandise (if they live in the U.S.)"

Lovely...just lovely. If you want to see the site, head over to www.gamedvdplayer.com.

Site News: House keeping
14:26:  Gustavo wrote us and mentioned that some of the SMS frontend official sites are out of date (if you click on the name of the emulator/utility it will take you to the home page). If you happen to see a link is out of date and know where it currently is located, submit some news and we'll correct it. With thousands and thousands of files, it gets tough keeping track.

Emulator News: PocketNes v1.0b1
14:18:  maelstorm saw our post earlier about an NES emulator for the Pocket PC, so he gave us the heads up about PocketNes. There's no documentation and the author has 3 builds: ARM, MIPS and SH3 (MIPS/SH3 are untested builds).

If you have a Pocket PC, give it a try and let us know how it works out for you. Grab a copy from the Pocket PC NES emulators.

Misc. News: More Overclocked fun...
14:06:  David Llyod writes:

OC ReMix has been updated with four new ReMixes and
a temporary turkey logo (whoooaaaaaa). Titles are
as follows:

-Phantasy Star II (my own)
-Streets of Rage II
-Punchout
-Shadow of the Beast III

http://remix.overclocked.org/

Stay warm and to everyone in the US, have a happy
thanksgiving :)

Frontend News: AdvanceMENU v1.4
14:05:  The DOS frontend for MAME and MESS, AdvanceMENU, was updated to v1.4. Lots of cool features...here's what's new:

Emulator Release: YAPE v0.24
13:57:  For our Commodore friends, a new YAPE has been released. Some really spiffy changes:

Frontend News: News on SonEd
05:18:  From Stealth:

As of two days ago, I've updated SonED to include editing of the 8x8 tiles and 16x16/128x128/256x256 mappings, and palette colors. All attributes of each entry in any mapping can be changed, even the one (two in Sonic 1, strangely) that i'm not entirely sure what it does. So basically, you can make the level look exactly how you want it to. The background is changeable via the tile mappings, however it doesn't appear in the level editing portion, because without proper scrolling it would look funky. I may add pseudo-scrolling (just hard-coding the speed values for the background since I don't know how to edit those) so it can be added in, but I think I'll be concentrating on other things at the moment.

SonEd is a Sonic the Hedgehog editor that is shareware (registration is $15). You can grab the shareware version from the Facelift page.

Misc. News: Retro Remakes
05:12:  Got another retro remake for you...from the site:

Armagetron, one of the coolest 3D accelerated Tron remakes you will ever see has been updated!..... it's a radical improvement on the last version with better graphics and a few minor bug fixes. It works *perfectly* with glDirect *and* it also works in fullscreen mode with my trusty Voodoo2!!! Looks gorgeous doesn't it? Very much like the original Tron film!

Thanks to JJ for the news.

Emulator Release: GameLad v1.1
04:58:  Sowden let us know about a new version of the GB emu GameLad. Here's the changes:

Emulator Release: NES emu for Pocket PC?
04:52:  kevnbuch writes:

I'm working on a port of FCE Ultra to the PocketPC (windows ce).

This port is in the Very early stages.
Note that buttons and sound don't yet work, so its not very useful yet except as proof that the machine is fast enough (with a few skipped frames), to emulate a NES.

Check it out from the newly-created Pocket PC NES emulator section.

Utility Release: FF3usME
04:31:  New version of the Final Fantasy 3 editor FF3usME is out. This version now has a basic spell editor, as well as various cosmetic changes. Grab it from the Facelifts. Thanks to Darknight16 for the news.

Frontend News: Gameboy Ultra Support
04:24:  Roberto Mascia emailed us and told us about his Gameboy frontend, Gameboy Ultra Support, which supports VGB, DBOY and SMYGB. Nice interface. Download it from the GB Frontends.

Emulator News: FCE Ultra
04:03:  Salzkaffe sent us some info on FCE Ultra, the NES emulator. It was updated about a week ago to v0.40, and the source code was released. Check out the NES emulators for DOS/Win or Linux (svgalib). Also, check out SourceForge for the source.

Emulator Release: AGES v0.23b
03:54:  Cyber Akuma gave us the heads up that an unofficial bug fix for v0.23a was released for AGES. If v0.23a doesn't work correctly, give B a try. You can get it from the Genesis emulators.

Misc. News: Retrogaming Times
03:42:  From Tom Zjaba:

Retrogaming Times #39 is up!

Another issue is ready for you to read during the holidays! This issue features the following articles:

-Reviews of Snow Bros and Turkey Shoot!
-What is a Classic Game? by Fred Wagaman
-Geoff Voigt lists all the classic video game shows and meetings!
-Follow-up article on getting American systems to work on PAL TVs.
-A whole lot more!

Check out the always fun and free issue at:

http://tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/Retrotimes/retrogam.htm

Thanks and enjoy!

Emulator News: Callus Patch v2.4
03:37:  CPS2Shock released a new version of their patch for Callus. Also, Cyber Akuma let us know that they released new DAT files for the new patch. They added King of the Dragons, Knights of the Round, Saturday Night Slam Masters, Street Fighter II, and Warriors of Fate.

Grab the Callus patch from the Multi Arcade emulators, and head to the Callus 95 site for the DAT files.

Utility Release: French IPS Patching Utility
00:47:  A new IPS patcher has been released that is written entirely in French. Named IPS Wizard, it's very easy to use (assuming you speak French.)

Get it at our General Utilities page. Thanks to Ben-J for the news.

Emulator Release: AdriPSX Updated
00:34:  AdriPSX, a PSX emulator, has had both the DOS and Windows versions updated recently. The author has a long description about it on the AdriPSX Homepage. In it, he mentions that the DOS version hasn't really progressed since he's been working mainly on the Windows port.

Get the latest version from our Playstation Emulators page.

Misc. News: FF6 SoundFont Updated
00:27:  There's no telling how old this update is... there is no date on the homepage, and no date in the readme. Nevertheless, RGD told us about an update of ST's Final Fantasy VI SoundFont. Basically, he redid the entire thing from scratch.

Get version 3.0 of the FF6 SoundFont from our SoundFonts page. Thanks again to RGD for the news.

Utility Release: PSX Multi Converter Updated
00:19:  The PSX Multi Converter utility has been updated recently to version 2.32t. Like the G-Nes, the page is entirely in Japanese. Their homepage is at http://homepage2.nifty.com/~mkb/PsxMC/index.html, so feed it into E-Lingo to read all that has changed.

You can download the updated utility at our PSX Utilities page. Thanks to marschw for the news.

Misc. News: PING author killed
00:04:  I just read on K5 that Mike Muuss, the author of PING, was killed in a car accident on the 21st. For the non-nerds, PING is a utility that sends a small packet of information across a network, and another machine returns the data with a little more info. Basically, it tests to see if the network is running.

I guess the question on all of our minds is "What is the past tense of 'PING'?" We'll never know...

11/22/2000
Interview News: Unofficial Nester Interview
23:52:  Navarone from Emulation 9 conducted an interview with Takeda Toshiya, the author of the Unofficial Nester.

You can read it at Emulation 9.

Utility News: Mega-Edit Bug News
23:51:  kLoNe, the author of Mega-Edit 3 has told us about a typo in an error message that you might get while running the facelift editor. In the error "megaman.nes not found", it should read "megaman3.nes not found". The author apologizes to people that have been trying to get it to work with "megaman.nes".

You can get the latest version of Mega-Edit 3 from our Facelift Utilities page.

Emulator Release: G-NES Updated
23:46:  G-NES has been updated again. The page is in Japanese, and they have a list of over 20 things that have changed, so visit E-Lingo and use the G-NES url (http://gigo.retrogames.com/) to translate to English.

You can download the latest version (0.46) from our NES Emulation page. Thanks to Kenneth for the news.

Technical Docs News: Gameboy ROM Header Info
23:37:  SephirothBHC sent us his Gameboy ROM Header document. It's a simple and clear explanation of what a GB rom header contains, and it was compiled from the NO$GMB docs. Download it from the Gameboy tech docs.

Misc. News: King's Valley II Remake Updated
23:36:  King's Valley II is a game made by Konami for the MSX. An attempt is being made at the King's Valley II for Windows page to make a Windows version (while still being faithful to the original game.) The 4th Beta version has been released, and you can download it at the King's Valley II for Windows page. Also, check out some screenshots at their Screenshots page.

Emulator Release: fMSX FAN v1.42
23:27:  New version of the DOS and Linux versions of fMSX FAN is out. fMSX FAN has FM-PAC emulation, which most MSX emulators don't have. Here's the changes:

Emulator Release: Dreamer v0.00001
23:19:  New version of Dreamer is out. So far Dreamer is the only Dreamcast emulator, and it's progressing nicely. Check out the Dreamcast page for the download.

Emulator Release: WPCmame v5
23:13:  New version of WPCmame is out, which is a pinball rom driver for Mame. Head over to the MAME page to download. Kudos to shiva for the news.

11/21/2000
Utility Release: TilEd Updated
23:42:  MrClick has updated TilEd, his tile editor that supports several types of graphic tiles. Here's what is new according to the readme:

• Added copying a tile directly from the browser into the editor by dragging & dropping
• Added saving a tile from the editor to a position in the browser by d&d
  
• Added rearranging of tiles in the editor by d&d
  
• Added the feature to copy multiple tiles with the same address again
  
• Added a check box to the Options which can be used to disable the Save Warning
  
• Fixed a bug that cleared the editor when a new file was opened
  
• Fixed a minor problem that could slow down the editor when manipulating a single tile
  
• Drawing on a part of the editor that is not visible is not possible anymore

Site News: Sega Master System Emulator
23:32:  There has been a DVD player released that doubles as a Sega Master System Emulator. From the page:

Now SEGA explodes into your own home on your new DVD player. With the SEGA MASTER SYSTEM installed in this DVD player you get, Game play in Digital Surround Sound, 2 game pad inputs ( com port). With over 700 game titles to play (including all the classics you know and some you don't) Below is a partial list of all the games. Just imagine not only getting a great DVD player that's region free with karaoke built in but getting your own ARCADE too. All games come on CD-ROMs.

Emulator News: MAME WIP
23:08:  The MAME site has been updated with news regarding the popular multiarcade emulator which is available on various platforms. Here's what's happening:

• 21st November 2000: Takahiro Nogi fixed TT Mahjong input ports. Aaron Giles fixed another bug in the ASM 68k core. Yochizo fixed some graphics bugs in the Omega Fighter / Atomic Robokid driver. Gerardo Oporto fixed Senjyo dip switch settings.
• 20th November 2000: Aaron Giles fixed vertical flip and graphics priority problems in Rabbit Punch, cleaned up the Leland driver a bit and added Stompin' to the Bally/Sente driver. Gerardo Oporto fixed Twinbee dip switch settings. Keith Wilkins sent in an update to the discrete sound system, fixing some sound problems in Asteroids and Lunar Lander.

Misc. News: CashWars
15:24:  You may have heard about the companies on the internet that will give you money for doing just about anything - from viewing webpages, to reading junkmail. But, CashWars is a service that is completely different. It gives you money to play a game - similar to old adventure games, and BBS Doors - it gives you a North, South, East, West, choice - and you choose where to go. You can drill for oil, or fight other players for money. It is a really interesting prospect.

To try it for yourself, go to the CashWars Page.

Site News: Raine for Linux - Help Needed
13:51:  Raine for Linux has opened up a page on Soundforge - where they are looking for people to help with the Raine project. They need people to work on sound decoding, game drivers, and video routines.

To learn more, go to the Raine for Linux homepage.

Emulator News: Pretendo Dead
01:01:  Yakko just sent us some news that he found... It seems that Pretendo (NES Emulator) is "dead", and the author is leaving the emulation scene. The message is quite long, and covers the history of the emulator. Read the full message at the Pretendo news page.

Translation News: Radical Dreamers Site Updated
00:48:  The Radical Dreamers translation site has been updated. Radical Dreamer is a game that Neo Demiforce is attempting to translate, and is also the original sequel to Chrono Trigger. From the page:

I've had some troubles translating it myself though, and I could use some help. First, I could use another translator, one with fluent language skills (no undergrad japanese students please). I have a translator but he tells me he may not be able to translate the entire game on his own. Second, I'd really like to talk to someone that has thorough knowledge of the LZ77 compression method and its variants. The game has text compression that i've almost fully hacked, but there's one last peice of the puzzle I just don't understand.

Site News: FF4 Translation Updated
00:37:  J2e Translations has released a bugfix release for their Final Fantasy IV (SNES) English translation. The new version is 3.03, and you can download it from our SNES Translations page. Thanks to Beaux for the news.

Translation News: New Dragon Quest 6 Patch
00:29:  At the DeJap Translations site, they have news about a Dragon Quest VI (SNES) patch that was written by NoPrgress. Their patches will be joining soon, and this is just a 33% patch, but there are many differences from the currently released DeJap patch.

Get the patch at our SNES Translations page. Thanks to R. H. Mayfire the Mad for the news.

Get this new patch at our SNES Translations page.

Misc. News: New Overclocked Remixes
00:11:  Overclocked ReMix has just added 4 new games. The games are:

• Final Fantasy I
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Shadow of the Beast II
  
• Y's
  

Translation News: Monstania Bugfix Release
00:08:  Aeon Genesis Translations has updated their 100% English patch for Monstania (SNES) to version 1.02. This is just a bugfix version, so don't expect any major changes.

Get the updated patch at our SNES Translations page. Thanks to Dogg for the news.

11/20/2000
Emulator News: New JAE Game -- Mario Bros.
03:55:  The Java Arcade Emulator has added another game to their library. The game, the Nintendo classic Mario Bros., features sound.

Thanks to Norbert Kehrer for the news.

Site News: SuperJukebox News
03:52:  One of our hosted sites, Super Jukebox (http://superjukebox.zophar.net), requested that we post a message on our site:

For the past two months or so, I have been rewritting the entire Super Jukebox from scratch. It is finally now reaching close to a release, however, since this will be my last release of it I would like to have it BETA tested before releasing it. Just think about it, the LAST version of this program, think how awful it would be if it came out and it simply didn't work on your computer, you'd be stuck with a non-working version for the rest of your life, do you want that to happen? If not, then write to me and let me know that you would like to BETA test it for me. Note that I am mainly interested in people with Win95/NT/2000, i.e. I don't really care about Win98, and am especially interested in people who do not have Internet Explorer on their computers. So write to me marius.fodor@usa.net, and let me know what system you've got to determine if you qualify. Thank you.

As always, we suggest that you check out the SuperJukebox site.

Thanks to the site's author, Marius Fodor, for the news.

Media News: TechTV Emulation Article
03:24:  TechTV, formerly known as ZDTV, recently wrote an article about emulation for their Internet Tonight website. The article, which talks about the legal issues as well as the games themselves.

The article also features an interview with Classicgaming.com site director William Cassidy.

Thanks a lot to Yakko (you know, that guy who used to work for ZD) for the news.

11/19/2000
Emulator Release: WinAGES
23:18:  First, and most importantly - WinAGES, the emulator for Sega Genesis, 32x, and SegaCD has been updated to 0.23a-SP (Borg). Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: MAMED and MESSD Releases
23:14:  The MAMED Homepage has been updated with new versions of MESSD and MAMED. Here is a quote from the homepage:

"Recompiled MAMED & MESSD for coldfire for the HP 618 & HP 912 camera name change. If you recently bought one of these cameras then this version should work now".

You can download the new versions from our MAME for Digita and MESS for Digita sections.

Emulator Release: JAE Adds Mario Bros
23:12:  Norbert Kehrer added another classic Nintendo game to his Java Arcade Emulator: "Mario Bros." This game is also one of the few games with emulated sound through the Java Applet.

Try it at the JAE Homepage.

Free ROMs News: C64 Tape Images
23:09:  Redump 64 has added 23 new Commodore 64 tape images to it's page for your downloading pleasure.

You can download them from Redump 64.

11/18/2000
Utility Release: SonED Updated
19:25:  Stealth has updated SonED (his level editor for Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, and 3) to version .016b. In this version, he has added level veiwing/editing support and expanded the object editing portion, plus a snap-in grid. Remember, this is a product that you must register to get the full features. Since the last release of this utility however, the price has been cut in half to only $15. If you want more information on how to register it, visit the SonED site.

Download the trial version at our Facelift Utilities page.

11/17/2000
Emulator Release: Unofficial Nester
16:01:  The unofficial build of the NES emulator for Windows, Nester, has been updated. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: FE 0.07
15:59:  Family Emulator, a relatively new NES emulator for DOS, has been updated to 0.07. Here's what's new:

Utility Release: Pete's PSEmu Pro plugins
15:54:  Pete has released new versions of all his PSEmu Pro graphics plugins. All of the updates are just minor bug-fixes. You can get them at the plugins page. Thanks to Nameless One for the news.

Emulator Release: Atari800Win PLus 2.7
15:40:  A new emulator called Atari800Win PLus has been released. It is based off the Atari800 kernel and the Atari800Win source. Here are the main features:

11/16/2000
Emulator Release: Titan Sega Saturn Emulator v0.01Build 20001110
18:39:  A new Sega Saturn emulator called Titan has been released by UCantWin.

Project Titan is an emulator that I started a month or two ago because I always wanted to code an emulator, but had never done it before. I used to work on a PSX emulator, but with so many newer, more advanced PSX emulators out there, I wanted to do something different. So I chose the Sega Saturn (next best thing, right?). So I got to work, using some code fragments from my old PSX project and rewriting most of the code from scratch (and getting a crach course in the inner workings of the Saturn). So I whipped up a buggy interpreter and the humble beginnings of a primitive dynarec engine (first time for everything :) and now the program is starting to come together in terms of functionality.

Here's what's new in this release:

• Added "Special" memory region... no more pesky invalid memory messages Now I just need to figure out what it actually is for
• Began basic VDP plugin functions (client side)
• Major SH2 Bugfix -- all 0xCXXX opcodes are now properly identified
• Opcode Bugfixes: SWAP, JSR, BRA, TST.B, MOV (multiple)
• x86 Dynarec Block "Prologue/Epilog" Code in place (no more blue screens!)
  - Now I can (finally) start filling in the meat of the code once the
  Interpreter core is debugged
  

Misc. News: Nullsoft WinAmp v2.7
04:26:  WinAmp v2.7 was released today. Here's what's new with this awesome audio player:

• mp3 decoder: better tag editor, bugfixes
• mod decoder: too much to list. much revised. see www.divent.org for more info
• much improved CDDA (Faster, less crashy)
  
• waveout output plug-in bug fixes
  
• new directsound output plug-in (very charming)
  
• faster playlist loading, faster playlist editting on large lists
  
• windowshade visualization now has spectrum analyzer instead of (crappy) VU meter
  
• improved that old issue of what happens when you delete the playing file in the playlist.
  
• made credits less problematic (and more time based, less frame based)
  
• made multiple-instance handling handle running with different command lines better
  
• sped up exit process some
  
• return of classic demo.mp3
  
• now using NSIS 1.0i (was using 0.98)

Site News: New message board
22:31:  Due to the immaturity of some visitors, I've closed the test board I setup yesterday. Apparently some people didn't understand that it was only a test of the functionality and it was NOT planned to replace the current message boards and the design on the test board was NOT customized to look pretty.

Most of you guys offered some really good points, and I thank you for it. Here is what I got:

Misc. News: A letter from England...
17:17:  This letter was just received from England:

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE
To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties Over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new Prime Minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following Rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be Amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Lookup "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as american "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a Difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "s**t".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your co-operation.

God save the Queen...

Misc. News: ePSXe site temporarily down
07:02:  The site for the awesome Enhanced Playstation Emulator is temporarily down due toheavy traffic at it's initial release. They're host took them down because they used up too much bandwidth, so their looking for a new host right now.

In the meantime, you can download this emulator in our Playstation Emulators section. I personally think this emulator has the potential to beat out Bleem. The unreleased version of the emulator that runs Final Fantasy 9 beautifully. I can't wait for the next release. Thanks to PSXEmu for the news. Go there for all your Playstation emulation needs. Trust me, it's worth the visit.

Emulator Release: Family Emulator v0.06a
06:42:  Another Japanese NES emulator known as Family Emulator was updated to v0.06a. As always, here's what's new :)

• Fixed triangle sound channel
• Fixed pcm sound channel

11/14/2000
Misc. News: AGES homepage updated with screenshots of it running Sega CD games
23:14:  I love the Sega CD, that's all there is to it. It's got to be my most favourite system on the face of the Earth. Even though I have to buy another one because of mine biting the dust. I even held a funeral for it and buried it.

Anyway, when I learned AGES runs some Sega CD games, I jumped for joy. Granted, I can't BEGIN to run this emulator, and I don't think I actually own any of the games it actually runs, but STILL, this emulator plays a few games. :) They updated their site today with screenshots of the emulator running Sonic CD, Brutal, Samurai Showdown CD, Ecco the Dolphin 2, and Lunar 1(although the Lunar games aren't actually playable yet.)

Go to the AGES Homepage to check out these screenshots. Bask in the glory that is AGES. Head over to Eidolon's Inn for more Sega information you can shake a stick at, or just head over to the Sega Genesis Emulators section to download AGES(yes, it runs Genesis, 32X, AND Sega CD).

Emulator News: PCSX starts showing life again
22:43:  It's been a while since we last saw any kind of update from this Playstation emulator, but they finally posted something today, and the emulator IS still alive. :)

People asking... Where is pcsx?? Is still alive? Well answer is yes just i had lost the cgi address and i couldn't update the site shame on me :P
Well pcsx progress is made in MDEC and GTE mostly.Pcsx can now decode and play some mdec videos thanks to Roor that helped on that part.Gte have been written from start by an anonumous for now person that works on pcsx the last 2 months.All GTE instruction set + limitations+overflow checking have been totaly rewritten.

Go to the PCSX Homepage to check out information and such on this cool emulator. :)

Oh, and by the way, you can also download a whole bunch of Playstation demos from there as well, they have over 50 I know that for a fact. :) And we have a few Playstation demos as well. I'll be adding to that whenever my computer quits acting up on me. And finally you can go to the Playstation emulators section to download PCSX.

Emulator News: Is Famicommunist a hack of Nester?
22:06:  The Nester team is saying that the recently released NES emulator Famicommunist is just a rip of Nester's source code. Here's some text from the Nester GPL Violations section of their site.

Violation: blatant rip-off of nester, not GPL'ed, no source available, no credit to nester authors.

Evidence: feature list, user interface, and hex comparison.

For a side-to-side comparison of Famicommunist and nester, download this zip file. This file contains Famicommunist and nester (un-upx-compressed). Load them up in a hex editor and have a look-see. Look for key words they have in common like "win32_windowed_NES_screen_mgr" and "iDIDevice". Then take a look in the nester source code for those words. Hmmm, why is Famicommunist so much larger than nester... what's all this extra data on the end of the executable? Gee, maybe it's that big image in the about box. Oi.

And here is Famicommunist's reply to the accusation.

I have heard the accusations of famicommunist being a NESter hack. And i must say they are complete bull. I did look at the NESter source for help, but the only actual code i used from it was Blitting (a very small routine), i have updated the docs, so they express gratitude for the blitting, and for the cores and docs i used, and will be releasing the source tommorow when i get home for proof. (i am away from home now)
-CyberBry

Related links:
Nester GPL Violations section of their site
Famicommunist Homepage

Please don't ask me about this, I haven't run a hex program on it, I'm just posting the news. Thanks to EmuHQ for the news.

Emulator News: Stardust SNES Emulator for Sega Saturn
17:03:  Hmm.... a SNES emulator for Sega Saturn. This is gonna be cool. :) Here is sort of a little intro for it from the Stardust homepage:
StarDust is the chosen name to a project that many, including me, belive to be impossible : To make a playable Super Nintendo emulator running on the Sega Saturn hardware. It will use HLE emulation of the video chip and a simpler CPU code than Snes9x to allow higher speed.

Well, there is finally some word from this emulator as far as it running. It hasn't been released yet, but the author has finally managed to run some code(no images or DMA, just an update of the memory and opcodes). Here's what he's gotten so far:

• CPU : 99%
• Memory : 80%
• DMA : 0%
• HLE : 0%
  
• PPU : 0%
  
• Controllers : 0%
  
• GUI : 0%

Frontend News: MAME Wizard v2.0b7
21:44:  A new version of the MAME frontend for Win9x/00 called MAME Wizard has been released bringing this frontend to version 2.0 Beta 7. Here's a list of what's new:

• Corrected some copyright errors in the credits list
• Added FAQ files support
  
• Rewritten sample set verification report
  
• Rewritten unsupported sample set verification report
  
• Added MAMECD compliant discs creation utility (preliminary)
  
• Added MAMECD disc informations function
  
• Improved "no good dump" handling
  
• Added support for "best dump available" roms
  
• Sorting moved to its own menu
  
• And more!

Emulator Release: Keropi v0.51
21:35:  Keropi, an x68000 emulator for the Win9x/00 platform, has been updated to version 0.51. Here's a list of what's new:

• Support disk image insertion by drag&drop
• Support -A(or B)[ImageName] command line option
  
• Support -NOCD command line option for the PC which fails to CD scan
  
• The center button (or wheel) can be used as F12 key(Window mode)
  
• Support configuration of "_" and "\" key for the 101-keyboard

Emulator Release: Kegs v0.60
21:27:  Kegs32, an unofficial Win9x/00 port of the Apple II GS emulator Kegs, has been released. This version contains most of the features as the HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and OS/2 version, but lacks a GUI, full-screen support or Joystick.

Be sure to head on over to the Apple II emulators section.

Emulator Release: GiriGiri v20001113
19:14:  GiriGiri, a Sega Saturn emulator for Win9x/00, has been updated to build 20001113. According to the site screenshots, it looks like the BIOS and CD menus are fully functional.

You can pick up this fine emulator over at the Sega Saturn emulators section.

Misc. News: New Datfiles
18:40:  Logiqx has updated his site with two new datafiles. His site was updated wtih a datafile for Mimic version 1.04 and one for MESS version 0.37 beta 8. :)

Be sure to check out Logiqx's site for these downloads.

Misc. News: MAME WIP
18:36:  The MAME site has been updated with more news regarding this multi-arcade emulator. Here's what's up:

• Improved the World Cup '90 sounds
• An almost perfect US Championship V'Ball driver
  
• Preliminary Operation Wolf / Operation Thunderbolt drivers, however only Operation Thunderbolt works.
  
• Bug fixed in the Namco System 1 driver
  
• Nicola Salmoria fixed the Outrun road graphics bugs.
  
• Luca Elia sent in a driver for American Speedway.
  
• Quench sent an updated Toaplan2 driver with text-layer scroll effect that fixes the ending scene in Armed Police Batrider.
  
• Yochizo sent in a driver for Omega Fighter and Atomic Robokid.
  
• Aaron Giles fixed the ASM 68k core to work with the new memory system.

Misc. News: CPS-2 Shock Site Updated
18:32:  The CPS-2 Shock site has been updated with more data of non CPS-2 encrypted values. This site is working on breaking the CPS-2 encryption. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, Capcom, (Don't quote me on it since I know very little about this.) created an encryption method for their games so they couldn't be emulated and since emulators don't emulate the systems and rather the games, this encryption makes it hard to emulate the CPS-2 system.

At any rate, get the goods over at the CPS-2 site. :)

Misc. News: Amiga 51 Site Updated
18:28:  The Amiga 51 site has been updated with more game reviews of Amiga titles. Here's what they've added:

• Alien Breed
• Alien Breed Special Edition
  
• Alien Breed Tower Assault
  
• Assassin
  
• Benefactor
  
• Chuck Rock
  
• Chuck Rock 2 - Son Of Chuck

Misc. News: Genesis Project Site Updated
18:21:  The Genesis Project site has been updated with a ton of new and cool stuff. :) They've updated it with new walkthroughs, passwords, and Sonic game secrets. Those of you who aren't familiar with Genesis Project should probably check it out if you're a Sega Genesis fan. Its got tons of screenshots and a description of every Genesis game made.

Be sure to check out this site. :)

Misc. News: Personal Stuff & DirectX 8 Fix
18:17:  First, before I get to this DirectX 8 update, I would like to apologize to everyone for my lack of updates the last few days. I've been an emotional wreck the past 5 or so days and I haven't felt like doing anything, however, I made a promise to you that I would make ZD my number one priority, and so I will try and update ZD as much as I can during my emotional crap. Now, on to some good stuff. :)

I was over at the Emulation HQ when I saw an update regarding VGS and Nvidia driver problems. If you're having a bit of difficulty running VGS on your computer due to the DirectX 8 update, then here's what someone suggested:

This problem appears to be with the DirectX 8 Detonator v7.17 Drivers and VGS. I Solved this by Simply Installing a previous set of Detonator Drivers (ver: 6.47) I would imagine the same for other cards as well. Even though All drivers may be said to be DX8 Compliant/Compatible they are most likely not since DX 8 Is new I would have to say so Is the Compatibility factor With the new Drivers currently released by all the Video Card Corps.

Misc. News: Help Needed: Laser Emulation
14:37:  I can no longer maintain my site, Laser Emulation alone.

With trying to improve Laser, and updating all the other sites I update, and trying to maintain a real life as well, It is tiring me out.

Go to Laser Emulation to see the help that is needed, and to find out how to apply.

Emulator Release: FE 0.06
14:16:  Family Emulator, the NES emulator for DOS, has been updated to 0.06. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: ZSNES 1.11 Win 0.72
12:27:  The Win32 port of ZSNES has recieved a bugfix release. Here's what's new:

Translation News: Pac-Man Hack
01:53:  I got really tired of all of this presidential election recounting of a recounted recount garbage, so I decided to write a hack. This is my first hack, and it's basically Pac-Man with Zelda graphics. (Oddly enough, Link doesn't make an appearance.) Pacman has been changed to an Octarok, and the ghosts are now Moblins (and Moblin-ghosts.)

Download my hack at our NES Hacks page, and tell me what you think.

11/12/2000
Translation News: Italian Translation Group Added
19:31:  I've just added Clomax Dominion (an Italian translation site) to the Italian Translations page. Included in the new patches are Italian versions of Megaman, Megaman X, Lufia, and Castlevania.

Get all of the patches at our Italian Translations page.

Translation News: DBTrans Back Up
19:17:  Dustybuddy told us that he has just re-opened his site (Db Translations) after his computer was totally wiped out. He also released a 10% English translation for the Adventures of Arle (GBC), and is currently looking for some devoted translators to help speed up the translation process. If you would like to help, send him e-mail at donfehr@home.com.

Download the patch at the Gameboy section of our English translations page.

Interview News: Kinox interviews MindRape
16:50:  Kinox has interviewed MindRape, the man who ran Damaged Cybernetics - which housed one of the internet's landmark emulation sites, Archaic Ruins. MindRape was also the person who stole the source code to Nesticle, and distributed it, which some people say lead to the termintation of the emulator.

You can read the interview at Kinox.

Emulator Release: Famicommunist
16:22:  A new NES emulator for Win32, Famicommunist, by the author of RADARnes has been released. Here are some of the features it supports:

Emulator Release: MESS 0.37 Beta 8
16:20:  MESS, the Multiple Emulator Super System, has been updated to 0.37 Beta 8. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Yape 0.23
16:17:  Yape, the Commodore Plus4 emu, has been updated to 0.23. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: MAME WIP
16:14:  MAME's official Work In Progress page of MAME has been updated during the last few days with following news:

Emulator Release: MacMAME 0.37 Beta 9
16:11:  MacMAME, the port of the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator to MacOS, has been updated to be in-sync with the latest official DOS version.

You can download it from our Multiple Arcade Emulators for Macintosh page.

11/11/2000
Misc. News: OverClocked ReMix Update
22:10:  David Lloyd (DJ Pretzel) has updated his remix site with at least three new remixes. From his humorous e-mail:

OverClocked ReMix has been updated with three new ReMixes, Darklands, Faxanadu, and Alone in the Dark 2. However, that's an unofficial tally brought to you by retrogames - the actual number is still up in the air, and it could take weeks to sort out just HOW MANY ReMixes were added. Note that some downloaders found the drop-down menus on that site 'confusing' and allegations have been made on both sides of the fence. Right now, a bunch of old white guys are debating the issue, and urge that no one rushes to judgement, unless it helps their side.
See for yourself at http://remix.overclocked.org/.
-DJP

Frontend News: Atari V7800 Frontend
22:06:  Psyman has just completed the first beta version of a new multi-emulator frontend called Offend. Right now, it only supports V7800 the Atari emulator (so it's not much of a MULTI-frontend yet.) The author plans to support many more emulators in the future, so we'll keep you posted with any new supported emulators when a new version is released.

Get this frontend from our Universal Frontends page.

Emulator Release: AdvancedMAME v0.37 Beta 9
20:06:  Are you itching to connect your computer up to a TV set and play with a huge screen rather than your small 14-17" monitors? Wanna sit in a big cozy couch and just veg out while playing Space Invaders? Well, then you've come across the right update. This optimized version of MAME called AdvancedMAME contains special features for increased compatibility with TV displays, arcade and fixed-frequency monitors. Now, this means that it will improve video support for various kinds of monitors and display units. Here's a list of what's new in this release:

• Possibility for the user to create new VGA/VBE tweaked video modes with any size and frequencies.
• A lot of video boards supported (see the Card).
• Video image stretching by fractional factors, for example to play vertical games like PacMan with horizontal and fixed low resolution Monitors or TVs.
  
• Special video effects to improve the image quality in stretching like blur filter, merge with mean and merge with max lighting. See the Effetcs for examples.
  
• Dirty buffer supported also in multi buffers and unchained modes.
  
• Rotation supported also at blit level for playing games that don't rotate correctly, for example all NeoGeos on vertical monitors.
  
• Change of the video mode at runtime. See the Snapshots.
  
• Automatic exit after some time of inactivity.
  
• Various utilities to help the configuration process and the use with Arcade Cabinets.

Emulator Release: FE 0.05a
19:04:  The NES/Famicom emulator FE has been updated to 0.05a. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Steem 1.2
19:01:  A new version of the AtariST emulator, Steem, has been released. Here's what's new:

Misc. News: CPS-2 Shock Progress
18:53:  CPS-2 Shock, a team dedicated to decrypting the Capcom arcade hardware CPS-2, has been updated with the latest data of non CPS-2 encrypted values.

You can view these values, and find more information about this project at CPS-2 Shock.

Emulator Release: GameLad 1.01
18:51:  The Gameboy emulator, GameLad, has been updated to 1.01. Here's what's new:

Free ROMs News: Intellivision Games
18:46:  Intellivision Lives has released some free Intellivision games on their site. The games are available for free download as Intellipack 3. The Pack contains B-17 Bomber, Beauty & The Beast, Shark Shark and a prototype called Minotaur. These games are available as a preview for the Intellivision Rocks collection, which will include every game released for Intellivision by Activision and Imagic.

You can download the games from Intellivision Lives.

11/10/2000
Translation News: 100% Translation Released
23:10:  AlanMidas has released a 100% patch for "The 100 World Story", a japanese RPG for the NES. Screenshots are available at the project page. As always, you can download the patch at our NES Translations page. Thanks to Syrus Dragoberg for the news.

Emulator News: Laser Progress
20:05:  The Laser homepage has been updated with news on the progress of this multiple arcade emulator:

I am currently trying to find the Space King 2 ROMset that Team Japump just dumped so I can give a shot at adding it to Laser. Space King is already supported by Laser, and as far as I know, Space King 2 uses the same hardware, so it shouldn't be that hard to add. If you have this ROMset, please contact me.

In other news - I have managed to get the game Lupin II to be fully playable - and I have made more progress in making the semi-supported games more playable: Boot Hill now runs without the characters on screen. I have also added preliminary support for Clowns.

I will release another version of Laser as soon as I get the Space King 2 Romset - which hopefully should be soon.

Go to the Laser Homepage for more information.

Emulator Release: ZSNES 1.10
19:15:  The windows and DOS ports of the excellent SNES emulator, ZSNES, have received a rather huge update. Here's the full list of what's new:

11/9/2000
Emulator News: Sega Smash Pack for Dreamcast
15:45:  Sega is going to be releasing it's Smash Pack - a modified version of Steve Snake's Kgen with select Genesis ROMs - to the the Dreamcast. According to Yahoo - it will be releasing it as a bundle pack with the previously unreleased Dreamcast version of Virtua Cop 2, and the puzzle game Sega Swirl for $179. The emulated Genesis games reportedly on the GD-ROM will be:
Sonic the Hedgehog, Vectorman, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage 2, Columns(TM), Phantasy Star 2, Shining Force, and Wrestle War.

You can read the entire article at Yahoo News.

Emulator Release: MAME32 0.37 beta 9
11:16:  A new version of MAME32 has been released. It is now up to date with the official version. You can get MAME32 at the MAME page.

Emulator News: Mimic WIP
07:58:  Mike Beaver has been able to get the Twin VDPs working for Hang On Jr. in Mimic. Here's a quote about this feat:

As you can see, I got the twin VDPs working !!! I was wrong because the line interrupts ARE used, I was just getting fruity results without the background layer. Hang On Jr now passes all of the RAM tests, but still fails on one of the ROMs. Can't wait until I get that good dump. All I need to get it playable is the accelerator and angle inputs.
As for the other romsets, I can see Riddle writing to the VRAM but still no graphics and Transformer is strangly broken in this cut of the code. I have another cut where it works, so I will compare.

Mike also put an HWC driver file on the homepage that allows you to play a previously unemulated game: Lucky Today on the current version of Mimic.

See the WIP screenshots and download the Lucky Today driver at the Mimic Homepage.

Download the current version of Mimic at our Mimic section.

Site News: Happy Birthday
00:01:  Zophar's Domain is now officially 4 years old. This day, back in 1996, Brad Levicoff (Zophar) first put this site online. I spoke with Brad and here's what he had to say:

Hey everyone! It's been about seven weeks since Sam took the site over in September. To be honest, I haven't really had much time to see how things have been going here, but everyone assures me it's doing great; from what I've seen, things look better than ever! It's hard to believe that this site has come from such humble beginnings to the greatness that it has achieved. I'm proud that I was a part of it for almost four years. I thought I'd take a minute to let everyone know how I've been doing.

I went back to retail work in October. Having worked at Best Buy over a year earlier, I've learned many things about sales, and what better retail job to have than selling video games? So I applied to Software, Etc. in Neshaminy Mall (a mall right outside of Philadelphia, in Bensalem) and after many phone calls later, I was hired as a part-time sales associate. For anyone in the Philadelphia or Bensalem area, feel free to drop by, say hello, and buy/reserve something. :)

Part time college is going great. I have an "A" average in both Computer Science 111 (Basic C++ programming) and English 102 (term papers) so far. I'll be returning full-time in January, at which time I'll be taking Math 171 (Calculus I), Math 163 (Structures) and Computer Science 112 (More C++ programming). If any ZD visitors go to community College of Philadelphia, drop me a line (zophar@voicenet.com) and maybe we can meet up. I hope to
be at Drexel University going for my Computer Science major by 2002. Not the date I had hoped for, but I'm finally on the right track.

I'll be attending my first ever Marilyn Manson concert this Wednesday with my friend Phil in my home town of Philadelphia, PA! While I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of you aren't MM fans, I've always liked the underdog - be it music, sports/entertainment (pro-wrestling as opposed to monday night football) and even video games (Lunar 2 as opposed to Quake 5,412). If anyone else will be attending, drop me a line at zophar@voicenet.com and maybe we could meet up.

Perhaps some of you have been wondering who your favorite Levicoff voted for. Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway - Al Gore. While I strongly disagree with pretty much every word that has ever exited Joe Lieberman's mouth, I'd much rather have a registered democrat who has republican stances
on every issue as vice president than another Bush in office as president. (I'm a democrat - sue me!) Also - while I do agree with many of Nader's views and I like what the guy is trying to say, all voting for Nader has done (or seems to have done, the election results are too close for a victor to be announced right now) was take away votes from Al Gore, causing him to lose the election. I stayed up until 3 in the morning last night watching CNN, and finally gave up on Florida's final results coming in. Still waiting...

My sympathy goes out to the person who was going to redesign ZD. I departed this website before ever getting
a chance to meet you. I hope that you recover quickly and I thank you for the services you are doing for Sam Michael's Zophar's Domain.

Work on the pro-wrestling website is on hold until I take care of all my college, work and financial responsibilities. I apologize to the twelve people that mailed in for positions and haven't receieved a response yet - the site will still go on, just not in the timely fashioned that I had plan. If things always went according to plan, what fun would life be?

I'm very proud of the work everyone has done for Zophar's Domain, and I'm glad that everyone still continues to visit it. It's proof that a good foundation is all one needs - if everything depending on one person or a few people, you'd have a poor foundation and a collapse would occur if even a few links to the chain broke (see: former U.S.S.R.).

Thanks to everyone for visiting ZD! May it have another healthy and productive four years ahead.

Until a definitive majority of Americans can agree on a president, I am

Brad Levicoff

I'm sure I speak for all of the emulation community when I say, "Thank you, Brad."

11/8/2000
Emulator Release: DBoy Updated
23:53:  BouKiCHi has updated DBoy, his Gameboy emulator, to version 0.73. Loosely translated from the Japanese readme, what's new still doesn't make any since. Here is the translation of what has changed verbatim from elingo:

00/11/08 0.73 [It] made it to accurate timing of the Movie function. (Because record information was added, it is not compatible with the Movie taken ahead. ) It is a directory relation why and error がでる (cause uncertainty).

Emulator News: Bleem Compatibility Update
23:42:  The Bleem! website has updated their page saying that Bleem is compatible with Windows ME (like that was a big surprise). I tried out Bleem in Windows ME the day it was released, so I guess this is nothing new to me. Their Windows ME page is at http://www.bleem.com/me.htm.

On a side note, I tried Bleem out in Whistler (the next MS OS), and it does not work in normal mode OR in Windows 9x compatibility mode. Hopefully Bleem will be updated by then (but don't hold your breath... it has not been updated since 11-25-99.)

Translation News: Monstania 100% Release
23:22:  The Aeon Genesis Translation Proclamation has released a 100% patch for Monstania. Monstania is a Strategy RPG for the SNES. You can get the patch at our SNES Translations page. Thanks to Syrus Dragoberg for the news.

Translation News: New Der Langrisser Patch
23:06:  Warui Toransu has moved his Der Langrisser translation to http://www.geocities.com/moonknt69. While I was there, I noticed that there is a new version of the translation with the version number 11072k (presumably meaning released yesterday, 11-07-2999).

I've updated our SNES Translations page with the new version, so get it there. Thanks to Moon Knight for letting me know about the page change.

Translation News: Both Pokemon Neo Hacks Updated
22:52:  Neo Productions has updated both of their Pokemon Neo hacks (Adventure and Rocket). Their page has also moved, so you can see screenshots of these games at the Neo Project Page.

Download the latest versions of their hacks from our Gameboy Hacks page.

Translation News: Dejap Page Updated
22:39:  DeJap has updated their page with screenshots of the upcoming release of the English patch of Tales of Phantasia (SNES). Among the other news items:

• Dragon Quest 6 should have a new release in 2 weeks or so.
• Dragon Quest 5 beta testing hasn't begun yet.
• Bastard is back in progress again.
  
• They have plenty of multilingual ToP translators.
  
• Samurai Shodown RPG is not in progress anymore. (The current translator gave up because he said it was too hard. Send them an e-mail if you'd like to try.)

Misc. News: Yet another Presidential update
19:40:  Still waiting on an official word about Bush's count in Florida...if he gets those 25 EVs, then he'll beat Gore (at least until December when they really decide). They're in the process of doing a mandatory recount.

As it stands right now, Bush has won...the count is (14/67 counties reporting):

2,909,176 - Bush (recount adds 125 votes)
2,907,451 - Gore (recount adds 133 votes)

All in all, this looks to be devestating for both candidates. Neither of them have the true majority of citizens behind them since the count is so close, which means the next 4 years is going to be pretty stagnant. I wouldn't be surprised if this is when other country's try to take advantage of a weakened US. But, alas, we'll see what the political analysts say.

Free ROMs News: Background Scrolling Demo released for Gameboy Advance
18:35:  A demo by Guano has been released. A simple background scoller demo. It comes with the souce if you're interested in coding for the GBA, go pick it up in the Gameboy Advance ROMs section.

Thanks to the Gameboy Advance Developement page for this demo. :)

Misc. News: Russian MSX System Emulation
16:46:  The MSX Emulation Page has added some Russian MSX images to their extensive site devoted to the MSX computer system. According to the webmaster:

Well, finally, after a VERY long search, we finally got them! From now on, you will also be able to emulate a Russian MSX2 system, as we have added the .ROM images if the YIS 503 II to the site. If I remember correctly, this is an MSX 2 machine by Yamaha, which was only released in Russia. My thanks go out to Bifi & Kiwi who have traced these files for me!

You can try the Russian MSX for yourself at The MEP.

Misc. News: Graal Online v1.41
05:47:  Just what IS Graal Online?

Graal Online is a game written by Stefan Knorr which is based from the old java game called Zelda Online. Veterans of emulation who remember the old SEC site, will remember a person that worked there named SECAIN. SECAIN gave Stefan Knorr the idea to create Graal and the first Zelda Online version was released in February of 1998. After a few months, Stefan Knorr renamed Zelda Online to Graal Online and released the first executable in September of 1998. This executable format was more stable than the Zelda Online java version and had more possiblilities such as a level editor where players could design and create their own levels, it supports NPC (Non-Player Character.) scripting which is basically programming the in game enemies, and levels, and much, much more. This game is free currently, however, that may change in the future. For you programming freaks, the server was coded in C/C++, and the client was coded in Delphi using DirectX, so that means you'll need DirectX to play this.

So, if you're a Zelda fan, you might want to check this game out. If you're new to the game, be sure to ask a GP (Graal Police) on the game for help. (Yes, I am a Graal Police officer on it. ;) ).

At any rate, here's a list of what's new in this release:

• shooting arrows only takes half the time
• there is an ap bar under the ASD thing
• a rating system for fights in sparring rooms; to make a sparring room you must add an npc with the script 'sparringzone' (no end line characters!) to the level; then the server will see that it's a sparring level and will not change your ap/money and will rate your fighting skills depending on who you kill and who kill you; when you press R then you will see the current ratings over the heads of the players; it shows rating + rating deviation; the rating deviation tells you if the player is fighting often, only players < 80 rating deviation will be listed in the graalonline.com top50; so if you see someone with a rating of 2000 and a rating deviation with 330 that means he only had one fight or so, so you can't really trust that he is a good fighter when you are in a sparring room you will see a white 'sparring' on the ap bar
• new option in F1->General options: fullscreen mode; you can switch to 800x600 and 1024x768; you can get the screen size in npc scripts by reading 'screenwidth','screenheight' (in case you want to align a showimg stats image on the right side of the screen)
• by right-clicking with the mouse on a player you will open the profile of that player; the profile now shows more stuff like the account name and sword power
• the server message of the day can now be HTML
  
• graal PMs and the server MOTD can contain the new tag Hallo #n! (the text inside the graalmsg tag works like with the npc script command 'message'); it is good for making a message which looks more personal
  
• new npc script command showstats, with this you can show/hide parts of the status bar / game showstats 1+2+4+8+16+32+64+128+256+512+1024; shows all showstats 0; hides all the argument is a bit-wise flag set
  • 1 - ASD
  • 2 - icons (for rupees, bombs, arrows)
  • 4 - rupees count
  • 8 - bombs count
  • 16 - arrows count
  • 32 - hearts
    
  • 64 - alignment (ap) bar
    
  • 128 - magicpoints (mp) bar
    
  • 256 - minimap (you can only hide it, you can't show it when the player pressed Alt+3)
    
  • 512 - invemtory npcs
    
  • 1024 - players
• npc weapons can't be deleted when their name starts with a *(e.g. toweapons *Boomerang;)
  
• there is a new very good designed baddy image: baddyninja.gif from Ulrich Galbraith (Zancrus) (its the one who made some of the graphics for v1.0 like the frogs, baddies)
  
• there are some new tiles for hourse corners and inside house corners
  
• fixed a bug with negative rupees when dropping rupees while being in the bank
  
• in online mode the positions of showimgs are aligned the same way like the player position; that way its easier to use hideplayer+showimg because you can align it correctly to the shadow of the player (which can't be hidden)
  
• in online mode when you do showimg+changeimgpart it also works for bigger images now
  
• the playerlist is sorted again when your nickname is changed (it needs to be updated because the guild might have been changed)
  
• red gloves will be displayed correctly again
  
• the default keys will be set/displayed correctly; this was a problem in older versions because e.g. in France you have the A key on a different position on the keyboard; in France it uses now QSD as the default keys for lifting/ sword/weapon
  
• when you start Graal for the first time then the game will try to detect the local language automatically; because some languagexxx.txt files needed to be renamed you might need to change your language manually if you have already played
  
• 'playersays' works correctly now, but keep in mind that its not supported anymore, better use strequals(#c,...)
  
• fixed a little bug with head icon transparency in 32bit
  
• showname / ap changing doesn't delete your chat text anymore

Misc. News: Another Presidential Update
04:09:  CNN has retracted their statement saying Bush has won Florida and changed the electoral votes to:

Bush - 246
Gore - 249

There are less than 1200 votes deciding Florida and their 25 EVs, as well as deciding who the President will be. As per Florida regulations, a recount is in order. Gore had called Governor Bush and conceeded, however, Gore later called him back and retracted his concession.

Yes, my friends...1 vote DOES count.

Update (at 4:11a): SnowMan let us know, and I just heard on CNN, that Florida has several thousand overseas ballots still to come in, which could take up to 10 days to count.

Update (at 4:34a): Florida is now reporting 100% of the count...here it is:

Bush - 2,902,733
Gore - 2,902,509

Yes, 224 votes are deciding the Presidency. The Florida Attorney General has stated that there WILL be a recount.

Also, Gore is now winning the popular vote...96% reporting for:

Gore - 47,123,818
Bush - 47,063,088

Now, even if Gore wins the popular vote, the Constitution says the Electoral Vote decides the Presidency.

Update at 5:40a: Here's the new stats...Gore still leads popular vote, and Bush still leads the Florida vote.

98% Reporting for popular:

47,913,358 - Gore
47,649,673 - Bush

New Florida count:

2,905,390 - Bush
2,904,403 - Gore

House:

215 Rep
207 Dem
2 Ind
11 Undecided

Senate:

17 Dem
15 Rep
2 Undecided

And remember, in addition to Florida, Wisconsin and Oregon are still too close to call.

Update at 6:24a: Gore has won Wisconsin's 11 Electoral Votes. The new score:

260 - Gore
246 - Bush

Also, an update for the House:

216 Rep
207 Dem
2 Ind
10 Undecided

Emulator News: Mimic WIP
03:49:  Mike Beaver has successfully acheived Sega System E emulation in his multiple systems emulator, Mimic. The homepage shows a work in progress screenshot of Hang-on Jr. running in Mimic without background emulation.

You can read more and look at the impressive screenshot at the Mimic Homepage.

Misc. News: Presidential Update
02:23:  The gamer's choice - George W. Bush has just won the pivitol state, Florida, to become the 43rd president of the United States.

Misc. News: Election Stuff
01:17:  Gotten a lot of emails during the last few hours asking about the United States election for President...so, alright. I'll speak.

CNN has estimated the following:

Electoral votes:
246 - Bush (Needs 28)
242 - Gore (Needs 24)

Basically, whoever gets Florida will probably win the election, if noone changes their vote.

Public votes (real):
40,566,111 - Bush (49%)
39,915,636 - Gore (48%)

Remember, the public votes are constantly changing, but the percentages are remaining basically the same with Bush on top.

My prediction: If Gore loses, it will be Clinton/Gore in 2004.......as in, Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore.

11/7/2000
Free ROMs News: Plasma demo for GBA
19:41:  ANOTHER Gameboy Advance demo was released today. It's a trippy plasma demo(although a little slow, but hey, what can you expect considering the system isn't even out yet). Go to the Gameboy Advance ROMs section to take a look at it.

Thanks to Kojote of Kojote's Freeware ROMs page for telling me about this. :)

Free ROMs News: GBA-Xfade Demo by Mic
16:33:  Mic released another Game Boy Advance. This was made to kinda advertise the Gameboy Advance Developement page.

Go grab it from the Gameboy Advance ROMs section.

Emulator Release: Virtua Release 1
12:34:  Kayamon has discontinued his Sega Model 2 emulator, Virtua, but has also released the emulator and the source. Here's a quote from the author:

Well, it breaks my heart to say it, but Virtua is no more. Yes, even before it started it has now finished. Why? Simply because I just don't have the time to keep working on this.

Believe it or not, I have a life, and it keeps getting in the way of things. I've been working on Virtua on and off for the past *2 years*, during which time I've stopped to write 2 other CPU cores, a YM2203 emulator, worked on Raine for a bit, and learnt to play the guitar. And now due to having to spend all my programming time on my University project, I don't see how I can realistically fit it in any more.

You can download it from the Multiple Arcade section.

Emulator Release: WPCMame Version 4
12:16:  WPCMame, an emulator for DOS/Win9x/00 which emulates the electronic circuit boards and the display in the pinball machine where you can also activate switches with your keyboard, see display animations, and listen/record the pinball game sounds, has been updated to version 4. Here's a list of what's new:

• WPCMAME.TXT file updated, including a small facelift.. :) [Steve Ellenoff]
• Removed all mame related info from this textfile. This file's purpose would be about WPCmame, after all! [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Added simulation.txt file so you can get keyboard layout and other simulation info there! [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Added DCS Sound Speedups!! (Sorry the speed ups don't work in WPC95 games!) [Jarek Parchanski] [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Fixed WPC95 DCS sound games so that the speedup code doesn't break the game! [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Renamed Tic-Tac-Toe, to it's proper Ticket-Tac-Toe! [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Fixed incorrect T2 ROM Checksum [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• New sound support for the following games: TAF(original), Popeye, The Machine: BOP, Party Zone, Whitewater, Safe Cracker, World Cup Soccer [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• New Simulators for Funhouse and Terminator 2 [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• New Sound Command Mode: Allows you to trigger any sound command, thus you can play any sound in the pinball game. (For some reason, digital voices don't work in pre-dcs games yet) [Steve Ellenoff]
  
• Record Sound output to a Wav file (files go to your wavefile directory.. works similar to screen shots, aka, files are named with a number after them!) [Jarek Parchanski] [Steve Ellenoff]

Misc. News: Datafile Updates
11:53:  Logiqx has updated his site with a new datafile for both ClrMamePro and RomCenter. This is for the newest MAME version of 0.37b9 as well as the new version of WPCMame v4.

Be sure to visit Logiqx's site for these downloads and for more information.

Misc. News: Arcade Flyers Updated
03:37:  The Arcadeflyers site has been updated with 1535 different flyers.

You should probably check this site out if you're an arcade fan. :)

Thanks to DinkeyToy for the news.

Interview News: G-NES Interview
03:29:  I got an email from navarone who conducted an interview with the author of the NES emulator called G-NES.

You can read the interview by visiting the following link:

Emulator Release: YAME v0.21
03:18:  A new version of the Win9x/00 TurboGrafx 16, NES, and Gameboy emulator called YAME has been updated to version 0.21. I can't report what's new in this emulator because the documentation is in Japanese.

You can pick up this emulator over at the YAME emulator section.

Misc. News: Genesis Power: Releases
03:12:  Eep! I'd better get caught up with all the Genesis Power updates that I've missed. ;)

The Genesis Power site has been updated with more Sega Genesis ROMs the past few days. Those of you who are Sega Genesis fans, should probably check this archive of ROMs. Here's what they've released the last few days:

• You play a yellow marsupial with an extremely long tail with which you can do all sorts of things to help your slow-witted elephant pal. GoodGen Unreleased! #331: Marsupilami
• This is an exact clone of the original Konami arcade game #330: Frogger
  
• Here is a 3D Pac-Man game with the ability to jump added to the mix. #329: Pac-Mania
  
• You play Flicky, a cute blue bird who has to save its chicks from some rather frisky kitties. The game that seems to have inspired Sonic 3D Blast. #328: Flicky
  
• Here is another version of our previous release. GoodGen Unreleased! #327: Jordan Vs Bird - Super One-On-One (Rev 01) (U)
  
• EA Sports's first venture into the Genesis arena was a remake of this venerable Commodore 64 classic. #326: Jordan Vs Bird - Super One-On-One (Rev 00) (U)
  
• Today's release is a humerous arcade shooter featuring gun-toting dinosaurs. #325: Dinosaurs For Hire
  
• Here is a side-scrolling run-and-jump depicting the misadventures of two little boys who like to run around in cowboy outfits and tangle with the usual platform problems and obstacles. #324: Dashin' Desperadoes.

Misc. News: TR64 FAQ Updated
03:05:  Having difficulties running the N64 emulator called TR64? Well, you're in luck. The official TR64 FAQ was updated today and now has a total of 29 questions answered.

You should probably check this site out if you're experiencing difficulties running the emulator.

Emulator Release: DreamGBC v0.1
03:02:  DreamCGB, a Gameboy emulator, has been released to version 0.1. This emulator was reported to the Emulation HQ site by Frank. This emulator is a Chinese Gameboy emulator.

You can pick this emulator up by visiting the Gameboy emulators section.

Emulator Release: Mac RockNES v1.500
02:55:  A new version of the MacIntosh port of the NES emulator called RockNES has been updated to version v1.500. Here's a list of what's new on this nifty emulator:

• In sync with v1.500 for PC. The main changes are several new mappers and improved sound emulation.
• Added the option to use QuickTime to stretch the NES image to the entire screen when Full Screen mode is selected.
  
• Added a simple Mapper editor.
  
• Added a number of different palettes for the Vs. Unisystem games.
  
• Improved the network play a bit - the emulation no longer goes out of sync when one of the players resets the game.
  
• Tweaked the FDS handling slightly. The emulator now tells you what side of the disk has been selected and so on.
  
• Added an icon for the disk system BIOS file.

Misc. News: RomCenter Datafiles
02:50:  The RomCenter site has been updated with a pile of datafiles for use with the ROM utility. Here's what was added:

• Final burn 0.050 - Logiqx - 9 games
• Laser 0.13 - Logiqx - 20 games
  
• Mimic 1.04 - Logiqx - 13 games
  
• U64 Emu beta 1.04 - Logiqx - Killer Instinct
  
• WPCmame 0.37b8 rel 2 - Logiqx - 63 games
  
• Amiga demo 0.1 - jjs - 500 demos
  
• Amiga cd32 - cdtv - MrX_Cuci - 49 games
  
• GameBoy Color 0.9993 - Rob van der Drif - 4273 games

Utility Release: ClrMamePro v1.8f
02:44:  Are you a ClrMamePro will wash your MAME ROM worries away. This is a ROM manager will cleans your MAME. directories, reports missing games, ROMs and samples. It will also report wrong sized/spelled/unnecessary files. Here's a list of what's new in this release:

• Fixed: another sysdefpath bug (1.8e)
• Misc: changed behaviour of (fix) unneeded check. Now it will find hidden parent in clones and hidden clones in parents...(1.8)

Emulator News: Mimic WIP
02:36:  The site of the Win9x/00 multi-system emulator called Mimic has been updated with news regarding the authors project to emulate the Sega System E. The site reports that the author has gotten a lot of information on the hardware and has been working with the 6 ROMsets he has. Three are running right now, however they are not populating graphics definitions.

Be sure to visit the Mimic site for more information.

11/6/2000
Misc. News: Awesome Asteroids Version
23:59:  I just played a 2d (of course) game of "Spheres of Chaos" that [JJ] told me about... it was REALLY cool! Spheres of Chaos is a Asteroids remake, and is available for both Windows and Risc-OS. You can download this awesome remake at the Spheres of Chaos page, and check out the screenshots while you're at it.

You can download more remakes at Retro-Remakes.

Technical Docs News: Translation Doc Added
23:47:  Kiwibonga has released a document on table files, and includes what one is, what it's used for, how to make one, and what to do with it when you're done. It's must-know information for any new translator/text hacker.

Read the document here or download it from the "General Subjects" section of our ROM Hacking/Translation Documents section.

Misc. News: Shining Force Campaign
23:38:  One of our hosted sites, Moogie's Ultimate Shining Force Website, has a campaign going to petition Sega to release a sequel in the Shining Force series. The petition has been going on for almost 6 months, and the site has just undergone a massive overhaul. They've been mentioned in magazines like the Official Dreamcast Magazine.

Visit the campaign site and find out more specifics at http://shining.zophar.net/campaign/.

Emulator News: New 100% Playable Game Found
23:21:  Ridge tells us that there is a new 100% fully playable game for TRWin (a Nintendo 64 emulator). The game: "Tigger's Honey Hunt". He said that the graphics are at 100%, and it runs fill speed. The sound doesn't work, but at least it's playable...

Misc. News: Bleem Article
23:05:  uzplayer has written an article called "bleem! Troubled Past... Bright Future?" that is available at Gamer's Uplink. Here's an excerpt that uzplayer provided us with:

From it痴 inception into the gaming community, to the soon introduction of the first ever Playstation emulator for Sega Dreamcast, people have been watching the battle between Sony Computer Entertainment (Sony) and bleem!
Inc. (bleem!) over its line of emulator products that play Playstation (PSX) games on your PC and soon Sega Dreamcast.

Emulator Release: SSF Updated
22:57:  SSF (the only playable Sega Saturn emu) has been updated to version 004 alpha r5. I translated what is new, but it's still pretty much incoherent... Check it out for yourself at E-Lingo. Enter the SSF homepage (http://www5.airnet.ne.jp/phantasy/saturn/main.html), and Japanese as the source URL. Thanks to npX for the news.

Get the latest version of SSF from our Sega Saturn Emulators page.

Site News: Fire Demo for GBA
18:06:  Is it just me, or do these fire demos seem to hit on every single system. Anyway, thanks to the only site I know of for news on the Gameboy Advance developement scene.
Head on over to the Gameboy Advance ROMs section and grab it, and don't forget to go to the aforementioned site for everything GBA Developement related.

Site News: Help Wanted
18:05:  The person who was redesigning the site was in a car accident last Tuesday, and unfortunately, is unable to complete the design. Best of luck to your recovery :)

So, here's what I need. A person who can redesign ZD. Not someone who just rearranges what we have...I'm looking for a total overhaul that looks nothing like this. Here are the qualifications:

Emulator Release: swNES v0.30
17:16:  swNES v0.30 was released recently, here's what's new.

• Modify Some Mapper Bugs.
• Add FC Ext.Driver : Mahjong Keyboard.
• Add FC Ext.Driver : Top Rider.
  
• Add FC Ext.Driver : Family BASIC Keyboard.
  
• Support Family BASIC Ver:3 Save & Load Instructions.
  
• Support LPT port Play Station Pad.
  
• Suppor 2P MIC function.

11/5/2000
Emulator Release: DreamSNES v0.9.2
22:12:  A new version of the Snes9x port to the DreamCast called DreamSNES has been updated to version 0.9.2. Here's a list of what's new:

• PAL support
• Verical offset of non-VGA screens fixed. (i e bottom of screen should now be visible.)
  
• 50/60Hz video option
  
• Double buffering
  
• Less frame skipping
  
• Stereo sound support
  
• Up to 1024 ROMs per CD supported.
  
• Game can be selected before the ROM list is completely loaded
  
• Music added on the menu screens
  
• It does not run at full speed. If you thought the previous release was unusable due to the low speed (as you should have), then you'll be better off waiting for v1.0.

Misc. News: New Overclocked Remix
20:50:  David Lloyd has updated DJ Pretzel's Overclocked Remix with four new remixes in the past two days. They are:

• Altered Beast 'Resurrection by Breakbeat'
• Final Fantasy I 'Prelude (Refractive)'
  
• Pacman 'Rave in the Mirror Maze'
  
• Turok 2 'Port of Adia DrumMix'

11/4/2000
Emulator News: Stardust SNES Emulator for Sega Saturn
11:58:  The author of the StarDust SNES Emulator for the Saturn has updated the page recently with the news that work on the emulator is now suspended due to his Saturn dying. Hopefully he will be able to continue work on this project soon.

StarDust : A Super Nintendo Emulator for Sega Saturn

11/3/2000
Translation News: New Translation Group
22:32:  There is a new translation group that just got started called Unstable Translation. Their page is at http://strag0.lfx.org and they are translating the Super Robot Wars Series. There's no patches to download yet, but I just wanted to keep you guys updated.

Translation News: Final Fantasy 4 Trans Updated
22:26:  The patch that J2e Translations released on October 31st for Final Fantasy IV (SNES) had a bug in it, so they fixed it. The new version is 3.02, which you can download from our SNES Translations page. Thanks to The Smoker and The Crusader for the news.

Misc. News: Back In Time Review
21:21:  The Back In Time site has been updated with a review of the PC and Playstation game called: Galaga: Destination Earth. Here's a portion of the review:

In 1999, Hasbro Interactive licensed a number of classic coin-op games from Namco. Galaga: Destination Earth is the first of the Namco-licensed games to hit the streets. Developed by King of the Jungle & published by Hasbro Interactive, Galaga: Destination Earth has some features in common with the original coin-op game. On the whole, however, the game does not look or feel like the classic game we all know and love.

Misc. News: EmuForce Gets New Look
21:15:  The emulation news site of EmuForce has recently gotten a site redesign. Be sure that you have IE v5.5 as it will only work if you have that. It's got some really nice graphics and eye candy.

Be sure to check out EmuForce today!

Misc. News: RomHQ Site Updated
21:12:  The RomHQ site was updated with 50 new ROM sites for your viewing pleasure. Those of you who haven't checked out RomHQ should probably check it out. RomHQ is a site containing a huge database of links to ROM sites. :)

For more information, check out the RomHQ site.

Misc. News: Emulation Article
21:08:  The Linux Journal has posted an article regarding older computer and arcade emulators. The article talks about some of the history behind them. This is a very interesting article, so you should probably check it out if you're a retrogamer. Here's a portion of the article:

I didn't get my first computer until the early 1980s when I could finally afford a computer. I selected the TRS-80 Color Computer. At the time, there were many competing types of computers, and almost none of them were compatible. It was difficult to choose between the TI-99/4A, Commodore Vic 20, Apple II, Atari 800 and the many other personal computers available at the time.

Misc. News: Dreamcast On PC?
21:05:  I was over at the Emulation HQ site when I saw a post stating that Sega is coming out with a PCI card which will enable you to play DreamCast games on your computer. This is a pretty nifty idea and it may bring the popularity of Sega's DreamCast up. Here's a portion of an article that was posted regarding it:

This last area seems to be the most interesting. Reports from Japan are indicating that Sega is moving apace at incorporating Dreamcast technology onto a PCI card. By installing this card, Dreamcast games can be played through a computer in perfect form. We're not sure how the whole GD-ROM thing works out at this point, or if Sega would be planning on re-releasing titles on DVD-ROM format.

Misc. News: SupraHLE Article
21:00:  An article that talks about the "hacked" version of UltraHLE called SupraHLE has been posted over at Smiff's site. Here's a portion of that article:

First, I should say that this is only a quick 'peek under the bonnet', so to speak - to determine the exact effects of the changes The Company have made would require more time and more sophisticated tools, and/or assistance from The Company themselves! Still, I hope this will at least satisfy the casual user and point those more curious in the right direction.

Emulator Release: GameLad New Release
20:55:  GameLad, a Gameboy emulator for Win9x/00, has been released. This is a new release so not much can be reported except maybe what the emulators features are. Want to know what they are? Well, alrighty then. Here's the goods:

• Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulation
• CPU (cycle counter)
  
• Graphic with priorities
  
• Ten sprites per scanline limitation
  
• Stereo Sound
  
• V-Blank, LCDC, Timer interrupts
  
• Sprite and General purpose DMA
  
• Divider
  
• Battery RAM
  
• Debugger
  
• Disassembler
  
• Register, Memory, VRAM viewer
  
• Breakpoints
  
• Step Over, Step Into, Step Out and Run to Cursor
  
• Usage of uninitialized memory warning
  
• Configurable keys
  
• Simultaneous emulation of multiple Game Boys
  
• Drag and Drop files to open them
  
• Use DDE to open files
  
• Property window in Explorer shows ROM header

Emulator Release: Snes9x v1.33
20:42:  A new version of one of the most popular SNES emulators called Snes9x has been updated to version 1.33. This is one of the better SNES emulators because of the fact that its on multi-platforms, its got a source code for those of you who are itching to know how it works, and its got a crispy GUI which is easy to understand. Here's a list of what's new:

• Some old SA-1 shutdown code was causing the main SNES CPU to shutdown randomly instead. Very noticable in Mario RPG where the game was running too slowly and music was getting out of sync with in-game action.
• Fixed asm CPU_SHUTDOWN code that I accidentally broke while trying to optimise it! Thanks to all the people who noticed Snes9x's frame skipping had changed between releases. Frames rates should be improved again for more than 50% of games.
  
• Re-enabled in-lining of the C SNES memory access routines, improves frame rate by one or two on slower machines.
  
• Optimised the asm 65c816 addressing mode emulation code a little.
  
• Included some code changes making life easier for the Mac porter, John Stiles.
  
• Added memory map support for Sufami Turbo using information supplied by Nose0000. No idea if it works because I don't have the ROM.

Emulator News: Mimic WIP
20:28:  The Mimic site has been updated with more news regarding this arcade emulator. The author reports that he's working on the system menu, additionally, he's made it so you can separate HWC files into blocks. Now, what this does, is it allows the interpreter to selectively ignore code based on the romset selected. This is very good if you've got multiple version of the same game. In addition, there's a new screenshot posted on the site featuring the game Transformer. The Mimic site got 1801 hits yesterday. That's a record breaker on his site!

Please visit the Mimic site for more information.

Emulator News: MAME WIP
05:58:  Yay! The MAME site was updated today with some news regarding the upcoming version of the multi-arcade emulator. The site reports that the bugs in the Sega C2 driver have been fixed and that Battle K-Road has been added to the Psikyo driver!! Here's some other tidbits:

• Guru added a few new Mortal Kombat romsets to the T-Unit and Y-Unit drivers. Aaron Giles cleaned up the Sega C2 driver and fixed some of the remaining problems. Yochizo fixed road color and music tempo in Daisenpu.
• Aaron Giles fixed some scrolling effects in the Sega C2 driver. Luca Elia added Battle K-Road to the Psikyo driver. Phil Stroffolino started on a Looping driver, it runs I/O CPU code fine now but main CPU code does not seem to be valid and the microcontroller isn't emulated, so nothing works.

11/2/2000
Misc. News: PT Trans Back Up
23:10:  Daniel wrote to tell us that PT Translations is back up.... Why not give them a visit?

Translation News: German Patch Updated
23:07:  Special-Man of G-Trans let us know that they have updated their German translation of Seiken Densetsu 3 (Which is actually the Secret of Mana 2) for the SNES. Get it at our German Translations page.

Free ROMs News: GBA Stars demo for Gameboy Advance
17:31:  The source code was released yesterday at the Gameboy Advance Developement page, and the ROM was released today.
Pick it up in the Gameboy Advance ROMs section.

And I'm currently working on the Nintendo 64 section, that should be done sometime soon, just keep checking back.

Emulator Release: Linux Raine v20001101
10:26:  A new version of the Linux port of the arcade emulator called Raine has been updated to version 20001101. Here's a list of what's new:

• Fixed the F2 system (quite a few games were crashing at startup)
• Fixed (reverted to the old version) Don Do Kodo (The 20000924 gave a very nice "venitian store effect". Took me a long time to find out it was the driver itself which was faulty and not the asm display routines !!!)
  
• Added 2 dipswitch settings for "SDF Macross"
  
• Triple Buffering now REALLY works ! But I advice against it : it eats more than 50% of my cpu time !!! (maybe because my allegro does not have the triple buffering patches ???)
  
• Added the dos graphics modes which were missing to the "Auto Detect" section. Might be usefull for Svgalib or Xfree.

Utility Release: BNSF v1.6
09:48:  The author of the NES emulator called RockNES has released a new version of his NSF player for DOS called BNSF. NSF stands for Nintendo Sound Format. It's basically like MP3s of NES game songs, only they are extracted from the ROMs themselves and placed into a format readable by NSF players such as BNSF. Here's a list of what's new:

• Small fixes, code cleaned;
• Sound drivers are up-to-date with the last RockNES version.

Misc. News: Zophar's Domain Hits Swedish Air Waves
09:34:  We've recently gotten quite a few news submissions stating that Zophar's Domain was mentioned during a radio broadcast in which they were discussing videogaming and they happened to mention Zophar's Domain as being a great site and a resourceful site. :)

If the news broadcasters are reading this, thanks a lot! :)

A big thangs to Mist and Joel Nystr�m for the news.

Misc. News: Genesis Power: Releases
09:21:  Yay! Genesis Power has added two more Sega Genesis ROMs to their Genesis ROMs archive. You'll wanna check this site out if you're a Sega Genesis nut. :) Here's what they've released:

• Today's release is a humerous arcade shooter featuring gun-toting dinosaurs. #325: Dinosaurs For Hire.
• Here is a side-scrolling run-and-jump depicting the misadventures of two little boys who like to run around in cowboy outfits and tangle with the usual platform problems and obstacles. #324: Dashin' Desperadoes.

Frontend News: MAMEMix v0.61
09:17:  A new version of the MAME frontend for Win9x/00 called MAMEMix has been updated to version 0.61. You'll wanna check the site out for more information on this frontend. Here's a list of what's new:

• new: snapshot window has the same main window's z order
• new: unused items autodisable
  
• new: progress bar added
  
• bug: rsxnt.dll library isn't deeded anymore
  
• bug: search routine fully rewritten
  
• bug: mame filename can be specified
  
• bug: empty lists can be handled also at startup
  
• bug: error routines rewritten
  
• bug: windows are updated and focused after mame execution
  
• bug: wait after running option now works
  
• bug: dir names 8 characters longer are now supported sorry for this one!)

Misc. News: Overclocked Anniversary
09:07:  Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the zany emulation comic strip of OverClocked. Yes, that's right, folks. For a whole year, Pretzel and Green have been showing us that there is no place like bleem. I can remember interviewing David, Green, and Pretzel once. It was a crazy night. :) At any rate, David released a new episode of the comic strip. You can view it and the old interview I conducted below:

Emulator News: FreezeSMS Site Updated
08:51:  The site of the SMS emulator called FreezeSMS has received a new look and has some news regarding the emulator. The site reports that the sound in the emulator is coming along rather nicely and it should be available to your ears in the next version. The author is coding the sound using DirectSound which means you'll need DirectX to use this emulator to its fullest.

Be sure to check the site out for more information.

Emulator News: Sintendo Site Updated
08:47:  The site of the SNES emulator for the DreamCast called Sintendo was updated slightly. The author has fixed the downloads page which now makes it easier to download the source code and binary from the page.

Be sure to check the site out for the current version and more information on this amazing emulator.

Emulator Release: HyNES
08:44:  A new NES emulator for Win9x/00 called HyNES has been released. HyNES was coded using Microsoft Visual Basic which means you'll require the runtime file of Msvbvm60.dll. Its got a Zelda-like GUI, and is very impressive. It has a palette editor support, savestate support, .WAV output support, screenshot support, and it supports 5 screen resolutions. Its worth a look at, if only for the crispy GUI.

You can check it out by visiting the NES emulators section.

Emulator News: Mimic Site Updated
08:28:  The Mimic site has been updated with some amazing news! The site reports that the 32bit port of this emulator is starting to show signs of life! (IT'S ALIVE!!! *cough* Oops, sorry.)

The site also reports that some SMS games are now working and are much faster with some games going from 5 FPS to 55 FPS.

Be sure to check the site out for more information on this emulator and to check out the current version.

Emulator Release: paraMSX v0.20
08:27:  paraMSX is a Windows port of fMSX. It's based on fMSX v2.1. It was recently updated to v0.20. Here is what's new:

• KanJi Driver(Knjdrv.rom) will be loaded at MSX2+ mode.
• Fixed ScreenShot bug.
  
• Sprite color at SCREEN1.
  
• Fixed PSG envelope bug.
  
• Added new scanline modes for 16bit color.
  
• Added CPU speed option.
  
• Added Time acceleration option.
  
• Added NumPad-key binding. (when NumLock is turned on) ,and some key binding was changed.