2007 News Archive
Friday 21/12/07 |
As many of you will looking forward to hopefully getting a new games console or computer this Christmas, I thought you might like a glimpse of what many of use were hoping for back in the 80's.Here's the Christmas advert for Currys featuring the Spectrum!!
You'll find many other similar nostalgic ads on YouTube, to get you in the Christmas spirit as it used to be.
Wednesday 19/12/07 |
General:
To all the visitors of this old and new, let me offer my sincere apologies for not having updated this site over the last 5 months.Unfortunately, real life situations, and the most unreliable ISP in the world have conspired to prevent me having the time or access to update this site.Having been without access for the last week, was the last straw, and so now armed with my MAC code, I'm in the process of finding a better ISP, and incase you're wondering who my current supplier is, it'll come as no suprise to many here in the UK to know that it's Talk Talk, something you end up doing a lot of to their customer service departments!
Well it's Christmas around the corner, and so I thought I'd at least better offer a message to all my visitors, so...
Wishing all my visitors a very Merry Christmas!
I hope you found something interesting on your visit here, and best wishes to you all for the New Year
OK, lets see if I can offer you any interesting news or developments
Mame™
Yestersday saw the end of the 0.121 source update cycle, with the official release of 0.122 windows command line version.To find out whats new in this release, and the previous source changes, click here.There aren't many new games added, but more importantly a lot of work has been made on the existing drivers, including Star Wars.
Click here to download the official windows command line or source code version 0.122
Staying with Mame, It's amazing what some people can acheive when they have a bit of time on their hands, a guy has managed to get some Mame vector games running on an oscilloscope!, don't believe me, well click here to view a video of Star Wars as you've never seen it before.
Thanks to Mameworld for that article.
Fans of Shane Monroe's Retrogaming Radio show will be pleased to know, that the November edition of show is now available, and actually has been for a while, as well as previous versions.As with other editions, it includes a varied selection of topics, and is well worth listening to! Anyone out there remember Shane's Insert Coin site, or is it just me?
Just want to give a special mention to all the guys at MPU Mecca, thanks to their help, I was able to eventually get my Maygay Mario Kart 64 Fruit Machine working, this completes my games room, and so I'll post some pictures soon.
Thursday 28/06/07 |
Mame™
A new source update was released today, Mame 0.116u3, this includes Haze's recent Cps3 updates, yes, recently CPS3 decryption and booting was made possible, and so emulation of CPS3 games is now a reality.For those that don't know, CPS3, is a recent videogame system from Capcom, following on from the hugely popular CPS2 (Capcom Play System).Personally, I'm not that interested, I admire it as a technical acheivement, and so congratulations to the developers, but I have no wish to play endless fight games, there's plenty of them on the consoles, still I suppose it's the natural evolution of emulation, and will be hugely popular amongst those 'youngsters' new to the scene (ie that don't haven't a clue what PacMan is!), many of which I'm afraid will probably see Mame merely as a tool to play their favourite games for free, rather than a means of preservation.
Seems we were a little hasty in thinking that Retrogames was back, it hasn't been updated since May.Still, that happens here a lot, and yet I'm hanging in there, this site will have been around in oine guise or another for 10 years this september.
Tuesday 12/06/07 |
Mame™
Yesterday saw the release of Mame v0.116, dubbed the "Donkiest Kong in the world with sound" release.This is due to the major progress made in emulating the discrete sound circuits used on the Donkey Kong games.For more information on this, and the source changes since the last official release, read the whatsnew.txt file.
You can download the latest 0.116 version of Mame from the Mame section of my Emulators page here.
General:
Fixed some broken links, resulting from a host closure on the Emulators section, the affected archive files have now been uploaded locally, avoiding host problems.My original reason for hosting files elsewhere, was purely because I was running out of server space, but this isn't such a problem now.
Sunday 03/06/07 |
General
I'm sorry to dissapoint all those that thought this site had died, I'm back, having just had too many more important things to attend to, such as my son being ill, taking my bank to court etc etc.Thankfully I'm hoping that this will all be resolved within a few weeks, so I'll be able to spend at least a little bit of time updating this site.Needless to say, if want me to recommend a bank, it won't be the Halifax that's for sure, but that's my personal view.
I'm very pleased to see another site seems to have come back from the dead, with no apparent explanation for it's absence, and that's Retrogames, yes it's true! Chris and more recently Atila, have been busy keeping the place updated once again, and it looks as if things are going to stay that way, so welcome back.
At last, a onetime major videogame manufacturer has done the right thing, and released some of it's old arcade videogames for free and legal use, and that company is Exidy, probably best known to most in the UK, for their older monochrome games such as Circus and Crash.You can download them from the MameDev site who have been granted permission from the manufacturer to make them available for download, legally.This is a major step forward in the world of emulation, and perhaps may encourage others to follow, especially as the scene is perhaps not as popular as it once was, and manufacturers have probably already exploited the commercial market for retro gaming as much as they can, we can only hope.Well done Exidy!
A bit late to mentioning this, but if you didn't already know, Mame v0.115 was released a while back, but don't expect too many new games, it's mostly a release of cleanups and fixes.
Thursday 08/03/07 |
General
Sorry for the lack of updates recently, been very busy one way or another, normal service will resume soon!
Before I cover anything else, I've had a lot of requests wishing to exchange links, that's fine, it's good for both of us, however please do not waste my time by asking to link to any adult themed site, even if it is does host games.This is a retro gaming site, the demographic of which is typically male mid 20's to early 40's, which probably wouldn't mind seeing some links to adult sites, however teenagers and younger children also visit, and it is therefore not suitable.So if you're site has any adult content, then the answer is no, and always will be!
Mame™
A few days late with this, but a new version of Mame has just been released, version 0.113
Click here to find out what's new in Mame 0.113
Click here to download Mame 0.113 Source Code or Windows Command line version (MameDev.org)
Click here to download Mame 0.113 Source Code or Windows Command line version (Mame.net)
Click here to download Mame32 0.113 Windows GUI version
Click here to download Processor specific builds (currently 0.112u4 available, but will probably update soon)
redump.emubase.de - Optimized MAME builds
Sunday 18/02/07 |
General
A little late with an update, but I'm pleased to announce, that I've made a further update to my Handheld Game Museum.It's really starting to take shape now, and well worth a look now, even if only for a bit of nostalgia!.It's still not complete though, and when I next get a chance I'll work on some more of my collection.
Wednesday 07/02/07 |
Happy Birthday Mame! or should that be Happy Birthday Mame™!
A huge milestone in the history of gaming, the famous Mame™ emulator turned 10 years old yesterday.And I can remember those very early releases as if it were yesterday, sometimes waiting up, so I could get the download as soon as it was released.More importantly Mame has introduced a whole new generation to the beginning of videogames, which are now such an integral part of our culture.
To celebrate, a new release has been made, but owing to lack of time now, I'll have add this tomorrow.The reason I don't have enough time, is because of the next item...
Although I haven't mentioned it, I'm gradually restoring the handheld game museum, which actually houses my entire collection, or at least it will do.Sadly I lost the original museum to a server crash, which in a way did me a favour, because it was vastly outdated.So take a look, it's far from finished, but already there is a lot to see, all catergorised, including everyone's favourites, the Coleco Mini Arcade's, of which I now have 3.I've also where possible decided to include live screen shots, so you can see what the game screen looked like, not just the game itself.
I'm, aware a problem exists, if you try to visit this section using the menu from any other page apart from the menu on the left of this, the front page, and will fix this soon.
Saturday 03/02/07 |
This last week I finally had the chance to gather my collection of retro gaming and computer items together, to create a sort of mini exhibition at my sons school.It was a lot of work, especially checking everything over, getting it all there, and then setting up demonstrations and so on, but in the end I thought it was a great success, the children loved playing with the games, and the parents had a chance to escape back to their childhood, if only for while.As was typical I probably went a little over the top for such an event, writing detailed info on all of the computers, and how they work, binary etc, not much of which was even read, but at least it made people realise where it all began.Funny enough the highlight was the Pong TV games, which everyone loved playing, unfortunately, the equally aged black & white TV kept drifting off tune!.Anyway, the point is, is whilst I have everything in one place, I at last have the chance to photgraph eveything, and restore the handheld game section, which had previously been lost with a server crash.
Below are some pictures of some my displays taken with a phone (VGA)
Above are some of my handheld games: Coleco Galaxian, Coleco PacMan, Coleco Frogger, Astro Wars, Entex Defender, Missile Commander, Amidar, Alien Chase, Scramble, Super Kong, Firefox, Tennis, Logic 5, Mattel Soccer 2, Invaders from Space, CGL Frogger, Caveman, Pocket Simon, Missile Invader, Grand Prix, BMX flyer, PacMan 2, Defender (unlicenced), Puck Monster, Space Invaders.
Above: Merlin, Sky Attack, Tandy Arcade, Commodore 64 (setup) with a selection of 60 games, 10 in 1 DTV plug & play Atari VCS joystick
Above: Grandstand colour TV game, Tomy Blip, Prinztronic Tournament II (setup with B&W TV), Nintendo NES (thanks to John for the loan of this, as I'd sold mine), Commodore VIC setup
Above: Microvision with Pinball cart, Atari STe, Stylophone, Alien Attack x 2 (I took one apart to show workings), a few more handhelds at far end which I can't remember the names of!
Above: Entex Defender 3rd one, C64 DTV plug & play, Alien Attack 3rd one (it'll be available on Ebay soon!), and some early computer ads.
There are quite a few more games around which you can't see (yet!), but you'll get a chance when I get the museum section finished, as shortly after I took this photo, about 100 kids decended on me!, and I never got a chance to take anymore photo's.There were also others in my collection which I simply couldn't take along due to the logistics in getting them to the school.
Maybe I'll do one of the shows later in the year!
I'd love to hear from any of the parents that stopped by my display, with their views on this site.
Sunday 14/01/07 |
General
Shane released a new edition of his excellant (IMO) Retro Gaming Radio Show just before Christmas, and although it's a little late I thought I'd mention it, as you can be sure it'll be an interesting show.You can either download the show to listen at your leisure, or stream, either way, highly recommended.
Retro Gaming Radio Show (Latest Edition 23/12/06)
Of course those of you that have been following emulation for some years, will remember that Shane Monroe, started with his Insert Coin site, before changing to Monroeworld.com, which has more to do with his love of all things M S (ahem) software, than gaming unfortunately.
Pins
I should have perhaps mentioned yesterday, what a Future Pinball table is, well it's a table designed using a fantastic freely available piece of software called, Future Pinball.It's been covered in quite a few PC mags recently, with some giving tutorials, so if you fancy the idea of creating your very own pinball table creation, or perhaps recreating a real one, then this software will help make it as easy as possible.For more information, downloads, guides etc, visit www.futurepinball.com
Saturday 13/01/07 |
Vids
Mame™, has just had another source .diff update, now at 0.111u3an e.It's advised that since this contains some OS specific changes, it's probably best avoided, unless you know what you're doing!
Download Here (Mame Source Update 0.111u3)
Following this, there is now available a 0.111u3 patch release for AGEMame, the gambling game extension of Mame™.The official AGEMame release is v0.39, which was made just before Christmas.
Download Here (AGEMame u0.111u3 Patch
Fruity's
Johnny has today released a classic layout for the BIG CHEESE, a Barcrest MPU5 machine, with a hint of a DX to follow!.For more info on this and other release within the Fruit Machine emulation community, visit Fruit Forums.
Download Here (Big Cheese classic layout)
Pins
Visual PinMame was recently updated to version 1.54
Download Here (Visual PinMame 1.54)
A new Future Pinball table release was made yesterday, Gottlieb's 1975 Fast Draw
Download Here (IR Pinball downloads)
Whilst over in the Visual Pinball scene, a game which has been 3 years in development, was finally released, Stern's Lord Of The Rings™, by Destruk - Screenshot.Very impressive! it just goes to show how much work authors are willing to put in to make these releases, which less face it, we all take for granted.
Download Here (LOTR Table)
Download Here (LOTR Roms) - Courtesy of Stern Pinball
For more information on VP releases, and the Visual Pinball scene in general, visit VP Forums
Saturday 06/01/07 |
Rather late, but Happy New year to all of you!
It's now the 12th day of Christmas, and so even the site decorations have come down, which was a much easier task than taking down the real life ones, which took nearly 2 hours.Well we can now look forward to the year ahead, and in the world of retro gaming, 2007 is a very significant year, as it'll mark the 10th anniversary of our most treasured resource, Mame™.Despite emulations popularity shrinking, in my view the interest in playing the older games hasn't really changed, although obviously, what you term as older games will depend on what generation you belong to.So I hope the developers continue their hard work, and that we can still look forward to seeing some of those elusive old games which have still to see new life under emulation, become playable once again.
Well, to kick start the new year, I decided to wipe the slate, so all the previous years news items have been archived, as you'll see in the menu on the left, I just wished I'd remembered to do that for all the previous years, would have been quite interesting.
So what's new in 2007 so far? well already there are a few goodies, here's the best of them....
Do you remember owning a Speak & Spell?
You can find out all about this amazing device by visiting the UK site here, which even has an online simulator to try!
OK it's not classic gaming, but it was probably the first experience anyone had of a synthetic voice, something which found it's way into early videogames, such as Berzerk, Gorf and Astro Blaster.Apparently, Texas instruments had developed the chip to do this, but couldn't think of any use for it, that was until someone suggested an educational device, hence Speak & Spell was born in 1978.
If you've never owned or seen one, it was a learning aid, which had a touchpad membrane keyboard, and single line VFD display, and would ask you to spell words, at varying difficulty, using it's synthetic voice.It was very good, although I don't know how useful it was as an educational toy, as it was hard to understand what it was saying sometimes, and so the repeat button was very useful.
As well as being an educational toy, it wasn't long before some people found other uses for it, mainly within music.Of course around this time, is when many of the so called 'synth' bands started, and with limited technology available, there was a lot of experimentation with creating sounds, and so I'm very fond of electronic music from this era, Jean Michel Jarre, Human League (pre Dare), Tubeway Army/Gary Numan (perhaps the only band to successfully use the Polymoog), Kraftwerk and OMD, and it was the latter two which used samples of the Speak and Spell in some of their records at the time.I think there were a few others bands which used it as well, but that's the one I remember personally, although they didn't have samplers in those days, so the sounds were recorded on what I think was called a Mellotron, a tape loop based system?, anyway the end result, was very effective.
So why all this talk about Speak & Spell, well, sometime ago, quite a few years ago, a Speak & Spell simulator was released, and it was essentially a desktop recreation of the original machine, and then that was it, personally I haven't heard or seen anything more about it, that is until now...
Miyavoux / Shrine Field release version 2.82.011
At the request of the author, I am not allowed to re-distribute the file, so here is a link to the sites download section
Download here (Speak & Spell Simulator / Manual)
What else, well suprisingly, Raine 0.50.0 - pre release 2
This is mainly a bug fix release, fixing a lot of the problems from pre-release 1, but since it is still a pre-release version, it's more suited to those who know how to configure the emulator.
Download here (Windows Binary)
Sadly the DOS version is no longer updated
