Fri, 09 May 2008 10:56:46 +0100 http://www.raww.org/ raww.org arse-end en-gb http://www.raww.org/images/raww_dot.gif http://www.raww.org/ icabod@rawwdot.demon.co.uk http://www.raww.org/3004 I've just read a post on the WOS forums by Chris Smith, he of Harlequin fame, about a book he's been working on. During his analysis of the ZX Spectrum ULA, and his production of a replacement, he's been putting his findings into document form with an aim to produce a book all about it. His forum post is mostly asking for advice on the intended audience (hardware nuts, or people with a more general interest in the ZX). Sounds like it could be good "bathroom reading" for those of you who get turned on by the smell of solder. Fri, 09 May 2008 10:56:46 +0100 http://www.raww.org/3003 I see that a new version of the DEMFIR ISO image has been released. If you don't already know, this is a pre-made ISO for use with the DEMFIR firmware for DivIDE. Because of the features of the recent DEMFIR versions it requires a kind of "boot system" to exist on the media (HDD, CF, ...) in order to work, and this ISO is pre-made to allow you to have a play. It's mentioned over on Darkbyte, and you can grab the ISO file at the bottom of z00m's page. Thu, 08 May 2008 20:35:01 +0100 http://www.raww.org/3002 It's been over a year since the last release of Spectaculator, the really-rather-nice ZX emulator for Windows. And I now see that Jon Needle is making a new beta version available to registered users. There currently aren't any details as to what has changed in this pre-release of v7, perhaps one of the registered users (or Jon) could enlighten us? Update: Thanks to Equinox for sending on a major changes list... it's below the break. Thu, 08 May 2008 09:52:16 +0100 http://www.raww.org/3001 Over on Speccy Live they're pointing to a document written by Prof/4D all about how he goes about the making of logos. Thereof. Unto. The document is in Russian, and comes as a .doc file, but I'm sure some kind soul will soon pump it roughly through google-translate. Some nice pics until that time. Thu, 08 May 2008 09:27:32 +0100 http://www.raww.org/3000 A little later than planned, here's some mention of the recent music releases over on ZiPlanet, in no particular order (actually, in the order they appear in my Firefox tabs). First up are two singles "n-mb flight" and "yer standing still on my shoulder", both by Scalesmann. Then there's the two-part album (containing 22 tracks) by Riskej entitled "Decorative Sex" - all of the tracks are available as .pt3 or .mp3. Meanwhile over on Speccy-Live pulsar points us to "maytro", a zx-able demo featuring music from Riskej, Karbofos, and Scalesmann. Go grab. Wed, 07 May 2008 19:21:21 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2999 A very quick pointer to the newest album release from Ubiktune - I would have rushed to mention it before, but it's Onomatopoeia by nq of Skrju, so you've surely already heard it :) Wed, 07 May 2008 19:08:52 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2998 I apologise, I've been slacking. But you already know that. So by way of penance, I will point out that TommyGun, the rather nice development environment, has been updated to v0.9.28. About two weeks ago. Regarding the Mongo project, a collaborative work by the author of several ZX tools, I'm not sure what's happening with it - it looks like work may have stopped according to this WOS post, but I'll have a look around and see what I can find. I've been kinda out-of-the-loop lately. Wed, 07 May 2008 19:02:25 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2997 If you're a user of CCZ80, the C-like Z80 Assembler (does that make sense?), then you may want to know that a bugfix version was released, ooh, a week or so ago. v2.0.2 features three noted fixes: Avoid specify as source file the value "". Avoid warning 'Constant not used' when it's used. Corrections in expressions evaluation. Wed, 07 May 2008 18:54:41 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2996 Only a quick mention for these, as the only place I see 2008 information mentioned about either Bytefest or RockOn is over on ZX Magazin, so we'll just have to go by what information they have... Bytefest 2008 will be taking place in Prague from 5th to 7th of September, while RockOn is on the 31st of May. Somewhere. Wed, 07 May 2008 18:50:48 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2995 From the hallowed portal that is El Portal Del Spectrum I see news of a couple competitions from Bytemaniacos. They both appear to be game-writing competitions, with specific aims - BASIC 2008 involves writing a game using only Sinclair BASIC. There are different categories, including writing a 7-line game. Choose Your Own Adventure involves writing a game along the lines of the books... you know, where you "choose your own adventure". Again I think there are limits to your approach, so you can't just load up GAC and get hacking. Wed, 07 May 2008 18:39:26 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2994 I'm not entirely sure where I found this one (perhaps on the WOS forums), but for a few weeks I've had a bookmark pointing me to an Analog Gamepad Controller for the ZX. Don't expect this to get produced just yet tho' - as the comment at the bottom of the page says, the designer is "still figuring out if the [...] schematic makes sense." I mention this now because for some reason Website Watcher is showing me that the homepage of Csaba Gondos has been updated - and on there you can find a design for an Analog Joystick Interface. It's probably been there for years, but there you go. Wed, 07 May 2008 18:17:36 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2993 It's been a couple weeks since the previous release of... oh... wait... I see what's happened. The latest version of the MacOSX port of Fuse has was released a week ago. v0.9.0.2 is mostly bugfix territory, with one new feature - that being a "Quick Look generator for emulator file formats". Yes. Yes indeed. Certainly a must if you're a MacOSX user, so you can calm the weirdness with some ZX frivolity. Wed, 07 May 2008 18:03:21 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2992 It's been about 7 pre-release versions since I last mentioned ZXSP, the MacOS ZX Emulator. I made a conscious decision to stop posting updates until a full release was available (unlike the unconscious decision to not post any news about anything at all), but figure that v0.7.2.pre15 is worth reminding people about. Various snippets of newness, and if you're into your beta programs... well worth a checking-out thereof. Wed, 07 May 2008 17:58:09 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2991 I posted recently about a new WinAmp plugin from Shiru to allow you to play TFM TurboSound tracks through it. Well I see that the player has been updated to v1.1. Fixes are below the break. There's also a new version of his TFM Music Maker (v1.22), released a few days ago, details of which are also below the break... Wed, 07 May 2008 17:42:45 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2990 Quick pointer to news that Garry Lancaster has released a new version of both ResiDOS and the +3e ROMs. I'm especially pleased with the new version of the +3e ROMs as they fix a really old +3DOS bug that I found (not fixed, just found... or discovered - Garry did all of the hard work). I'll leave you to check out the full bugfix lists over on the whatsnew pages. Wed, 07 May 2008 10:37:13 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2989 As I've informed you here, the demo show in Svetozor cinema is being held just today. I've got a playlist so you can look which demos will be shown there. The demos were preselected by a non-scener as he thinks these pieces are the most attractive for the cinema attendants. Most of them are Speccy demos. So wish me luck as I'm co-moderating the evening :) Wed, 07 May 2008 08:28:43 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2988 A quick pointer to the new Omega's website. It's in English, mostly dedicated to the Sinclair QL but a Spectrum section with nice Ingo Truppel's MB02+ clone pics is present as well. Let's take a look. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:12:23 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2987 Another bit of hardware news - over on Sami's DIY Hardware site he's now taking pre-orders on boxed ZX-Matrix's (ZX-Matrices?). This is just after some price-cuts apparently. It all looks good. Good. Yes. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:31:05 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2986 A quick pointer to some recent updates on the Spectranet board being developed by Winston. After getting a batch of prototype boards ordered, he's succeeded in putting one together and attaching it to a ZX - this is close to what I guess a production board will look like. It's all good hardware pr0n. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:26:30 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2985 If you're one of the many users of AC Edit then you'll want to know that Alone Coder has released a new version. It's v1.01 and... uhm... well the changelist is in Russian, and I was having a hard job translating it. But there you go - there's a screenshot with some of the changes listed over on Speccy Live. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:22:33 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2984 Shortly after the release of a new version of TFM Music Maker Shiru has released a plugin for WinAmp that allows you to play .tfe, .tfd and .tfc files. How lovely. Personally I use QCD, but still... lovely. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:12:41 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2983 Some good news and some sad news today - Mike has released a new version of his superb emulator EightyOne - it's hit v1.0, with the only changenote listed as being Vista support. The sad news is the dedication at the top of the changelist: Dedicated to Abbey, 1998-2008. Our thoughts are with Mike and family. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:26:20 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2982 I've spotted mention of MySpeccy.com a couple times now, so figured I should find out what it is. Part of the idea is to try and find the best ZX player in the world, but more than that the games are played online, with scores stored in a database... there is even a social side, with a games "match-making" system. Sounds a bit like retro-Steam, really. Personally I'm not much of a ZX games player (I generally prefer my games in a higher resolution, with the notable exceptions of Rex and Viking Raiders), but it'll be interesting to see how this site pans out. It was created, after all, as a birthday gift to the scene. What? You mean... you don't know what happened on April 23rd? Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:34:56 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2981 Hardly a moment after I posted some news that Chaos Constructions 2008 is announced, the site becomes active. That's to say there's now more there than just a logo and a date. A skim through the competitions list shows the standard ZX-based categories: 640k Demo, 512b Intro, ZX Graphics - this last one google translates as being "animation graphics on ZX Spectrum." Not sure that's quite what they mean. There will also be realtime Graphics and Coding competitions at the party. But again there are no music competitions announced. Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:20:57 +0100 http://www.raww.org/2980 I've just seen on zx.pk.ru some news that has also been spotted over on Speccy Live: Vladimir Kladov of EmuZWin fame has released an alpha preview version of a complete rewrite of his emulator. EmuzGL is the name, and downloading it now is the game. It looks to be quite full-featured, and EmuZWin is/was quite a nice emulator, so I have high hopes for this one. Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:03:50 +0100