So this morning I was planning my next few weeks when I realised that it's only 11 days until the second Classic Gaming Expo UK. I should really think about getting a ticket (gf won't be coming along this time - I think she only just coped with the geek overload last year). Just checked the website and some of the more interesting events include "SID80's, Live & Unplugged". I guess they'll just be whacking a C64 against various objects to make sound, hmm? Various special guests will be there, including scary-Matt Smith, who's a very nice chap.
It's Saturday 13th August, so get going there. Oh yes. It's a chance to meet various people who've never heard of raww.org. Pity the fools.

So I've finally decided to replace the poll that's been running on the website with a new one. But first a look at the last polls results.

Well I guess that we shouldn't be too surprised - the main interests lay in ZX Clones and Storage Devices, each with 38% of the votes. Check out various forums and you'll see there's some interest in the divIDE and the ZXSE, the latter of which may soon feature the former (assuming they're compatible). I think that people generally want a faster, easier way to use classic hardware, rather than using emulators all the time. Some people are of course cynics when it comes to new developments, with 5% of people claiming the ZX is perfect as it is. You get no argument from me with that, but like I say - faster, larger storage is a step forward.

So, onto the next poll, which is about the raww.orgy 2006. Should it happen? If so, would you like to come? My aim next year is to make the party a little more demoscene oriented. The first party was kinda "testing the waters", which is polite for saying it was a shambles. If it goes ahead in 2006 I may see about hiring a hall for the Saturday. It all depends if people are interested in coming. Prospective dates are the 1st or 2nd weekend in February.

It's been a while since we had an actual update over on Demotopia, but it's good to see Gasman coming back with a vengeance - he's provided details of the OldSkool competitions at Assembly 2005, which finished yesterday. There's a few ZX items listed, along with downloads -- would be interesting now to see the stuff that didn't take part (the official results list a load of entries as being "n/a").
Go check it out along with his other recent updates.

The Antique Toy "Virtual Competition" now has a homepage, where you can find details of all the previous compos, and download information about the current one - in theory... the download links seem to be broken at the moment. Also, there's no English version of the page yet, but you can just pipe it through Babelfish if need be.
I also spotted some information in this WOS forum thread (you'll prolly need to shift-click for it to load), which links to the "AtoyForm" which you can use to vote (if you run it in an emulator remember to keep the image writeable).
Ah hell, I'll copy the forum post below. Why not.

FATware is a (long expected - *grin*) firmware for divIDE that natively supports FAT-16 partitions. That means you won't need special file conversion / raw disk access utilities to run your software. Some of its key features:

- supports long file names
- supports up to 8 FAT-16 partitions
- supports WinNT-like 4GB FAT partitions (might need some testing)
- instantly loads .TAP files using emulated standard tape routines
- loads 48k/128k .SNA snapshots (.Z80 support is planned soon)
- includes .SCR and dithvIDE viewer (on machines with two videorams)

Note that early versions of FATware will be read only. Adding write support is one of the top priorities in further development.

You can find more information about divIDE at its homepage.

Occasionally in the ZX scene you see a few "dodgy things". Websites distributing "access denied" games is the common one (tho' let's be honest... we all want to download the Dizzy games from somewhere). Recently I've seen a couple more, including a crack for a famous (and slightly controversial?) emulator - no, I'm not giving you the link as I'm all for legal software usage.
The most recent was spotted this morning. I guess we've all wondered how best to create a decent ZX software archive in the past. Well over on the Z80 Asm project they've worked it out... provide a copy of the WOS ftp archive. Mirrors are fine I guess, but at least some credit should be given to Martijn van der Heide who does the hard work. Not all of the archive is there (perhaps it's not all be downloaded yet), and I've not checked to see if any "access denied" games are there, but the structure is certainly familiar.
Like I say, it's mainly public domain software and can be freely downloaded or uploaded wherever. It's just a nice idea to credit the people who put in the work. If you really want to provide the files on your server, become an official mirror.
Just my thoughts. Hmm.

Just a quick note to say that if you're entering something into this year's Antique Toy competition, you only have a few hours (about 12, allowing for time-zone differences) to get your work finished. Will I complete my entry? Ehm, probably not sadly, as I'm @ work and they tend to want you to do actual work-related things during the time.
I spotted an email this morning from Jeffie about setting up a site for the competition, so I'll try to get that done this evening (sorry for the delay J, there have been some email problems).
Do a search on raww.org to find out the details of where to send your stuff.

It's possible that this is a dupe article, but I was just surfing the 'net (while the "other" network in the office was broken) and I saw the "Spectrum Games Compo". Yes, it's another game-coding competition, not unlike the Minigame compo that's currently running. Well ok, it's actually not much like it at all. The competition is open to Spectrum entries only, and they don't have to be "mini". So it you've coded a minigame on your ZX and can't squeeze it below the 4k mark, now's your chance to improve the graphics, gameplay, and sound, and enter it into a different competition altogether.
Currently there's 4 entries, one of them by (shock!) Jon Cauldwell. Does the guy actually stop? You have until the end of September to get your entries in.

It has already become a nice tradition to release at least one party place (crap) demo at Shucon. This year is not an exception - brand new TEDEMO is eagerly waiting for your download ;]

My 'speccy corner' was moved so update your bookmarks. New address is http://tcg.speccy.cz/zoom/. Also design was changed. Enjoy!