As the headline says, happy (belated) birthday to the TZX Vault, home to all your TZX Vault-style needs. The site is around four years old, making it just a few days younger than raww.org. They've celebrated by adding a huge collection of new and updated files to the archives. Whereas all you got from me was a bunch of crappy statistics. Who loves you more, eh?

Just in case your hard drive was getting a little empty, there's a new release of EmuZWin 2.3 ready for your downloading pleasure. This is release 1.3 of v2.3 (do you follow?), and features a few updates since release 1.1 back in December. It's mainly bugfixes, and generally in the loading/saving areas. Check the site for more details and the files.

Yep, another in the vast array of emulators has been updated, this time it's DSP, which has been upped to v0.1 (previous release was something like v0.0.8). There's a whole bunch of changes listed, including code optimization (always useful), a new sound system, and improvements to the frame sync. There's also work on the floppy disc controllers. DSP emulates more than just the ZX, but additions related to our machine include tape-loading and some better timing thingies. Yes.

Sergey has been hard at work and released a new version of AY-Emulator, the wondrous (and rather nice-sounding) windows-based emulator of your favourite sound-chip. The fix is small it seems... to do with the portamento of PT2 tracks. Uhm... yeah, ok.
Importantly (I guess this marks a proper step up for the emulator), the old v2.7 is no longer available on the site.

Over on the Paradigmus party homepage, you can now vote on whether the party should take place this year. A direct link to the poll is here, and for those who need to know, the options from top to bottom are:

• I shall come as the participant
• I shall participate in absentia
• I shall come as the spectator
• It would be desirable to learn more about festival for decision-making
• I shall not participate

Thanks to Dimedroll for the news.

Just a note to quickly mention a votesheet that I received recently from Yerzymey. Grab it, fill it in, and send it off to C-Jeff. If nothing else, it makes you think a little about the scene.

Last post before I go to bed, I thought I'd mention something I saw in the WOS forums. It seems that tomorrow (Monday) night on BBC4 (a UK digital channel) there's a couple hours of programs about computers. Starting up with a program all about Tetris (how they can make that last an hour, I don't know), then going on to programs about the history of computers, and of video games. And it seems our beloved Clive Sinclair is involved. Well, who'd have thought it, eh?
Annoyingly it's all on at around the same time as "Miracles", a rather spooky show that got cancelled in the USA before it even finished airing the first series. But it's good. And spooky. Hmm. Decisions.

Over on Scenergy I see there's news of an upcoming site dedicated to Spectrum AY music. Details of the site are scarce at the moment, as it doesn't even have a name... but that's where you come in. Newart is having a competition to name the site. The name must be no more than 2 English words, and the person who gives the best suggestion will win a CD with the complete Virtual TR-DOS software collection, and the complete collection of AY music (I guess a mirror of what will be on the site). Sounds good. Check Scenergy for more details and contact info.
I guess "icabod rulez" isn't a great name for a music site tho', eh?

People who only have a general interest in Spectrums reading this site will probably not be interested in the new article over on the Z80 Support Page - it's all about the low-level side of Z80 interrupts. The article details the behaviour of the Z80 CPU with regards the interrupt timing - what actually happens within the processor when an interrupt occurs, the fact that the interrupt could be up to 23 ticks late, and so on. It's quite technical stuff, but should be useful for anyone coding in Z80 (for Spectrums or otherwise), or those writing emulators. Have a read. Be enlightened.

I've just read on the Millennium party homepage that despite M'2003 being "the last event" in the series, Millennium'2004 will probably happen. The story goes that some new organisers will be taking over, and holding the party in the second half of September 2004. The party will hopefully take place again in the same club in Belarus. More information when I see some.