Just had a quick check of the Retro Gamer site too, partly coz I'm thinking a subscription may be a nice idea. Seems like they've had a redesign, and include some sample articles for your perusal. Of interest to readers of this site will be an article by John Southern titled "Sinclair Researched". There are others there too, so check them out.

Quick mention while I have a spare moment at work of EmuZWin v2.4 Release 1.1 hitting the virtual shelves. There's a few interesting updates in this release, notably a better sound emulation (for AY and MIC), and a few fixes here-and-there regarding timing and things.

In the run-up to the final version of the old RealSpectrum branch (release R14), Ramsoft have put an interim version to download on their website. Build 0.97.18 of RS32, built about 10 days ago but only just put online, is more than just a bug-hunt, including with it CompactFlash emulation, MP3/OGG support (for compressed tape images), and some other goodies that I've not had a chance to look at. A similar build of the MSDOS version will be out soon too, hopefully with more release notes.
The full release of R14 should be available in the next few days, and hopefully for *nix users, a Linux build too. Following this the next main release will be the new RealX emulator - I'm drooling in anticipation.

Thanks again go to Yerz for pointing out that ZXF #7 is ready for you to grab and enjoy. The 3.7Mb PDF download is well worth the effort, especially if you have colour printers at work to use and abuse. There's a whole heap o' news, including a report on the AY Riders concert in Warsaw, a write-up on Chrome (the new ZX clone), information about various tools and utilities, emulator comparisons, a big write-up about the +d, ... ooh, the list goes on. You really can't afford not to have a read, especially as it's a free 'zine with an optional £1 charge "if you feel charitable".
I also notice on page 4 a comment about raww.org, saying it's "Constantly Updated!" Hmm, ok, the news here has been very off-and-on in the last couple weeks. I'll be getting more free-time soon, so I'll try to keep this thing up-to-date. Maybe I should get more admins here.

A quick mention of the latest release of EmuZWin 2.4. Out a couple days ago, release 1.0 brings a few additional tweaks and features, including fixing a couple of the Z80 core instructions, and slight interface changes. Most important of the changes, IMO, relate to the AY emulation, something which has never been too great in this emulator. Aside from improving the sound output (I'll check how good this is when I get home), the debugger also features the AY registers. Very handy if you're trying to debug play-routines.

As well as the upcoming Classic Gaming Expo being held in London at the end of July, I see on RetroMart that there's another show heading our way. Retrovision 4 is being held in June in lovely (!?) Frome, Somerset... a little way up the road from where I live. Entry is £15 for the two days, and I really shouldn't consider looking at what's on offer, coz I'm at work. My boss wouldn't be pleased if I browsed Retro sites all day. So check it out. It may be just what the doctor ordered.

LCD has been hard at work on the Bmp2Scr Exp project, with version 2.11a hitting the 'net for download about... well, about a week ago actually (Ok, I know news has been very slack of late - busy busy busy). There's a fair number of changes gone in in the last 2-and-a-half months, which you can find listed in this article...

Thanks to Flydream for the link to a (new?) clone, the Didaktik Gama 192. It has 192Kb of RAM, pageable like the normal ZX 128k, and it looks like a 32Kb EPROM. The page is in Czech so I don't know fully what it all means, but apparently it's available for around 50 euros, which ain't too bad.

The great comp.sys.sinclair tradition has started again for another year! It's time to brush up on your Z80 assembler skills and fire up Art Studio, and then forget about it all and come up with a dodgy Basic game full of bugs and badly drawn UDGs. The Crap Games Competition 2004 is now under way. Now accepting ZX81 entries as an extra bonus.

Continuing the Miner Willy theme, a couple of industrious types are still exploring the possibilities of that 21-year-old codebase. First up is MM/JSW remixer extraordinaire Andrew Broad, who has released the first part of his latest Miner Willy homage, Party Willy. As well as a Jet Set Willy remake with a whole new set of rooms, the pack includes such mad-scientist-like creations as Jet Set Willy implemented with the Manic Miner engine (and vice versa), and both games completely mirrored pixel-by-pixel! Mindbending stuff. Meanwhile, J. G. Harston has unveiled his newly-restored commented disassembly of the JSW engine.