I was going to write a huge amount here about the upcoming Phat2 party. But to be honest, I'm getting tired tonight, and the text has already been written and emailed to me. So I'm going to be lazy. Yes.

" P.2 is a copy/demo/muzik party taking place in Riga, Latvia (exact place - 3-floor building in huge industrial territory of radioelectronics factory) starting with 20th september and going on for 3 days and 3 nights. P.2 is not "8 bit only" party anymore however its not much PC oriented too - it's here to support ALL platforms, doesnt matter how exotic they are (besides c64/c128 we'll have machines like zx spectrum, amiga, mac, trs80, atari65/130xe, nes, snes, dreamcast, psx, atari2600, apple ][ and more).
compos? gfx, music, demo, 1kb intro, ascii/petscii, logo, (crack)intro, photo, wildemo and more.. all in several categories. you can also take part in compos by sending your entries to organizers.
the music part is also really special there with over 30 latvian bands and DJs performing and also special-star-guests (mostly scene related and some using c64s for their live-sets!), just watch this:

• lackluster aka distance/tpolm (defocus/merck - finland)
• tero aka deetsay/dcs (rikos - finland)
• goto80/hack'n'trade/up rough (bleepstreet/penpal records - sweden)
• role model/hack'n'trade (bleepstreet - germany/sweden)
• lektrogirl (rephlex/micromusic - uk)
• i-f (murdercapital/viewlexx - holland)
• manou (wmf/monika records/micromusic - germany)
• focus (narva records - estonia)

not to mention ~10 latvian VJs + those:

• zden/satori (message/no such - slovakia)
• copenhagen brains (musicsystem - denmark)

all this is divided in 5 main areas:

• demohall with seats and bigscreen + audiosystem
• scenetown: area with rooms - group-HQs where you can sleep, booze, code etc, reserve room for your group now!
• musichall#1
• musichall#2
• outside for trips and additional action - industrial area and park within it

entrance is free, donations accepted though.
more info to follow soon indeed.
PHAT stands for PHreedom and ATmosphere. "

Thanks to Egons for saving me some time <g>
Website should be up soon (hopefully) here and mirrored here.

For someone with no social-life, I certainly seem to be away quite a lot. Yes, I've been away from my PC again for the last, uhm, 2 nights. This means there's been no updates (as you'll have noticed). Sorry, but sometimes we have to venture outside, right?!
So, what's been "up" in the last couple days? Well mainly news about the recent CAFe Party, but also a few other things:

• Language : I noticed on Ellipse' homepage that it's not just me who has trouble with foreign languages. Hmm, better translation engines are required.
• TZX Vault : If you get yourself over there, you can grab a bunch of updates to the vault. New tape and disk images from various 8-bit platforms.
• Czech Floods : I'm sure we've all seen the results of the flooding in Prague, etc. I thought this was a novel way to raise funds. And when you've done that, you can go look at the nekkid women. Oh, guess I should say it's over-18's only, right! If you're under-18, you didn't hear it from me.
• ... : Just in case you wondered, I mentioned that last bit as many sceners come from Prague/Czech. And I was there a couple weeks ago. And it's a nekkid women site.
• SE Basic : A new version of ZX SE has been released fixing a few bugs. For full details look at CSS (post hasn't appeared here yet). Oh, it's non-public, so email Andrew Owen if you want a copy.
• ZX Spec : The cleverly-named emulator, "ZX Spectrum" has been updated I think, to v3.01. Not sure of updates - something to do with optimisations.
• ChipTrack : Over on Virtual TRD you can grab v0.01b of a player for ChipTracker 1.x. Go grab.

Hmm. I think that's the main bits. Oh, apart from CAFe and some news on Phat2. But they get separate posts.

Well CAFe Party is over, and some pre-results are already out on the 'net if you know where to look. Luckily for you, I do know where to look. Scenergy has posted a whole bunch of things from the party in the last few days, and Diver/4D + Siril/4D have sent preresults.

AY Music
1 - Siril/4D
2 - Key Jee/TBK
512b Intro
1 - Alff/CPU
2 - DoctorMax/Global
3 - Flying/DR
Graphics
1 - ZSV
2 - Schafft
3 - Diver
Demo
1 - PCB
2 - Screamer/Skrju
3 - MHCG

Of coz these are early results and not official, although it seems that the winners are quite far out in front, so that's unlikely to change.
If you get over to Scenergy now you can grab the full ZX pre-results, and also some releases from the party. I've got them queued up now. Just remember... it ain't official just yet.

There's not really a huge amount to say about the most recent change to POS, apart from... "Where's it gone??!"
Yes, it would appear the someone has stolen POS from the web, and replaced it with a message saying the site is closed.
I actually remember some talk of this a little while back (or am I imagining it?). Either way, I kinda hope it's a temporary thing. If not, then farewell.

Just a few mentions of some "stuff" here:

• Hooy Program : Thanks to Yerz for reminding me to change the link to the homepage of this crazy demogroup. You can get there here.
• SE Basic : Got a note from Andrew Owen to say that his ultra-modded Basic ROM has now gone Open Source. You can get the source by emailing him.
• SoftROM : Still on the subject of ROMs and stuff, Speccy4Ever has just posted a SoftROM along with a techie document about the hardware. Hmm.
• Tekkno : Remember I mentioned a while back about "Spectrum of Terror" project? Well Yerz has just announced the release of their latest tune. And hey, a link to the homepage, too where you can grab the music.

That's that little lump outta the way.

An announcement has just appeared for the fact that vbSpec (an emulator written in Visual Basic) has just been updated to v1.50.
Going from the post on comp.sys.sinclair (and of coz from the homepage), updates are some fixes to the Z80 core, TC2048 keyboard corrections, and full support for the .TZX tape format.
There's lovely.

I've been poorly, cry cry!
Yeh, sorry I've been away from the keyboard for a few more days again. A good reason this time, I've been ill. Actually too ill to turn on the PC. That's pretty bad. Tho' today I was at work (on a nice sunny Saturday), but I have to pay my bills too.
So, apologies over, here's a few bits of news:

• Sprinter : There's a new poll over on Peters Plus about the launching of applications from file manager. Is it good? Not good? Go vote.
• Sprinter : Another item of Sprinter-ness is the review from the most recent issue of Retro Review, which is now available online in the archives section. If you're thinking of buying this machine, check out the review. Of coz, you should already be subscribed, right!?
• Paradox : Well CAFe is underway, but Paradox is only two weeks away. I see that there's now an English version of the site, and also the (updated) rules. Check them out.
• ZXMak : A new version of ZXMak has been released. There's been a few Z80 Core changes, but importantly there's now an English UI. Very handy. It's up to v0.280b3e. The 'e' is for English.
• ZX Transfer : I spotted a post on CSS about a handy ZX Transfer program, for piping files through an IF1. Homepage is in Italian, app is in English. Handy.
• AC Edit : A new version of this text editor (0.63) is up for downloading over at DJH's page.
• BDA : Just recently found a link to Binary Dimension Association, where you can go to grab ooh, loads of stuff. Demos, tools, and of coz Deja Vu 'zine.
• Optical Bros : After a bumpy start, there's now a new design for the homepage of Optical Brothers. It's nice, you should go look. And we can look forward to an English version soon (well, it's hosted on a server in England, so it's only fair <g>).
• ZXVGS : I remember Adamski from the '80s. Crap music. But Jarek Adamski is a rather clever chap (think I met him at ZX-Party). Check out his site, which details a whole bunch of his hardware, ehm, things. Including his ZX O/S, ZXVGS - looks nice. Yes.
• Jarek : A little note about the link to the site I just mentioned actually -- added it to the Demogroups/People section. Well, it seems to fit there quite nicely, eh?
• Scorpion : A new ROM for the Scorpion has cropped up on Speccy4Ever. It's the ProfROM v3.9f 128k. Grab it if you need it, or just for completeness.
• CAFe : If you're wanting a lot of very up-to-date news on the goings-on at CAFe Party, then hook yourself up with a translator at get your arse over to Scenergy, where there's been a couple fairly large posts already, and also to POS, where Himik is making regular updates.

Phew. I think that's all. I know you all hate these "catch-up" sessions... I'm not keen on them. But frankly when there's this much news (I mean, when I've been away for a few days for some reason) it really helps to clear out the back-log. Oh well.

A new emulator is on the streets (as if there weren't enough already). This one goes by the handsome name of "Klive". Aah. It's a pity the page that links to is empty right now, tho'. If you want to grab the emulator get yourself over to WOS where I first heard of it. Supports, ooh, some interesting sound stuff (anyone remember the SpecDrum?). Not sure of the version number, but it's for Win98 and above, with DX7.0. Let's hope a page appears soon.

While I'm waiting for the postman to do his job (ahem), and deliver me my copy of Retro Review #3, there's news out of what's to come in the next issue.
Part two of the guide to writing emulators is included, along with tips on how to build up your Retro collection of computers. Hey, mine's going okay. I accidentally bought a Sega Megadrive over the weekend. Oops.
If you've not yet subscribed I suggest you do so. #3 included an interview with the team behind Sprinter (that'll be Peters Plus then), information about building your own hardware, and ooh, other stuff too.

Well the party is over, and the results from Syndeecate 2002 are out, although I'm not sure how official, as they don't seem to be linked from the homepage. In fact, most of the homepage links are currently pointing to 2001 information.
Anyway, I found this link posted over on VORC along with the AY results, which I think is all there was to represent the ZX:

zx music
1 - kumball - x-agon
2 - ejkus - bezl
3 - ??? - gasman

Hmm. Interesting set of results. Hopefully the official version will be a little more... detailed. We await the releases. AY music is great!