Yet again, you catch me feeling tired. It's been a long day for me. Hmph. But it's not all bad, as I have a 4-day weekend coming up, during which time I'll be mainly away from the PC. So raww.org won't get updated in that time, but I'll be able to catch up on sleep and drinking. Hoorah!

• Bacteria? : Just checked out the homepage of tiny emulator Bacteria and... it's no longer there. Oh well. Another one gone.
• ProTracker : For the musically-minded, I see that Optical Brothers have posted v3.54 of ProTracker on their site for download. Handy.

Oh, not so much news today.
Before I go just a note to people... if you email me, please can you do so in English -- I'm a bit stupid, and being stubborn I don't understand Russian/Czech/Polish/etc. I've had a couple emails recently which frankly mean nothing to me (and cutting-and-pasting into translators doesn't help as the txt is screwed up). If you don't know English, then please pass the mail through someone who does first. And don't worry if your English is bad... so's mine <g>.

Received a mail from Shaun of Retro Computing Today, talking about the status of the magazine. Seems that it may never appear, although the webpage will still exist, as will his regular columns in MicroMart. The reason? Well partly due to a lack of interest:

" It looks like Retro Review have the backing by enthusiasts. The good thing is that I can concentrate on developing the Retro Computer Mart column for Micro Mart. This has two advantages over R.C.T -
1) It is a weekly column, so I can spread the word of any news pretty quickly and
2) The reader base for Micro Mart is approximately 24,000 - which no Retro mag will ever achieve. "

This is a good point. 24,000 potential readers each week is a good figure by anyone's standards. And if it encourages people to reach into the cupboard and pull out the dusty old ZX, then the world will be a better place for it.

As seems to be the trend with raww.org at the moment, I'm just gonna put up a few notes for now. It's a late-night update again, and I have a long day tomorrow. Again.

• AY Toons : Fancy grabbing some music? A (rare?) update to Baze's 3SC homepage shows a new/updated archive of his music. Just head for the bottom of the page.
• Learn English : Noticed that Peters have added a bit of English Dictionary software to their page. It's for the Sprinter 'puter. I should grab it and give it a go in the emulator -- see how good it is <g>.
• Genius : No, not news about me (eheh), but instead someone has provided the full manual to Laser Genius, a rather nifty assembler/dev-kit. Most sceners will be using Tornado or a cross-asm or something, but it could be a useful reference. Available on WOS.
• SE4 VoteSheets : I confess. I'm one of the ones that Raver was talking about when he sent an email around mentioning that some people haven't returned their votesheets for Sub-XTC. If you're like me then grab it, fill it in, and return it. Go on.

Just time before I go to bed to mention that there's some ZX Graphics posted over on the Paradigmus 2002 party-page. Just four images for now, but I think the idea is that you email the team to vote on which you think is best. Give them all marks out of 10. They're all quite good, but my money's on Earthworm Jim, both coz it's a good image, and a fantastic cartoon. But don't let me sway your vote!

Here's a few notes before the "larger" news of the last few days. And yes, yet again I've been absent for the weekend, but you'll get no details of what I was doing. Frankly, it wouldn't excite you.

• <strike>Scenet</strike>/Scenia : A little note on the Scenet news page indicates that it could very well be going through a redesign. And name-change. You can access it now at scenia.net, too.
• RetroComp : Looks like the down-ness of Retro Computing Today was just a temporary glitch. It's now back up.
• RetroMart : From the author of RCT comes the next article from MicroMart. It's a justification of owning a C64. Well, should make an amusing read <g>.
• Ramsoft : Interesting... update? over on the Ramsoft homepage. Just something about TetriNet. Hmm, think something has gone wrong.
• Factor6 : Spotted on c64.sk that ZX-scene icon Factor6 has joined Role, a C64 group. Lovely.
• Symphony : A little note to mention that Symphony][ is being held on 17<font size="-1">^th</font> to 21<font size="-1">^st</font> July. Forgot that before.
• Millennium : If you get yourself over to Scenosaurus quickly you may be in time to grab some work from the Millennium demoparty. But the links are temporary, so hurry!
• Quick Commander : As well as RC2.3 being released a few days ago, I noticed that you can grab the latest version of Quick Commander over on DJH Downloads, if you so desire.
• Museum's : Noticed when this link got submitted that I'd not included it before. Well, it's fixed now. It's the ZX Software Museum.
• Phat : More hints of a party, this time news from Raver that Phat demoparty will be going ahead this year, despite some rumours. The month is September, the place is Riga. Details will be released soon.
• CD-ZX : Mentioned about a week ago a project on accessing CD-ROM drives through a ZX. Well I've heard from the author of the article, and he's soon going to be translating it into English (with a little guidance). Some deep techie words to look forward too, yes!
• Es.pectrum : After realising that I was checking the wrong webpage (grr, sites continually move), it's nice to see a new version of this emulator released. Some nifty features include lightgun support, Debugger, and... oh, go download and play with yourself. I mean, play with it yourself!

Phew. Another long post, and just when I'm feeling really tired, too.

I'm going to have to be quite quick, coz for the last couple days my 'net connection has been shit. Not sure what's actually wrong, but it's pissing me off a little as you can imagine.
Here's a few bits-n-pieces from around the world:

• Forever Photos : If you're on the lookout for some photos from the fairly recent Forever3 party, then check out these two links: one, two. Links were ripped from the party homepage.
• UnrealSpeccy : Looks like this emulator that's no longer in development has gone up a version again. I can't actually get to the official homepage, but you can grab the latest version (0.21) on DJH Downloads.
• Txt-Edit source : If you're looking at coding on the Sprinter, Peters have posted the source for their text editor, working on 640x256 mode. A handy learning aid.
• ASCii photos : If you're yearning for even more party photos, then check out the ASCii2 section over on POS for some.
• Twilight : Another party is planned for later in the year. I'll grab the details over the weekend, but for now check out the homepage of Twilight.
• Crazy Syberians : If that wasn't enough, then POS have mentioned CSP 2002. I don't have any details right now, but I'll hopefully keep you posted.
• Retro : Looks like Retro Computing Today has disappeared from the web. Either that or AOL have kindly deleted it by accident. Any news of a return?
• Real Commander : Can it be that a new version of Real Commander has been released? Actually, I'm not certain what the last version was, but it's at 2.3 now. Sound new to you? I dunno.
• SDP : Kinda a follow-on from the Spectrum Tape Preservation project comes SDP (for disks, no less). Being run by Andy Barker, it was "announced" on the WOS forums, in the Emulators thread: "+3 disks and pc's".
• ZX-Party : Not to feel left-out, Will, the organiser of ZX-Party, announced another party with a ZX section. The homepage of Symphony][ will have some details in English soon. I hope. There's a little info posted on Scenet.
• Paradigmus : The first results from this party have been released, but... no ZX results yet. I've been told that they should be coming soon.

I'll try to get a little more information together about these newly-announced parties in the next couple days, when my connection will hopefully be fully restored. I'll also add the parties to the calendar later.
And don't worry if you've emailed me but haven't seen anything posted here yet. I'll hopefully get around to it soon. If all else fails, re-send.

Peters Plus have posted some new downloads onto their page. Looking at the file dates, it's all documentation (tho' the frontpage would indicate otherwise). The new stuff covers Z84C15 CPU and W24512A information, as well as wiring information of the video cables.

An interesting looking article has appeared on ZX-News, looking to be about programming a ZX to access CD-ROM drives. The article is written by sotnikov/Vega I think, and covers different CDROM standards, reading data, and even controlling audio.
Unfortunately partway through the translation Babelfish got bored and the text reverted to Russian. So if anyone feels like translating the article...

With very little information (just the text "[censored]"), skrju Artpack #1 has been posted on Scenergy. I've queued it up for download. Now you know as much as I do.

I've just come back from a short weekend in London, having a few "sociable beers". While I was up there I took a little time out to do a spot of shopping (well, the selection is much better in the city than it is in the middle of the countryside where I live).
I took a few minutes to visit CEX (the Computer EXchange). The shop in the centre of London, in Rathbone Place, has a neat Retro exchange, but I was a little saddened to see a distinct lack of ZX Spectrum wares. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place in the shop, but where they did have loads of ZX stuff, there now was none. A shame.
I almost bought a Neo Geo Pocket Color, tho'. A snip at <30 quid. Pity the games were the same price.
Anyway, regardless of where the ZX stuff was, this shop's a good place to look if you want Retro gear. And you happen to be in London.