In case you hadn't already spotted, yet another version of RealSpectrum has been released, this time it's up to beta 11.b. This is pretty much a maintenance release, with a few bugfixes and some improved stability. They seem to have focused mainly on getting the program working nicely in WinNT/Win2k, which is great as I'll be using that more when I finally upgrade my PC. If you use these OS', then you should grab VDMSound to get sound out of RS. There's also been some tweaks to improve working with Cyrix processors apparently, tho' I'm surprised anyone still uses them :].
Also altered in this release is the anti-cheating part of the AIR recording mechanism, used for competitions.

Well after yesterday's report on the new version of BMP2SCR, the homepage has been updated with, oh yes, some news of the next version. Seems that we waited so long for an update, that two are coming along in quick succession. So what's this "preview" all about? Well there's a new picture posted to the site of a new mode that'll be included. It's called (deep breath) "Lace LCE (Gigascreen) Color Multicell mode", and it looks rather spiffing (at least on the sample screen).
Mmmm.

UnrealSpeccy. Do you see what they've done with the name there? Do you?
Well as you could have guessed, a new emulator titled UnrealSpeccy has been released on v0.01b. I have no information on it so far apart from the fact it does what most emu's do. Emulate.
You can find some more information on either Scenergy (where I spotted it first), or from DJH Downloads.

Some room for a couple little things here:

• ASCEdit : A new project for the Sprinter has begun, the idea sprung from a few months ago. This new text editor will have a demo version out in a few more months.
• Meeting in Bunnik : On the WOS/Phorum's there's a post from Dr. Beep announcing a meeting in Bunnik (the Netherlands). Few details apart from it's a one-day affair on 15th September, from 10:00 'til 16:00.
• Birthday Presents : POS have posted a new production by 4th Dimension. It's a gift for recent birthdays, and you can grab it in both TRD and .TAP version. Mmm.
• ASC-II results : Another thing posted to POS are results of ASC-II party. I've queued them up, I'll list them when I have more time. Oh hey while we're at it, they also have a demo version of the new Slide Player. Worth a look, why not.
• Optical Brothers : Well I'm no good with non-English sites, and again Babelfish is playing up, so a quick mention for a link spotted on POS (aren't they busy). Guessing from the fact that "ZX" appears amongst the text that I can put this in the demogroup section. Oh, Quick Commander's on there too.
• ZX-Charts/en : ZX-Chart has started putting everything in two languages: Russian and English. Nice work there. Spotted this on Scenergy.
• Minigame compo : Was reminded of the Minigame website that Gasman has set up while I was looking at Scenergy. Check it and enter, if you can create a tiny game.

Ta-Raaa!

Well after the recent spate of demoparties, it seems wise that there's also a new version of Turtles Dream, the complete releases-list from the history of demoparties. Okay, so I think all parties are covered. It's a useful resource, and it's also surprising just how many releases there have been. I've not checked completely yet so I don't know if all the non-entries from various parties have been included, but that'd take ages to verify.
Additions in this, v1.7, are:

• Paradox 2k+1 releases
• Phat0 releases
• CC01 releases
• ASCII compo added
• Sample Music compo added
• small fixes

So grab the file, which comes courtesy of ra_id\Mayhem\K3L.

A little short-notice for this party, as it starts... ehm... on Friday.
XzentriX 2001 is a party for basically any 8-bit platforms (tho' it quotes some 16-bit machines, I'm sure). It's taking place in Seeshaupt, Germany, and space is limited so unless you knew about the party beforehand, you may not get in. You can always fire off an email to the organisers if you're interested in going.
It's not demoparty style tho' and seems more like a gathering than anything else. Could be worth a look if you're in the area.

Well a little behind, but the top Speccy Demo Archive (Demotopia as if you didn't know) has added news on the recent (and not-so-recent) parties. Full results for CC01 and Phat0 have been posted, along with a bunch of new releases, bringing the archive to a nicely staggering 1400+ demos.
For another place to grab the CC01 files and results, you can get yourself over to DJH Downloads, where they've all been posted, including the non-Speccy results.

Oh, in case you'd not spotted it over the weekend, there's a new release of RealSpectrum from the lovely hands of Ramsoft. It's generally a maintenance release, concentrating on "AIR security for the game competitions". AIR of course is the system for recording game input, and it's (RS) being used for Speccy Tour 2001, a game competition started a couple days ago.
However there's much more to the new version than just that, with enhancements to the debugger such as in-line assembler and I/O breakpoints (useful for hacking that AY-routine?). A nice additional feature is the ability to play tapefiles through the soundcard.
Finally if you use Windows 2000 (and NT?) then you should check out the homepage of the emulater. Seems there's an "issue" with the emulator running stupidly slow regardless of CPU speed.

Well the best intentions often go awry, and sure enough I turned on my PC earlier about to write some updates to the site and... I ended up playing more of Red Faction (demo). Poor I know, but what other game can you run around blowing the crap outta walls, eh?
So, I'm here now, first up with a couple "clarifications" and notes. Nothing too serious, just some things I've been asked to mention.<hr width="90%" /> The button I put up for c64.sk I cleverly put in the wrong size. That's cut-n-paste for ya. Don't think it was too noticeable (not in Netscape, anyhoo). I was also asked by CreamD to make sure people know he's not the only organiser of Forever -- he just covers the C64 bits. Of coz the party is organised by Pol, Elviss, and CVM, with CreamD doing C64 and XI covering Atari. Got that?
I also found out (I'll shove it in here for now) that the main Forever-site is delayed due to a HDD crash (I used to use that excuse too). If you want any info on the next event, you could do worse than check the Forever/C64 site.<hr width="90%" /> As a follow-up to the recent "Send In The Clones" article (I really love that headline <g>), I've heard from both Pingo and MacB (I said he'd come up trumps). The machine is a Delta-S 48k, tape-only system. Hmph, tapes suck.

Two fine graphics-apps have had updates in the last few days. Firstly there's a new version of LCD's BMP2SCR, the image conversion tool. Not entirely sure what's new in v1.74, especially as the info-page shows it as a version behind. If in doubt you should grab the new version from WOS.<hr width="90%" /> Also while I was away I received a nice gift from Heaven Aeroplane. It's the latest release of his sweet-as-pie .SCR-viewing app, SpecView SE. This new version, v2.2.1, brings with it a few fixes, but more importantly it's now gone Open Source. So download this package and you get the latest version along with source distributed under the GNU GPL v.2+. As HA says, "I have very little free time now, so... I hope that the public will help me to develop the viewer" so what are you waiting for, download and check it out. Of course modifications are welcome here.