Topic: General news

Well ok, not technically movie star, but providing the music for a short film featured over on YouTube. The film is all about the decline of a 1980's videogame company, apparently, and features ZX music. Which can't be bad.
Typically tho', I unplugged and packed away my speakers earlier, so I can just sit and watch the lovely 80's stylings. I'll have to check out the sound when I get back from Sundown. Ooooh.

There's been another release of SjASMPlus, the Z80 cross-assembler. v1.07 RC2 brings with it a few little bugfixes, and the addition of the "PENTAGON128" device. It's now also possible to save a .sna file from the assembler when you're working with the SPECTRUM48 device. These changes are in response to feedback over on the WOS forums, it seems.
Note that the documentation that comes with the Win32 binary package is out of date (it doesn't cover RC2 yet), so you'll want to download the document package too.

A few months after the non-beta v2.8 of AY-Emulator comes v2.9 beta 1 of this Windows-based AY/YM chip emulator. Oh, you've already heard of it? Well I'll skip the introductions and move straight on to the changes since the last release back in February...

As was hinted at already, a new version of SjASMPlus was released recently. v1.07 RC1 hit Sourceforge while I was on holiday so I managed to miss it. But I also notice that a bugfix release has just come out (RC1bf), so I can use this post to mention that also. Result!
SjASMPlus is a Z80 cross-assembler that's fast gaining popularity and you can see why when checking the Compiler Comparison (tho' this could be biased, the only feature that's missing is the code optimiser, which no-one really wants... do they?). Read on for details of the changes since v1.06.

Quick mention of the latest release of the AY Composers List, released by Sergey Bulba. I've not gone through and checked the full changes (I was able to verify some information, tho') and I'm too tired/lazy to do a comparison. But have a look through and check the info that's there. Personally I've just spotted me in the list. That can't be right. Maybe it's just saying that I stole music in all of my early demos? That could be it.
There's also a new version of the VTX Archive on the site - it's music that we don't yet have the original modules for. Maybe you can fill in some gaps?

Also I must remember to send Sergey a collection of unreleased music by my old partner-in-crime Twix. Erm, Da Gangster. Erm, I mean Death. Tsk, these name-changes are confusing.

A very quick reminder that there's only a few days left of voting for the 4k Minigame compo.
There, told you it was quick.

I'm sure this won't be "news" to most people, but there's been an addition to the Z80 Support Page. The addition? A document from 1978 detailing the Z80 Family Interrupt Structure. I've had a (very) quick skim through and it looks like an interesting read for the geek-minded.

Well, I'm back from my holiday to Canada, feeling a little jet-lagged (sleeping 'til 1pm has never been so easy). I went there for my girlfriends cousins wedding. I have a bit of non-ZX news which I'll mention on the blog when I have a chance to. For now tho' I'll spend a few days playing catch-up on any news that's happened while I've been away. I know of a couple things already - I got an email from Sergey Bulba while I was away, which I was able to help him with... I had a little 'net access where I was staying.
But anyway. On with the show.

There are not so many English subscribers left of the bilingual magazine Suc-Session, the magazine from the Spectrum User Club in Germany.
Because it's a lot of work to do a bilingual magazine this could mean the English edition is being discontinued in the near future.
Thomas Eberle asks:

Just a note to mention that I'm going to be away for a couple weeks so won't be able to add much/any news to this site. I will still have (some) internet access I think, but I won't be able to check the sites I usually check for news and updates. You'll just have to fend for yourselves until I'm back. I may be able to do a couple blog updates tho'.
Also... I really need to sort out the "admin messages" that appear above the news on the front page. Looks a bit crappy at the moment. Ah well, something else to add to the "to do" list.