Topic: General news

Hmm. Just a little note really, this post.
News has quietened a little, in the aftermath of recent parties I guess. On the subject of which, I've not spotted any releases from Phat1 other than a couple C64 demos. If you fancy checking those out, slip neatly over to c64.sk.
I just installed Max Payne on my PC, and suffice to say it runs unbearably slow. Tho' it actually performs better than I was expecting, as my PC is currently running at 2/3's of the required rate. So, it's just as well I've ordered a replacement for "the beast". Aah, she's becoming a tired old gal, at only 300MHz. So she'll be taking a back-burner, and will be used just for 'net connection.
The replacement is a neat machine. Fast processor, decent gfx-card, loads of memory, and a frankly obscenely large monitor ("hey girls, look at my 22 inches"). This is all assuming anyone actually bothers to take the parts off the shelf and deliver it to me. Something to do with out-of-stock memory. See, you never get this problem with a Speccy.
So why am I telling you all this? Well I'll be putting "Beast2" together myself, so despite taking a week off to play, I prolly won't be online too much. Either I'll be enjoying a machine that doesn't die when I try to run anything by Microsoft, or I'll be stomping around the house swearing. I kinda hope it's not the latter <g>
But I'll try to update with the important stuff anyway.<hr width="90%" /> Oh, was sent this link to the, rather nice, homepage of 7 Gods. I've updated my link to it, so there.

Okay, it's a kinda nifty name that, the "Halley Computaction SP 4.1". Not sure what it does? Neither was I, but according to the info on S4E, it's one of those little-black-box jobs. You know, like the Multiface, IF1, even the MB02. It was sold in Argentina apparently, and offered the standard "save, reset, return" functionality we're all used to.

Here's a couple sites I've been sent links to, courtesy of Ricsibu and db\S4E.
First we have a complete archive of all newsletter's and disc images from the "Opus Discovery Club". Guessing it's a club devoted to the, uhm, Opus disc system.
And we also have a link to Kompakt Servis, a shop in .CZ that sells the Didaktik machine. Not checked it enough to see if they do mail-order, but it's worth a shot, eh?

Okay, not entirely sure if ZX Spectrum Blaster is the correct name, but it'll do for now. It's a newish Windows-based ZX-graphics editor, which has been in development since March this year. I have it queued up for download so I've not used it yet, but it looks very noice from the screenshot. It even works with interlaced images.
Get it. Try it. Love it.

So you're sitting around wondering what to do in November. The leaves are falling from the trees, you're freezing to death. Unless you're somewhere sunny.
Well why not go to Spectrumania. Okay, the site says it's "Spectrumania 2000", but the date shows 9th November 2001. I guess it's a pun or something. It's being held in Aidlingen, Germany.
The party is not specifically for demos, tho' if you want to show demo-work I'm sure no-one will mind.
And I notice something very interesting. There's going to be a demonstration of a ZX IDE interface working with the MB02. Mmm, the best of both worlds. So check the page and consider it.

A couple sites have linked to Bla'dskie demoscene news. There's a poll at the top of the site about the ZX-Spectrum. It's in Russian, but according to POS the question is something like "is the Speccy up-to-much at demoparties these days?" Of coz I'm not entirely certain what the various options are, so I'm gonna skip the voting for now. Instead I prefer to scroll down the page to the topless blond. Mmmm.

Well according to a couple other sites, v1.4 has been announced of the tiny Speccy emu, Bacteria. But according to the homepage itself, it's up to a healthy v1.5. Well either way I think it's worth checking out the latest version, just to see what can be done in a few Kb. Seriously, I think this little app would give many 4k pc-intro's a good run for their money.

Aah, by my counting I think that Phat1 is probably over. But... perhaps they're all partying 'til the early hours? Who knows.
I hope we can expect the results quite soon (bear in mind that we've only just had the results of last years party - to quote flying over on Scenergy: "as always, results will be released around time when next PHAT takes place"). And more importantly, I simply want to see the productions.
So did I win? I doubt it, as I yet again failed to enter any work. Time just runs too fast for me.<hr width="90%" /> Also ending, and perhaps with more chance of continued partying, Beerever was held this weekend. Perhaps. Anyone have any reports on this event? Does anyone who went even remember it? <g>

Got an email from Paulo Silva the other day about the project he's working on, converting MSX and ColecoVision games to run on the ZX. Well some progress has been made with the game "Road Fighter" originally on the MSX. He's sent me a package of the work completed so far, which you can grab here. The pack includes the MSX-version.
I think it's a nice little (or perhaps large) project, and if you'd like to help out then please contact Paulo.

AY-Emulator site has been updated with new files (but no news). It's the updates that WOS mentioned a few days ago. Files that have changed are:

• MicroSpeccy : it's simply another fix for the AY-file player.
• AY-Emulator : 2.4 beta 5.
• AY2SNA : Convert .AY-files to .SNA-files - includes source.
• AYSplit : Split .AY-files into their component parts - includes source.
• AYMakeR : Make. Uhm... AY-files - includes source.
• AYSplitR : Split .AY-files. For use with AYMakeR - includes source.