Topic: General news

News has come in of a new site for ZX Developers. ZXDN (I'm assuming it's Dev'Net) is a place for housing technical information about developing software for the ZX. It currently includes information about using Pro Tracker, how to code "stuff", and ooh other things. To be honest it's a bit tricky for me as it's all in Russian.
The idea is not unlike a plan I have to create a "Democode network". I have a Wiki set up, but there's very little on it at the moment and the design isn't complete - partly as I've been busy working on "other things". If you ask nicely I may even give you the link. Maybe.

Spotted recently (through the Belarusian news site) that the ZX-Soft collection is back in business. You can go there and grab new versions of Quick Commander, AC-Edit, ZX-RAR, ... basically a whole bunch of stuff mostly written by Alone Coder. There's also a new version of Pro Tracker, but it's out of date. Why? Because over on Virtual TRDOS you can get v3.7. Very handy.
There's also news there that SjASMPlus, a z80 Cross-Assembler, is now hosted by SourceForge. In fact it has been for a month, but it's worth mentioning now as it looks like a new version (1.07) is about to be released. It's got some nice new features, but can it tempt me away from Tasm? Hmm, who knows.

In case you don't know of it, Blibb Blobb is a chiptune "podcast" (<rant>it's an mp3 download and every knows it, people insisting on calling them podcasts frankly gets on my tits</rant>). Anyway, Blibb Blobb 018 is dedicated to the ZX Spectrum, making a pleasant change from the recent run of Amiga episodes. The music was selected and recorded by raww.orgy winner C-Jeff and features several scene luminaries. Go see. Or hear.

Was just participating in my daily lunchtime random surfing and stumbled upon Velesoft's page. I've actually seen it before, but thought I'd mention it now because... well, I just am. I guess after getting my plus3e set up I'm in modding-mode. Over on Velesoft's page you can find details of a load of mods for the ZX, Sam, Timex, and Sprinter. Some of interest at the moment include Turbo-Sound (dual AY chips), DivIDE Memory Enhancements, and a "Convert your +2 into a Pentagon 512" board. That sounds like an interesting one... wonder if it fixes the memory contention? Of course I can't tell as the site is mostly in Czech. I don't think my phrasebook includes sections about soldering.
Also of interest to the gamers out there (of which I'm one) there's a bunch of software modded to use the Kempston Mouse interface. I've played Flying Shark with a mouse and it's rather nice (tho' perhaps too easy?). But Carrier Command should be fantastic - now I just need the bloody mouse.

There's been another update to the playlist of streaming AY-music station AYLand. As well as the music from Space Crusade (a rather quality game), there's a few demoscene updates. More music has been added from Jaan, Agent-X and some tunes from Demobit'95. There's also the addition of some beeper-tunes.

If you didn't notice, Bytefest - meeting of old comuters fans - took place in Prague last weekend. Here and here (.zip file) are some photos.

I'm sure you've already noticed (if not by visiting the site, then by the failed RSS feed to the left of this page), but Demotopia is currently offline. It looks like some server/site maintenance has broken Gasman's engine, so we can only hope that it comes back soon.
In the meantime I've tweaked this site so that the error doesn't overflow onto the news. I'll look at fixing the error so it's neater when I get a chance.

We've had a request from bugsy over at Open Source ZX - he's looking for any ZX source code. The aim of the site, if you've not been there before, is to provide the source for various ZX productions, from utilities to demos and games. There's already a large number of programs available on the site, but more are always needed. I'm going to go through some of my source at some point and "tidy it up" for general release.
You can send your work direct to bugsy[at]yandex[dot]ru.

We've been experiencing some server "uppy-downy" issues today due to some automated updates. Seems that DNS is having a habit of keeling over. For the moment we're ok, but bear in mind the site may go down while this is fixed. Not that you'll be able to read this if it goes wrong again, but there's no accounting for futility.

Just as I was posting Point5 on Pouet I spotted that EvilPaul has uploaded his ZX Invtro to this years upcoming Sundown party in the good ol' U of K. It's but a short drive from where I live, which is handy. Nice invtro, I encourage you to check it out and give it thumbs. Yes thumbs.