Topic: General news

Okay, trying to get this post out via some more wierd translation through Babelfish.
It looks like there's a new tracker been posted up on the RealSoft site. RC2.0 currently has no documentation, and I can't get much info from the site. Of the information I can get, it seems it works with PT3 modules, works fine with a RAMDisk, and, ehm... there's some stuff on the page about 800k disks with 1k sectors. Of coz, that last one could be a completely different app.
So there you go. Language barriers again. Visit the page, and you can work it all out.

Mentioned a few days ago about a thread appearing on the Phorums (over on WOS) about adding BASIC extensions to emulators. Well, LCD has posted more information on his ideas on his homepage. Not really of huge interest to me, being an ASM coder, but it looks like a good idea all the same, and I'm sure there are legions of people out there who'd use it. So, could be one to check out, all you emu-devs.

Oki, I read through a post on POS, with my trusty dried-fruit dictionary in hand, and I think I have the gist of it. Some photos from the recent ASCII party are going to be posted on the site. I checked just now, and I don't see anything, but then I didn't look too hard. I guess they should be coming any day now.
There's also a press-release posted on the site by Surv!v0r!, which you can pipe through Babelfish if you feel like checking it.
Apricots?

A couple posts on CSS caught my eye today, the most interesting being the release of a new Spectrum emulator (another one), imaginatively titled, "Spectrum Emulator". This is version 0.0.3, and features all the usual things, including 10 models of Spectrum. I've not tried it out yet (it's just been added to my GetRight list), but it'll be interesting to see how it comes out. It's a Windows emulator, which runs under win9x. Here's hoping it'll be fixed to run under win2k soon.
You can grab the download from the Spectrum Emulator homepage, or I also spotted it over on WOS.
The other post, which I'll just mention briefly, was about a site titled The Speccy Zone. I've not seen it before, so I'm just checking it out now.
To others who've sent me links... I'll get around to them soon.

Martijn posted an interesting item on WOS today, covering the announcement of the first "International Spectrum & Sam Days" to be held on the 19th and 20th of May. It's being held in Stein, in the Netherlands, and is claimed to be the largest Spectrum meeting in Europe. You can find out more information about this event in the page of Dutch HCC/Spectrum group, the organisers along with the German SPC Spectrum User Group.

Yep, another version of the AY-Emulator has arrived from the keyboard of Sergey Bulba. I'm in the process of downloading it now. There's nothing on the page about changes in this version, although there's an additional download of some Global Tracker modules "as a test to AY Emulator v2.1". So, I think we can easily guess one of the changes, eh? Go Grab!

Nice addition to Gas13's site is the original version of Pain, his 2nd-place entry to the Final Shoque competition. You can now check out how he went about doing the conversion. Also on that page you can see the award received for the image.

Plugin magic boxes were great. It's something you generally don't see on the PC. I had a Multiface 3, which provided me with a neat way to store save-games. And of course you could even put software in the 8k RAM. My favourite was a graphics ripper I converted.
But anyway, there was a neat addon titled the SoftROM. Using a simple command, you could copy the entire ROM into the RAM, and play with it to your hearts content. So thanks to DB\S4E for providing this link. It's got details and close-up photos of the SoftROM. Could even provide a start if you fancy building your own. Check it.

Okay, this isn't actually Speccy-related, but I know a lot of the musicians out there have side-projects doing music for other platforms/scenes. It's due to this that I'm mentioning the Concern Chaos Music Competition. You can read all of the details over on Chaosite, but the basics are that there are two competitions, run fortnightly and monthly, covering Samples and Mixes. So, if it's your thing, check it out.

chiptune.com - mentioned it a while back, and it's a great place to grab chiptunes for many platforms, including the humble AY. Well, they've just opened up an FTP-site, where musicians are invited to upload their tunes. Check the site for details... we should really fill up this site with AY music!