Couple new (games) at DJH
	Hmm. I was a bit reluctant to post about this, coz you know how I feel about games. Okay, they're fun to play, but hardly the subject for a site about the demoscene. I try to post stuff relating just to demos (this includes emulators, parties, tools, etc). Okay, there's the odd extra item that creeps in, like new machines, and so on. Anyway, this post is about a couple games recently added to DJH Downloads. Only really mentioning them as one of them is a new demo of Wolf3D. I've checked it out, and it's looking quite impressive. Fairly smooth graphics and motion. Nice. There's also a new demo of Walker, with the new that the final game will probably not be released. Oh, there is another reason I'm posting this. Occasionally an amusing translation arises when I'm "doing the rounds". Well, I'd like to congratulate DJH on inventing a fantastic word -- "Suuperble". I like it, and plan to use it more in conversation.
	[icabod] - 05/05/2001 @701

	Demos and Parties
	Another couple things mentioned on Scenergy that fit nicely together are a demo release and updated information on Paradox. I'll leave you to check out the Paradox update, which you should be able to get on the site homepage. It just gives me mySQL errors, tho'. The demo is titled The Deep, and is by Xplosive Team. It was apparently badly distributed when it originally came out. It's not a bad piece o' code, tho' a bit too "techno" for my liking. And it's chunks again. I'm sure it'll appeal to some of you, tho'.
	[icabod] - 03/05/2001 @904

	Scene's 'Zines
	Whooah. Looking at Scenergy (yeah, it's been updated again!!), there's a heap o'zines recently released. I expect most of them will be in Russian (or at least, not in English), but here's a quick rundown of what's there: Inferno #2 (the last issue with the current project leader); Pain 0401 (which looks like it has a report from Mekka&Symposium); and SE#3 (yay!). There's also mention of Indentation, a paper-zine which will hopefully soon be available for download. Adventurer, another zine, is currently experiencing what all zine's go through, a lack of material. Got a spare article? You could send it on to Elf. Or of course you could send it to LaesQ. There's also a couple articles posted to Scenergy itself, which you can pop along to read.
	[icabod] - 03/05/2001 @899

	LDIR Serzh
	Just (really, about 2 minutes ago as I type this) got an email from SerzhSoft. Surely you know who this is. Just check the top couple places in the "Intro" competition of most recent parties. Anyway, the mail was advertising a new site. His new site. Currently there's just a gallery there (with a really scary pic of Hellboj -- but so are all pics of Hellboj <g>), but check out the button at the bottom of the page... hmm, perhaps this is more competition? "LDIR - ZX Spectrum Magazine". Well, competition can only be good for the scene, right? But a word of warning to Serzh -- don't spend too much time playing with HTML. It sucks your life, and your time. Just look at me (tho' this is all set to change real soon). Remember to keep coding Z80! Anyway, the button is on the left. Hmm, nice little collectiont there. Could be time for a "random-button" script, I think.
	[icabod] - 03/05/2001 @886

	GLECK + 0.0.1
	With a slight site re-design, the freakily-named GLECK pops up it's head and increases it's version to a healthy v0.0.4. Details of the changes? Hmm, I'm not entirely sure. Best get yourself over there to grab it and find out, eh?
	[icabod] - 03/05/2001 @865

	Beep Beep! Skinny dipping!
	Hey, some nice updates over at the home of AY-Emulator. As well as a new (v2b) version of Micro Speccy, which purports to play all files from Project-AY as well as .AYM files, there are a couple news skins too. Yeah, you know that AY-Emu is skinnable, and now there are new skins by Ironfist and Nikolai Aladine. I've got the skins queued up now. Just wondering, perhaps I should check the main skinning sites and see if we can get this neat app added to the list. Increased support for it can only be a good thing, and could even get a few "outsiders" interested in the scene. Well it'll at least find a few more retro-fans. Another thing I spotted when I was CTRL-ALT-clicking was a link to a site for RDOSPlay. It's an OPL2/OPL3 player (eh?), with support for (among others), .AYM, .FXM (Fuxoft's music language), .YM, and .PSG (generated by the x128 emulator). Add to those the other formats, and it's quite a comprehensive player. Unfortunately it looks like it hasn't been updated for ages, but it's worth popping over there to get some more choons. Now back to those skins. I'm just checking out DeviantART, a nice skinning site. Looks like AY-Emu isn't there, so I'll see about contacting the site owners. I'll also do the same with a couple other skin-sites. I'll let you know the results.
	[icabod] - 03/05/2001 @859

	Simply Mekka photos
	Oki, in an effort to get another post out, I spotted this news on Scenet. There have been some photos from the Mekka&Symposium demoparty shoved into a neat little .LHA archive, and placed on the homepage of Reason demogroup. Well out of curiosity I downloaded them, and bugger me if there aren't some Speccy sceners in there. I'm sure that's some of K3L. And there's also a very Speccy-looking demo running on the huge projection screen. Oki, it could be any platform, but I recognise the blocky colour we all love. Go on then... prove me wrong.
	[icabod] - 02/05/2001 @938

	Downloads at POS
	Group these three together, I think. First up, there's a new version of BGE, the graphix editor. Nice app this, now up to version 3.01. Next we have a new version of... ehm... hehe, it's another graphix editor. Excess De Luxe Paint has reached version 2.1b. And also you can grab another newly released e-zine, Rip #14. Oh, and in case you didn't see from the headline, these are all downloadable from POS.
	[icabod] - 01/05/2001 @822

	Announcing SunBeam
	Heh, here's something I missed, and it's from "inside the camp", too. Perhaps I should take a while and read through SE3 (wonder how many times I can plug it in one day?). Our beloved, sweet, gentle, mad code-monkey, Phoenix, is starting up a cracking group, titled Sunbeam. The aim is to convert all those Pentagon-only demos to work on the original Speccy. Seems like a fine idea. Conversion is easy, I think, but stopping the slowdown? That's the tricky part. The first release planned is RiZC\Extreme. Perhaps we'll even have a site up for it soon? Who knows.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @893

	Z80 Assembly
	Quick note this one. Spotted a bit of the Assembly 2001 party site, mentioning old-skool compos. There's a competition open for "old-skool" machines, specifically "any computer platform publicly available prior to 1990." Well, here's a chance to get some Speccy work into the daddy of all demo-parties. Pop there now to check out the deal.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @884

	Vice President to join Scenergy?
	Well, I'm kinda speculating, but from deciphering the translation of an item on Scenergy, I would guess that everybody's favourite presidential campaign loser, Al Gore has joined the team. As you know, Big Al claim's he invented the Internet (but there's so much I'd have done differently). Well, it's now mentioned how SE3 looks very similar in design to the Scenergy e-zine. I've even heard mention of a claim that ideas were taken directly from one to the other. Hmm. Surely all e-zine's look pretty much the same anyway. Just check out some on other platforms. Any way, I just thought I'd do a bit of "air clearing" and let y'all know that SE3 is a new product, all fresh code, and influenced in look/style only by the contents of LaesQ's and Phoenix's warped minds. I think that's all. Oh, except to say that all 'zines are based on an idea I had back in 1979 anyway. So there.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @879

	What's in a name?
	Could it be the result of my scathing comment before? Well, hardly scathing, but sarcastic at least <g>. As well as some news on progress of the app, the Spectrum Emulator has undergone a name-change, to the rather odd GLECK. Apparently it's something to do with the keyboard modes of a Speccy.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @868

	More DoS attacks on the WOS
	Dunno what it is with some people. Must wanna piss off a bunch o' harmless retro-freaks. WOS has been experiencing more DoS attacks, slowing down access for anyone trying to get on the site. In the interests of "naming-and-shaming", you can just here to see a list of the attack logs. Looks like a lot of portscans. Hmm.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @866

	SE3.trd?
	Can it be true? Heh, sure it can. There's already a conversion (crack?) of the new 'zine SE3 into glorious (ahem) .TRD format. It's actually a nice little number (I mean the cracktro, of coz the 'zine roxx), so it could be worth adding to your collection, even if you already have the working .TAP. This new version comes courtesy of the guys of Phantasy.
	[icabod] - 30/04/2001 @860

	New version of AY-Emy released
	Hot on the heels of the new beta of Micro Speccy, Sergey has now released v2.2 of the sweet-as-pie AY-Emulator. This version has a couple bugs removed, along with the ability to play all special effects in YM5 and YM6 files. You can even download a few examples of such tunes to test out your newly-acquired download. The test-tunes were grabbed from an Atari music site, titled the "ST Sound Pleasuredome" -- I'm sure that's the name of a Mad Max film. Could be wrong. I've not seen this site before, so you could always go check it out. After reading through SE#3, of coz.
	[icabod] - 29/04/2001 @962

	Subliminal Extacy released
	Hey, can I predict the future or what? Hopefully you've all been checking RAA regularly, and you should have spotted that SE#3 has finally been released. I said it'd happen while I was away. I've actually not even had a chance to check it out myself yet, so I can't make much comment about it. Instead, you can all be the judge\jury(\executioner?) and download it from the server. I've seen some response to it, and it's been good. A polished product, one might say. There's actually been a little controversy about one of the articles. Okay, it's controversy that's only stayed within the Raww Arse camp so far, but I should probably mention it here. Just to "ease the flak". In an article about demo-parties by Gasman, there's a comment about people only writing demos to win competitions. And a famous scener is mentioned by name (I won't give the game away -- you'll have to go download it to find out). Seems that this name-dropping should have been followed by the now-traditional " - Ed". So if you're reading this... well it's your own fault for writing such damned-good code! Besides which... it is funny <g> Air cleared? I think so.
	[icabod] - 29/04/2001 @956

	icaback
	Well, it's Sunday night, about 10:40pm, and yeah, I'm back from my weekend away. And it was good, thanks for asking. The gig was fantastic, and the chance of sleeping later than 7:30am was great. But now I guess it's back to work. Looking through my logs, it looks at first glance that a whole heap o'pages have changed. But I'm slowly checking each page out, and the amount of news doesn't seem too bad. So, for the next couple days I'm gonna get through what's there. Starting with the next article.
	[icabod] - 29/04/2001 @946

	SE3 release imminent
	Okay, this is kinda a cop-out, but I'll be away while Se3 is actually released, so instead I'll advise you all to keep "watching the skies". Or rather, keep watching the Raww Arse Archive, as I'm sure that's where the news will break first. I've just been chatting to Phoenix, who has a couple odds'n'ends to tie up, then it can be shipped out of the door and onto your willing hard-drives. It's actually useful, as it'll give you something to do before I get back. Hehe. You can expect the usual odd humour, and I've been told there's going to be somewhat of a revelation, I think in the form of a project announcement. Could be wrong, but that's all the details I have. So, point your browsers to RAA, and keep clicking that refresh.
	[icabod] - 26/04/2001 @011

	One More Raww Arse
	Okay, some news about Raww Arse, your friendly neighbourhood Speccy Freex! As of yesterday, we have a new member, Grunge, who you may recognise from Smash Band. He'll be doing graphics for various bits of "future work" by the group. I for one want to get back to some serious demo-coding when I get the chance, so perhaps there's a graphical hole to fill there. Grunge could be the one to fill my hole. Hmm. I didn't think that sentence through. Anyway, the list on the left is updated, and the personnel page isn't (Shock!), coz it's badly out-of-date anyhow. That'll change, come the revolution. Another little bit of Raww Arse news, or rather raww.net news now. As some of you will know, I've been having a few problems with access to the server, but (so it seems) everything is sorted now. You should all be able to get to RAA, and the Demotopia files, etc. I should take this opportunity to thank Point777 for all his help with the server. The guy's a veritable genius (well, he knows as much as me, and I'm a genius, soooo). Thanks also to the people who've keenly checked access to the server... they've helped me prove things are peachy. If you still can't access any of the *.raww.net stuff... well, let me know and I'll go sit in a corner and cry. One other thing... not sure if it's just me, but it seems that ZXBN is down. The last time this happened it interfered with the loading of raww.org, so as a temporary measure I've removed it from the page. I'll correct it again when I get back after the weekend.
	[icabod] - 25/04/2001 @983

	Post:431
	Yep, the 431st post here on raww.org. Not bad so far, eh? But I'm tired. I've had a long day. And tomorrow's a long day. More on that later... According to DJH, a new release (v2.0) of Real Commander will be out soon. There's also a new download for version 2.11 of BestView. Another game on POS, but also a new 'zine, Body #29. Also posted on POS is a demo version of a text editor, apparently titled pOPS-925, by GreenMan. This could be useful for people who still write scrolly-texts (I'm talking to you, H-Prg). Gas13 has a slightly new face. Or rather his website does. Designed by Demiurge Ash. And after the posting of the original Pain image, you can now check out originals for Real Face and Who?. Lastly for now, there's a couple new downloads at the AY-Emulator homepage. Nope, not another version, although there's a new beta release of Micro Speccy, which claims to play 95% of the files from Project-AY. There's also a new version of the songs archive, bringing the total tracks to a massive 4500. So, I'm sitting here at around 10pm, feeling tired, listening to Tim Bowness\Samuel Smiles (really nice music, calming but also depressing at times -- my kinda stuff). Tomorrow is set to be another long day as I have loads of work to do, but on Thursday I'm off up to London. Again. The reason this time? Finally I'm going to a Kristin Hersh gig. I've been waiting ages for her to tour the UK, and I've got tickets to one of the four dates this time around. In fact, I have a spare ticket if any young, attractive female-types fancy it. Ahem. So, I'll be away this weekend. A pity, as there's a few things happening that will make big news. The biggest, I think, is the imminent release of SE#3. I'll try to sort something out so that LaesQ can post here to let you know the exact moment it's out. It'll at least give me something to look forward to for next week.
	[icabod] - 24/04/2001 @933

	z80Stealth v0.452 released
	Ooh, this must have come out just after I went to bed last night. Yep-yep, the new version of z80Stealth has been released. Not a huge amount in this one, tho', as it's described as a "bugfix version". So I won't even go into <list-mode> to tell you the goods... The new additions here are a "silent" video-synch mode, which will allow you to synch your refresh-rate when you're in no-sound mode. Also, General Sound now pretends to work in this mode. There's a bugfix in the MOD-player too, also relating to General Sound. So, quite a loud update. Grab it while it's hot.
	[icabod] - 23/04/2001 @941

	New Hooy-Program Program being programmed
	Did ya get that? Did ya? Over on the X-board, Yerzmyey posted a message announcing a new game being worked on by H-Prg. Yeah, I know I usually try to shun games news, but I'm thinking of "branching-out", and after all it is by everyones favourite whacked-out loons. Apparently over half of the work is completed already, so we can expect it later this year.
	[icabod] - 23/04/2001 @937

	Uncertifiable Spec-chums
	Haha. I like this one. Thanks to DB\Speccy4Ever for sending me a note that he's, sadly, failed on the WOS ZX-Certification. Only just, mind, with something like 68% -- well, I only just scraped through myself... and can you believe my lowest mark was in the Z80-asm and System routines? Well, anyone who's seen my work won't be surprised <g>. Besides, what self-respecting coder would ever use a System routine for something other that loading in the real code. Anyway, back to the plot... DB has posted a new button on his site promoting his lack of ZX-Certification. Nice. Stand up and be proud :] I'm sure if you ask nicely you can borrow it, too.
	[icabod] - 23/04/2001 @925

	BMP2SCR v1.72 released
	Aah, self-explanatory headlines. I like that. As you can see, the latest version of Bmp2Scr has been released, and you can download v1.72 now. I saw some preview screens from this version a few days ago, and it was looking good. Since then, I've heard back from LCD who has added even more modes to the image-conversion app. You can now select Floyd/Steinberg dithering, COD and Multitech mode, and AVI conversion. Over on the homepage you can see loads of examples of what the program can do, including a huge number of pictures converted with this latest version. The page could take a little while to load, but it's worth it. Mmmmm, manga chicks!
	[icabod] - 21/04/2001 @738

	Sprinter Polls: Do you want one?
	The Peters website have posted a new poll for you to take part in. This time, it's the big question... "Would you like to buy a Sprinter?" Personally I'm undecided. It certainly looks like a nice bit of kit, with some nice features, and more importantly, some Speccy compatibility. It'll be interesting to see the results.
	[icabod] - 21/04/2001 @730

	Downloads (and a little Nuotrauka)
	Shove the "general downloads" in here, I think. Nothing particularly demo-like, so it kinda makes sense. There's a few new games over at DJH Downloads, one of which ("Crime of Santa Claus: Deja Vu") contains some demos on the disk (.TRD). Not sure if that's game demos or the real kinda. But perhaps it's worth a quick download to check out. There's also a few new downloads at POS, again not really demo-like, but there's four of them to grab at your leisure. Also mentioned on POS is the actual deadline for Nuotrauka. See, I was right the first time.
	[icabod] - 21/04/2001 @727

	Nuotrauka moved again
	Only just over a week ago, the Nuotrauka deadline was moved to the 1st of May, and now it seems it's moved again, according to Chaosite (have you noticed that site's becoming much more active recently!?). I didn't spot much on the party homepage during my quick glance at it just now, but it seems that the deadline isn't actually set. All we have is "sometime next month". Heh.
	[icabod] - 19/04/2001 @920

	Internet on the Speccy!?
	Okay, I've had this thought for a little while, and it seems like I'm not the only one. There has been a TCP/IP stack for the Z88 for a while now in the form of Dom Morris's ZSock, and, as Chaosite reports, finally someone has looked into porting it over to the Spectrum. No sign of a download (or is my mouse pointer just missing the link?), but check the ZSock page for some ideas.
	[icabod] - 19/04/2001 @917

	Mo' Downloads at POS
	You read it, there's a couple new downloads added to POS. You can go there now and grab not only BestView 2.11, but an unreleased demo from the ASC-II demoparty. "Breath of Death" is a trackmo by X-Team. I've got it queued.
	[icabod] - 19/04/2001 @902

	ZX Spectrum Certification
	Heh, this is a nice little thing. Over on WOS they've posted a "Certification" program, to prove if you're, like, king Speccy. Check it out. I managed to pass (really), with a "just-scaped-in" 70. Well, that'll do me, I think. Happily my lowest score was with BASIC... well, it's only used to load machine-code, right? Mind you, I did particularly badly with that, too. I blame tiredness. You can get to the certification here
	[icabod] - 19/04/2001 @900

	Mekka&Symposium results released
	Fairly quiet day today, which is just as well, as I have a few other things to get done tonight. So just a quick mention of the Speccy-less demo-party, Mekka&Symposium. The official results have been released, which I thought may interest the speccy-sceners who visited and showed what a wonderful machine we all have. You can grab the results here
	[icabod] - 18/04/2001 @815

	Easter Eggs. Sweeeet.
	Another post on the X-board revealed a (slightly late) Easter Egg in the recently-released Pondlife. I'll leave you to pop over there and find out how to get this little treat. I'll just leave you with the message that the seriously strange Gasman will soon be let out of the priory clinic <g>. What the hell -- three-in-a-row. Completely different subject, but I received a zipfile late last night from LCD of Bmp2Scr-fame. The archive contained a bunch of test-conversions of screens, created with the new, unreleased version (v1.72) of the tool. What can I say apart from... sweeeeet.
	[icabod] - 17/04/2001 @965

	The Real Session 3 announced
	Okay, this was probably announced ages ago, and as usual I'm in the dark until the last minute. But hey, it's only just appeared on the Demoparty Calendar. TRS3, as it so handily abbreviates, is a German-Polish party being held around May 25th 2001, just over a month away, in Eisenhuettenstadt. My crap knowledge of geography, and "can't-be-arsed" attitude to researching it, leads me to conclude that's somewhere in Germany, or perhaps not. Right? No specific mention is made of the Spectrum, only that entries into the competitions can be in any format. I'm guessing that, as C64, Atari, etc are all mentioned by name, the Speccy comes under the "calculators or organizers" category. Grrrr. Another aside (well, it saves space in the long-run). A (very) mini-report on the Mekka&Symposium party was posted on the X-board by Factor6. Seems like the non-Speccy sceners appreciate good Z80 code when they see it. Photos to come, apparently.
	[icabod] - 17/04/2001 @960

	DJH on a Mouse-Frenzy
	Latest update over on DJ Hooligan's Downloads site is very mouse oriented, I think. Well, two of the updates use a mouse, which DJH seems very pleased with, at least. There's a couple new games added, which I'm only mentioning due to the inclusion of the Cracktro (using a mouse?!). There's also a new version of QuickCommander (v2.6), a boot-system which... uses a mouse. There's also the addition of the game Exofox, a game "with new conception of moving". It doesn't say it, but I'm guessing a mouse <g> Get there and find out. As an aside, another download is available over at POS. You can hike your way over there and grab the latest version of the Alasm editor from Mister Tiden/Delirium Tremens.
	[icabod] - 17/04/2001 @950

	SUC-Germany competition
	Got a mail from FBI (who you'll all know from the Sintech site). The "Spectrum-User-Club Germany" is running a yearly competition through it's paper-zine. On the cover disk they put software they find on the 'Net, like demos. And the person who does the best job gets cash. Sweet. There are certain rules for taking part in this competition, mainly that your work should be in .TAP format. Actually... to save me some trouble, let's cut-n-paste: " The winner will get money prize. This year it was: 60,00 DM (about 30 US$) for the 1st place. So I think there is pretty good money to make. Only thing what we need is the name of the producer and adress to send them the money and of course the works in .TAP format. So if anyone want to start in our competition and win money, he should just send his work to me. Also older works are accepted. " Sounds like a good opportunity to make some fast cash, especially as the work doesn't have to be created just for this. Who said that sitting in front of a computer was a waste of time!? Now we need a bit of help. Seems that the winners from the 2000 competition need to be contacted so that they can get their rewards: 1st: Slap Age - Fanatic Stas & TWD (1993) 2nd: The Last Courier - Perspective Group (1997) 3rd: Trubes - Panc (1996) 'Kay, I'm not too certain of any of these, so perhaps you can provide some information. Either send it directly to FBI, or send it to me, and I'll pass it on.
	[icabod] - 16/04/2001 @785

	Tracking over at Realsoft
	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.
	[icabod] - 16/04/2001 @760

	Emulator ideas
	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.
	[icabod] - 16/04/2001 @750

	ASCII photos - perhaps
	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?
	[icabod] - 16/04/2001 @735

	Imaginatively Titled...
	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.
	[icabod] - 14/04/2001 @830

	International Spectrum & Sam Days
	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.
	[icabod] - 14/04/2001 @825

	AY Emulator v2.1 released
	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!
	[icabod] - 14/04/2001 @660

	Original Pain
	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.
	[icabod] - 13/04/2001 @795

	Magic Boxes
	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.
	[icabod] - 13/04/2001 @775

	Chaosite announce CCMC
	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.
	[icabod] - 13/04/2001 @770

	Chiptune FTP site opened
	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!
	[icabod] - 13/04/2001 @760

	Leeloo Dallas Multipass
	It's just gone midnight, and I've had a looong day. Out of the house at about 5:45am, back home around 7:30pm. I was going to do an update, but instead I decided to relax and watch "The Fifth Element" again. Has anyone seen that film and not fallen in love with Leeloo? Mmmmmm. Proper update tomorrow. It's Good Friday, so I get the day off. A lie-in! Hoorah!
	[icabod] - 13/04/2001 @005

	Blah-ha!
	Quick round-up of little things (that's little in size, not importance). I should note that Babelfish seems to be playing up for me tonight, so I'm kinda guessing at some of this stuff: An update over at the +3e page gives some information on how you can use RS to emulate the +3e, along with hard-drive imaging tools. Virtual TRD have posted some downloads for the General Sound kit, including trackers and players. Or so it seems. Scenergy have a download for a Virtual Z-machine emulator for the Pentagon 512k. Not entirely sure what this is, and it's too late at night to find out now :] Also on Scenergy is the download for a game, I think, titled NumbCars. Odd title. But it's a game, so I won't mention it here... DOH! Lastly on the big S, there's an article that looks interesting about a PAL TV Filter. Other than that I'm stumped, due to the aforementioned translation problems. I'll see what I can sort out tomorrow night. Hmm. I'll get onto the translation thing tomorrow. For now I need sleep -- I have to be awake in about 5 hours time.
	[icabod] - 11/04/2001 @985

	Hello? Anybody there? Are we live?
	Hehe. Was looking at the newly redesigned Chaosite news page (you didn't know it was redesigned? It's nice, you should really check it out). Spotted an amusing post on there stating that POS is the only updated scene-site. Ahem! Excuse me! What about raww.org? Am I alone here or what? I just wonder if the poster (anonymous) is the same person stirring up trouble on the X-board? Either way, I thought it was kinda amusing.
	[icabod] - 11/04/2001 @980

	.gone
	Still no joy with the raww.net problems. This means that most of the files on Demotopia are out-of-reach. This is a real swine. I'll give some info on the situation I'm in regarding this. I registered the domain with a company called Discount Domains. The parent company for this has gone bust, so everything's on hold. I thought "ooh, I need to make a change to my settings", so I decided to move my domain to another registrar. This is where the problem comes in. In order to fix the raww.net access, I want to make changes to the domain, but can't as it's "in transit". Bitch, huh!? So I'll ask again for people to try to access raww.net and let me know if they can/can't get there. Okay, there's nothing there right now, but it'll at least give me an indication of how big the problem is. Thanks to those who've already given some feedback.
	[icabod] - 11/04/2001 @830

	World of DoS and raww.not
	The Internet. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it still is most of the time. Think about it, you get to meet people, find out news, and download free pornography. But there's a bad side to all of this. It's what us sys-admins have to put up with. Today it was mentioned on WOS that they've suffered from another DoS (Denial of Service) attack, downing the server for about 2 hours. As Martijn says, they obviously "haven't had enough downtime as of late". As for my server, well, there's not much on it right now, and raww.org has yet to move, but in the last couple days there have been problems for some people accessing raww.net and it's associated sites. I can see it all perfectly from home, but not from work. I'm in the process of moving the domain to another registrar, which will give me easier control over it. I guess this is what could be causing the problems (it's in mid-move, I believe). So, if you have any trouble getting to RAA, or ZXSE, please let me know so that it will give me an idea of how bad the situation is.
	[icabod] - 10/04/2001 @885