Retro Computing Today part 2
	If you remember, a little while ago I posted some news about another Retro-zine that's in production. Well now Retro Computing Today has a homepage. There's not much on there yet apart from the recent press release, but we'll keep watching the site and let you know when it's updated. This is the second retro-zine to appear recently. Could this be the start of a massive trend? I'm waiting for Intel to announce the Pentium 5 running at 3.5MHz.
	[icabod] - 24/01/2002 00:33

	Peters Low-level Update
	Over on the Peters Plus webpage, some documentation has been added covering Estex, the O/S for the Sprinter. The new documentation should be of specific interest to hardware hackers, or more importantly people who'll want to write boot-managers. Both texts cover the Disk SubSystem (DSS), which is compatible with good ol' FAT16. One of these covers the DSS Function List, with functions covering File I/O, Memory Management, Display, etc. It's worth a read if you're interested in getting one of these beasts and producing some software for it.
	[icabod] - 24/01/2002 00:12

	Sinclair Updates on Old-Computers
	There's been a major update over at old-computers.com, with increased information on 4 Sinclair machines (Spectrum, Spectrum+, ZX81, and QL). Updates to the standard Spectrum page are listed as "Motherboard explained, Inside Microdrive, Inside microdrive cartridge, Discovery FD, Inside Discovery, Printer Floyd 40, Wafadrive, Inside Wafadrive, Wafadrive cartridge." Should provide a good opportunity to get... inside the Spectrum. Ooh and look, the computer of the day (for the next 15 minutes-or-so) is the ZX Spectrum +3. It really is a good day.
	[icabod] - 23/01/2002 23:48

	Other Thingies
	A few notes here, so that I can get some sleep sooooon: Glukalka : I don't usually mention non-Windows/DOS emulators (this will soon be changing), but I thought I'd mention this open-source emu' for *nix. Partly coz the name's rather sweet. Mebbe I'll download it for use at work. TZX-Vault : There's been another huuuge update of this neat TZX tape archive. An additional 500-or-so files for you to grab, along with a new section called "The Games That Time Forgot" trying to locate unpublished game-parts. Sprinter : Peters Plus have updated their site with more information on the Sprinter (FAQ additions focussing on VRAM and using ISA cards). They've also updated the main SP2000 page, tho' I'm not sure what with. Tsk. Nite-nite.
	[icabod] - 23/01/2002 00:17

	MB-03 and MB-02+ upgrade
	A little update on the news that there's to be a sequel to the MB-02+. In an email from FBI/Sintech, he confirmed a that one of the features of the new MB-03 will be integrated IDE support. As for General Sound, it's uncertain. And if you want to add IDE support to your current MB-02+, a DIY upgrade kit is available from his site.
	[icabod] - 22/01/2002 23:57

	Multiple AY. And SID?
	Well I got a response from Mac Buster about the article of a couple days ago about dual-AY systems. He says that a hack (sorry, I mean an addon) existed a few years ago, made by MagiC. He'd successfully modified the player from Sound Tracker to work with it. I'm also informed that he once attached a SID to the Speccy. That's fine, but I want to know... did it work??? <g>
	[icabod] - 20/01/2002 23:50

	MB-02+ / MB-03 update
	It must have only been about half-an-hour after I posted the MB-03 news that I received a mail from FBI/Sintech. He's confirmed that "the MB02 is now out of production." He also confirmed that plans are ahead to build the a fully-compatible MB-03. There's no mention of General Sound support, tho'. Oh, and I didn't mention earlier, although I had noticed it, but the Sintech site has had a redesign, including more information about the hardware they have on offer. Check it.
	[icabod] - 20/01/2002 23:43

	Sinclair Extended BASIC
	Apologies to Andrew Owen for the slight delay in posting this. Hey, I'm slack. He's made updates to a couple websites, both updates focusing on BASIC, in particular his new SE BASIC. First up we have a (new?) site dedicated to the various versions of Sinclair BASIC, hosted over on WOS. Aside from providing various patched versions of the standard ROMs, it's quite an interesting read from a ZX-History point of view. Next up is a large update to the ZXSE page, covering mainly SE BASIC, a bug-fixed, enhanced version. Something that's looking intruiging is that Andrew is working with Peters Plus to ensure the new version works on the Sprinter. Anyway, on the page is some interesting techie-info you may like to look at. I'd copy it to here, but that'd just be silly. I've also received a beta-release of SE BASIC, which is currently going through compatibility testing (yes some problems do exist due to "empty" area of the ROM now containing code). I'll have a play with it when I get more spare time (I want to ensure "Viking Raiders" will run <g>). Until then, here's a couple of the large list of changes: New text-mode (42-column) along with replaced system font. Some commands renamed. Fixed loads of bugs. Keyboard decoding routine rewritten. Oooh, loads of others.
	[icabod] - 20/01/2002 23:37

	MB-03 is coming?
	According to a post on comp.sys.sinclair 8Bit Company, developers of the MB-02+, are working on the sequel to this remarkable piece of hardware. The post from Jan Werner states that the MB-03 will include General Sound, among other things. I'm just looking at the homepage and at Sintech now, and I can't see anything to confirm this, so it'll stay as just a rumour. But a good rumour, anyway.
	[icabod] - 20/01/2002 21:45

	Multiple AY chips
	Well, I think 2 is multiple. It's certainly more that one. POS have posted a couple screens describing the wirey layout (check out the techie-speak I'm using) to allow you to have two AY-chips attached to one Spectrum. So 6-channel sound. It's an interesting idea which could produce some fantastic pieces of music. In fact I'm surprised we've not seen this around before. The only problem is... it'd need to catch on. Perhaps the next step is to have software-mixable stereo. Imagine the possibilities if you could pan one of the channels. So, who's a wizard with a soldering iron? While we're on the subject, POS have also posted the source code for "The Pusher." I like this time. Everything's becoming open-source. It's good.
	[icabod] - 19/01/2002 16:27

	GFXZone goes Retro
	It seems that the guys over at ZX GFX-scene site ZpiXel have teamed up with GFXZone to produce an article and gallery on the... ZX GFX scene. The article can be found on both sites (in English, hurrah!), and looks quite well written (I'm reading it now, in fact). It'll certainly help explain a few things to people who don't understand the Spectrum. It covers the graphical limitations we face, discusses a couple of the extra "software hacked" modes. Worth a read. Certainly. The gallery has a whole heap of fantastic images for you to look through, with work by Demiurge Ash, Gas13, et al. Again, well worth a look. Thanks to Scenergy where I spotted this news first. Can you believe there's been loads of stuff going on at ZpiXel that I've missed? All due to me using odd settings on WSW. My own fault, it's now corrected.
	[icabod] - 19/01/2002 16:09

	Bits and Pieces. Again.
	Space-saving and time-saving. Who could ask for more? Apart from a huge salary. Sprinter : Over at the Peters Plus homepage you can download a new tool to allow you to create .EXE's for the Sprinter. It creates them from TASM .LST files. Follindrome : In case you happen to like Atari music, playable on Sergey's fine AY-Emulator, VORC reports on an update at the FollinDrome, a site dedicated to the famous Follin brothers. Emulators : WOS mentions a couple new emulators, both replicating the Pentagon 128. I don't have any URLs, but you can grab both Emuz and Zephyr over on WOS. Sweary : A mail from Unbeliever/x7m points out that the recently deceased Bla'dskie news site was a kinda joke site. Heh, the things you miss when translating. "Blad" is a kinda Russian slang word/insult. He also sent me a link to the Alternative Russian Dictionary. Should prove handy when watching the latest demo's. Sweary 2 : Haha. Just had to mention "obossat's'a mozhno". The Dictionary says it means "I'm so excited that I'll piss in my panties." Oh, I like that <g>. Following on from the mail from Unbeliever, do non-English people find this site difficult to read sometimes? I expect it doesn't help when I start talking bollocks. Perhaps a "straight news" option could help. Hmm.
	[icabod] - 17/01/2002 00:29

	Retro Review gets all Shippy
	Thanks go to young Master LaesQ for prodding me and reminding me that Retro Review, the new retro-zine ships today. The site says it's still in a "will be shipping" state, but with all that stamp-licking I guess there's no time to update the homepage. So clicking the "Next Issue" currently (as I write this) gives details of the first issue. Looks good, with a couple very ZX-centric articles including an interview with FBI of Sintech, and of coz a "Happy Birthday ZX". Now, I must remember to grab me a copy.
	[icabod] - 15/01/2002 23:26

	UK Mirror for WOS
	To rip directly from WOS: "We're proud to announce an FTP mirror for WoS in the United Kingdom (kindly hosted by William Anderson)! The URL is ftp://ftp.uk.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair." How lovely.
	[icabod] - 15/01/2002 23:14

	UnFortunate Shutdown
	Well it seems that for a few days, hosting service FortuneCity is/will be down. This wouldn't normally bother us, but there's a fair few ZX sites hosted there, including the Exodus page, and X-Project. Well it should all be better in a couple days time. Here's hoping.
	[icabod] - 15/01/2002 23:11

	Load'n'Run
	Got sent this URL for the site La Coleccion de Load'n'Run para Spectrum. Yeah, that's what I thought too. As you can prolly guess it's a non-English site, and it seems it's dedicated to an old Spanish 'zine titled (oddly enough) "Load'n'Run". So if you remember it, this could be a neat bit of nostalgia for you.
	[icabod] - 13/01/2002 17:46

	Emu News from V-TRD
	A couple little bits of news leeched from Virtual TRD. One bit mentions the release of the latest version of Bacteria, the minute 48k ZX-emulator. v1.8 includes the ability to "compile" games, I think resulting in a self-running ZX game. Nice feature. There's also mention that the recent release of UnrealSpeccy is in fact the last version. I haven't spotted anything to suggest this on the official homepage, but V-TRD have the following quote: "anyway, please DO NOT MAIL ME about emulator, this is a really last version."
	[icabod] - 13/01/2002 17:14

	Happy Birthday Sinclair TV
	Someone on CSS (sorry, lost the post) mentioned this link to the BBC News website. It's all about it being the 25th birthday of the release of Sir Clive's Pocket TV. I'll leave you to read the details, as it's hardly ZX scene news, eh?
	[icabod] - 13/01/2002 17:03

	Retro Computing Today
	Saw a post on CSS from Ramlink666. It's mentioning a new retro-zine titled (you guessed) "Retro Computing Today". It looks quite interesting, or at least in principal. We'll have to wait until the first issue is released. To save me a little time (coz I'm slack), I've copied the article here, so have a read and see what you think.
	[icabod] - 10/01/2002 23:07

	ZX-Irony updates
	Thanks go to Hally of VORC for reminding me of a couple updates to ZX Irony that occured over the last couple weeks. I won't detail the updates here, but if you didn't know, the site is a home to a whole bunch of AY-tunes. Not quite scene-tunes (seems mainly from games), but a nice collection all the same.
	[icabod] - 10/01/2002 23:00

	UnrealSpeccy 0.20 released
	Yes, if you slip over to the homepage of UnrealSpeccy you'll find the latest version, just released as 0.20. Details of changes you'll have to work out for yourselves, as I'm afraid the download comes after some driver updates for my machine. And they're not listed on the site. Ho-hum.
	[icabod] - 10/01/2002 22:55

	You're only supposed to blow the Bla'dskie doors off!
	Well it seems that scene-site Bla'dskie Demoscene has closed it's doors. It occasionally came up trumps with some handy news, but now the site is down, with the following message: " www.blia.f2s.com is closed. Forever. But you can sign our guestbook until february 28, 2002. After this date blia will be completely annihilated. Hurry! This is a limited offer! Just $9.95 per message! " Hey, what a bargain <g>. But still, no details of why it's closed. Perhaps if I'd been bothered to translate the whole site before, I'd know. Ah well.
	[icabod] - 10/01/2002 21:03

	Sam Coupe on old-computers
	Vaguely ZX-related this. If you have a twisted mind. Information on the Sam Coupe have been added to old-computers.com. Did anyone actually buy one of these? One of my mates did. We even used it once. Hmm. It's actually quite an interesting read.
	[icabod] - 09/01/2002 20:12

	Wot No .sk?
	Is it my imagination or have all .sk sites disappeared? Well not disappeared, but the ones I usually check seem to be screwing up. The "visitors" section of the FOReVER3 site (hosted here) has lost all ability to use PHP. More information on problems is at C64.sk, where it seems the host has had "some big catastrophe." My unprofessional opinion? Some trainee techy was playing with config files. That's how I manage to kill raww.net. Hope it all gets well soon.
	[icabod] - 09/01/2002 20:08

	Zines, Zoftware, and Zpanish Zpectrums
	It's highly unprofessional to put several bits of news in a single post, but who ever said I was professional? Retro Review : Mentioned this just over a month ago, and the latest on issue 1 of this Retro 'zine is that it'll be shipped on January 15th. Get there for details of grabbing an issue. QC : Real Software have posted the latest version of Quick Commander on their site. It's version 2.62. They also mention UnrealSpeccy v0.19b2. Hmm, a little behind (it's on b5), but the thought was there. Sounds : Over on POS you can go grab a tune convertor. It'll do Advanced Sound Master v1.xx to Pro-Tracker v3.xx. I haven't downloaded it, but then I've heard my music. Spectrum Zone : Got sent a couple links to Computer Emuzone, a site about emulators, and to it's sub-site, Spectrum Zone. Mainly in Spanish, I think, tho' I've not had a chance to fully check it out. Added the ZX site to the links. Well, I have an early start tomorrow, so that'll do I think.
	[icabod] - 08/01/2002 00:03

	LDIR: Zx-Spectrum Magazine
	Serzh sent me an email that he's updated LDIR, his Zx-Spectrum Magazine. Nope, issue 1 isn't ready just yet, but there's a load of information (mainly images) available for you to view. There's reviews of a bunch of demos, tho' they act more as storyboards, images of a few famous sceners, and a kinda LDIR #1 preview. I must say it's looking really rather neat so far. Looking forward to the final release.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 01:16

	Demos at TZX Vault
	Well there aren't demos at the TZX Vault just yet, but I got an email from Steve who runs it, saying he'd be happy to post any demos you may have on the site. " It would be preferable if they were in .tzx format, but failing that I'll accept .tap as I can master tapes from .tap files and create .tzx files from tape masters. " I think that generally, standard-loader demos wouldn't be needed (these can be picked up from Demotopia). But I mentioned the other day about a non-standard tape-loader by the Israeli Team. This would fit well as a pure tape image at the Vault. I'll have a dig through my old tapes and see if I can sort it out. Any others people know of? So if you have some non-standard tape-loader demos, create .TZX's and send them to Steve. Instructions on conversion can be found on the Vault, and also some unrelated information on attaching a 3" drive to a PC. Wish I'd known about that one earlier.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 01:00

	Wild Compo at Forever3?
	A post on the C64 FOReVER3 site mentioned the possibility of having a "Wild Compo" at the event. If it does happen, it will probably be cross-platform, on any platform. The example is you should bring your bike if your demo runs on that <g>. If you think this is a good idea, go to the message boards and say so.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 00:36

	Ay-Emulator v2.6b released
	Not much more to say about this that the headline hasn't already covered. Version 2.6b of Sergey's AY-Emulator has added time-positioning for .AY and .AYM files, and has improved compatibility with Windows NT. The improved compatibility allowing it to actually work. Noice.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 00:30

	News from Scenergy
	Well yet again Babelfish is failing me, this time by reporting that Scenergy isn't valid HTML. Hmm, works fine in my browser. So, no translation, but here's what I can glean from my complete lack of knowledge of the Russian language. Basically, I can see there's news of a couple emulators (other than those we already know about). The first up is FooN, an ZX emulator for the Gameboy Advance. I don't have one of these, so I'll end there. If you do have one, you could check it out. There's also a link to the intriguing Emulator 3000. It's an emulator of "Soviet calculators, electronic games and home computers." Hmm. Calculators. But hey, it also emulates the "Commodore 64, ZX-Spectrum (48K, 128K, +2, +2A, +3, +3E, +4)." May be worth a shot. While I'm here, I'll mention quickly a couple new downloads you can grab from Scenergy -- "20 #5", and "NY Gift". I've got 'em queued up, and I'm guessing at least one is a new demo, by O.C.A.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 00:22

	Build Your Own +D
	Saw a neat article posted over on WOS, written by a guy calling himself Philip Mulrane. It's certainly one for the hardware hackers amongst you, and I know there are a load of you. The title is "I can't believe it's not the +D!" and it's some details on building your own +D interface. At one point this was the system all ZX-users needed, especially for swaps in the demoscene (until the MB02 came along). But as mentioned in the article, they're generally only available now on Ebay at huge prices. Well now you can get out your soldering iron and have a crack at creating one. I've not checked out the full article... far to techie for me. Could be good for some of you, tho'.
	[icabod] - 06/01/2002 00:04

	Sup with Speccy4Ever?
	Looks like there's a few problems over at the huge ROM repository, Speccy4Ever. It's been down a couple days, but now there's simply this (badly translated) message: "SiliconPark excuse with the Customers for the momentary suspension of the service web." SiliconPark of coz being the hosts for the site. Hmm, hope it's all fixed soon.
	[icabod] - 05/01/2002 23:54

	Lost News
	Okay, me made a booboo. Due to some uncontrollable crashing on my 'netted PC, I've managed to kill a bunch of recent emails. Yes Yes, I'm a fool, I know. My attempts at recovery just made one of my mail folders even more screwed. So, if you've recently sent me some news by email, and haven't seen it posted here, can you please send it again. I know a few details of a couple -- they've been read, but not acted upon yet. Such as Andrew Owen releasing the first public beta of ZXSE (webpage isn't updated, so I can't confirm). And some news on I think Spectaculator emulator. Sorry for the hassle. Such is life. And probable alcohol consumption <g>.
	[icabod] - 03/01/2002 22:06

	Official Forever page online
	Yes, you read it right, there's now an official (I'm guessing) "generic" site for all of your deepest FOReVER3 desires. Found the news over on the C64-specific page. I've already just mentioned this party, and there's really not a huuuge amount of new information on the new site (a little more detail), but it's the one to watch for news and thingies. I'll be monitoring it for you all anyway. Hopefully I won't miss anything. Oh wait, I just spotted there's some rules for the ZX compos. Standard stuff really: everything must run on 48k or 128k Speccy. Intro competition is 1024b. Well you can probably guess the rest. Details are on the info page.
	[icabod] - 03/01/2002 21:56

	Forever 2oo2
	Well I heard from CreaMD/DMagic some news of the upcoming Forever 2oo2 (note this link is to the C64 section). The party, as you'll probably know, is for the 3 main 8-bit platforms (ZX, C64, and Atari), and is being held in Trencin, Slovakia, from the 15th to 17th of March this year. This party should be quite special, as this year celebrates the 20th birthday's of both the ZX and the C64, and the 30th Anniversary of Atari existing. So if you're planning to join the partying, get over to this page and sign up. The ZX site should be up soon, and I'll pass on more details as I get them.
	[icabod] - 02/01/2002 22:42

	TZX Vaulter
	Reminds me of a joke. But it's a shit joke, so I'll leave it out. Thanks to Steve for emailing me with the news, and no I've not forgotten it. There's been a biiig update over at the TZX Vault, with over 500 additions. Okay, it's games, but it's a start. One thing I would like to see is a .TZX of an old Israeli Team demo. I forget the name (it could actually be there already) but I remember that it did loads of stuff on the screen during loading. Would be good to get a decent copy of that again.
	[icabod] - 02/01/2002 22:16

	Random web-site stuff
	Just a couple mentions of a couple websites. Thanks (kinda) to Anestis for sending a link to Format Publications' Gloucester Gathering. I'm guessing it's a little outta date, due to the following sentence: "The 1998 Format Computer Fairs at Gloucester will be on Saturday 4 April, and Saturday 17 October." Oh, a little behind, but could be an interesting read if you're into photos of old people (you know you like it). Also a note to mention that ZX GFX Scene is back online. Has been for a few days I think. No updates, but at least it's not lost for good, eh.
	[icabod] - 02/01/2002 22:08

	Emulatronication
	Hell, dunno what that word means. Well, there's been a few releases of some emulators in the last few days. At the last count, UnrealSpeccy has been updated 87 times in the last 3 hours. Okay, slight exaggeration, but it's certainly an unhealthy number of releases. At the time of writing it's on 0.19b5. Recent changes? Aah, you got me. An emulator which I can give change-details on is Z80Stealth. The latest release of this sweet emulator has come out, on Christmas day no less. What a treat. Mainly a set of bugfixes, there's also a couple new features, including hardware multicolour emulation. But oh, what's this? A change to the sacred Z80 snapshot format? I can see why the changes have been made, to include details on Russian clones... hmm, the guys in CSS won't be happy.
	[icabod] - 30/12/2001 23:32

	ZX Scene Database?
	A while back, Gasman and I were talking. In fact I think we mentioned it first while we were travelling to Poland for ZX-Party sometime last year. We had an idea for a huge ZX Demoscene database, where you could browse for information and downloads on all ZX Sceners. Gasman actually made a start on this, and I've seen some test-code he's produced. Rather neat it is. So why am I telling you this? Well I noticed while browsing on c64.sk that someone else has had a similar idea but on the... C64. CSDb is the name of the site, I guess, and a rather nice affair it is too, all cross-referenced and stuff. A little on the sparse side information wise, but this is something only time can fix. For now, if you're into the C64-scene then go take a look.
	[icabod] - 30/12/2001 23:17

	Sprinter Information
	A few updates have occured over on the PetersPlus homepage. There's a new poll posted there, asking if you'd like to use a 5.25" floppy drive with the Sprinter. From what I can make out, they're not asking if you'd like one packaged, so I'm not certain what the point is... mind you, I actually have a couple large floppies in my desk at work (oo-er). There's also some additional information posted about the 3 main products they produce, the Sprinter, the SP2000, and the SP2000a. I'd go through them and list the differences, but... well you can do that can't you.
	[icabod] - 30/12/2001 23:16

	Nil Updatum
	So, what's with the quietness on raww.org then? It has after all been nearly 2 weeks since the last update. Well aside from all the partying and drunkeness, of which there's been relatively little for this time of year, I've been having a hell of a time getting online. The last couple days have been very bad, with vast amounts of noise on the phoneline. Picking up the phone is like listening to "Shopping" by Bass Communion. As you won't know that track, lets just say it's all crackles and pops. Not unlike a Rice Krispie advert in fact. I've contacted BT, who promptly sat. And drank tea. Or coffee. Okay I'm not being fair, they probably have a lot to do right now. It's just annoying that my current connection is just over half my normal connect speed, and it'll probably die in about 30 minutes. So how've you been? But enough with the ranting, I'll see what I can do with checking the news... a couple things today, I think. Depends how annoyed I get with my 'Not-connection.
	[icabod] - 30/12/2001 22:34

	New emulator: Spectaculator
	I spotted this on the WOS Phorums, in the emulation section. Someone mentioned they'd just downloaded a new emulator, "Spectaculator". It's a very early version right now (although I can't actually see any version information, natch), with minimal support and features. It's yet to have the ability to load .TAPs or .TZXs, and only emulates a 48k Spectrum. What makes this stand out a little is that it supports all versions of Windows. Okay, so without 3.x support, but all the others are there. Should be good, as many people have been having trouble running emulators on Win2k and WinXP. Another emu to watch? I think so, if only as it should work on my new PC <g>. Just a pity there's no version info yet.
	[icabod] - 19/12/2001 21:59

	Peters Modulator Circuit
	Okay, I think this is really one for the uber-geek. PetersPlus have posted an image in their website, it's a Modulator circuit for PAL. I'm not entirely certain why I'm mentioning it (being a software bloke), but it could interest you.
	[icabod] - 19/12/2001 21:52

	Zlicon Photos at speccy.cz
	Got an email from Jan Werner to mention that over on speccy.cz you can find photos from the recent Zlicon'01 party. I'm just looking at a couple of them right now. Go do the same. Go on. Oh while I'm here, a quick note to thank Steve for nudging me into adding a TZX Vault-link to this page. To be honest I thought I already had. Hmm. What a fool am I!?
	[icabod] - 17/12/2001 22:30

	More Blah!
	Well I've been away for the weekend (again). This time it was down in Southampton, for the annual "people who know me xmas dinner". We oddly went to a Thai restaurant. Hmm, curried turkey anyone? There's a few things to be picked out for news, so here's a quick selection: aylet : A post on CSS from Russell Marks announced his new *nix-based AY-Emulator, titled aylet. It plays standard .ay files, and is out at v0.2. yerzmyey : Check out this post over on the X-board. Resident musician Yermyey is back in the shops. Noice. quick commander : Spotted this first over on DJH Downloads. A new version of Quick Commander is out, bringing it up to v2.62. timex 1016 : Some new schematics for the Timex 1016 16k RAMpack have been posted over on WOS. Check the "documentation" section. zx gfx scene : Hmm, not sure what's happened to this site. Just seems to have disappeared. Perhaps it's just a glitch, I'll keep it on check for a little while. sprinter coding : If you're interested in writing software for the Sprinter, you'll be pleased to know that a new section on just that subject has been added to the FAQ. tr_songs : It's been a little while since the last update, but the latest version of Sergey's TR-Songs tracker archive has been released. v2.7 brings the total number of tracks to around 7000. Worth the 6Mb download IMHO. I have it queued up now. groups.google : Well recently Google opened up 20 years of archived newsgroups. Obviously people have been searching for "historical events", and some people on CSS have posted interesting ones... WOS is announced to the world. YSRnRY, the Your Sinclair archive is announced. ...and, hmm, could this be the first CSS thread? Seems odd to me. webarchive : Someone mentioned this Internet Archive, which has kept cached webpages from the 'net. I haven't had a chance to try it out fully, but you can look at old WOS pages if you like. Should keep you all busy for a little while. I have some more emails to go through, but I'll cover them tomorrow. Incidentally I'll give warning that this coming weekend I'll be away for a few days again. Visiting the big city to do some serious drinking... uhm, I mean shopping <g>. Well, it's that time of year. But I'll have some time off after that, so I'll maybe get done some of the things I've been putting off for ages. Who knows.
	[icabod] - 16/12/2001 23:09

	Bits-n-pieces
	I'm having a hell of a time staying online right now. Well okay, I've had worse, but for now I'm just getting rather... annoyed. So a quick post of some news, then I'm off. Corrections 1 : First correction is for the credit for providing the TMG link. Apparently it was from our very own Bogie. Thanks bloke. Corrections 2 : I forgot that Martijn at WOS isn't keen on "deep linking". Thanks to Gasman for reminding me (of coz, when I check the site's working it's all in my cache). Well, it's easy enough to find the phorums anyway. I'll try to remember this in the future. ASCii'02 : POS have recently posted the new official ASCii'02 rules. Not checked them yet, I'll get it done when I can stay online long enough. Bacteria : Ultra-small emulator Bacteria has been updated to v1.7. Not sure of the updates, but... grab it anyway. ROMs : A bunch of new ROMs have appeared on Speccy4Ever: Andrew Owen's +2c (not the same as the one Namco released), the Didaktik Gama 81, and it looks like English docs for BusyROM 1.40. Righty. Gonna go.
	[icabod] - 12/12/2001 22:10

	New Links
	Here I'll just mention quickly a few new links we have. Well, new-ish. Just a few sites you may like to check out. TMG : Unfortunately due to the system used, I can't tell who actually submitted this link, but huge thanks to whoever it is. Can we guess it was Talisman? I think so. It's The Mad Guys Tribute Page, and it's about probably the best (IMHO) demogroup ever to grace the scene. Check it out... they rule! Old Computer Archive : Not completely unlike old-computers.com, really. A nice collection of ZX machines, too. Equinox : I've seen this site before, rather pleased at the quality of some of the Java democode there. This link is to another soundchip emulator (like Gasman's Jayce), emulating the Yamaha YM2149 (the AY-chips big brother). No source here, but a very nice piece of work. Link grabbed from VORC. Oh hey, while I'm here I'll mention I'm moving over to standard local time (that's GMT right now) rather than these dodgy @... times. No one uses it anyway!
	[icabod] - 10/12/2001 23:49

	More Amstrad. More Amstrad.
	A couple more things about the recent rumours on the whole Amstrad thing. In case you've not checked the WOS Phorums/Games, a scan has been posted taken from the latest Grattan catalog. It details the Amstrad Emailer, and you can clearly see in the advert that there's the ability to "Play exciting games from the famous Sinclair ZX Spectrum Library". Still not spotted anything on the website yet, tho', so perhaps still just rumour. Credits for the scan, which I've set up a download for here, go to M Brown. In an email I received from Yerz, he mentions about future projects that include ZX game-ability. Specifically, it could be a chance to bring a real ZX Spectrum back on the market. Or real in name, at least. Imagine an official mobile-ZX, or having one replacing that dusty PS2?! Hmm. I'm more interested in if it will support democoding <g>.
	[icabod] - 09/12/2001 @725

	WapElite combat graphics
	I mentioned this waptoy a little while ago, it's a way to play Elite on your mobile phone. I'm registered and is it good? Darn tootin' (!?). Well I got a mail from Modesty who's top coder for the project, pointing me to this press release. If you go there you can check out a whole bunch of sample combat graphics. Oh, it's looking sweet. Wonder what Amstrad will make of this???
	[icabod] - 08/12/2001 @825

	A little bit of wrap-up
	A few notes. Yes. Amstrad : Some more information on the recent rumours regarding Amstrad's upcoming project over on the WOS Phorums. Clues have been spotted in catalogs, you know. Sprinter : Noticed when I checked over on the PetersPlus website that there's another site with information on the fine Sprinter kit. Matra are to become the official distributors of the kit in Spain, so if you're interested in getting one, let them know. Price will probably be less that 240 euros. ZX-Irony : Another update of the ZX Irony music collection archive is reported over on VORC. AY-Emulator : Another source-code frenzy over at the AY-Emulator homepage. You can grab the fixed source for AY-Emulator, source for the Pentagon 48k emu, some of Vortex Tracker, and a couple tools for editing song information. BAS2TAP : A new version of this tool is released. It converts standard ASCII files into ZX BASIC, packed neatly into a .TAP file. Very nice. You can grab it at WOS. Jayce : Gasman has been working on a Java AY-Emulator. I've heard it and it's all rather good. You can hear it here, but you'll be needing Java 2.
	[icabod] - 08/12/2001 @821