W32.Klez and W32.FunLove
	Thought I'd try to clear up a couple things here. These couple things are "W32.Klez.H@mm" and "W32.Funlove.4099", a couple virus's (virii?) that have been floating around recently. And more importantly, they've been floating towards members of RA. Sneaky little blighters too, as specifically we've been seeing emails apparently coming from us. Clever. Klez does it by looking through address books and local files (browser cache?) and using any email addy's it finds. This means the source of these virii are probably from someone who reads raww.org. Makes sense? Anyway, on the two links above you'll find removal tools (well, there's one for Klez anyhoo). I'd suggest that people grab this program and check out their systems. Saves everyone a lot of hassle. Aah, we never had virii on good ol' tape-based ZX systems, no.
	[icabod] - 07/07/2002 23:59

	Minigame 2002
	I'm going to save myself some time again today and let Gasman guide you through news of this years Minigame competition. " This year's Minigame programming compo has been unveiled, at http://www.ffd2.com/minigame/. The challenge is to write a playable game within a tight size limit, open to a range of 8-bit platforms - this is one of the few events bringing together the various 8-bit scenes. Last year Serzh took first place in the 512-byte category with his ZX entry "Star Wars", while the 2K category was dominated by the C64 scene. The contest this year is set to be even tougher than before, as there is a single 1K category for all entries. Another change is the voting - this time voters are not required to judge all platforms. Hopefully this will encourage interest among people without access to emulators (I realise that this was particularly a problem for the Russian scene last time). The competition is open for entries until 16th September. "
	[icabod] - 06/07/2002 17:21

	Demotopia Music Archive
	Yes, Gasman's project is finally with us. It's something we spoke about a long-long time ago, and he started work a long time ago. And it's here. I'll leave him to tell you about it: " The biggest ZX demo collection on the planet now has an even bigger music collection to go with it! Demotopia now features a searchable archive of over 2000 music tracks from the scene. This follows the site's recent expansion to include demos in TR-DOS format. This new project is something that's been missing from the scene for a long time, and in time I hope that it will become the Spectrum equivalent of the C64 scene's HVSID collection, alongside existing sites such as Project AT. " So there you go. It's neat, huh? I'm going to have a quick look around now.
	[icabod] - 06/07/2002 17:16

	ZpiXel updates
	There's been some going's-on at ZpiXel in the past couple days. Nice to see as there's been little news from them for over a month. Basically a couple new galleries have appeared. One is for Stanly/Studio Stall. His work has come high up in some recent competitions, and now you can check out a load of his images. There's also a rather small gallery for ZX entries in the recent Paradigmus 2002 party.
	[icabod] - 06/07/2002 17:10

	ZX News portal
	It's interesting that there's news on POS of a new ZX Portal, as I've just been watching a film about portals into people's heads. Hmm. ZXNet is a new place to look for ZX-based news. All in Russian at the moment, but pipe it through a translator for the goods.
	[icabod] - 06/07/2002 17:04

	Optical Brothers
	A welcome is in order. Yes, a welcome to the latest site to be hosted on the raww.net server (hmm, I really should put something on the main page). The new hostee is the Optical Brothers site. I think most of you will know this one. So update your bookmarks. The old URL (here) still works, and both sites seem to be "in-synch" for now. The official move I think will come when Scenosaurus disappears. Oh, I've also added another item on the left column, listing all hosted sites.
	[icabod] - 06/07/2002 16:53

	Sprinter Downloads
	If you're looking for some Development information on the shiny Sprinter board from Peters Plus, you'd do well to check the homepage. Since the beginning of this month there's been some sharp new downloads, including "CamelForth" (okay, so it's a Forth compiler, but someone may find it handy), and a couple tutorials (EXE-loader and Colour Graphics). Actually, that Forth compiler could be quite nice, includes a demo of the multi-tasking capabilities. It's on v4.01 released earlier today.
	[icabod] - 04/07/2002 23:59

	Damned PCs
	Sorry for the disappearing act. I keep doing this. The reason this time is due to PCs simply annoying me. Maybe we should all permanently go back to the stability of the good ol' ZX! Also I've been a tad busy during this last week. Going out to "events" and such like. Oh I know I have a"duty" to keep this page up-to-date, but sometimes real life must take priority. Still, there's been a few things flying about on the web since Sunday, so I'll get to looking before I settle down to dream-time. Here's a few of the quickies: Didaktik : A recent update on oc.com brings us some pictures of the Didaktik Gama, a Slovak ZX clone. RCM : Shaun has written the latest instalment of "Retro Computer Mart". Nothing ZX-related, but it's all retro, so worth a read. This episode is all about Operating Systems. ZXASM : If you're looking for a cross-compiler you could try the latest version of Z80ASM, v1.5.0 of which was released a couple days ago. Alasm : An alternative is a "native" compiler. Check out DJH Downloads where you can grab a recently fixed version of Alasm 4.44. Also available at places like POS. Ziewer : Scenergy have reported on (and provided for download) this program for viewing ZX screen$ on a PC. A rough translation of the text gives some of the features to include scaling, exports, support for hobeta, etc. It's on v1.2 (build 45) beta. TR-DOS : A rather techy post has also appeared on Scenergy about "Secret" reading and formatting of TR-DOS disks. I don't understand it, as techy stuff never translates well. You may find it interestig tho'.
	[icabod] - 04/07/2002 23:55

	Sintech and SUC-Session
	A couple posts on comp.sys.sinclair give news of a couple Sintech projects. First up there's been an update/overhaul of the Sintech shop page: "we do not stock just the 8-Bit machines, but also more and more classic consoles" along with some PC stuff too. Very handy. I've not checked the new catalog yet, but I'll do it over the coming week. Also there's some news on the new issue of SUC-Session, the long-running 'zine that's just started to be translated into English. Not quite a Sintech project, but that's where you go to subscribe. I don't have any details of what's new in this issue, but I can say that I've finally half-subscribed. Yes, I've made it known to FBI that I want to subscribe... I just have to send off the actual money now. Should be done this week. See, I'm not as lame as I sometimes seem <g>.
	[icabod] - 30/06/2002 23:54

	Samara
	Fixed a link to the Samara ZX Spectrum Homepage. For a while I've been looking at the wrong place, it would seem. No wonder there were never any updates.
	[icabod] - 30/06/2002 23:46

	AY-Emulator alpha 4
	Fast becoming the most updated project in the ZX world, a new alpha release of AY-Emulator 3.0 is out. This latest version adds the ability to play .PT3 files. Remember that this new version is being completely rewritten, so new features are being added all the time that currently appear in v2.6.
	[icabod] - 30/06/2002 23:40

	AY-Emulator alpha 3
	Only a few days after the previous release, Sergey has let loose AY-Emulator 3.0 alpha 3 onto the world. It now has the ability to play .PSG, .EPSG, .ZXAY, and .YM files. It'll soon become a handy replacement for the previous version the way it's going.
	[icabod] - 27/06/2002 20:34

	CafeParty
	A little update on the upcoming CAFe Party being held, ooh, in August. According to a post on POS there's been a rules-change. I confess I've not checked what the change is, but if you're planning on being at the party or entering a competition, you may wish to check them out. In fact if you're going to be at the party, be sure you've registered. Also, I'm adding a button to the party. Well, why not.
	[icabod] - 27/06/2002 20:32

	Rush rush rush
	Really in a bit of a rush tonight so just some notes I think. Unless something major pops up in the news: LDIR? : Did I miss something? Has this site simply disappeared? Or are both my browsers playing up? Hmm. DJH : There's a couple new downloads over at DJH Downloads. Assemblers and Text editors and things. Spin : A look at the directory housing the Spin emulator shows a new "Update" file, with a date of 25th June (that's today). Hmm. Interesting. [correction : this is a very buggy beta and has been removed now] UnrealSpeccy : Yes, another beta of this emulator. Brings it up to 0.21b3. Spectaculator : A post on the WOS forums reveals that this emulator should be due another update in a few weeks time. That'll be v2.5, with v3 (and 128k support) coming an August. Looks like it has some fans. ZX-Party : If this party goes ahead, it will probably be taking place in Krakow. We just need to hassle Habib to organise it all <g>. Job's a good'un.
	[icabod] - 25/06/2002 22:02

	ZX-Party 2002?
	So the news comes (from Yerzmyey) that there's going to be no ZX sections in the upcoming Symphony party. Oh. That's a downer. Everybody be sad. Wait! There's more news. Instead, we'll perhaps be getting a ZX-dedicated party! Yes! This could be ZX-Party 2002. Very nice. I went to ZX-Party 2000, of coz. You can check out the galleries from that too. If the time is right then I'd like to go there. Hopefully the company I work for won't cancel my holiday this time, eh!? Eh!?
	[icabod] - 24/06/2002 21:07

	New Emulators
	Just a little mention of a couple "new" emulators that have been spotted around. WOS has reported on a new emulator by Ziga Ramsak. There's not much information on the page about it, just a download link. It's an emulator of the 48k ZX. Grab it. Boost your collection. The other emulator is one that was mailed to me by RecoveR. Methinks it's a kinda patch of an old emu', spec256col. The title is "Alternative Speccy b1.4", and you can grab the accompanying ROMs here. I confess I've not checked these two out. It's gotta be a quick news-night tonight, you see. Things to do. Yes.
	[icabod] - 24/06/2002 21:02

	TZX Vault Update
	Word reaches me (via my lovely Webchecker) of an update to TZX Vault. Not only are there an additional, ooh, 200-or-so files for you to eat up bandwidth with, but an announcement of "expansion". I can't tell you what the new tapes are without grabbing the update file (which I'm currently doing). So I'll let you get all excited and surprised. Anyway, the "expansion" announcement is that the vault will now be hosted tapes from systems other the the good ol' ZX. Now you can go grab tapes for Amstrad, C64, and Vic 20 systems. Y'know, it seems there's a lot more cooperation between platforms now than there used to be. Nice, isn't it.
	[icabod] - 23/06/2002 14:58

	AY-Emulator alpha 2
	I see that AY-Emulator v3.0 alpha 2 has been released. And it's not featuring the most important part of any music player. The ability to play music. Only .VTX and .OUT files for now, but it's a start. In case you missed it, the new 3.0 is a complete re-write of the original, so features are being added steadily. Go grab. Go play. Go bug-report.
	[icabod] - 23/06/2002 14:39

	Some downloads. Yes.
	I apologise for being a little "quick" tonight (not something I usually hear complaints about. Ahem). I still have a few mods I want to make to raww.net before I get some sleep. Alternatively I'll have another beer and fall asleep in front of the TV until 5am. Either way, I'm going to group a bunch of new downloads into a single post. It's efficient. A kinda new version of UnrealSpeccy has been released. It would normally get it's own post, but this is just a version that's optimised for people without beast PCs. Worth grabbing so you can use it on the crappy old "communal" PC at work. It's surprising what boredom can achieve. Fuzzbucket has created a bunch of ZX-based wallpapers which he mentioned over on the WOS forums. You can go grab them here. Or click these links: 640 : 800 : 1024 : 1280. A demo of "Mortal Combat" was added to... the Peters website. It's a demo for Sprinter, showing off some sprite thingy. Hmm.
	[icabod] - 23/06/2002 00:10

	Project-AY update
	There's been both an update, and a redesign over at Project-AY, a ZX-tune archiving site. There's an additional, erm, whole bunch of new and updated tunes. Over a 100 in fact. The update file is a tidy 364k download (something that would be handy with Sergey's TR-Songs archive, rather than ~6Mb each time). I'm just grabbing it now. Go look.
	[icabod] - 22/06/2002 23:53

	Changes Changes Changes
	First up tonight is some news of a few changes to various websites here, there, and all over the 'net. I've just been logged onto raww.net doing some important "admin" tasks (fixing the recent Apache httpd problem, for one thing). You shouldn't notice any (bad) difference to sites hosted there, but if you do then let either the site admin, or me, know about it. Another site that's had hopefully un-noticable change is Demotopia. After setting up a mySQL account for young Mr. Gasman, he's converted the backend of his site to use it. He's also let slip of a project that he's been working on which should be ready-to-go within a few weeks. I think it could be something I hinted on a while back, especially going by his comment of "go and get some nice big speakers". Hehe. I hope that the crew of Ellipse can forgive me for missing them off of the links. Their site is one that I actually monitor, too, I think. Added now. While I'm here, there's something... almost ZX-related to tell you about. Yerzmyey has had a (non-ZX!?) track published on "Electroacoustic Music Vol. VII" from Electroshock (a big Russian electronica music publisher, apparently). In case you're wondering, the track is "Sen Paranoika 28", the last track on CD1. A quick look around the 'net reveals... well, it's tricky to find in the UK. Anyone know any decent record shops?
	[icabod] - 22/06/2002 23:44

	Goodbye Ramsoft?
	Heehee. I bet that scared you. No don't worry, Ramsoft are still alive-and-kicking. But there's a problem with their ISP right now it seems, and the website has disappeared. Didn't this happen recently to them? Anyway, they'll be back soon. Perhaps with a new version of RealSpec? Who knows.
	[icabod] - 20/06/2002 22:57

	The Chiptune VORChive
	If you're interested in Chiptunes then you may wish to check out a collection that's been set up by VORC. You can get to it here. I'm not sure if there's any ZX tunes there or not. I loaded the page (huuuge page), and Netscape decided to bomb-out. Ho-hum.
	[icabod] - 20/06/2002 22:55

	Kaplicon Info
	This post on the X-board gives a URL where you can find some information about Kaplicon 2002, a party being held from 9th to 11th of August. Unfortunately the site is in Czech, so until I find a translator that works, you're on your own. Some information I can work out tho' is that the demo platform will likely be a Didaktik Gama with D80, and all the normal compo's will be running.
	[icabod] - 20/06/2002 22:52

	Z80 Cross Assemblers
	Found a new link hidden away on the Peters website pointing to the Z80ASM Project. It's a place to get a Z80 cross assembler and ZX Editor (complete with syntax highlighting). You can also grab the ZX source for UnRAR. Very handy. They also posted the link to Shaos, creators of the cross compiler I mentioned the other day.
	[icabod] - 20/06/2002 22:43

	Twilight Registration
	A quick note here to mention that there's now a registration page for the Twilight party, coming up in... just over two weeks time. You can get directly to the registration page here.
	[icabod] - 18/06/2002 21:08

	Sprinter Dev Kits?
	Okay, I lied about Dev Kits, but there's certainly some new things over on the Peters Plus website for the eager Sprinter Developer. First up they've provided a sample plugin for Flex Navigator, including source code. And they also mention of a new version of rw1p2, a cross-compiler by Shaos, now supporting the Sprinter EXE-format. This one includes the source for a Tetris game too. Lovely.
	[icabod] - 18/06/2002 21:05

	Retro Trading
	News looks a little thin, unless I'm missing something. Did notice a post on c.s.s that's worthy of mention, tho'. It's Sauron's Corner: Retrogames. Basically it's a trading site for, ehm, Retro Games. Which includes the ZX, of course. Could be a handy place to visit if you've left your copy of Rex in the window until it melted, and want it back.
	[icabod] - 18/06/2002 20:59

	WOS review in .net
	There's a 'zine over here (in the UK and prolly elsewhere) called .net, and it deals with, ehm, the Internet. And they've recently had a little "review" of WOS. Here's what I snipped from a c.s.s post: " TOP SITE World Of Spectrum Here's some more teary eyed nostalgia for gentlemen of a certain age (because,let's face it, the girls were, quite sensibly, never really inerested in computers at school). World Of Spectrum is essentially the biggest and best site for connoisseurs of the ZX Spectrum. It features an enormous list of games, complete with the relevant details of each one, just about every emulator there is, documentation, old speccy magazines and a whole bunch of incredibly geeky but fun stuff for you to rediscover. And rather excellently you can play any of the 9500 games available online, instantly, using a javascript emulator. So what are you waiting for? fan-bloody-tasic! " Ehehe. It's very nice, but as the css-irregulars mentioned... a ZX emulator in Javascript? And this from a 'zine that claims to be about the internet. Oh life is... ehm... odd.
	[icabod] - 16/06/2002 15:25

	SPIN v0.2a released
	Well I'd not even gotten around to writing about the release of SPIN v0.2, when the announcement comes on c.s.s that v0.2a has been released. For a full list of changes you should be checking the articles here and here.
	[icabod] - 16/06/2002 14:35

	AY Emulator 3.0 alpha
	As the headline suggests, v3.0 alpha of AY-Emulator has been released. For full details, I tripped over to VORC (a site you should really be checking yourselves if you're into chiptunes). So. 3.0a is actually a complete re-write of the AY-E code. It currently doesn't actually play any music, it only loads tunes in. Seems odd, but bug-reports and feature-requests are the order of the day here. New features are to include: New skinning support, New playlist format, New z80-engine, and a couple other things. Hmm. So grab.
	[icabod] - 16/06/2002 14:25

	Extreme Computing Reports
	I spotted that NTK make mention of the recent Extreme Computing event held in London. Heh, they make apologies to the "ZX Spectrum panel for making them beta-test the PA system". Some would argue that it's justified coz the ZX is lower technology. But people who say that deserve a SLAP! If you wish to see some reports about the event then pop over to the homepage, where you can find links to a bunch of comments, including some things I was going to quote from comp.sys.sinclair. There's also links to a whole bunch of photos, and even some MPGs. Oh hey, does anyone have a movie of the ZX talk? That'd be good to get.
	[icabod] - 16/06/2002 14:16

	insert clever divIDE joke
	Cheers to Zilog for sending me information on his project, divIDE. It's the system allowing you to load emulator files (tapes and disk images) from a FAT16 hard drive directly into your ZX. You may have seen it mentioned on raww.org in the past. Well divIDE 42r2 (wasn't he a Star Wars character?) has been "released / published / documented". To quote Zilog himself: "Now it's open, fully featured, even smaller, in-system reprogrammable and ready to be produced". The system is to be written by Baze/3SC. Unfortunately the site containing all the techy information is down as I write this. Hopefully it will be back up-n-running quickly.
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:42

	Making of Dogma
	I'm going to save myself some time and simply post this news as it was sent to me by Arty Noonzen. It's basically all about the making of "Dogma", the winner of the CC000 demo competition: Do you want to get into the most sacred of Eternity Industry, dive into the atmosphere of creating the most famous demo of the year 2000, see everything with your own eyes, know what no one knew 'till this very moment? Today we, Placebo, and Scenergy are ready to give you such a unique chance! For the first time EI themselves tell everything about their greatest work. 5 animated screenshots, 9 hand-drawn images, 15 exclusive photos and more that 17 kilobytes of text! And all this is about DOGMA creation!!! NO MORE SECRETS! Only for you and only on Scenergy! Watch right NOW! Well. There you go. I've not read the article yet, I'll probably do it tomorrow at work. Ahem. It's actually quite interesting for me for another reason... could this be the start of more news in English on Scenergy? Hmm.
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:34

	Paradigmus Results
	In case you were wondering what happened to the ZX results from the recent Paradigmus party, then wonder no longer. The votes for the ZX Graphics competition have been counted, recounted, and checked, and they're available on the party-page. But in case you can't wait, here's a quick run-down: ZX Graphics 1 - WormOnZX - Newart / n-Discovery 2 - Radioactive woman - Cannibal / Techno Lab 3 - Biocycle - r0m / Progress 4 - Galaxy 19 - Berg Unfortunately that's all the entries into the competition, according to the site.
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:23

	Brainwave site move
	Update your bookmarks. The homepage of demogroup Brainwave has moved. It used to be hosted by dax.ru, but it's moved over to sit neatly on fatal.ru instead. Look forward soon to a redesign and photo-gallery. Happy house-warming.
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:14

	Twilight Invite
	Thanks to breeze of FishBone for sending me information on the release of a Twilight party invitation. The 12Kb download is here, and it's for running on your ZX.
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:07

	Scenosaurus go bye bye?
	The latest item over on Scenosaurus certainly isn't a happy one. " ... within some 45 days SCENOSAURUS and all associated sites will be down for an unknown period of time. " Hmm. Wonder what the problem is? A finance thing? Well I'll quickly extend an invitation to anyone who has a site on Scenosaurus (and anyone else): if you need a host for your ZX site, then you can contact me. I'm happy to stick you on the raww.net server (currently hosting Demotopia, among others). Eventually this server will even be home raww.org. The only reason it isn't yet is due to me being lazy!
	[icabod] - 13/06/2002 23:01

	ZpiXel - huge update
	Wow, talk about a large update. Either my webchecker is playing up or ZpiXel has just been updated with news going back to the middle of last month. In fact yeah, about 4 weeks worth. I'll leave you all to have a look-see (it's a great site, if you've not been there before). But a couple "highlights" for now: Forever3 gallery; articles on Pheel of Phantasy; Millennium'1902 gallery; ASCii'02 gallery. In addition there's a bunch of new and updated personal galleries too.
	[icabod] - 12/06/2002 00:09

	UnrealSpeccy fix
	Another fix has been released for the ever-changing UnrealSpeccy emulator. The fix corrects some memory-editing problem in the debugger. You can apply the fix in a number of ways, including playing with the source yourself or grabbing a new binary.
	[icabod] - 11/06/2002 23:58

	Sprint updated
	The latest version of Sprint (the emulator of the Sprinter by Peters Plus) has been released. As before it's a source release from the developers HDD, so don't expect too much. Tho' it's reported to be running even more software correctly now, including Flex Navigator.
	[icabod] - 11/06/2002 23:55

	ASCii-02 Music Compos
	Yes I know that ASCii-02 happened long ago (well, a few weeks), but I see that POS have just posted the "DemoParty Music Compos - Full Version" file for you to download. It's basically what you've all seen previously, but including the missing tracks by DJ Max Sensation.
	[icabod] - 11/06/2002 23:51

	Romanian ZX Clones
	old-computers.com have just added a section on the HC-85 by Romanian company ICE-Felix. It's a ZX clone developed in 1985 and looks kinda funky in a very minimalist way. I won't steal OC's thunder... if you want information, check out the site!
	[icabod] - 11/06/2002 23:50

	GREP with ZX?
	First tonight a quick mention for a demoparty that may have some ZX compos. I spotted this on c64.sk, so it's certainly C64-related. The party is called GREP, and the site has no information other than it's July 18th to 21st in Sweden. I'll let you know more if I hear it.
	[icabod] - 11/06/2002 23:34

	Twiglet?
	It's about one month away from the next ZX-related demoparty. Yes, I can hardly believe there's a gap of more than one week! But you have some time to prepare any new productions for Twilight. Soon the latest edition of the rules (just updated) will be online, but until then you can grab them by clicking here.
	[icabod] - 09/06/2002 13:29

	DMOZ
	Added a couple links to DMOZ, the "Open Directory Project". I'm sure you've heard of it. Think "freeware google". Only it's all done by people, rather than unreliable automatic spiders and worms and, uhm, goats. Or something. Not sure why I've not added the links before. Lameness, perhaps. Thanks go to whoever submitted them.
	[icabod] - 09/06/2002 13:20

	Paradox Flyers
	Scenergy report of a competition for the upcoming Paradox 2002 being held in, ehm, September. Seems that they're on the look out for someone to design Flyers (perhaps it's posters?). So get designing and have your flyers in by June 30th. More details are available on the party-page.
	[icabod] - 09/06/2002 13:05

	WOS Updatulator
	Have you always wanted to get automatic update notification from WOS? Well now you can. They've just added this neat feature, so you needn't go check the page. Uhm... but checking the page is always a good idea anyway, right? So, use the service, just don't get lazy!
	[icabod] - 09/06/2002 12:48

	XCom. And on. And on.
	It's been a few days since the last update and I've either missed some news, or not much has been happening in the world of ZX. But as I type this I noticed that... hey, June 9th! About two hours ago, Extreme Computing began in London. In fact if all is going according to plan they should be just getting to the end of the "20 Years Of The ZX Spectrum" talk. I hope the turnout was good, and the event has been/will be a success. I'm not there due to having a heavy day tomorrow, but I'd be more than happy to post a report on it if anyone reading this page went along.
	[icabod] - 09/06/2002 12:43

	Syndeecate 2002 invite
	A little note to mention that I've received the "Official Syndeecate 2002 Invitation", which I've copied into a file and put on the web for you people to look at. You can get it here. All the standard ZX competitions will be running, with a choice of two platforms: Didaktik Gama 128 or Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A. Aah, a pity it's a +2A (dodgy timing compared to a classic +2), but that's life. Thanks to TDM for sending me the information.
	[icabod] - 04/06/2002 23:11