Believe it or not, its been *four* months since there has been any mention about MAME with network play. Today however, Michael Adcock has uploaded a very early version of MAME32 with network play for developers of the MAMETEAM to take a look at. Before you get too excited, this is still VERY MUCH work in progress, so don't expect any public variant of this anytime soon. The best way to keep up to date obviously would be to visit the official MAMEWIP page as any good news with network play's progress will obviously be posted there.

The official MAME page has posted its views on the entire EmuNews/Classicgamng situation, and Gridle mentions how he was also contacted by Fragmaster about hosting the MAME page there. Shortly after he declined to have it hosted there, they registered www.mame.net! So here is another domain to add to their lists. You can make your own conclusions as to WHY they would register it, or discuss it in our general emulation message board.

Over at the gossip section on IGN, they mention an official launch for Bleem will be in less than a month! This of course is purely speculation but could be true. Should be interesting. For those wondering if I ever got my beta, the answer is no. :P Thanks to Scott Winston for the news.

Its been awhile since we heard anything from this emulator but it appears now that Danji will be named Danji-X and will feature 100% support for sound and even a new surprising game will be added to it. It should be out soon. Read about it here at the official Danji page (if you read Korean). Since I don't read Korean myself, I can't verify this, so any of our readers who do read Korean might want to check it out. Thanks to Jason Lee for the news and translation.

Tratax updated the PSEmu Pro page yesterday with news about the emulator. Here's some of what he had to say:
"Hi guys, Tratax here. Some of you have probably been wondering if PSEmu is dead with all its members abandoning the project. Well, dont forget that Rasky and Moonshadow are still a member of TAB. Though they are busy with other things, you shouldnt count them out yet."
There's more info at the PSEmu Pro homepage.

Apparantly, there has been a fake "Unofficial UlraHLE Project page" set up (not the one linked in yesterday's news), offering a "UltraHLE 2". However, according to an e-mail I received from Wile_E_C, this is nothing more than a trojan. You will also obviously notice that the real unofficial ultrahle page hasn't been updated with any news about it. Needless to say, I will not post a link to the site offering that file, and if you find some "UltraHLE2" floating around avoid it at all costs! Thanks again to Wile_E_C for the info.

Thanks to two people who e-mailed me, Iang and Greg, it's been confirmed that Steve Snake, author of KGen (a Genesis emulator for DOS) has indeed used his emulator in Sega's Smash Pack. In the readme for the Sega Smash Pack, you can clearly see this, near the end:
Lead Programmer and Original Technology
Steve Snake
Also, in the smash.cfg file, the first 4 letters are:
KGeN
The ROMs used in the Sega Smash Pack appear to be 16 bytes more than the .BIN format (*.kvq), but they are not in any format that I've ever seen. Once again, a huge thanks to Greg and Iang for verifying this. You can check out both the readme and the cfg file below.
[ Sega Smash Pack documentation | Sega Smash Pack cfg file ]

Apparantly the ELSPA, the European equivalent of IDSA, published an article in its house journal announcing closer links with IDSA with respect to policing the Internet. ELSPA states that while IDSA are happy simply to close sites down, ELSPA's policy is to "prosecute [the offenders] to the fullest." Amazing, considering how only days ago the IDSA reported record sales of video games isn't it? You can the full article from the CLEAR page at the link provided.

We recieved this little mail from someone known to us only as Erik, and it isn't really promising for the future of... Well.... Tetris emulation :)
"Apparantly, the Tetris Company (www.tetris.com) is clamping down on Tetris-clones and the like. I don't imagine they'd be too keen on emulated version either, hm? There's a page about it at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/2430/tetris.html."
And once again, thanks to Erik for this news.

For an industry that was supposed to be suffering so much by the emulation of 10 and 20 year old video and arcade games, the IDSA reported today that sales of video and computer games jumped 35 percent in 1998 to 181 million units, equivalent to nearly two games for every household in America. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here but, wasn't all all that so called "widespread" piracy of classic video games supposeably hurting and costing the industry millions of dollars? This article seems to completely contradict that whole theory, and even has comments (although nothing about emulation) from Doug Lowenstein. If you want to read the article, do so from the Next Generation Online website.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ IGN64 "~~~~~~" | IGN64 "~~~~~~" ]

Another news update has been posted on the official RockNES page. A new release of the emulator should be available some time this week! Quoting directly:

• Kritz should release a compatibility list tomorrow. A release should happen in some moment during this week.
• Rockboard (a japanese Rockman board game) works fine! If you don´t know it...

2 weeks after Duddie announced his resignation from the PSEmu team, Kazzuya has decided it was time for him to leave as well, due to a future job he wants to take. Here's an excerpt:
"I can't continue on the project but I know some programmers that are very skilled and, most importantly, knowledgeable of PlayStation hardware to whom I can pass the ball.
PSEmu needs to be around now more than ever to represent the world of consoles emulation as I know it: enjoyable technical demostration and act of respect towards the creators of the hardware and software."
You can read the full announcement at the link below. Thanks to Tony for the news.
[Kazzuya's announcement]

After I read that Nintendo might take legal action agianst Reality Man & Epsilon, I got kinda pissed off, so I sent Nintendo this letter:
"I have a question. I heard that you are taking legal action against the makers of UltraHLE, the N64 emulator. Now we all know that you want to protect your rights, but what do you hope to accomplish by going after Reality Man and Epsilon? They have already stopped making the emulator and taken down the webpage. What more do you want?"
Here's their reply:
"Hello.
I don't know if we're filing suit, but if we were, I wouldn't be able to comment on current litigation.
If you would like information on the topic of emulators, go to the Corporate Info area of our web site, enter the Company FAQs section, and link to "What is Nintendo's position on Intellectual Property rights, disk copy devices, and emulators?"
If you have any questions that aren't answered on our web site about this topic, please seek the advice of your own attorney.
Hope this helps and Play it Loud!
Nintendo of America Inc.
Mitch Crim"
Assuming Nintendo isn't lying to me, they haven't decided if they are going to file a suit or not.

More news from the official RockNes web site:

• Finally fixed the problem with the NES PPU nametable setting!
• More accurate sync (+speed)!
• Fixed some problems with the current PPU nametable setting (DuckTales 1 H-scroll), hence an *almost perfect* mid-hblank;
• I must to check if Kritz did something during the week before a release, stay tuned... :-P

Heres a shocker, Fox Interactive has told the IDSA boycott page that they would NOT mind if roms of their games of over 10 years old were freely distributed. Of course, they have none that old yet to my knowledge, but this is a positive statement coming from an IDSA member. Will others with games this old follow suit? Maybe, but don't hold your breath.

This was found on the Williams Electronics web site which might be interesting. A writer was asking where to find ROBOTRON ROM IMAGES to repair his old board. Williams refered him to a news group since they only offer images of pinball machine roms on their web site. Does this mean that Williams may NOT be against distrubtion of their old game ROMs? I don't know for sure, but this is sure an interesting statement to come from their website, isn't it? Read the entire story at the above link. Thanks to Sean Palmer for the link.

Another status report of RockNES has been posted on it's official site. However, when you read the last line, it indicates that a new release of the emulator is getting close!

• Mid-HBlank fixed (sync with the current PPU phase), hence a speed up!
• Detection if there are more than 8 sprites at current scanline;
• Today, I can say a release is near... :-)

The official RockNES page has been updated with news of some fixes:

• Fixed the Rockman 6 scrolling problem;
• Fixed a stupid bug in the IRQ code (cool raster effects now, like the Rockman 6 title);
• Mid-hblank fixed (TopGun2, perfect Super Mario Bros.3 score)

Apparantly a new Irish based software company called Surge Software (only 3 months into it's existance) has given the IDSA boycott page its support, and doesn't like the IDSA's tactics at all. Read more about it at the IDSA boycott page at the above link. Also, feel free to discuss it in our general emulation message board.

Talk about a complete change.. Crystal Dynamics, who just days ago told the IDSA boycott page that they DO NOT support the IDSA's tactics against emulation fans, has completely turned around and said they do support the IDSA. With this news, the IDSA boycott page has been updated to mention that they are back on the boycotted company list.

Now this is interesting. Could the IDSA be overusing its' power in shutting down emulation sites? Here's the quote:

Crystal Dynamics has not even been in business for 10 years and has only made games for 32-bit game systems. Crystal Dynamics does not support the IDSA and has no games old enough to have been emulated. Please take our company off the list of companies you are boycotting as we are not one of the ones making this happen. Thanks.

They've been offically taken off the IDSA Boycott Page, where this message was e-mailed to.
Now I'm happy about emulation again. :)

Matthew (a.k.a. Bandito) of Transmoglifications Anonymous has informed us that their beta patch of DQ3 (SNES) was stolen when someone hacked into the computer of his partner, Hackermajere. If any mysterious DQ3 patches turn up in the near future, please mail me.

It has just been announced on the PSEmu website that Duddie is leaving the PSEmu team. He had some disturbing things to say, however. Here's his message, right from the page:

Hi all lovers of PSEmu, the stream of life flows and causes things to change. So this moment had to happen sooner or later, but it happens today. I'm leaving PSEmu and am starting a new life. Of course I'm not leaving all of you dear emulator fans, and I'm not leaving my friends. I just have to leave PSEmu due to the fact that it will collide with a future job.
Speaking of emulation, it became strange in the last days, and it turned into a flame war of rom beggers, pirates, thieves, etc. Those people can ruin everything, especially since I, as emu author, know how much work it costs. We do things for free, killing our social life, spending every free minute on exploring the meaning of one bit (which sometimes takes hundreds hours). But people dont appreciate this work, and simply dont understand this style of life.
Actually I'm addicted to emulating, but I think that reading of those lame postings on News Services will get me out soon from this. It became strange. People only want new versions, want to play games, that they never bought, and they usually send 'rude words' in emails, about their favourite game not working on the emulator. I personally have a PlayStation and I play on this. PSEmu was made only to broaden my horizon and to learn more. If it satisfied people on this planet, then I'm happy.If they are not satisfied with PSEmu, I dont care.
I wish all my friends and enemies, everything good. Just try to clean up the scene, or if you are not interested in living in clear environment, just continue this lame war, buy a bigger nuke, and blow yourself up.

With Best Regards, Duddie ex. PSEmu author
We at ZD wish him the best of luck. Victim 4 of the UltraHLE effect?
By the way, Kazzuya has announced that he is still going to continue PSEmu, and he wants everyone to cheer up, so please do :) Thanks to Matt for the news.