Well I never! The co-founder of Acorn Computers, Hermann Hauser, has been made CBE in the Queen's New Years honours list!!

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1734000/1734860.stm

Hurray! The public release of BeebEm v1.4 is finally upon us ... visit Richard Gellman's site for more information!

The list of changes is immense but the highlights for me have to be the increased speed, improved sound emulation and of course the speed-loading of UEF Tape Images.

Just a word of warning though, SAVEing to disk images in BBC Master mode seems to be broken. So if you SAVE over an existing file, it will more than likely become corrupt.  UPDATE: write support is also broken in 1770 mode, though the author is aware and is currently working on a fix

Added another Solution for Larsoft's Hex and the Official Hintsheet for Mysterious Adventure No 6 - Circus [Game Guides].

Added the Official Solutions for all six Larsoft adventures. Dave you have no excuses now!

Updates:

• Added the Official Hintsheets for the following Larsoft text adventures: The Rising of Salandra, Return of the Warrior, Wychwood, The Nine Dancers and The Puppet-Man [Game Guides].
  
  So now maybe (THE) Dave will be able to finish Wychwood at long last ;-).
  
  
• Darren Izzard provided some more info on One Night in Bangkok [unreleased game featured in Lost and Found]
  
  
• Darren also sent me his Solution to L : A Mathemagical Adventure (I remember playing this at school when I was about 12!).

37 updates in the first five months of the year, yet just 4 updates in the six-or-so months that have elapsed since; the sort of record even this fella would be ashamed of. But if you just bear with me a little while longer it will all be worth it 'cause there's something big on the horizon. :-)))

Updates:

• New Section: For Sale
  
  I'm having a clearout of all my duplicate, original 5.25" BBC games disks, so why not follow the above link and see if anything takes your fancy?
  
  
• New Section: Instructions
  
  It currently comprises 90 items of BBC/Electron game documention ALL of which were supplied by Dave Edwards. More to follow as and when I convert Dave's View files into HTML. The long term plan is to feature direct links from the BBC and Electron software archives. I am aware that some documentation refers to Electron controls only - this will be addressed soon.
  
  
• The Electron UEF Archive has been updated with an original, fully working copy of Mineshaft (Durrell). The previous versions have been removed from the archive.
  
  
• The Lost & Found page has been updated with a glut of classified information supplied by Matthew Atkinson (he of Repton 3 fame & fortune). His entire piece has been added to the Authors page.
  
  
• Another entry to Lost & Found: Christian Weber provided evidence that suggests a BBC/Electron version of Space Harrier may have once existed.
  
  
• Dave Edwards supplied a full Solution to Woodbury End. He also sent a second solution for Elixir, that was originally published in EUG.
  
  
• The (lack of?) differences between A&F Software's Planes and Kamikaze has been noted on the Miscellaneous page.
  
  
• Details of Repton Y2K added to the Clones page. The author would *love* to get some feedback, so download it straightaway and tell him what you think!!
  
  
• Link added to Toby Nelson's Homepage which features an unpublished Beeb game called Crystal Castle.
  
  
• Just in case you missed it, the BBC UEF version of Firetrack found its way into the archive last month.

Other news:

• Brian Jones' emu-frontend BBC Connect has seen many updates (v1.8 is the latest release) and is now hosted by Emuunlim. Mark Usher's BBC Documentation Project now has its own domain at www.bbcdocs.com. Plenty of news (plus a replacement 1.35 .exe) on Richard Gellman's BeebEm homepage too.
  
  
• Tom Walker let me have a sneaky preview of the upcoming version of B-EM, which is still in development despite the homepage not having been updated since April. What's there to report, then? Well, there's been a complete re-write of the audio code, which has lead to a dramatic increase in the quality of sound emulation. Video code has also been re-written, so it's tons faster. Mode 7 emulation was almost completely broken (no colour or shapes) though this may be fixed in the release version. Other planned features are 1770 DFS emulation and implementation of a GUI, though neither were present in the version I tried out. This is definately one emulator to keep an eye on, especially if you got a slow PC!
  
  
• Sadly, RetroBBC is no more. Despite the author's warnings, it seems that the site continued to be discussed on the news groups even though it was this that caused its demise two years ago. Won't people ever learn? :-\
  
  The Superior Disk Protection guide and FDC/BBCIm guides that were available on RetroBBC are just too good to be without, so I've resurrected them in the Articles section.

Just got time to squeeze in a few small updates before the footy starts ...

• We now have a complete set of Electron UEF Tape Images for the Electron Computing series, thanks to Scott Green. New to the archive are cassette numbers: 2, 3, 5, 6 + 7.
  
  Don't forget to try S.C.O.T.T. (tape 5) and VoltZone (tape 6) - both were written by Scott himself way back in '85!
  
  
• Andrew Walford submitted Gilsoft's The Quill - the adventure writing utility used by the likes of Geoff Larsen (Larsoft) and Larry Horsfield (Elk Adventure Club) to pen their various masterpieces. It's been added to both the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron UEF Tape archives. Will Andrew's discovery lead to the creation of a whole new batch of Acorn Adventures? Hope so! (hint hint) ...
  
  
• Andy Barker sent in the Electron version of Ravage (Blue Ribbon) in UEF Tape format.
  
  
• Jolyon Vernon Myers confirmed what we already really knew about the Retrogue screenshot featured in the Lost & Found section
  
  
• Scans of the original Barbarian advert added to Game Ads. All complaints will be ignored ;-).

Link added to Keep It Retro - a fantastic Emu News site that offers comprehensive coverage of the Acorn emulation scene.

Additions to the BBC Micro UEF Tape Image archive: Time Lords and Islandia (Redshift).

Fans of the X-Com/UFO Enemy Unknown series may be interested in today's additions, as both were designed by Julian Gollop of Mythos acclaim. In fact, Nuno Barros (creator of the Chaos Squad tribute site) refers to them as being the only two of Monsieur Gollop's games that are still "missing" ... well not any more they ain't.

To slow-load either image into BeebEm v1.35 (or later) you will need to enter the following:

*TAPE [Enter]
*RUN [Enter]

There's some more information regarding both titles on the official Mythos site, here and here.  [links currently down]

Back from the dead ...

• Added around 200 new Cover Scans
  
  
• Additions to the Electron UEF Tape archive:
  • Bomber Baron (Optyx), Contract Bridge (Alligata), Dallas (Cases), Er*Bert (Microbyte), Gauntlet (Micropower), Go (Acornsoft), Mexico 86 (Qualsoft), Pengi (Visions), Quest for Freedom (IJK), Savage Pond (Argus Press), Strange Odyssey (Adventure International), Stripper II (Agressive), Triple Decker 6 (Alternative), Triple Decker 10 (Alternative), Waterloo (Lothlorien), XOR (Logotron), Various editions of Electron User, Micro User & Acorn User companion cassettes
  • from Scott Green: Drain Mania (Icon), Froot Raid (Audiogenic), Skirmish (GoDax), Spiderman (Adventure International), Stix (Supersoft), Zorakk The Conqueror (Icon)
  • from George Scammell: Pinball (Microbyte), SAS Commander (Comsoft), Yie Ar Kung Fu II (Imagine)
  • from Myron Fairweather: Desk Diary (Acornsoft), European Knowledge (Micropower Magic release), Gauntlet (Micropower Magic release), Plus One Joystick util (Micropower), Science Fiction Quiz (Acornsoft/Ivan Berg)
  • from Dave Edwards: Bruce Forsyth's Play Your Cards Right (Britannia)
    
    
• Additions to the BBC UEF Tape archive:
  • Adventure (Micropower), Bomber Baron (Optyx), Ransack (Audiogenic), PCW Best of Software (PCW), PCW Games Collection (PCW), Rebel Planet (US Gold), Stripper II (Agressive), Trafalgar (Squirrel), Various editions of Micro User, Acorn User & Model B Computing companion cassettes
  • from Peter Van Ek: 747 (Doctorsoft), Ghouls (Micropower), The Mine (Micropower)
  • from Myron Fairweather: Science Fiction Quiz (Acornsoft/Ivan Berg), Strategy 2: Hunt for the Bismark (ASP), Web War (Antartic)
    
    
• New Electron ADFS disk images:
  • from Scott Green: Codename DROID (Superior), Palace of Magic (Superior), Superior Collection 3 (Superior)
  • from Dave Edwards: Classic Arcade Games (Database)
  • the cracked version of EXILE has been replaced with an .ADF adfs image (as opposed to a .UEF one) which may be written back to floppy in the normal fashion using FDC
    
    
• Peter Johnson provided an update to his profile in the Authors section. He also sent Cover Scans for Star Battle and Star Warp - two games he wrote for Superior.
  
  
• Gary Partis discovered a cracking midi remix of the classic Beeb melody that is Cold Tea
  
  
• Alex Ives noticed a snippet of Acorn-related info in a recent edition of PC Format, regarding the early programming-exploits of the Oliver Twins (who went on to write the popular Dizzy series for just about every format under the sun except our beloved Acorns, it seems!). See the Authors page
  
  
• Bug Stomper informed me of a Built-In Cheat contained within Spy Vs Spy
  
  
• Link added to Matt Beighton's site.

Since we last updated, new versions of both BeebEm (v1.36b) and ElectrEm (beta 9, beta 9a and now beta 9b) have materialised; David Boddie has released his UEFTrans utility and Brian Jones has released BBC Connect - a front end for BeebEm and pcBBC.

Dick Greening very kindly supplied me with a DFS-friendly version of Hopesoft's Xanadu Adventure. It's been added to the Paul Shave feature in the Authors section.

Updates:

• Tom Walker contributed the following tape images to the BBC Micro UEF Archive: Contract Bridge (Alligata), Microbe (Virgin), Phantom Combat (Dr Soft), Sliding Puzzles (Ega Beva), Trench (Virgin), Twin Kingdom Valley (Bugbyte).
  
  Tom is of course author of B-EM (BBC Micro Emulator) but, rather disappointingly, he has yet to receive ANY feedback whatsoever regarding the emulator. It would be a shame if such a promising new emu bit the dust due to lack of interest, so please give B-EM a whirl and forward any observations to: tommowalker@hotmail.com. Source code is also available.
  
  
• Myron Fairweather sent in the BBC Micro version of Web-War in UEF Format
  
  
• Derek Walker contributed 6 Elk UEF Tape Images of various Electron User companion cassettes from Vol 7
  
  
• Streaks has concocted a fabulous screenshot Map of Bug Eyes II
  
  
• Dewi Williams of Java Repton 3 fame created an equally-fabulous screenshot Map of Pandemonium
  
  
• Jason Sobell provided an interesting pictorial addition to his profile in the Authors section ;-)
  
  
• Dave Banham added some info to Lost & Found regarding Orlando's rumoured Tempest clone - and apparently it DOES exist! So then, anyone out there have a copy?
  
  
• Loads of new Cover Scans. Uploading these has fixed a number of broken links in the Electron Software archive (thanks Dave Edwards for noticing them!).
  
  
• William Stott contributed another huge batch of RISC OS files: Acorn Adventure, Adventure Quest, Ant Killer, Aviator-Colour, Bandits, Breakout, Canyon, Castle Frankenstein, Checkout, Chess-Acornsoft, Chess-Micropower, Classic Adventure, Dodgems, Dungeon Adventure, Enthar Seven, Escape From Moonbase Alpha, Escape From Pulsar 7, Flash, Freefall, Froglet, Fruit Machine, Future Shock, Galilee, Ghost House, Gideons Gamble, Gomuku, Grass Hopper, King Arthur, Kingdom Of Klein, L, Light Cycle, Martello, Nut Cracker, Painter 2, Pairs, Puff, Quest For The Holy Grail, Red Riding Hood, Rescue, Savage Island 1, Savage Island 2, Secret Mission, StrakrAdv, Strykers Run, Warlord, Waxworks, Wheel Of Fortune, Wispy Wood.

After weeks of anticipation, a fully UEF-enabled version of BeebEm (v1.35) has been unleashed by Richard Gellman.

And to coincide with the release, the BBC Micro UEF Tape Image Archive has been updated with loads of new images, plus all the dual BBC/Electron titles from the Electron archive. Incidentally, all files have been renamed and re-zipped to be brought into line with the Electron stuff.  More contributions needed!

Updates:

• The RISC OS archive has been blessed with 22 new additions, thanks to William Stott. They are: Cloudburst, Feasibility Experiment, Firebirds, Firienwood, Flight of the Unicorn, Invaders (Superior), Lords of Time, Myorem, Perseus and Andromeda, Pole Position, Road Runner, Snake Eggs, Survivor, Village of Lost Souls, Woodland Terror, Xor, Hex, Nine Dancers, Puppet Man, Salandra Pts 1&2, Wychwood.
  
  
• Changed the Menu Bar. Again.

Dave Edwards contributed the following ADFS Disk Images to the Electron Software Archive:

• 9 Classic Card & Board Games No 1 (Database)
  
  
• 9 Classic Card & Board Games No 2 (Database)
  
  
• Elixir (Superior)
  
  
• Plus 3 Games Disc (New Zealand release)
  includes: Snapper, Hopper, Boxer, Chess
  
  
• Plus 3 Games Disc One (PRES)
  includes: Bandits, Bumble Bee, Croaker, Felix in the Factory, Invaders, Jet Power Jack, Killer Gorilla, Stock Car
  
  
• Plus 3 Games Disc Two (PRES)
  includes: Cybertron, Felix and the Fruit Monsters, Frenzy, The Mine, Moonbase Alpha, Moon Raider, Rubble Trouble, Swag
  
  
• Plus 3 Games Disc Three (PRES)
  includes: Adventure, Chess, Galactic Commander, Ghouls, Positron, Swoop, Danger UXB, Felix Meets the Evil Weevils.

Dave is currently working on a number of new sections for the site, all of which will be appearing soon. Dave also runs the Electron User Group, which caters for ALL BBC Micro and Electron users in the form of a bi-monthly diskmag. If you have yet to sample its delights, please do visit the EUG Homepage for more information.

Ken Scott sent in an excellent screenshot Map of Atlantis Software's The Golden Figurine.

Tom Walker has released the source code to B-EM and seeks assistance with the following issues:

• Speed up the 6502 emulation
• Speed up the video emulation
• Fix the 6850 emulation
• Fix some bugs in the 6522 emulation
• Sort out sound emulation
• Get bem.c to compile with optimisation
• Neaten up the source code.

Pete Whyman sent in Cover Scans for Incentive Software's Winter Wonderland and Shards' Operation Safras.

B-EM - the new BBC Micro emulator by Tom Walker - has been updated to version 0.3a. It includes the following changes:

• 'clear screen' command removed, as it was using the same key as change disc
• stuff held in seperate directories:
  • roms - OS ROM and paged ROMs
  • inf - .INF files (with the extension-less files as well)
  • uef - .UEF files
  • discs - .SSD, .IMG, and .DSD files
• You shouldn't get 'chunk ID' errors anymore with the UEF code
• American BBC support.

Note that the B-EM homepage has moved to http://b-em.emuunlim.com.

Bugfix anyone? ElectrEm Beta 8a resolves one or two problems that cropped up in the initial release, principally:

• fixed the ability to select print output to files in the GUI, and also fixed some small print issues - namely the font size used in RTF files (it was too large) and the interpretation of carriage returns (they were treated as linefeeds, whereas apparently they should produce no vertical paper motion) in RTF and interpreted ASCII modes
• corrected some stupid default key assignment mistakes in the default DOS key maps
• made a first guess at emulating the genuinely undocumented free palette changes of Joe Blade 1/2, Subway Vigilante, Shanghai Warriors, Southern Belle & Evening Star, having finally spotted the common link that ties these disparate programs together. A fix of tape interrupts later, and they all work quite well. Although some other stuff may do slightly odder things than previously.
• added 'adm' as an accepted variant on 'adf', which it apparently is.

Voici ElectrEm Beta 8 by Thomas Harte. Changes include:

• on a request, optional 'JIM' page emulation added (like XMS in a PC - allows an extra 64kb of RAM to be made available). Be warned : JIM state is not currently encapsulated in state snapshots!
• printer emulation added - with five possible printer data targets. Like this :
  • print output is ignored
  • print output goes directly to a file, exactly as sent. This is equivalent to those PRN files Windows can come up with
  • print output goes to an ASCII text file with corrected carriage return/linefeeds for ASCII fun
  • a currently very limited subset of the Epson FX printer codes are emulated, and the result is written to an RTF for printing or viewing with the word processor of your choice
  • Electron print output is sent directly to the PC printer - in Windows this means whichever you have set as your default printer, in DOS it means the 'prn:' device (remember that?), and in UNIX /dev/lp0 (explicitly the first parallel port) is used. Because I'm not really sure about /dev/printer yet. This option is likely to produce garbled rubbish if your Electron software is not correctly configured for your PC printer.
• Joystick support : both Plus 1 analogue and First Byte digital interfaces (although the First Byte interface gets out of the way when the disc drive is in use due to a memory io address clash - but is still available at a second address)
• added an automatic load facility which functions via an extra ROM, and works moderately well but doesn't kick in with 'load =' config file entries at this time.
• fixed timing of Mode 3, now that I'm sure of how it works with respect to non-pixel lines
• a first attempt at a menu for configuring the keyboard map has been implemented, and as a result of the new found keyboard flexibility, those .kyb files ElectrEm uses are no longer platform independant. This is a terribly important step along the road to full portability for ElectrEm.
• to match with the new "no assumptions" keyboard mode, the new default is for ElectrEm to enter the GUI when run so that a suitable keyboard map can be created (you can disable this activity using a tick box on the first screen you see)
• improved the documentation more than a little
• some RAM allocation - espcially with respect to the GUI - bugs have been cleared up and that.

Added details of Ian Rees' Hopper remake, Frog Hopper, to the Clones page.

Hey, there's a new BBC Emulator on the block! Today sees the first public release of B-EM (for DOS) by Tom Walker and the feature list for v0.3 includes: full 8271 DFS emulation; support for .ssd, .dsd, .inf, __catalog__ and .uef (preliminary) formats; sound emulation (also preliminary) and snapshot saving.

STH - Two years old today!

Site updates:

• To mark the site's second birthday, the Electron Software Archive has been given a complete overhaul and now includes screenshot thumbnails for each game. A "BBC Lives" style indexing system has also been added (written by Brian Rahn), which should make it easy to keep up-to-date with new additions in the future. Note that the links to game documentation and reviews will be activated shortly.
  
  Many new tape images have been added to the archive (which I don't have a record of, unfortunately) but if you like to keep your collection in sync with ours, I'd strongly recommend re-downloading the lot as all zips have been freshened up and a better method has been used for filenames.
  
  
• The Authors page has been updated with a profile + portfolio for Jason Sobell - a very prominent figure in Acornland who is most renowned for his work on such Tynesoft / Audiogenic classics as Bug Eyes 1/2, Caveman Capers & Futureshock. He is keen to hear from any of his old buddies from the games industry, so if this means you, you can contact Jason at jason@sobell.net
  
  
• The Tynesoft Article has been updated with a couple of photographs of the team, provided by Kevin Blake
  
  
• Howard Roberts - one half of Heyley Software - sent in the official Hintsheet for their text adventure Stranded!
  
  
• Streaks has devised a Playing Guide for the ever-popular Citadel.

Other news:

• Wouter Hobers has written a Python script that will convert UEF Tape Images to WAVE files, so they may be recorded to cassette for use with an actual Electron. This will be of particular interest to MAC users, as the only other software that currently offers this facility [FREEUEF] is DOS/Win/Linux only
  
  
• Michael Foot has released a RISCOS port of the BBC/Electron classic Dare Devil Denis.

And finally ...

The staff over at Rage Software in Newcastle were keen for me to upload the following pic of their Development Manager, which was taken at some point in the 1980s, it seems. Hmm ...... this isn't going to get me in any trouble is it ....? ;-)

Added the following titles to the Electron Software Archive:

• Answer Back Junior Quiz - General Knowledge (Kosmos)
• Dracula Island (Kansas)
• Exploring Adventures on the Electron (Duckworth)
  includes Castlemaze Adventure, Tunnel Adventure and Underground Adventure
• French On The Run (Database)
• Fruit Machine (Superior)
• Ring of Time (Kansas)
• Scott Adams Scoops - Adventure 2 Pirate Adventure (Adventuresoft/US Gold)
• Scott Adams Scoops - Adventure 4 Voodoo Castle (Adventuresoft/US Gold)
• Scott Adams Scoops - Adventure 6 Strange Odyssey (Adventuresoft/US Gold)
• Scott Adams Scoops - Adventure 15 Buckaroo Banzai (Adventuresoft/US Gold)
• Snake (Kansas)
• White Magic (4th Dimension)
• Wizard of Akryz (Adventuresoft).

Special mention to Ken and Alex Ives (father and son) who let me get my filthy paws all over their entire collection of Electron software - the source of today's new additions :-).

Peter Scott, one-time Acorn programming maestro and now "head honcho" of Impossible TV, just mailed me this:

Yes, we've got another show on air. Here's a plug for it... Don't miss SEXBAR, a topically animated comedy show, featuring the cream of the world's most famous people in an oh-so-trendy bar..... here's a pic we made earlier... SEX BAR, TONIGHT, 1AM, CHANNEL 4. Here's the ecstatic previews... "Sort of Stella Street meets Spitting Image and a paint box" - TimeOut "..worth staying up for. Unless of course you're out being achingly famous in a trendy bar yourself..." - The Guardian In tonight's episode, see the havoc wreaked by the hundred-foot high mutant celebrity offspring of Posh'n'Becks and Liam'n'Patsy, marvel at the charidee record "Kill The Children" and find out just who the Football Fonz is... That is all. http://www.impossible.co.uk

ElectrEm Beta 7a released!

• ROM screen bug fix for (most people's systems) where adding new ROMs was not being properly allowed. Also I increased the size of the font for the bottom part of the screen at the request of someone who apparently doesn't have great eye sight nowadays.
• re-upgraded the 'enter menu' key to an 'enter/exit menu' key
• remembered to compile the SVGALib with compiler optimisations (making it at least 30% faster)
• spotted some memory deallocation that wasn't being done before

Barbara supplied a Solution for Rohak The Swordsman - part of the Elk Adventure Club series.

Tim Tyler, author of the original Repton 1 & 2, has contributed some new graphics towards the Java remake of Repton 3 that is currently being programmed by Dewi Williams - check out the lush screenshot!

Repton 3 for Java

Click for full-size image

Writes Dewi:

I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to offer 3 sets of graphics you'll be able to play the game with, the ones featured in the screenshot, the original graphics, and enhanced original-with smoothed corners etc... any graphic artists out there fancy a go at this?!?!

Thomas Harte has released ElectrEm Beta 7 and just *look* at the list of changes! I don't know where to start ... new GUI, native ADFS support, full 1770 DFS support (see below), Exile (see below), improved compatibility, Master RAM Board support ...

• since nearly 2/3rds of people who voted really didn't like the ElectrEm menu system, I've written a brand new one! Most of the actual images in it are placeholders, but the point is the layout . . .
• implemented frame skipping, albeit in a faintly haphazard way. And fixed up the Windows ASCII input buffer (used by the GUI)
• bugs related to buffered sound on loading of state snapshots fixed
• added a few platform specific options to the config file, aimed primarily at DOS users with a working VESA 2.0 implementation and Windows users with unusual keyboards
• fixes to config file reading code (actually a rewrite, but whatever) mean that error handling in (real) DOS mode works again, and line lengths > 256 characters are allowed, hopefully solving the problems some people had been having with external GUIs and/or the 'load' option
• added Slogger MRB 'turbo' mode emulation - except that it is emulated with the standard OS ROM. 'shadow' mode is offered in the GUI, but actually does nothing.
• a 'super-hard reset' keyboard combination is now supported (at the moment mapped permanently to backspace + f12, in future to be added to the keyboard configuration files)
• misc. small fixes & complete change of methodology with 'fast load' tape mechanisms fixes fast support for these games : Peg Leg, Micro Olympics & Elite (original release), and also adds display of load messages and *CAT as a supported 'fast' command. The total list of games to start working since the last binary release is therefore the three already mentioned + Creepy Caves, Crystal Castles, Football Manager, Ian Botham's Test Match, Shuffle and Bullseye. And hopefully no games have stopped working!
• timing improvements, including :
  • indirect indexed addressing ("(&xx),y") and absolute indirect ("jmp (xxxx)") operations (these have yet to make it to the multiplexed CPU however)
  • New guess at RAM timing (inspired by Patrick Shoenmakers) for modes 0-3
  • (Guess at) CPU level Interrupt timing (i.e. the time spent entering the interrupt handler) accounted for
  • mid-scanline palette and mode changes are performed at the correct time (but not with multiplexed graphics)
• all of which combined add up to a speed decrease for the emulator, but after this the betas should never get any slower. Indeed I confidently predict exactly the inverse.
• CPU bugs with respect to compares and (decimal mode) ADC & SBC discovered by Simon Irwin but now fixed make the following newly work : Circus Games, Questprobe, Exile, E-Type, Phantom Combat, Aviator & Steve Davis Snooker.
• multiplexing chunk support from tapes implemented. But untested.
• in the light of a set of working 1770 DFS ROM's turning up (horay for Simon Irwin!), the vDFS has been abandoned and removed.
• native ADF (an ADFS disc format - not the same as the Amiga format of the same name) and ADL support added, DSD access fixed, the IMG extension is recognised, and writing to all types of disc images has been implemented. Further, ElectrEm is not fussed if you want to GZip compress these files, and will automatically extend incomplete image files if you save extra data to them.
• added a check such that if a new user downloads and runs once without the ROMs in the right place, ElectrEm does not abandon the defaults and subsequently display 'Language?' even once the ROMs are in the right place.

Here are a few files that may be of particular interest to users of the new beta ;-).

• EXILE (cracked) - adfs disk image in UEF format (your ADFS Rom must occupy Slot 4 for this to work)
• ADFS GAMES DISK - includes a version of Aviator hacked by Simon Irwin to run on the Electron!
• PRES 1770 DFS ROM - patched by Simon Irwin for use in Rom Slot 3.

Added a couple more Articles that focus on Acorn as a company:

• the Little Acorns piece that featured in The Guardian earlier this month
• the Acorn User History of Acorn 1978-1988.

"Hurried History of Acorn Computers" added to the About page.

Richard Gellman has released BeebEm v1.32 and the big news is that it now features ADFS support!

Changes from v1.3 > v1.32:

• Fixed 7-bit Control codes in mode 7
• All undocumented 6502 Opcodes now implemented
• Fixed Mode 3/6 Cursor that appears in the right place now
• Disc writing with the 1770 FDC now supported
• ADFS Discs now supported (1770 FDC Only), with automatic ADFS type detection
• New ROM handling system. The ROMs used are controlled by the file roms.cfg.

Anthony Ogden of Electron Forever has released a beta version of a new Positron clone he's been working on and is on the lookout for any feedback ... looks pretty slick to me, Anthony!

And whilst on the subject of remakes ...

Streaks (aka Evil Overlord Cats) is writing 3D versions of Strykers Run and Citadel, but would like some more info regarding Citadel, specifically:

His homepage features screenshots of various other WIP conversions of Beeb games, including Repton 3 & Imogen.

Barbara typed up and checked four more of her own Solutions to the following BBC/Electron text adventures:

• Countdown to Doom
• Dracula Island
• Kingdom of Klein
• Starship Quest.

I received a very interesting mail from Richard Gellman who is currently in the process of adding a flood of new features to the Windows version of BeebEm ...

So by the sound of things it won't be too long before all the tape images in our BBC UEF Archive can finally be put to some use!

Here's a mini progress report on Dewi Williams' upcoming Repton 3 for Java!

Mike Gordon supplied the following BBC Micro UEF files:

• Arkanoid (Imagine)
• Castle of Riddles v2.0 (Acornsoft)
• Danger UXB (Micropower)
• Dungeon Adventure (Level 9)
• Killer Gorilla (Micropower)
• Moon Raider (Micropower)
• QMan's Brother (MRM)
• Rocket Raid v2.1 (Acornsoft)
• Snapper v2.2 (Acornsoft)
• Spiderman (US Gold/Americana)  scan added to cover scans.

Added over 60 new Cover Scans. The tape dump of Bullseye (Macsen) in the Electron UEF Archive was bad, so it's been replaced with a working version. Link added to Geoffrey Mcvey's ever-increasing collection of typed in BBC Games.

Support for the Master 128 has been added to the Windows port of BeebEm (now at v1.3) - for the download, visit Richard Gellman's homepage.

Additions to the Electron UEF Archive:

• Ghost Town
• Golden Voyage
• Mystery Funhouse
• Savage Island Part 2.

Additions to the BBC Micro UEF Archive:

• Arrow Of Death Part 2
• Perseus and Andromeda
• Ten Little Indians
• Wizard of Akryz.

All eight text adventures courtesy of Don Hay & Walter Pooley - thanks chaps!

Uploaded v0.3 of BeebIt (for RISCOS systems).

New version of Qualsoft's Soccer Supremo added to the Electron UEF Archive - this one actually works!

Replaced the Electron UEF version of Micropower Electron Invaders with a fully working copy. Added a Credits page.

Tiny, tiny updates to the Lost & Found section and also the Alternative Titles feature on the Miscellaneous page.

Added a Solution for the Hitch-Hiker text adventure - thanks to you know who!

Howard Roberts who, together with Tony Heap formed HEYLEY SOFTWARE - is on the lookout for any of their old text adventures. We've already tracked down Stranded! (mail if you want a copy, btw) but are still trying to locate the likes of Dream Time, Pirate's Peril, The Taroda Scheme and Rising Crime etc. Any assistance gratefully received!

Kevin Blake (Spy vs Spy, Bug Eyes I + II, Winter/Summer Olympics etc) sent me a mass of information relating to the days he spent working as a freelance programmer for the likes of Icon, Audiogenic and Tynesoft etc. I've divided it into two separate pieces as follows:

• KEVIN BLAKE: SOFTWARE PORTFOLIO 1984 - 2000 ( Authors )
  A summary of all his gaming projects, past and present. Includes a (brutally honest!) description of each.
  
  
• TYNESOFT BOYS CLUB ( Articles )
  A bizarre recollection of events centering around programmers and staff at this famous, North-Eastern software company.

Kevin is/was one of the most experienced and prolific Acorn authors of all time and, not surprisingly, both articles make a fascinating read. However, the content does get a little steamy in places, so please exercise due caution if you're one of those who is easily offended ;-).

Jim Howat mailed me to say that the first public alpha release of his updated Exile clone is now available at the Columbus Force homepage. But be aware that "this is not a game, just an in-development demo of the game engine!"

And whilst on the same subject, the homepage for Symo's Exile remake has moved to www.symo.org.uk/exile.

Added three early reviews of the BBC Micro to the Hardware section - thanks to Y.C.Wong for supplying me with the original articles.

Added around 60 new Cover Scans.

Barbara Gibb sent me her own Solutions for Rick Hanson and Project Thesius, parts 1 & 2 of the Rick Hanson Trilogy (her solution for part 3, Myorem, is already online).

Removed some of the clutter from the tops of pages and added a snippet of javascript which alters the appearance of any links (Internet Explorer 4.0+, Netscape 6.0+ only). As many pages have been affected, it's possible that I may have broken some things in the process, so if you notice anything odd let me know.

Added an alternative menu featuring text links (as opposed to gifs) at the request of Councillor Jonathan Graham Harston - just click the STH logo at the top of the menubar. This should speed things up for those on slower connections and also make it easier to navigate the site if you're browsing with images turned off.

I've had a request for a text adventure called FISHY BUSINESS by Salamander Software. It was the third installment in the Dan Diamond Trilogy - Franklin's Tomb being part 1, and Lost in Space, part 2. Can anybody help? If you have it lurking amongst your tape or disk collection, but don't have the means of converting it, please get in touch so we can try and sort something out!

Just noticed that Gary Partis' software portfolio (Psycastria, Sphere of Destiny etc) has re-appeared on the Partis Computing website, so it's back on the Links page!

Added a Solution for The Pobjoy Special (text adventure). Thanks Barbara!

Prompted by the distinct lack of available documentation that focuses on the Electron's hardware, Thomas Harte has set about creating an 'open source' (if you like) technical document which seeks to remedy this issue. If you are (or were ever) at all familiar with the inner-workings of the Elk, please take a few moments to browse it through and be sure to let Thomas know if you think you can add to/update/correct any of the information. Link: electrem.emuunlim.com/techinfo.htm

Fixed the filelink to the Electron Cheat It Again Joe hack of Codename: DROID. Updated the ElectrEm compatability information - very few X's left now! One game that didn't get a mention in yesterday's update is Mandarin Software's excellent ICARUS, which now loads in a jiffy.

Thankfully for us, it seems Thomas Harte hasn't made any New Year resolutions to change the trend of frequent releases that are associated with his marvellous Acorn Electron emulator - witness ElectrEm beta 6b :-).

Not only have the Windows crash bug and erratic sound that cropped up in beta 6a been 'treated', all Acornsoft releases (except Elite) will now load with tape speed-up enabled. Audiogenic's Blast was also speed-fixed, so the modified version has been removed from the Electron - Games 2 page.

The full beta 6a > beta 6b change list is as follows:

• big fix to timer code, which was causing an infinite hang on some people's Windows systems!
• tiny improvements to the 'fast load' tape hack fix at least the following games : Arcadians, Boxer, Hopper, Philosopher's Quest, Castle of Ridles, Magic Mushrooms, Sphynx Adventure, Blast!, Video's Revenge, The Magic Sword and Locks of Luck
• more small improvements to the sound output - particularly aimed at systems where the sound output can become greatly out of time with the action on screen
• small optimisations to the CPU core(s) and screen code aimed at removing as many (conditional) branches as possible, and reducing code duplicity.

Barbara Gibb sent me two more of her own adventure game solutions, so if you're being perplexed by PUPPETMAN or confused by CASTLE OF RIDDLES, perhaps you'd benefit from a visit to our Solutions page.

Click here to see what was new in 2000.