To round off the year, Stairway To Hell becomes completely banner and popup-free, thanks to some quality hosting provided by Gary Forrest of www.NETnorth.co.uk.

We even have a brand new phpBB-powered Forum to replace the ad-ridden "EZboard". Note that users of the old board should email me with their username so I can reset the account password. Alternatively, existing users can simply re-register with a new username.

Just as a little FYI, NETnorth is also the backbone behind these other Acorn-oriented sites:

• The Acorn Preservation Project
• Acorn Electron World
• bbcmicro.com (home of Model B, B-Em and BeebInC)
• acornelectron.co.uk (home to ElectrEm & Elkulator).

Finally, can I just say that I'm indebted to The Fox of EmuUnlim (our former host) as the webspace they provided was absolutely instrumental in the growth and development of STH.

Steve Humphreys contributed a BBC Disc Image for Match Day by Ocean.

I can barely believe that I neglected to include this classic in the archive, so if you spot any more glaring omissions, be sure to let me know asap!

Mike Wyatt updated BeebEm to version 2.1 and it features the following changes:

• added a tape control window for moving the tape position
• added support for saving files to UEF tape images
• added support for more UEF tape chunk types
• added menu option to mute sound chip so tape sound can be heard
• added menu option to automatically unlock tape files
• tape speed can now be changed without having to reload tape
• added tape settings to the UEF state
• added BeebEm speed shortcut keys, keypad +/- change speed.

As a result of the improvements to the Tape support, BeebEm will now run more of the High Quality UEF Tape Images that were recently added to The Acorn Preservation Project.

Added a BBC UEF Tape image for Crazy Tracer (Acornsoft).

Update:

• Warren Pilkinton notified me that the music from the C64 version of Firetrack.has finally been ripped to .sid format. See the Sids & Midis page in the Sound & Music area for the download.

Warren, who up until a couple of years ago was responsible for maintaining the fantastic HVSC archive, also recommends a few other Beeb-related SIDS for our listening pleasure ...

News:

• the acornpreservation.org site archive(s) being shared on the ed2k network have been repacked to bring them into line with the format used by MCSTeam (an ed2k Releasing Group):

To get the files, just download and install the eMule P2P client, then simply click the above links (please remember to keep the files shared after download, which will make it easier for other users to obtain the files).

News:

• The first batch of Compressed Square Wave (CSW) and High Quality UEF files have been added to the Acorn Preservation Project (40 tapes in total)

• Greg Cook updated his suite of utilities for transferring and manipulating Acorn file data ...
  
  
  • UEFwalk has been revised to version 1.33, changes as follows:
    
    
    • v1.33 2004-12-05
      
      
      • Prints catalogue of tape files in .inf format
        
        
    • v1.32 2004-12-04
      
      
      • Reduced gain of wave output to 95% linear
      • Fixed splitting of gaps etc. into chunks containing even values, for applications that do not understand half bits
      • Numerous documentation revisions

UEFwalk is a script to verify, catalogue and extract data from BBC emulator files. It conforms to UEF specifications up to v0.10, and requires Perl 5 and Gzip. Includes Kleen, a suite of scripts for creating high fidelity UEF files from cassettes.

• The DT2K4 utilities have been updated. Most recent changes:
  
  
  • v2.30 2004-12-02
    
    
    • Compatibility with BASIC 1
    • DD: floppy disc commands retried on error
    • DTX: Will not load machine code image twice
    • DT, DTX: output more closely resembles real shell archives; many space savings

They are now also released as a Basic 'shell archive' for easier installation.

DT2K4 is a toolset to transfer files from a BBC micro over a serial link. The host can be any ASCII terminal with a logging facility; the log can be decoded elsewhere using common archiving programs.

• Andrew Davis has written a brief guide on obtaining and converting a Commodore Amiga 3.5" external drive to work on the BBC.
  
  The direct link to the page is:
  http://alchemistresearch.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bbc/bbcdiskdrive

Jason Watton posted the following to the BBC Mailing List:

A FreeDOS bootable floppy image of OmniDisk has now been added to make trying it easier (especially for Windows XP with NTFS hard disks...). Same URL (http://www.8bs.com/submit/omnidisk/OmniDisk.htm). For some crazy reason I changed the 'DFS80' format to use 5.25" drives by default (if it ain't broke...). If you used auto-sensing this wouldn't matter - if you used 'DFS80' it would (with a warning). I've changed the default back because everyone out there appears to be using 3.5" drives - please download v3.6 again if you used the 'DFS80' shortcut.

Mike Wyatt released version 2.0 of BeebEm which features an integrated debugger and emulation of the 65C02 second processor (enabling you to run the Tube Enhanced version of Elite).

Jason Watton has updated his OmniDisk utility to v3.6.

John Simpson provided a BBC Disc Image containing what appears to be a pre-release copy of Volcano. He's noted the differences between this version and the official Acornsoft release, and his observations have been added to Lost & Found. Thanks also to Sid Bricknell who provided John with the game for conversion.

Sid has also forwarded several disc boxes containing BBC educational software, which I'll make a start on converting (to ssd/dsd) next month.

Updates:

• 6 x BBC UEF Tape Images:
  
  
  • Cribbage (Superior)
  • Micro Derby (Bug-Byte)
  • Model B Computing No 10 (Argus Press)
  • Row of 4 (Software for All)
  • Shuttle (Oakleaf)
  • Tipster (Chestnut)
    
    
• 1 x Electron UEF Tape Image:
  
  
  • Row of 4 (Software for All)
    
    
• Cover Scans for all of the above (except Model B Computing) plus an alternative scan for Time Traveller (Software For All).
  

Request:

• if anybody has a copy of Explorer (released by Dragonsoft in 1991) please get in touch!

Updates:

• Steve Sandell supplied a BBC Disc Image for Pirate, an educational game by Chalksoft
  
  
• Andrew Hayes contributed BBC Disc Images for the following:
  
  
  • "AJH Adventures", which comprises Soft Porn and Andy Adventure
    
    
  • Roman Adventure by Peter Killwoth.
    

Writes Andrew:

1) AJH Adventures: 'Soft Porn' and 'Andy Adventure' ========================================= AJH Adventures includes 'Soft Porn' (a conversion from an IBM PC game) and 'AndyAdv', an (unfinished) original adventure that I was developing using the game engine from Peter Killworth's Penguin book How To Write Adventure Games. Note: Soft Porn (as you can guess) has an 'adult' theme!\ 2) 'Roman Adventure' ================= Having long ago worked my way through the How To Write Adventure Games book, I have compiled a disk with the three games Peter Killworth describes. The disk image is called 'Roman Adventure' as this is the central game developed through most of the book. (Note: Peter wrote the following Acornsoft adventures: Philosophers Quest, Castle of Riddles and Countdown to Doom)

Andrew's own adventures have also been included within Lost & Found.

James "Dudleysoft" Watson provided a Screenshot Map of his Black Widow 2 game [ Game Help ] plus a scan of the letter he received from publishers Superior Software, in 1994.

Update:

• Andy Welburn supplied an Electron UEF Tape Image of Kayleth (US Gold).

News:

• from the Cronosoft website:
  
  DOMINION by A. Weston is available as of NOW! A text adventure, on disk only, for the BBC Micro - highly polished and atmospheric. If you fancy venturing into a world gone by, I'm sure you'll love it! Just £2.99 on 5.25" disk.
  
  ... though it doesn't seem to available in the Cronosoft online shop just yet.
  
  
• Fraser Ross has released MakeUEF v1.2.
  
  Get it from http://www.acornpreservation.org/makeuef
  
  
• from the BBC Micro mailing list:

GoMMC now supports ADFS harddiscs, up to 512 MB in size. In a nutshell, for those not familiar with GoMMC, this means that the entire contents of one or more physical, noisy, clicking, nearly-failing ;-) old harddiscs can be moved to an MMC (MultiMedia Card), named, and used just like before, via ADFS 1.30 (BBC) or 1.50 (Master). It also means that backup of these beasts is greatly simplified. Simply copy the contents of your harddisc to the MMC, put the MMC in a PC based flash card reader, extract the file containing the harddisc contents, and backup on CD/DVD-ROM. GoMMC details on: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/home/hardware/gommc More in-depth (owner) info available via: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/home/hardware/gommc/guide.htm.

Updates:

• updates to Lost & Found scarcely give users of the Electron much to get excited about, but today's update sees the addition of eight excellent, unreleased Electron games (which I've called The Soft Centre Collection) written by Robert Crowe and his siblings, in the 1980s.

Dicer	Fortune Valley
Hi Lo	The Lost Treasure of King Raybon
The Search for Princess Lavinia	Snowball
Super Hanger	Wizard Adventure

Though I really must apologise to Robert: he sent me the files quite some time back (erm, like over a year ago) - but I filed them and they've only just been re-discovered. :o(

• two more additions to Lost & Found (complete with downloads in .ssd BBC Disc Image format):

Cave Rescue

Oddjob

Both were written (and provided by) BeebEm author: Mike Wyatt.

• added a BBC Disc Image of Black Widow 2 by James Watson (no, not that JW - another one!)

From James:

Hi, I recently put out a request on your messageboards for a game I wrote 10 years ago, called Black Widow 2, this was an arcade adventure/shoot-em-up game that was published on the Acorn Computing Subscription disk in 1994, I've now been provided with a copy of my game and would like to submit it to the site for inclusion. A little bit of history (or why is there's no Black Widow 1?) Like most of my projects Black Widow 1 was started but got no further than the starts of an engine, it was going to be an Operation Wolf style game but without the scrolling, I got as far as drawing the backdrop, moving a couple of sprites around and moving the cross-hair, and that was all she wrote (so to speak). For some reason I liked the name black widow and so I started work on a new game back in 1989, I can't remember exactly when, I know that I worked on the game for a while and had a set of editors and other tools (including my own Assembler), then I got an Archimedes and well, that was that for BBC Programming. Or so I thought. In 1994 my Archimedes developed a serious fault and wouldn't boot up, and whilst it was in the shop (some place in Glasgow, can't remember the name) I pulled my old BBC out and was playing around with the various disks I had, when I found this old game. Black Widow 2, I decided with nothing else to do that I'd finish the game, two weeks later and I had a completed game, I quickly put together a couple of documents and sent it off to Superior software, after a couple of months with no reply, I thought that Superior had stopped doing BBC games (when I wrote the letter they were still releasing Play It Again Sam disks) and so I sent a submission to Acorn Computing (I still think of it as the Micro User) and got an almost instant reply saying they would publish it. Just before the game was published in Acorn Computing I received a reply from Superior Software saying that they liked the game but weren't planning any more BBC games at the time and didn't think they'd be releasing any more in the future. I've still got the original letter from them along with the letter I sent to Acorn Computing and a photocopy of the page from the magazine itself when the game was featured (for some reason they changed the name of the enemy from the Black Shadow to the Purple Shadow, dunno why) Included in this mail is a .ZIP file with an SSD image of the game (with a quick bugfix for BeebEm, note the bug is in BeebEm, not my game) and also instructions for the game. I'm working on a map of the entire game which isn't ready yet, I've mapped just over half of the game (it has 96 screens some of which have to be revisited, or passed through multiple times to complete the game) so far, however it's been a while since I last played the game and I'm having to remember where to go and how to complete the game (I have done this numerous times during development and I'm sure I can get the map together soon) Finally I'd like to thank Dick Greening for finding a copy of my game and for providing me with an SSD image of it so I could finally play my game again after 10 years, and also allow others to play my game as well. Thanks James Watson PS I'm not the same James Watson who has contributed to the site before, strange though it may seem there are actually two James Watson's programming for the BBC Micro, I always programmed under the name DudleySoft, and still use the name today.

• added a BBC UEF Tape Image for Beebtote (Micropower)
  
  
• added an Electron UEF Tape Image for Arrow of Death Part 2 (Adventuresoft)
  
  
• Greg Cook supplied a ROM Image of Opus EDOS v0.4.

Updates:

• over 20 Cover Scans
  
  
• 49 BBC UEF Tape Images:
  
  [Games]
  
  
  • Action Replay Vol 3 (Database)
  • Backgammon (Bug-Byte)
  • Beebtrek (Epsilon)
  • Cosmic Fighter (Kansas)
  • Demon Knight (ASP)
  • Galactic Firebird (Kansas)
  • Gatecrasher (Quicksilva)
  • Gnasher (Superior)
  • Gulp (Peaksoft)
  • Magic Eel (Bug-Byte)
  • Moon Buggy (Kansas)
  • Planetoid - German (Acorrnsoft)
  • Reversi (Micropower)
  • Roboman (Alligata)
  • Runesmith (Abraxas)
  • Star Battle (Superior)
  • The Hobbit (Melbourne House)
  • Unoriginal Games (David McKeran)
  • Zombie Island (Software For All)

[Other]

• Beeb Body Building Course (Database)
• Broadway Boogie and Classics (Broadway Electronics)
• Count With Oliver (Mirrorsoft)
• Desk Diary - German (Acornsoft)
• Disk Master (R-Soft)
• Filer - BBC B version (Micro Power)
• First Book of Micro Rhymes (Peter Gordon)
• Light Pen 1.02 (Minor Miracles)
• Look Sharp! (Mirrorsoft)
• My Secret File (Mosaic)
• Nutcrackers (R-Soft)
• Tops and Tails (Macmillan)
• Wordsquare, Seabattle, Pick A Pair (Garland)

plus Micro User companion cassettes for:

• Volume 3, No:  2 (Replacement - previous [incomplete] version removed), 6
• Volume 4, No:  8, 10
• Volume 5, No:  11
• Volume 7, No: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
• Volume 8, No: 1, 2

Thanks to Dave Edwards for providing Zombie Island and Wouter Scholten for the German version of Planetoid.

• 17 Electron UEF Tape Images:
  
  [Games]
  
  
  • Bouncing Bombs (Tynesoft)
  • Bugs (Virgin)
  • Freefall - German (Acornsoft)
  • Planetoid - German (Acornsoft)
  • Serpents Lair (Comsoft)
  • Shark Attack (Romik)
  • Starship Command - German (Acornsoft)

[Other]

• Count With Oliver (Mirrorsoft)
• Desk Diary - German (Acornsoft)
• First Steps with the Mr Men (Mirrorsoft)
• LISP - German (Acornsoft)
• Look Sharp! (Mirrorsoft)
• Personal Money Management - German (Acornsoft)
• Quick Thinking! (Mirrorsoft)
• S-Pascal - German (Acornsoft)
• Tops and Tails (Macmillan)
• Tree of Knowledge - German (Acornsoft).

Again, thanks to Dave for Shark Attack and Wouter for the German Acornsoft software.

News:

• Superior Interactive released the PC version of Repton 2 just over a week ago, and it's now become their fastest selling title to date. You can get 20% off the RRP of $19.95 if you order by November 26th.

• Gordon Jefferyes has updated his BBC in MESS pages with an appeal for assistance:

Added 29 Cover Scans.

Added BBC Disc image and Cover Scan for Ingrid's Back (Level 9). This rare graphical adventure is the sequel to Gnome Ranger and to be honest, I wasn't entirely convinced that it even existed until it popped up on eBay in August. As is the case with other late-period L9 releases (e.g. Gnome Ranger, Lancelot, Scapeghost) you'll need a seriously beefed-up BBC B, or a BBC B Plus/Master to run it with full graphics. PC users should be able to get it going with Tom Seddon's Model B emulator. For detailed setup instructions, refer to melchett's post within this thread on the Messageboard. But wait, there's more! If you head over to the Acorn Preservation Project you'll find high-quality scans of all accompanying documentation and packaging!

Updates:

• Andy Welburn supplied Electron UEF Tape Images for the following Adventure International releases:
  
  
  • Adventure #1 - Adventureland
  • Adventure #3 - Secret Mission
  • Robin of Sherwood
    
    
• Gavin Woodworth's remake of Crazee Rider added to the Clones page (this was an entrant in the 2003 Retro Remakes competition).

---

Mike Wyatt has updated the BeebEm emulator to v1.6, and it includes the following changes:

• Added BBC Computech IntegraB Support:
  • RTC Memory
  • Private Memory 1K from &8000 to &83FF
  • Private Memory 4K from &8000 to &8FFF
  • Private Memory 8K from &9000 to &AFFF
  • 20K Shadow RAM from &3000 to &7FFF
• Added BBC Plus (128) Support
  • 20K Shadow RAM from &3000 to &7FFF
  • 12K Paged RAM
    (Level 9 graphical adventures work in IntegraB & B Plus modes)
• Fixed various bugs in Via Timers (Volcano, Nutcraka, Pedro and Skirmish now work)
• Fixed various bugs in UEF state store/restore, particularly for SW RAM usage and Master 128 mode (Elite & Exile save/restore now reliable).
• Added disc settings to the UEF state. When a state is restored BeebEm will load the disc images that were loaded when the state was stored.
• Fixed various bugs in the video emulation (fixes Psycastria and Level 9 graphical adventures, improves FireTrack)
• Changed video emulation so that *TV255 does not move screen down (*TV254 does though). Some programs do a *TV255 and the bottom line of the screen is lost.
• Fixed reload of drive 1 disc image after a File->Reset.
• Fixed BeebDiscLoad environment variables in Model B modes.
• Fixed ADFS boot (A+Break) in Master 128 mode.
• Removed old BeebState stuff.
• Removed 'Allow ROM Writes - All' option, it was not implemented.

Older news:

• Dave Edwards has produced a new, *web-only* edition (#65) of the Electron User Group magazine, available here.

And whilst you're there, check out the rest of his site, which has seen lots of new additions in recent months ...

• Retro Gamer reports that Chris Dewhurst (author of Weenies) has nearly completed his second game for the Cronosoft group: Egghead in Space.

It's a conversion of Jonathan Cauldwell's Spectrum platformer of the same name, and is due out in November.

• The Superior Interactive homepage recently added a batch of screenshots showing off their upcoming Repton 2 conversion, for the PC.

• John Kortink has produced what appears to be the invention of the century - GoMMC - which allows you to access thousands of BBC disc images in an instant, on a real BBC or BBC Master!

GoMMC fitted in a BBC B Click to enlarge

GoMMC fitted in a BBC Master Click to enlarge

Chris Richardson (of 8BS) has managed to fit the entire 8BS, BBC Lives and Stairway to Hell archives onto one card ... and there's still plenty of room left!!

You can read his review here.

Mike Wyatt has released v1.5 of the BeebEm emulator, for Windows.

The following things have changed since Richard Gellman's v1.41 build:

• Updated the speed regulation code again (should fix hangs)
• Added some more fixed speed settings (you can now play Elite at a decent speed!)
• Put quick load and save back the right way!
• Add a link to the README file to the help menu
• Changed keyboard maps to default and logical layouts. The default mapping is the same as the old mapping 1. Logical mapping maps symbol by symbol (for a UK PC keyboard at least) so you get what you press.
• Added keyboard mapping options for A & S and function keys
• Changed ALT and F10 to normal keys so they no longer select the menu
• F10 is mapped to f0
• Made more of the PC keys available for the user defined keyboard
• Added the File -> Run Disc menu option
• Added ability to pass name of disc image on command line to run it automatically
• Removed Use Host Clock option from sound menu - its not used
• Fixed Windows cursor when BeebEm starts up
• Add some sleeps to the serial comms threads so BeebEm is a bit easier on CPU usage
• Added some extra error checking for file handling
• Stopped BeebEm from creating the C:\crtc.log file (you can remove this file)
• Tidied up the BeebEm installation directory. The source code is now kept in a zip file
• Moved all preference settings into the Windows registry.

Richard Brown has updated his UEFReader utility to support the 0.10 UEF specification.

Ali Campbell sent in a UEF image of Beebug Vol 5 No 5 - Oct 1986  [ BBC Tape Image Archive ].

Added 35 new Cover Scans.

News:

• MakeUEF v1.1 has been temporarily withdrawn whilst the author upgrades MakeUEF (and CSW) to include support for 'phase shifts'.

Update:

• Dick Greening fulfilled two requests from the Message Board:
  
  
  • Pooperpig
    
    
  • Shapes

Both files have been added to the BBC Disc Image archive (in the Various folder).

Updates:

• Gary Partis dug up a number of Tynesoft-era photos which have been added to the Tynesoft Boys Club piece on the Articles page
  
  
• Gary also supplied a few more random photographs, which have been added to his section on the Authors page
  
  
• Profile of former ASL & Godax/Top Ten studio manager - Darryl Still - added to the Authors page.

More bits and pieces - which I've been sent over the past 12 months - to follow soon.

News:

• Tom Walker has released B-Em v0.71b, which addresses the following issues:
  
  
  • 8271 FDC now supports writing
  • FDC no longer crashes B-em in The Hobbit
  • Windows version should be more responsive.
    
    
• Both Chris Richardson ( 8BS ) and Crispin Boylan ( BBC Games Archive ) have added reports, pictures and video clips of CGE-UK to their respective pages.
  
  They were joined by Jeremy Grayson and John Harston on the "BBC Computer Games Resources" stand, at last weekend's star-studded event.

News/Updates:

• Melvyn Garcia (author of the unreleased Build N' Break) has made a second contribution to the Lost & Found archive: Shove-It!

The game features both a monochrome version (for regular Model Bs) and an enhanced, colour version for the Master 128k.

• David Boddie provided a phone-size (128 x 160) animation of Electron Frak!  (Miscellaneous).
  
  
  
• Superior Interactive have released their latest PC conversion: Pipeline Plus

It's been programmed by Darren Izzard (author of PC Ravenskull) with level design by Darren, Ian Rees (Galaforce Worlds author) and James Watson. A trial version is available on Superior's website. Apparently, Repton 2 is nearing completion too, which can only be a good thing!

News (mostly old):

• The new, improved version of Tape Image-creation utility MakeUEF has been released by Fraser Ross. Unlike previous versions, it preserves tapes with alarming accuracy, and can cope with all manner of obscure data formats too!
  
  You can grab v1.1. from: http://www.acornpreservation.org/makeuef  (v1.0 was non-public)
  
  Watch out for the first batch of HQ_UEF files, appearing soon on ...
  
  
• The Acorn Preservation Project - WIP files uploaded!
  
  If you're amused (or horrified) that I'm attempting to launch another Acorn website, despite being unable to keep this one (or AcornMags) up-to-date, then feast your eyes on:
  
  
  • www.AcornManuals.co.uk
    
  • www.AcornBooks.co.uk

... a couple of sites I created months ago (but didn't bother announcing anywhere).

Unsurprisingly, I've failed to make a single update to either since their creation (I think the Manuals one has actually been online for about a year now, albeit at a different location!).

• Richard Brown has released UEFReader - an alternative to FreeUEF - which allows playback of UEF Tape files in Java Sound applications such as jlGui.
  
  Note that at present, it lacks support for the new UEF spec (as used by MakeUEF v1.1).
  
  
• Hey, it's the weekend of the Classic Gaming Expo in Fairfield, Croydon UK.

Superior Interactive will have a stand, as will Chris Richardson and Jeremy Grayson (who are exhibiting under the guise of "BBC Computer Games Resources"). Check out the CGE-UK website for more details.

• Thomas Harte released Beta 05/05/2004 of ElectrEm Future. A Macintosh version (ported by Ewen Roberts) is also available.
  
  The main ElectrEm homepage now exists at: http://electrem.acornelectron.co.uk
  
  
• Tom Walker released v0.4 of Elkulator and v0.71 of B-Em
  
  Note that Tom's pages have also moved:
  
  
  • Elkulator - http://elkulator.acornelectron.co.uk
    
  • B-Em - http://b-em.bbcmicro.com
    
    
• As promised, Ovine by Design released a classy PC conversion of Xor.

Update (yes, really!):

• Added a poke for Vortex, courtesy of Greg Cook  (Cheats)

As usual, I've got month's worth of genuine mails to route out from reams and reams of spam. I'll try and reply to as many as I can this weekend.

Tom Seddon released v10-04-04 of Model B, which sees the addition of a vSync option.

Link added to Retro Gamer - the professional new Retro-Gaming magazine, which is being published bi-monthly by Live Publishing.

The next issue (#3) includes a big feature on Acorn (check out the pic!) and is available April 15th.

Tom Walker has released v0.7 of B-Em (BBC Micro emulator for DOS & Windows) and the big news is that Tom has cracked Master emulation (well, nearly!) ...

Changes:

• Master 128 emulation (buggy)
• Better video timing, Uridium works
• VIA interrupt bug fixed, many games better
• Interrupt bug fixed, Empire Strikes Back now working
• Disc write (B+ and Master 128 only)
• Sound mixing now 16 bit
• Low pass filter for sound
• Improved disc drive noise
• More reliable tape emulation.

It's worth pointing out that the Windows build is now very smooth and responsive, and support for UEF Tape images is much, much better (it even loads stuff like Firetrack and the Level 9 Adventures, which feature loading music). And check out the new and improved "disc drive noise" - quite possibly the bestest feature in any emulator ever!!

All in all, it's an excellent little release - thanks Tom, keep it up!

Added Official Hintsheets for the following Level 9 Adventures, to the Game Help pages:

• Colossal Advenure
• Red Moon
• Return to Eden
• Snowball.

Added a couple of Vine Micro's Replay cheat sheets, thanks to Stephen Gilbert  [ Cheats ].

More needed!

Just a quick update to mark our fifth Birthday:

Danni Segal provided a screenshot map for Devil's Domain (Micropower)  [ Game Help ].

Danni has also pledged to route out his old Adventure columns & solutions from his A&B Computing days. Watch this space ...

News:

• Duncan Woods has released v1.2 of JBeeb (a Java-based BBC Micro emulator)
  
  Changes:
  
  
  • configurable key mappings files/editor added
  • incompatability wth Internet Explorer spotted and fixed, testing carried out under various platforms/JDK versions
  • the VIAs are now reset properly (as far as I can tell) - the v1.1 fix caused other problems which are now put right
  • pressing tab no longer passes keyboard focus away from the emulator (except under JDK1.4 - Java's key event handling seems to have been revamped and perhaps requires client code to add explicit focus management to stop this happening..?).
    
    
• Ovine's conversion of Imogen recently got some coverage on Sky TV in the UK. It was featured on the Gamezville programme (check out http://ovine.net/gamezville for a clip).

Updates:

• Andy Barnes provided an OCR of the novella for Cholo  [ Instructions ]
  
  
• Andrew Hayes (AJH) coded a Javascript-driven Text Map for Sphinx Adventure ... very novel !!  [ Game Help ]

"Bill Carr" supplied the passwords for Weenies  [ Cheats ].

David P provided some info on the mysterious Q-Boyd  [ Lost & Found ].

Updates:

• "Bill Carr" (aka bbcfan2002 on the Messageboard) supplied a set of Maps for Superior's Bonecruncher
  
  
• Adrian Eyre has created a great big "Screenshot Map" for Citadel.

You'll find all the maps on the Game Help pages.

Tom Seddon has released another version of Model B (v 15-3-2004), which fixes a number of bugs.

Changes:

• Added: Save as... option for disc menus
• Fixed: CPU bugs -- BCD and some illegal instructions were wrong
• Fixed: IRQ handling bug (Empire Strikes Back, Brian Jacks, Uridium)
• Fixed: disc bug, sorted out *COMPACT on ADFS
• Fixed: more full screen problems
• Fixed: default refresh rate mistakenly 75Hz
• BUG: Other double density bugs remain:
  • Opus CHALLENGER double density mode doesn't work.
  • Opus DDOS requires *DENSITY DOUBLE to be specified before using DD discs (Emulation bug)

News:

• Thomas Harte has released the first Windows binary of ElectrEm Future

Features:

• Hardware emulation of base Electron hardware - keyboard, tape (loading only), screen, sound
• Fast tape loading hack - about 95% as compatible as ElectrEm Classic
• Slogger MRB emulation
• Bit multiplexing support
• State snapshot loading support (which seems slightly broken)
• ASCII config file support
• 'Autoload' functionality - for games that should be CHAIN""'d only

As it's a first release, it also lacks a few features, notably:

• Tape saving
• A GUI of any sort
• Disc drives
• Plus 1 support - joystick, printer & serial ports
• Fast tape loading for the other 5% of games
• 'Autoload' functionality for games that should be *RUN
  
  
  
• Tom Seddon released version 07/03/2004 of Model B

Changes:

• Added: Watford ROM/RAM board support
• Added: B+96/B+128 support (not very exciting)
• Fixed: sound volume (now -- correctly, I believe -- logarithmic)
• Fixed: very bad behaviour with Alt+Tab in full screen mode
• Fixed: Pedro, Crazee Rider music and palette
• Fixed: loading disc into occupied drive
• Change: now supplied with Acorn DFS 2.26
  (includes sideways RAM utilities -- and B+96/B+128 signon
  message!)
• BUG: existing double density bugs remain. In particular, *COMPACT on ADFS will corrupt data.
• BUG: Uridium flaky.
  
  
  
• I've just spotted details of another Beeb remake that's in the works ...

Tom Seddon has released version 22-2-2004 of his ace BBC emulator Model B.

Changes:

• Added: joystick support
• Added: 'joy keys' -- can bind joystick movements and buttons to BBC keys
• Added: video options dialog
• Added: UI for switching between B and B+ models
• Added: (very extreme) interlaced scanlines mode for windowed mode
• Fixed: screen centring (Mode 7 still not vertically centred)
• Fixed: cursor after *TV255
• Fixed: WAR, Super Invaders, Rig Attack, Skirmish, Sphere of Destiny
• Fixed: bug that prevented status bar from updating in certain situations
• Fixed: monitor type not affecting full screen mode
• Fixed: SHIFT constantly held if using Quickstart and disc boot didn't work
• Change: now compiled with Visual Studio .NET
• Change: full screen mode now much better.
• BUG: existing double density bugs remain.
• BUG: *COMPACT on ADFS will corrupt data. I am told ADFS works otherwise.
• BUG: Uridium flaky.

---

Ovine (creators of the recent Imogen conversion) have switched their attention to two more all-time Beeb favourites:

• 1. Cholo.

In remaking CHOLO we have decided to make a number of improvements. The original has a very simple 3D wireframe view, this will be improved immensely for starters (see screenshots of our early 3D view). But also the gameplay, with more hacks, programs and the ability to enter more or less every building. The visual design is very specific. We are trying to create the view through the eyes of a robot, hence the colours, textures and TRON-like style. Even video feedback and distortion! So far our trials are giving good results. The screenshots to the right on my lowly Radeon 8500 are giving an average of 80 frames per second updates, and we now have a fair few triangles in the 3D world. Please be sure to view our blogg pages for the latest information about our Cholo remake.

• 2. XOR

This has been the number one requested remake for some time now. So we decided to start it. We are extending the replay function - so that completed levels can be sent to friends etc. The GFX are been given an overhaul and some sound will be added. Hopefully a nice tune can accompany your gaming experience. Please be sure to view out blogg pages for the latest information about our XOR remake.

Emulator homepage moves:

• Tom Seddon's Model B has moved to http://modelb.bbcmicro.com
  
  
• Tom Walker's B-EM has moved to http://b-em.bbcmicro.com.

Please update links and bookmarks!

News:

• Tom Walker has updated his BBC Micro emulator B-EM to version 0.61.
  
  New in this version:
  
  
  • ADFS support
  • Model A support
  • Model B+ fixed a bit, Level 9 adventures now show pictures
  • Win32 version improved a bit
  • Some undocumented sound stuff emulated - Crazee Rider now has correct drums
  • Some other misc changes.

B-EM is available for DOS and Windows. Source code is also available.

• Brain Jones' emulator frontend BBC Connect was updated 9/1/04 to include quicker indexing of internet software archives. The BBC Connect database now features recent additions made to this website, and also 8BS.
  
  
• Ovine's Imogen conversion has seen a few minor updates since the original release: v1.04 is the latest build.
  

Click here to see what was new in 2003.