Welcome back, Punt Fans, to your slightly later than usual but there's no Thursday Night Football so what else are you going to be doing edition of our weekly hunt for the King of Punt – it’s /NFL’s own Punt Rank. If you haven’t been here with me before, the concept is both simple and fantastically over-engineered. Lemme break it down:
Each punter’s performance against five vital punting metrics is ranked against every other punter in the league.
Those rankings are combined into a weighted average ranking – the 2020 NFL Punt Rank.
Punt Heroes rise to the top; Punt Zeros sink to the bottom. Last week’s post and Week 4 standings are available here for the archivists, and all of this week’s stats analysis and highlights and lowlights in video form are just moments away.
As always I’m excited to get your perspectives on your team’s punter, and you can point me to things that I may have missed or overlooked, so please hit me with your feedback and questions in the comments!

Punt Rank Standings

Punt Rank 2020: Week 5 Overall Standings
2020 Week 5: Punt Performance Summary

Good Week for

Brett Kern (TEN, +1 to #3). Eh what do you want to know. If you’re reading this it means you like punting. If you like punting, you know that Brett Kern is a really, really great punter. And, Q.E.D – Brett was demonstrably great against the Bills on (the other) TNF. His three punts this week for the no-longer-significantly-infectious-Titans pinned Josh Allen and his shorts at the 9, 9 and 3 yard lines – covering 86% of Average Available Field which is GOAT tier punting. Here’s the pick of the bunch (his 41 yard precisiobomb corralled at the 3 yard line by Chris Milton) covering 93% of Available Field, and measuring in 7.6 yards better than an average punt from the opposing 44 yard line. Tidy.
In addition to his really really really great punting, the Kerninator also wrangled at least two uttely horrible snaps into decent holds for Gostkowski to continue his kicking renaissance tour, which is a majorly underrated part of the punter job description...
Logan Cooke (JAX, +12 to #13). SPEAKING OF PUNTER HOLDS AND THE EFFECT IT HAS ON KICKERS. Now I’m not saying that Chef had anything to do with the end of Stephen Hauschka’s NFL career on Sunday (0 for 2 within less than two minutes at the end of the first half, not called upon again, then cut PDQ after the weekend), but then I’m not not saying that either. Luckily for Logan (shoot I think I used that joke last week as well) the punting element of his game was without such ugly question marks. 100% of his three punts ended inside the Houston 20 yard line, covering 73%, 83% and 89% of Available Field, sneaking him up to 13th overall. Now let’s see if he can hold onto it. Geddit? Hold?! Pah.

Bad Week for

Kevin Huber (CIN, -8 to #24). On a game where the Bengals only managed the paltry total of 12 first downs (an average of one, yes ONE first down on their 12 offensive drives), K-Hub’s Bad Day was at least somewhat salvaged by the first half holy trinity of Turnover on Downs, INT and Fumble on consecutive drives (2, 3 and 4 – if you’re counting). Without that magical offensive incompetence, he could have been looking at double figure punts (I see you, Tress Way in Washington). As it was, he escaped with just the seven (!), but he takes a slide in the Punt Rank rankings as two of those (admittedly 57 and 60 yard boots) snuck for touchbacks, taking his season touchback percentage total to 26.1% which is second last in the league, just behind Tommy Townsend (more on him later). None of the magnificent seven made it inside the 20, wiping 13% off his season long percentage. However, in Kev’s defence, the first of his two end-zone-botherers this week was another case of coulda woulda shoulda from his coverage team. Alex Erikson heroically made up all the ground to reach the ball as it took a hop into the end zone, but his flailing scoopitty-scoop only managed to floopitty-floop the ball into the wrong side of the pylon.
Bengals bungle.
Football is a game of inches, and those couple cost Kev. And, after last week’s feature in Egregious Touchback of the Week where basically exactly the same thing happened, it’s entirely possible that Kevin Huber is stuck in some kind of awful groundhog day based time loop. That would at least explain this instagram account.
Ty Long (LAC, -5 to #23). Ty Long was the victim of the binary brain of Saints rookie receivereturnerobot automaton Marquez Callaway this week. In Marquez’s awesome little computer mind, he’s going:
IF
punt_catch_loc > 15 THEN SELECT Return_Like_Craycray FROM Return.Options
ELSE Fair_Catch_That_MF
Unfortunately for Ty, six of his seven punts were outside that 15 yard threshold and the big red light on Robot Marquez's head went off like WOO WOO, and he went HAM on bringing those suckers back. 69 (nice) return yards on the day with a long of 19 wiped almost ten yards off Long's Gross Average for the day and left him at just 53% of Average Available Field covered. The Chargers have now leaked 149 return yards for the season which is second worst in the league (behind those irrepressibly awful Jets) and almost three times the league average of 56 through five weeks. Ty will be hoping that they can turn that around before… long. Sorry.

Punt of the week – Week 5

Corey Bojorquez (BUF) continues his wild oscillation between the sublime and the ridiculous. It’s an odd-week so I guess this week it’s Sublime Corey, whose 71 yard scud missile from his own ten yard line in the second quarter of this week’s edition of Tuesday Night Football Bought To You By COVID-19 was an astonishing 28.3 yards longer than my Expected Net Gain model for an average punt from that spot. Look at this baby fly!
Bojorquez booms one.

Punters doin’ shit – Week 5

Hey, it’s Corey Bojorquez again! Guess he can do sublime AND ridiculous in a single week now. It’s Puntception. Corey’s first punt of the day was coming alllll the way back for 6 until he decided to put his face on the line to put an end to Kalif Raymond’s 40 yard return. BLOOF. Look at him putting on his cap all swag afterwards like yeah I blew that dude up…
Yeah I think tackling with your head is good form?
But that’s not all for Punters Doin’ Shit in Week 5, oh no. We have a bonus double edition! and I include this clip with great enjoyment but also great sadness. Gentlemen and Gentlemen (just being real here), this week Riley Dixon (NYG) threw a Touchdown pass! For Giants fans reading this is when someone on your team throws the ball into the big painted area at the end of the field and a player (also on your team) catches it. I know this sounds strange and unusual, but it can happen. And it did happen for Riley on this awesome fake field goal toss to Evan Engram, brilliantly narrated by the incomparable Tony Romo in the clip below. Seriously, this call is outstanding…
Nobody look at me, doo doo do, you cant see me... Jim Nantz, don't talK to.. IM OPEN, THROW IT
Unfortunately, the play itself was called back due to a player not lined up on the line of scrimmage and the Giants had to settle for a 50 yard field goal. For Chargers and Jags fans reading, this is when your kicker kicks the ball and it goes between the two big tall standy uppy line things. I know this sounds strange and unusual, but it can happen. No TD for Riley, but we have the memories…

Egregious touchback of the week – Week 5

I might start calling this the Kevin Huber Touchback Memorial Column, after ANOTHER narrow miss by the Bengals coverage left Kev high and dry this week against the Ravens (see Bad Week).
Outside of that shambles, there were only 6 touchbacks on the other 102 punts in Week 5, and most of them were fairly ordinary so there isn’t much egregiousity (not a word but I’m going with it) to discuss. Instead today we’re going to take some time to appreciate Tommy Townsend (KC) who has apparently got some kind of nuclear powered leg and is playing a game called “look how far away I can kick a touchback from”. For those who haven’t been paying close attention, here’s how Tommy’s rookie season has gone so far in touchback terms.
Week 1 – 44 yards, modest.
Week 2 – 55 yards, expressive.
Week 3 – only punted once so gave myself a week off from this.
Week 4 – fucken LOLs this is, how about a 60 AND a 65!
Week 5 – hold my beer…
Oh my god Becky, look at this punt.
67 yards! SIXTY SEVEN! And that’s from the line of scrimmage - that sucker went almost EIGHTY YARDS in the AIR. It bounced at the two and I think the returner just never even saw it. He probably thought it went into orbit or something. Absolutely ludicrous distance and hangtime here from Tommy. And, thus, I think we have our new moniker for the lad: Air Townsend. Which is also funny because it sounds like hair and he has got long hair.
I’m wasted doing this.

Future of Punt Rank: desperate data plea

So part of my data collection for this analysis used to come from the brilliant Pro Football Reference gameplay finder. Which, as of this week, appears to have been absorbed into Stathead. And they’re now charging $8 a month for access to these individual play description tables, which is a massive punt in the balls.
Without this data, I’ve got no way to calculate Average Available Field coverage, no plus/minus performance against the Punt Expected Net Gain, and no data on punts inside the 5 and 10 yard lines – all of which come from that analysis of the individual punt plays. Whilst this data doesn’t feed the actual rankings (which come from free NFL.com data tables), they are all metrics that really help add context to the basic stats, and are things that people reading have commented on in the past and said they found interesting.
So, if anyone knows of anywhere else where I can access and download these play descriptions for each individual punt (without manually sifting the ESPN play by play reports!!), then please please let me know in the comments below. Alternatively if the eight people who read this each wanna chip in a buck a month on an ongoing basis so we can pay Stathead then that’d be cool too.
A sad day for punt stat fans to be sure. Fucken big corporate…
And on that note, all that's left is to say I will see you again next week for a likely more analytically constrained but still enthusiastically trying my bestest edition of Punt Rank.
Yours,
Eyebrows.

Hi everyone,
I've been passionate about sandbox games and how they are designed into a functioning coherent environment. I developed most of this passion in Eve and served as a CSM last year. I'm hopeful that DU will be the future of sandbox sci-fi games. I wanted to note down how I think NQ can better some of the game's most important aspects. Some of their staff probably read here too. The forums have this "one idea per thread" rule, so I decided to put them here. Here are some problems, and how I would solve them.
PvP
1) Cube Meta: Need viability for non-cubes.

• By small changes in the math, it should be possible to make drag matter more in atmo, not for small cross sectioned ships, but for the ones with bigger CS.
• A developmentally costlier option would be letting players edit the "area" that a core unit provides. PvP rewards smaller core units so it becomes important to cram all the elements into small areas. That promotes the cubes. If we could edit the area into a 3d rectangle (total area remains the same, just changes shape), that'd let us to make ships that aren't cubes and cram the same amount of stuff.
• The best option would be making cross section matter in PvP. Ideally (not sure if servers can handle this), weapons should miss more if target ships have a narrow cross section from the attacker's POV. If servers can't calculate relative POV's, then an easier way to implement cross section into PvP is using the smallest CS of a ship as a coefficient in the miss chance.

2) Small vs Big Ships: Need drastic balance.

• The lock range differentiation wrt target core unit size needs to go. It's keeping everyone from even thinking about M or L core PvP ships. Eve has this mechanic entirely right. Larger ships should be able to lock and fire at longer ranges. They should just miss more.
• Small ships should have tracking and lock time advantages. Tracking should matter to the extent that if I am going 90 degrees wrt a big ship in a smaller core, even at ranges like 100km, that should make me easier to miss. After all those are the ranges most of the combat happens.
• Some sort of limitation to cramming L guns to small constructs is needed. If "power" isn't going toward that direction, NQ should just make M/L gun models way larger (and make them slower-turning too that'd align with the above recommendation).
• More tanking advantage to larger ships is needed. Perhaps weapons tear through too many voxels at the same time. Or voxels should be overall less heavy so we can use more of them.
• Instead, the larger cores actually have speed advantage where they shouldn't. This is because you can cram way more Delta V in an M/L core compared to how much you can cram in an S/XS core. Sure the reactivation time is a good balancing factor but it's not enough if the large ships can accelerate and decelerate at way higher Gs. Again, one easy option would be drastically increasing the size of L/XL engine models to match the proportions of area differences among cores.

3) Non-Consensual PvP:
The current non-consensual PvP is very binary and unsustainable. If you can find some people careless enough to go in a direct path between two planets with no radars, you kill them. People will wake up (or they already did) to this very fast, plus warp drives will become abundant, and pretty soon no such PvP will be possible. Meanwhile, if you are a new player with no knowledge and you get caught to pirates like this, you basically have zero options to protect yourself.

• For Offense: Steal warp bubbles (disrupts your warp path), webs (slows down your target ship), combat probes (detects position of a target ship) from Eve. They'll be great additions.
• Create rewards in space for which people will be willing to take risks. Asteroids/asteroid mining is supposed to function like this. But depending on implementation they can either become monopolized or just too abundant/wide to go and find any targets in.
• Hope eventually stealth gets added. It's easy to imagine it as radar immunity (until close proximity). But it should have drastic downsides.
• For Defense: Combat probes can actually be used defensively too.
• Some sort of "evasive maneuver". Perhaps a module that provides a quick random change in the ship's direction but not the speed that the offender needs to adapt.
• Some sort of temporary damage mitigation solution.

Economy
1) There is no need to trade.

• People don't use the markets too much. Every org has a mining/industry wing and everything is made in-house. I think this problem arises from the fact that the only scalable and reliable way to make money is mining/industry (maybe add logistics but that's dependent on the first two). Sure you got some people with eccentric ventures and ship developers but you can't scale that across hundreds of people. Since you have to have a factory to earn money, why wouldn't you scale it so you make everything and are self-sufficient? Now, if there was a plethora of other moneymaking activities in the game, then we'd see a way more an Eve-like market and specialization of activities. Imho this is hard to achieve without NPCs. It's really hard to imagine a functioning sandbox without the bottom layer of the ecosystem. NPCs to a sandbox MMO are what grass/vegetation is to an ecosystem. Without them there are no missions, nothing to kill and earn money from in a multitude of ways. No reward that people in adequate ships can go and chase, and become prey to other people like pirates. I kinda just wish NQ had 3 more years/funding to develop the game. The Minecraft/Factoria will be attractive for only so long if there is no meaningful economy, trade, differentiation, and things to do with things you make. Talents seem to be made in a way to foster differentiation, so maybe that's where we'll see some improvement. But game design needs to change.

2) Resource Hexes are too disposable.

• The game has a great digging system. We create these elaborate mines. We could voxelize them and make wonders with them. Instead, we abandon them in 2 hours. With the territory warfare, under current ore system, the only place that'll be worth attacking is the HQ of a corp with the stashes and factories. And I'm pretty sure most people will move those to the Sanctuary once the territory warfare hits. Resource hexes would have been great places to fight over. But even meganodes last just a day as of this point.
  
• In an ideal design, ore should have been way less scattered across different hexes. And once it's found in a hex, it should have lasted a long time, so there are these valuable resource mines to fight over. The pace of mining is actually perhaps fine. But there are lots of other ways to achieve "long lasting resource mines". Like going deeper could "destabilize" a hex so people would have to put down units that take a week to anchor. And bettemore abundant ore could have been found in deeper attitudes. This is just one way on top off my head.
  

3) No mining robots please.

• Ditch this idea that was mentioned months ago if it's still in the cooking. You don't want to delegitimize the human time spent on the only meaningful resource gathering activity in the game.

Overall I have great hopes but also concerns about the game. One major concern/test was whether the server tech will hold. It has improved a lot and that's great news for NQ. The next concern is whether NQ is spread too thin. The game's development was probably too early to commit to a non-wipe environment, and NQ might be underestimating how much it lacks vs an actually functioning ecosystem. Not to mention customer support is pretty nonexistent (god forbid you have a problem that's beyond the Discord staff's abilities). People will get bored of cool looking handcrafted ships pretty fast unless they have meaningful stuff to do in them very soon.
Let's see how things develop.
o7

https://github.com/gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Research/releases/tag/5.0.0.0
Finally! After over ten months of development and testing, "Fern" has arrived! This is a whopper. 240 pull requests merged. Essentially a complete rewrite that was started with the scraper (the "neural net" rewrite) in "Denise" has now been completed. Practically the ENTIRE Gridcoin specific codebase resting on top of the vanilla Bitcoin/Peercoin/Blackcoin vanilla PoS code has been rewritten. This removes the team requirement at last (see below), although there are many other important improvements besides that.
Fern was a monumental undertaking. We had to encode all of the old rules active for the v10 block protocol in new code and ensure that the new code was 100% compatible. This had to be done in such a way as to clear out all of the old spaghetti and ring-fence it with tightly controlled class implementations. We then wrote an entirely new, simplified ruleset for research rewards and reengineered contracts (which includes beacon management, polls, and voting) using properly classed code. The fundamentals of Gridcoin with this release are now on a very sound and maintainable footing, and the developers believe the codebase as updated here will serve as the fundamental basis for Gridcoin's future roadmap.
We have been testing this for MONTHS on testnet in various stages. The v10 (legacy) compatibility code has been running on testnet continuously as it was developed to ensure compatibility with existing nodes. During the last few months, we have done two private testnet forks and then the full public testnet testing for v11 code (the new protocol which is what Fern implements). The developers have also been running non-staking "sentinel" nodes on mainnet with this code to verify that the consensus rules are problem-free for the legacy compatibility code on the broader mainnet. We believe this amount of testing is going to result in a smooth rollout.
Given the amount of changes in Fern, I am presenting TWO changelogs below. One is high level, which summarizes the most significant changes in the protocol. The second changelog is the detailed one in the usual format, and gives you an inkling of the size of this release.

Highlights

Protocol

Note that the protocol changes will not become active until we cross the hard-fork transition height to v11, which has been set at 2053000. Given current average block spacing, this should happen around October 4, about one month from now.
Note that to get all of the beacons in the network on the new protocol, we are requiring ALL beacons to be validated. A two week (14 day) grace period is provided by the code, starting at the time of the transition height, for people currently holding a beacon to validate the beacon and prevent it from expiring. That means that EVERY CRUNCHER must advertise and validate their beacon AFTER the v11 transition (around Oct 4th) and BEFORE October 18th (or more precisely, 14 days from the actual date of the v11 transition). If you do not advertise and validate your beacon by this time, your beacon will expire and you will stop earning research rewards until you advertise and validate a new beacon. This process has been made much easier by a brand new beacon "wizard" that helps manage beacon advertisements and renewals. Once a beacon has been validated and is a v11 protocol beacon, the normal 180 day expiration rules apply. Note, however, that the 180 day expiration on research rewards has been removed with the Fern update. This means that while your beacon might expire after 180 days, your earned research rewards will be retained and can be claimed by advertising a beacon with the same CPID and going through the validation process again. In other words, you do not lose any earned research rewards if you do not stake a block within 180 days and keep your beacon up-to-date.
The transition height is also when the team requirement will be relaxed for the network.

GUI

Besides the beacon wizard, there are a number of improvements to the GUI, including new UI transaction types (and icons) for staking the superblock, sidestake sends, beacon advertisement, voting, poll creation, and transactions with a message. The main screen has been revamped with a better summary section, and better status icons. Several changes under the hood have improved GUI performance. And finally, the diagnostics have been revamped.

Blockchain

The wallet sync speed has been DRASTICALLY improved. A decent machine with a good network connection should be able to sync the entire mainnet blockchain in less than 4 hours. A fast machine with a really fast network connection and a good SSD can do it in about 2.5 hours. One of our goals was to reduce or eliminate the reliance on snapshots for mainnet, and I think we have accomplished that goal with the new sync speed. We have also streamlined the in-memory structures for the blockchain which shaves some memory use.
There are so many goodies here it is hard to summarize them all.
I would like to thank all of the contributors to this release, but especially thank @cyrossignol, whose incredible contributions formed the backbone of this release. I would also like to pay special thanks to @barton2526, @caraka, and @Quezacoatl1, who tirelessly helped during the testing and polishing phase on testnet with testing and repeated builds for all architectures.
The developers are proud to present this release to the community and we believe this represents the starting point for a true renaissance for Gridcoin!

Summary Changelog

Accrual

Changed

Most significantly, nodes calculate research rewards directly from the magnitudes in EACH superblock between stakes instead of using a two- or three- point average based on a CPID's current magnitude and the magnitude for the CPID when it last staked. For those long-timers in the community, this has been referred to as "Superblock Windows," and was first done in proof-of-concept form by @denravonska.

• Network magnitude unit pinned to a static value of 0.25
• Max research reward allowed per block raised to 16384 GRC (from 12750 GRC)
• New CPIDs begin accruing research rewards from the first superblock that contains the CPID instead of from the time of the beacon advertisement

Removed

• 500 GRC research reward limit for a CPID's first stake
• 6-month expiration for unclaimed rewards
• 10-block spacing requirement between research reward claims
• Rolling 5-day payment-per-day limit
• Legacy tolerances for floating-point error and time drift
• The need to include a valid copy of a CPID's magnitude in a claim
• 10-block emission adjustment interval for the magnitude unit

Beacons

Added

• One-time beacon activation requires that participants temporarily change their usernames to a verification code at one whitelisted BOINC project
• Verification codes of pending beacons expire after 3 days
• Self-service beacon removal

Changed

• Burn fee for beacon advertisement increased from 0.00001 GRC to 0.5 GRC
• Rain addresses derived from beacon keys instead of a default wallet address
• Beacon expiration determined as of the current block instead of the previous block

Removed

• The ability for developers to remove beacons
• The ability to sign research reward claims with non-current but unexpired beacons

Unaltered

As a reminder:

• Beacons expire after 6 months pass (180 days)
• Beacons can be renewed after 5 months pass (150 days)
• Renewed beacons must be signed with the same key as the original beacon

Superblocks

Added

• Magnitudes less than 1 include two fractional places
• Magnitudes greater than or equal to 1 but less than 10 include one fractional place

Changed

• A valid superblock must match a scraper convergence

Removed

• Superblock popularity election mechanics

Voting

Added

• Yes/no/abstain and single-choice response types (no user-facing support yet)

Changed

• To create a poll, a maximum of 250 UTXOs for a single address must add up to 100000 GRC. These are selected from the largest downwards.
• Burn fee for creating polls scaled by the number of UTXOs claimed
  • 50 GRC for a poll contract
  • 0.001 GRC per claimed UTXO
• Burn fee for casting votes scaled by the number of UTXOs claimed
  • 0.01 GRC for a vote contract
  • 0.01 GRC to claim magnitude
  • 0.01 GRC per claimed address
  • 0.001 GRC per claimed UTXO
• Maximum length of a poll title: 80 characters
• Maximum length of a poll question: 100 characters
• Maximum length of a poll discussion website URL: 100 characters
• Maximum number of poll choices: 20
• Maximum length of a poll choice label: 100 characters

Removed

• Magnitude, CPID count, and participant count poll weight types
• The ability for developers to remove polls and votes

Detailed Changelog

[5.0.0.0] 2020-09-03, mandatory, "Fern"

Added

• Backport newer uint256 types from Bitcoin #1570 (@cyrossignol)
• Implement project level rain for rainbymagnitude #1580 (@jamescowens)
• Upgrade utilities (Update checker and snapshot downloadeapplication) #1576 (@iFoggz)
• Provide fees collected in the block by the miner #1601 (@iFoggz)
• Add support for generating legacy superblocks from scraper stats #1603 (@cyrossignol)
• Port of the Bitcoin Logger to Gridcoin #1600 (@jamescowens)
• Implement zapwallettxes #1605 (@jamescowens)
• Implements a global event filter to suppress help question mark #1609 (@jamescowens)
• Add next target difficulty to RPC output #1615 (@cyrossignol)
• Add caching for block hashes to CBlock #1624 (@cyrossignol)
• Make toolbars and tray icon red for testnet #1637 (@jamescowens)
• Add an rpc call convergencereport #1643 (@jamescowens)
• Implement newline filter on config file read in #1645 (@jamescowens)
• Implement beacon status icon/button #1646 (@jamescowens)
• Add gridcointestnet.png #1649 (@caraka)
• Add precision to support magnitudes less than 1 #1651 (@cyrossignol)
• Replace research accrual calculations with superblock snapshots #1657 (@cyrossignol)
• Publish example gridcoinresearch.conf as a md document to the doc directory #1662 (@jamescowens)
• Add options checkbox to disable transaction notifications #1666 (@jamescowens)
• Add support for self-service beacon deletion #1695 (@cyrossignol)
• Add support for type-specific contract fee amounts #1698 (@cyrossignol)
• Add verifiedbeaconreport and pendingbeaconreport #1696 (@jamescowens)
• Add preliminary testing option for block v11 height on testnet #1706 (@cyrossignol)
• Add verified beacons manifest part to superblock validator #1711 (@cyrossignol)
• Implement beacon, vote, and superblock display categories/icons in UI transaction model #1717 (@jamescowens)
• neuralnet: Add integrity checking to researcher accrual snapshot registry #1727 (@jamescowens)
• Add workaround for scrypt assembly on macOS #1740 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Build onboarding/beacon wizard #1739 (@cyrossignol)
• doc: Add CONTRIBUTING.md from bitcoin #1723 (@div72)
• rpc: Implement inspectaccrualsnapshot and parseaccrualsnapshotfile #1744 (@jamescowens)
• scraper: Add disk based state backing for verified beacon list in scraper #1751 (@jamescowens)
• Add ability to recover beacon in block version 11+ #1768 (@cyrossignol)
• refactor: Add transaction context to contract handlers #1777 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Add context for when BOINC is attached to a pool #1775 (@cyrossignol)
• doc: Clarify what to do if PR in multiple categories (for CONTRIBUTING.md) #1798 (@RoboticMind)
• qt: Add option to choose not to start the wallet minimized #1804 (@jamescowens)
• superblock: Add check for OutOfSyncByAge to SuperblockValidator::Validate #1806 (@jamescowens)
• contract: Standardize contract validation and add block context #1808 (@cyrossignol)
• add seed.gridcoin.pl to default config #1812 (@wilkart)
• gui: Implement sidestake send display #1813 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Add pool/investor pages to researcher wizard #1819 (@cyrossignol)
• ci: Port lint scripts from Bitcoin #1823 (@div72)
• doc: Create basic readme in contrib #1826 (@RoboticMind)
• gui: Implement TransactionRecord::Message #1829 (@jamescowens)
• rpc: Add private_key_available to beaconstatus #1833 (@a123b)
• gui: Validate email address in researcher wizard #1840 (@a123b)
• rpc: Add "getrawwallettransaction" RPC function #1842 (@cyrossignol)
• consensus: Set block version 11 threshold height for mainnet #1862 (@cyrossignol)

Changed

• Upgrade LevelDB from v1.17 to v1.20 #1562 (@cyrossignol)
• Re-enable scrypt optimizations #1450 (@denravonska)
• Derive CScript from prevector type (optimization) #1554 (@cyrossignol)
• Disable quorum for grandfathered blocks to speed up sync #1568 (@cyrossignol)
• Refactor hashBoinc for binary claim contexts #1558 (@cyrossignol)
• integrated_scraper_2 branch tracking PR #1559 (@jamescowens)
• Upgrade depends - OpenSSL to 1.1.1d #1581 (@jamescowens)
• Ubuntu 19.10 fixes #1590 (@denravonska)
• Force a re-parse of legacy claims in generated blocks #1592 (@cyrossignol)
• Improve the "versionreport" RPC output #1595 (@cyrossignol)
• Overhaul the core tally and accrual system #1583 (@cyrossignol)
• Overhaul the superblock quorum system #1597 (@cyrossignol)
• Add more data to the "superblocks" RPC output #1599 (@cyrossignol)
• Update Windows Build doc #1606 (@barton2526)
• Change the order of calls in gridcoinresearchd.cpp to optimize rpc shunt path #1610 (@jamescowens)
• Change staking tooltip to display frequency #1611 (@jamescowens)
• Enhancements to ETTS #1442 (@jamescowens)
• Standardize money values as integers #1614 (@cyrossignol)
• Clean up and optimize legacy coin age code #1616 (@cyrossignol)
• Some scraper cleanups #1620 (@jamescowens)
• Reorganize accrual code and fix 6-month cutoff #1630 (@cyrossignol)
• Update Copyright years #1633 (@barton2526)
• Change team whitelist delimiter to <> for CPID detection #1634 (@cyrossignol)
• Change team whitelist separator to <> to accomodate more team names #1632 (@jamescowens)
• Change Curl download speed type to support older environments #1640 (@cyrossignol)
• Optimize logo SVGs used for tray icons #1638 (@cyrossignol)
• Tweak consolidateunspent rpc function #1644 (@jamescowens)
• ETTS and staking icon enhancements #1650 (@jamescowens)
• Implement new transaction fees for block version 11 #1652 (@jamescowens)
• Optimize in-memory storage of superblock data #1653 (@cyrossignol)
• Miscellaneous superblock API improvements and housekeeping #1654 (@cyrossignol)
• Update openssl to 1.1.1f compatibility #1660 (@jamescowens)
• Optimize bdb to avoid synchronous flush of database #1659 (@jamescowens)
• Add support for CPID input to "lifetime" RPC function #1668 (@cyrossignol)
• Overhaul the contract handling system #1669 (@cyrossignol)
• Make the autostart mainnet/testnet aware #1671 (@jamescowens)
• Remove slashes from User Agent in peers tab #1674 (@div72)
• Refactor contracts for polymorphic binary payloads #1676 (@cyrossignol)
• Overhaul the beacon system #1678 (@cyrossignol)
• Replace boost::optional with non-owning pointers #1680 (@cyrossignol)
• Optimize proof-of-stake validation #1681 (@cyrossignol)
• Updated Slack link #1683 (@NeuralMiner)
• Update build-unix.md #1686 (@Quezacoatl1)
• Replace deprecated QT methods #1693 (@Pythonix)
• Made protocol.h more similar to bitcoin #1688 (@Pythonix)
• Touch up some details for block version 11 #1697 (@cyrossignol)
• More tweaks for block version 11 #1700 (@cyrossignol)
• Finish the conversion to the BCLog class based logger #1699 (@jamescowens)
• Move claim version transitional code in miner for proper signature #1712 (@cyrossignol)
• doc: Update threads in coding.txt #1730 (@div72)
• qt: Include QPainterPath in trafficgraphwidget.cpp #1733 (@div72)
• doc: Update doc/build-unix.md #1731 (@div72)
• gui: Show peers tab on connections icon click #1734 (@div72)
• refactor: Change return type of IsMine to isminetype && move wallet files to wallet directory #1722 (@div72)
• build: Updates boost to 1.73.0 for depends #1673 (@jamescowens)
• doc: Update Unit Test Readme #1743 (@RoboticMind)
• wallet: Change Assert To Error Message In kernel.cpp #1748 (@RoboticMind)
• scraper: Shorten display representation of verification codes #1754 (@cyrossignol)
• log: Change ".B." to Clear Message #1758 (@RoboticMind)
• util: Fix braindamage in GetDefaultDataDir() #1737 (@jamescowens)
• scraper: Improve scraper processing of beacon verifications #1760 (@jamescowens)
• scraper: Add instrumentation to convergencereport #1763 (@jamescowens)
• rpc: Improve rpc stress test script #1767 (@tunisiano187)
• Generalize enum serialization #1770 (@cyrossignol)
• scraper: Improve handling of ETags in http class and tweak verified beacon logic #1776 (@jamescowens)
• scraper: Improve ProcessNetworkWideFromProjectStats and other tweaks #1778 (@jamescowens)
• researcher: Automate beacon advertisement for renewals only #1781 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Tweak behavior of beacon page in researcher wizard #1784 (@cyrossignol)
• Prepare for block version 11 hard-fork on testnet #1787 (@cyrossignol)
• scraper: Modify UpdateVerifiedBeaconsFromConsensus #1791 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Optimize OverviewPage::updateTransactions() #1794 (@jamescowens)
• ci: Adopt ci changes from Bitcoin #1795 (@div72)
• consensus: switch snapshot accrual calculation to integer arithmetic #1799 (@cyrossignol)
• voting: Overhaul the voting system #1809 (@cyrossignol)
• contract: Optimize contract replay after chain reorganization #1815 (@cyrossignol)
• contract: Reimplement transaction messages as contracts #1816 (@cyrossignol)
• staking: Sign claim contracts with coinstake transaction #1817 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Change research wizard text #1820 (@div72)
• net: Update protocol version and clean up net messaging #1824 (@cyrossignol)
• rpc, wallet: Corrections to GetAmounts #1825 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Tweak some minor researcher wizard details #1830 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Change GetEstimatedStakingFrequency text #1836 (@jamescowens)
• scraper: Scraper global statistics cache optimization #1837 (@jamescowens)
• doc: Update Vulnerability Response Process #1843 (@RoboticMind)
• scraper: Optimization of manifest and parts sharing between ConvergedScraperStatsCache, mapManifest, and mapParts #1851 (@jamescowens)
• consensus: Update Checkpoints #1855 (@barton2526)
• docs: Update docs to build off master #1856 (@barton2526)
• gui: Fix and improve GUI combo box styles #1858 (@cyrossignol)
• build: Tweak Gridcoin installer for Fern release #1863 (@jamescowens)

Removed

• Remove old research age checks (rebase #1365) #1572 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove PrimaryCPID check from diagnostics dialog #1586 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove missed label for PrimaryCPID from diagnostics #1588 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove legacy quorum messaging system (@neural network) #1589 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove old remnants of legacy smart contract experiments #1594 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove block nonce for version 11 #1622 (@cyrossignol)
• Delete obsolete contrib/Installer and Upgrader directories #1623 (@jamescowens)
• Remove redundant LoadAdminMessages() calls #1625 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove some legacy informational RPC commands #1658 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove informational magnitude field from binary claims #1661 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove fDebug3,4, and net and convert to BCLog::LogFlags #1663 (@jamescowens)
• Remove qt5.7.1 depends support build System #1665 (@iFoggz)
• Remove unused jQuery library #1679 (@cyrossignol)
• Remove unused NetworkTimer() function and global state #1701 (@cyrossignol)
• Refactor claim context objects into contracts #1704 (@cyrossignol)
• Clean old assets up #1718 (@div72)
• Remove legacy "rain" RPC (not by-project rain) #1742 (@cyrossignol)
• Temporarily disable voting system on testnet #1769 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Remove legacy GUI transaction description for contracts #1772 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Remove transaction fee setting #1780 (@cyrossignol)
• trivial: Cleanup unused legacy functions #1793 (@cyrossignol)
• mining, rpc: Remove kernel-diff-best and kernel-diff-sum #1796 (@jamescowens)
• refactor: Remove libs subdirectory #1802 (@div72)
• scraper: cleanup unused/unnecessary functions #1803 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Remove useless "Detach databases at shutdown" #1810 (@jamescowens)
• test: Remove testnet condition for standard transactions #1814 (@cyrossignol)
• consensus: Remove transitional testnet code #1854 (@cyrossignol)

Fixed

• Fix "Owed" amount in output of "magnitude" RPC method #1569 (@cyrossignol)
• Add support for paths with special characters on Windows #1571 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix lingering peers.dat temp files and clean up remaining paths #1582 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix incorrect beacon length warning in GUI transaction list #1585 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix default config file line endings on Windows #1587 (@cyrossignol)
• Reenable Travis builds for MacOS #1591 (@jamescowens)
• Correct peer detail info background color #1593 (@jamescowens)
• Fix exception in debug3 mode #1598 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix deadlock in "getmininginfo" RPC function #1596 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix accuracy of statistics in "network" RPC output #1602 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix heights for quorum vote weight calculations #1604 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix deadlock in log archiver when rename fails #1607 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix a spurious segmentation fault during client load on Windows with fast CPUs #1608 (@jamescowens)
• Fix lock order debugging and potential deadlocks #1612 (@jamescowens)
• Add dependencies #1613 (@Scalextrix)
• Fix std namespace pollution #1617 (@denravonska)
• Add missing condition for newbie accrual computer #1618 (@cyrossignol)
• Track first reward blocks in research accounts #1619 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix lingering beacon warning after advertisement #1627 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix accrual calculation for new, zero-magnitude CPIDs #1636 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix diagnostics, add ETTS test, fix tooltipcolor, add missing lock, and add email=investor check #1647 (@jamescowens)
• Fix help message of two RPC methods #1656 (@div72)
• Fix legacy accrual for newbie with non-zero past reward #1667 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix GUI autostart on Windows for paths with wide characters #1670 (@cyrossignol)
• Qualify boost bind placeholders with their full namespace #1672 (@Ponce)
• Fix suffix when copying txids #1677 (@div72)
• Unnecessary if-statement removed #1685 (@Pythonix)
• Fix consolidatemsunspent Help Message #1687 (@Pythonix)
• Fix gettransaction help message #1691 (@Pythonix)
• Fix GetNewMint To Look for Stakes #1692 (@RoboticMind)
• Suppress deprecated copy warnings for Qt with GCC 9+ #1702 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix exclusion error on stats processing and misplaced ENDLOCK logging entry #1710 (@jamescowens)
• Removed unnecessary comparison #1708 (@Pythonix)
• Fixed typo #1707 (@Pythonix)
• Fix out-of-bounds exception for peers tab version slashes #1713 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix transition for v1 superblocks when reorganizing #1714 (@cyrossignol)
• Touch up transition to version 2 transactions #1715 (@cyrossignol)
• Avoid mutating transactions in ConnectBlock() #1716 (@cyrossignol)
• Skip beacon advertisement when already pending #1726 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix Windows cross-compilation in newer environments #1728 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix out-of-bounds access in IsMineInner() #1736 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix a couple of block version 11 issues #1738 (@cyrossignol)
• Fix null pointer dereference in GUI researcher model #1741 (@cyrossignol)
• accrual: Reset research accounts when rebuilding accrual snapshots #1745 (@cyrossignol)
• scraper: Correct update for verified beacons #1747 (@jamescowens)
• accrual: Refactor tally initialization for snapshot rebuild #1749 (@cyrossignol)
• rpc: Fix "cpid" field in "beaconconvergence" RPC output #1750 (@cyrossignol)
• accrual: Fix snapshot accrual superblock state transitions #1752 (@cyrossignol)
• scraper: Correct stale verified beacon logic #1753 (@jamescowens)
• rpc: Correct possible divide by zero in getblockstats #1755 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Fix issues with researcher wizard flow #1756 (@cyrossignol)
• wallet: Stop Error When Starting From Zero #1759 (@RoboticMind)
• Don't count empty email as explicit investor #1761 (@cyrossignol)
• accrual: Fix snapshot accrual superblock state transitions #1764 (@cyrossignol)
• rpc: Cleanup Help Message and Fix Typo #1771 (@RoboticMind)
• scraper: Fix scraper etag header case sensitivity #1773 (@cyrossignol)
• consensus: Use explicit time to check if superblock needed #1774 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Fix scroll area dark theme styles #1785 (@cyrossignol)
• rpc, gui: Fix three divide by zero possibilities #1789 (@jamescowens)
• rpc: Fix balance pre-check in "rainbymagnitude" RPC #1792 (@cyrossignol)
• accrual: Fix outdated comment and correct grammar #1800 (@RoboticMind)
• gui: Fix stuck cursor on labels #1801 (@div72)
• beacon: Fix research wizard beacon renewal status #1805 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Fix translations for port numbers #1818 (@cyrossignol)
• util: Create parent directory #1821 (@div72)
• mining: Fix coinstake/claim signature order #1828 (@cyrossignol)
• voting: Remove double increment in loop #1831 (@cyrossignol)
• neuralnet, scraper: Fix compilation with gcc5 and older libcurl #1832 (@a123b)
• wallet: Fix smallest coin selection for contracts #1841 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: Fix display of polls with no votes yet #1844 (@cyrossignol)
• gui: add indentation to diagnostic status bar labels #1849 (@jamescowens)
• voting, gui: Fix formatting and alignment of vote shares and percent #1850 (@jamescowens)
• wallet, rpc: Fix for self-transactions in listtransactions #1852 (@jamescowens)
• accrual: Clear any accrual snapshots when syncing from pre-v11 #1853 (@cyrossignol)
• accrual: Fix reset of accrual directory if starting sync below research age height #1857 (@jamescowens)
• gui: Fix researcher wizard layout on macOS with native theme #1860 (@cyrossignol)

We’ve all had a game that is a gateway to a specific genre. That one game which made us pay attention to a style of games and allowed us to fully experience the genre. It might not have been the first one we play, but it is definitely one that stays closer to our hearts. For me, this game was Darius.
I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I will say it again: Darius is the shmup that is closest to my heart. I loved the horizontal gameplay, I loved the Silver Hawk, I loved all the huge bosses that looked like fishes. The gameplay also hit bunch of chords that resonate with what I love about shmups. I’ve been waiting so long for this, so alas, I present to you: Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade!
Publisher: ININ Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: Jun 16, 2020
Price: $44.99
Tate: Built-in
Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is a collection of the Darius games released on the arcades. This wasn’t your typical cabinet, as one of its main features was the usage of multiple screens. Darius used 3 screens, while Darius II/SAGAIA used 2 screens. M2 really went out of their way to bring the most authentic arcade experience! The result is impressive to say the least!
This collections includes 4 games:

• Darius
• Darius II
• SAGAIA
• Darius Gaiden

Darius and SAGAIA include 3 and 2 different versions respectively, bringing it to a total of 7 playable games.

ARCADE GLORY

As hard as this might be to believe, I have never played an arcade Darius game before. I always mentioned Darius as my favorite shmup, but the truth is that I began with the SNES games. I had heard on the street that the arcade versions were superior so I was very excited.
When I booted the original version, I couldn’t help but feel like I was standing next to an actual arcade cabinet. The game greeted me with 3 screens places next to each other on the center of the screen. I was excited to play, so I pressed the coin button. I was not prepared for what I was about to experience…
As soon as I inserted the coin, a typical fanfare played along as my credit counter increased by one. But there was something else. The controller started vibrating to the tune of the music. I just can’t make justice to this effect with words. It felt like being inside an actual arcade cabinet. Vibrations and sound made the experience feel authentic. It made me think about the arcade days where you would hear cabinets everywhere and just feel the energy of the place.
As soon as I started to play, the screen changed and the empty spaces were replaced by arcade artwork. This artwork was exactly the kind you would see pasted near the controllers to show you how to play and other general information. Everything about the game was designed to make you feel like on the arcade. This is the kind of presentation that every other arcade port should try to achieve.

FISH GRAVY

What truly sets apart the Darius Cozmic Collection from any other collection is the amount of features and arcade fidelity that M2 added to the game. Every single aspect, every single menu and every single feature was lovingly added to create a masterpiece.
From the get go, you will be presented with the very familiar “A boss is approaching” message featuring King Fossil. The message just says that your game data is approaching fast. It really is only a fancy way of saying the game is loading, but it sets the tone to the orgasmic experience that you are about to have with the game.
After going through the intro scene, you will be greeted with the main menu which contains all 7 playable titles in this collection. You also have a replay, manual and staff options. If you are wondering where the options are, they are specific for each game, so they must be adjusted from within each game. My only complaint here is that the manual is in japanese. There isn’t much to learn from a manual though. The only thing was the Darius Gaiden capture mechanic, so I picked that one up from the internet.

AN ENTIRE LEGACY

Speaking of the games, 7 different titles can be quite intimidating. If you are anything like me, then chances are you don’t know what’s “new ver” or “extra ver”. Thankfully, each game features a sort of museum display that features a screenshot of the menu, the title, the launch date and a very thorough description of the game. The text will navigate you through each version of the games and specifically highlight why it is different from its predecessor or what was changed when going to western markets.
Each game includes a training mode for those who wish to challenge specific parts of the game. Training mode will let you choose to play any stage and customize a variety of settings such as the strength of your Silver Hawk and the game rank, which is the in-game difficulty. The obvious use for this mode is to practice your piloting skills and go for the 1CC. Even casual players can view this as a pseudo level select cheat code for maximum enjoyment!
Perhaps one of the most amazing inclusions of the collection is the replay mode. For every one of your play throughs, there is an option to save a replay of your play session. What differs from regular replays, is that they pack an incredibly robust set of features. Other than being able to watch a recording of yourself, you can see your inputs and control the playback of the replay. You can rewind, fast forward, go back, increase the speed or even go full slow-mo to analyze your gameplay.

KING OF THE ARCADE

Challenging oneself is one thing, but going after the world is the true spirit or arcade shmups. Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade features online rankings which are separated into 2 categories: “Arcade” and “All-mix”. Arcade is played with every setting on default and using only one credit. If you are playing and choose to spend an additional credit to continue, then your scoring is changed to “All-mix”. All-mix is a catch-all for every other style, from easy difficulty to hard or even static rank modes.
If you ever wondered what’s it like to play like the king of the leaderboards, then you’ll be glad to know you can download leaderboard replays! This allows you to watch the entire play throughs of top players, along with their inputs and the previously mentioned playback features of a replay. A must have for those willing to go for the record or even those curious about what it means to be a champion.

YOUR PERFECT CABINET

The in-game menu for each game will further let you customize your gameplay experience. The amount of options is truly staggering, so suffice to know that you can change in-game setting as difficulty and score for an extend, screen quality adjustments like scan lines and gadgets, and the controllers.
One menu I really want to highlight is the gadgets menu. Gadgets are responsible for making the gameplay experience truly stand out. They track all sorts of data from yourself and the enemies. From a friendly side, you can see your current level of power, the number of hits your arm can take and the information related to the current zone. From a less friendly side, you have all sorts of analyzers that display the current boss, their weakness and detailed HP for each of their parts. There’s even a life gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen for easy viewing when fighting bosses!
Although I could see an argument against being way too much information, I’m personally thankful because I’m a data nerd and I love knowing all this information. If it is too much for you, then you can always turn off the gadgets and customize the screen to your liking. The real beauty comes from creating your perfect cabinet.

THE EMULATOR ADVANTAGE

One of the main selling points of emulators has been the ability to use save states. Darius Cozmic Collection is no slouch and features save states of its own! These save states will let you cheese the game as much as you want, but they also let you replay specific sections and master them for your future arcade runs. I won’t judge you, so have fun with save states! The only caveat is that using save states will not record your score. Unfortunately, replays will only record from the last time you loaded the save state onwards. So there’s no chance of creating tool-assisted runs.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that bringing up the in-game menu will completely pause the game and show you a fully-fledged map of the game, complete with boss encounters for each zone and the amount of power-ups featured in said zone. It really is great for strategy purposes to know which stage will allow you to upgrade your Silver Hawk! Resuming a game will also give you a 3 second count down with a jumping robot animation to ensure you are ready for action. This detail wasn’t really needed, but it is one of the many ways in which M2 shows appreciation for Darius and the player.
Out of all this nitty gritty details, I have to say the song name is one of my favorites. In the bottom right corner of the screen there is a pop-up that appears when the song changes and displays the song name. I just think it looks really cool. By the way, don’t forget to check “Olga Breeze”, my favorite song!

DARIUS, THE OG

Darius, the game that started it all. Featuring 3 screens, this is the biggest Darius game featured in this collection (ha!). If I may add, I also think this is the game that highlights all the love M2 poured into bringing arcade experiences to your living room. With features such as the cabinet art and the body sonic vibration, it really brings home the arcade feeling.
As you can expect, playing the first game on the series is both, a nostalgic and a painful experience. Playing on 3 screens is truly magical, but at the same time, it is a victim to the older design choices. Not much that can be done here, after all, it is a decades old game. Just a small detail to keep in mind.
Darius helps establish the foundations of the franchise from the very first game. One of the Darius staples is the upgrade system for the Silver Hawk. Throughout the game, you can encounter 3 different orbs which are dropped by different colored enemies. The orbs can be red, green or blue.

SILVER HAWK

Red orbs will upgrade your primary fire. Each orb increases your power, but collecting 7 will upgrade your shot to the laser, and then the wave. Green orbs will upgrade your bomb, which is your secondary fire. Bombs also get stronger with more orbs and also upgrade when you reach 7. Blue orbs will give you a shield called arm. The initial shield blocks 3 hits and any additional orb will add 1 more hit. Just like red and green, you can upgrade after 7 orbs which will make it so that additional orbs give you 2 hits and then 3.
The downside to the upgrade system is that, upon death, you will lose every orb you collected in your current tier. The good news is that if you, for instance, managed to upgrade to the laser, then your shot can never fall below that. The bad news is that the number of orbs is limited per stage, which means it is almost impossible to upgrade within a stage the same stage where you died. The exception is a single stage that has 7 blue orbs in the old version and one with 7 green in the extra version.

THE FISH

The most distinguishable characteristic of the franchise is definitely the marine bosses. The stages are all over the place with a very diverse space settings, but the bosses are always one thing: fish. Actually, I’d say it is marine biology, but fish is an overly simplistic way to describe it. Darius also has one peculiarity which is that every set of stages has the same boss. For example, the 4th stage boss will always be Fatty Glutton in a different version depending on which zone you chose.
The other defining feature of Darius is being able to choose your adventure. After each boss, you can choose to go to one of 2 different zones. This choice is made by either being on the top or bottom half of the screen, as the stage actually splits after beating the boss. It certainly took me off guard the first time as I crashed into the divider. Despite having the same boss, the zones are drastically different and carry the strategic choice of having a different number of orbs. Your path will be determined by which aspect of your Silver Hawk you want to improve.

THE COINS

What struck me the most about Darius is how unforgiving it is. This is expressed in the descriptions of the newer versions. The thing about Darius, is that the game is next to impossible to beat if you didn’t fully upgrade. Later enemies are merciless and if you don’t have sufficient firepower, then you probably won’t stand a chance. This ruthlessness is exacerbated by the death system, as death will set you considerably behind. Because upgrades are usually a 2-stage effort, getting shot will set you back 2 levels worth of progress.
A fun aspect I found on Darius is the dynamic created by having 3 screens. This is probably the widest game I have played, and it brings new challenges to the table. The first one is that you need to gain screen position to succeed. Being at the front is usually better, with moving back feeling like losing real estate. The reason behind this is that you are able to shoot down enemies before they become a threat with their numbers. The other less obvious reason is the number of bullets allowed on screen. That number is limited, so it is in your best interest that those bullets expire fast so you can fire new ones. Being back equals more time before they reach the end of the screen, which is undesirable.
Overall, the game poses a unique challenge, but I’m not going to lie, it is actually really fun to play. Achieving an upgraded Silver Hawk is a hard endeavor, but that makes it even more rewarding when you pull it off!

DARIUS II/SAGAIA, THE PROOF US WESTERNERS HAVE SHORT ATTENTION SPANS

Darius II came in and simplified the game in some interesting ways. First of all it reduced the upgrade system so that it is now only a single stage that can be maxed out. The number of orbs was reduced to compensate. Another simplification comes courtesy of the screens themselves. The number of screens was reduced from 3 to 2 in order to be installed in other dual screen cabinets such as The Ninja Warriors.
Unfortunately, the single stage of upgrades means that the game is even more savage when you die. This time around, you actually lose all of your progress in terms of firepower. There will be special rainbow orbs which help you catch up a little, but even then they might be a little too late. As a result, my 1CC had to be done by never dying.

I ALWAYS WANTED A THING CALLED A TUNA SASHIMI

One thing I want to mention, is that Darius II has my absolute favorite intro sequence of any Darius game in this collection. From the music that goes ramping up to the main theme, to the voice lines calling out the launching sequence:
“Main engine energy level, 20% increase !”
“I always wanted a thing called tuna sashimi”
“3…2…1…”
It all creates an unbelievable sense of excitement!
A very fun piece of trivia is the existence of SAGAIA. It exists to be a compact version of Darius II to be sold on western markets. Then there’s actually 2 versions of it which feel like 2 pieces of the same game. If SAGAIA trimmed certain pieces of the game, then version 2 came to use those trimmed pieces and created another entry. It’s actually quite funny.

DARIUS GAIDEN, THE KING

Darius Gaiden is definitely the reason you will keep playing the arcade collection. Quality in older games under a modern eye is usually a product of nostalgia and design elements that still hold on in today’s gaming landscape. Contrasting with that, Darius Gaiden IS a fantastic game that I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase if it was released today.
For Darius Gaiden, less is more, as this time around the game was played on a single screen arcade cabinet. The game does seem to lack some of the ambient goodies such as the rumble effects, but it makes up for it in gameplay experiences.

TRUE POWER

One aspect that is radically different from its predecessor is the upgrade system. Whereas Darius II simplified the Silver Hawk upgrade system, Darius Gaiden took it back to its original Darius roots. This means that, once again, we have multiple upgrade points. Upgrades take considerably less red power-ups to achieve, which actually makes it possible to upgrade multiple times during the same stage.
Death penalties are lower as well with death only losing you a level of power. Because there are more power levels, it is more forgiving and doesn’t set you completely behind like the previous entries. Perhaps the best of all is that neither arm nor bombs have any penalty whatsoever. What’s more, you don’t even lose your arm or bomb level when losing a credit. I can say with 100% certainty that this game is actually possible to complete within a reasonable number of credits if you die on the later zones.
I would take it one step ahead and say this game has a little of the Contra syndrome. The original Contra is a game that was considered hard, but was significantly easier if you could maintain the spread shot. In the same vein, getting the earliest upgrades makes Darius Gaiden a breeze. A well deserved victory, if you ask me.

YOU’RE MINE NOW!

New to Darius Gaiden is the ability to capture mid bosses. Half-way through a stage, you will encounter a medium sized boss with a purple orb somewhere in its back. If you manage to take down the orb without killing the enemy, it will detach and slowly drift away. If you capture this orb, then the mid boss will fight alongside you until its timer expires. I gotta say that having a huge fish on your side is surprisingly satisfying!
Having a single screen makes the experience much more familiar for shmup enthusiasts. While it does lose some of the charm of the ultra wide field of view, it also rids itself of nuances such as your horizontal movement being low in terms of total horizontal space or the limit on on-screen bullets.
A combination of those factors I mentioned contribute to making Darius Gaiden a much better experience. It’s simple to play and forgiving when you lose. Every stage is unique and makes every new play through a completely different experience, not just in a different-ish way, but rather full blown new content!

A LEGENDARY PACKAGE OF NOSTALGIA

There’s one thing that you might be thinking, and that’s that I might be biased because it is Darius. It is true that I openly admit everywhere that Darius is my favorite. However, in this particular case my work was cut out for me, I don’t need to be biased because this is truly a wonderfully crafted collection that deserves to be on everyone’s Switch.
It contains every possible version of Darius you might have encountered on the arcades and then sprinkled some top notch features that make it stand on a class of its own when it comes to ports. It also helps that the Darius games remain to be as fun as they always have been, even with their caveats. I took 3-4 times more time to play this collection, not because it had a lot of content, but because I loved playing every second of it and wanted to try it all. Wanted to 1CC every version, wanted to traverse every possible stage, wanted to created masterful replays.
The only possible downside I can see to this collection is the price. $44.99 is a very high price compared to other shmups on the market. In terms of features and overall content (because remember, every game has more than an alphabets worth of different zones) it does warrant its price. Although I can see people double guess their decision, with this game being close to the cost of a first party title and significantly higher than other shmups.

TOP 3

My tentative placement for Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade was on the top 3 spots. I really had a hard time deciding where to put it, so I went back and revisited both Ikaruga and Psyvariar Delta. After finishing my Ikaruga play through, I was reminded of the magic that is Ikaruga and how special it is. Psyvariar Delta also reminded me of the buzz system and how the refined gameplay and level ups work towards creating an experience that I can’t quite put into words.
The main defining factor, however, was that I don’t think any of the Darius games in the collection beats the top 2 contenders. The 7 games as an aggregate, are certainly a force to be reckoned with thanks to the superb M2 porting labour. With that being said, I will award it a 3rd spot because the gameplay experience is incredible, but a little held back by the age of the games and the hefty price tag.
Still, Darius will always be #1 in my heart.

THE RANKING SO FAR:

1. Ikaruga
2. Psyvariar Delta
3. Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade
4. Devil Engine
5. Rolling Gunner
6. Blazing Star
7. Jamestown+
8. Tengai
9. Steredenn: Binary Stars
10. Stardust Galaxy Warriors: Stellar Climax
11. Sky Force: Reloaded
12. Strikers 1945
13. Black Paradox
14. R-Type Dimensions EX
15. Sine Mora EX
16. Shikhondo – Soul Eater
17. Ghost Blade HD
18. AngerForce: Reloaded
19. Aero Fighters 2 (ACA Neogeo)
20. Q-YO Blaster
21. Lightening Force: Quest for the darkstar (Sega Ages)
22. Pawarumi
23. Red Death
24. Task Force Kampas
25. Switch ‘N’ Shoot
26. Last Resort (ACA Neogeo)

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Which dead person you want to come back alive, and why?

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Have you recently built a new gaming PC or upgraded your GPU? Run 3DMark Stress Tests to check the reliability & stability of your system.

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Energy

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As a result of online school, I've finally had time to pursue my passion for game development and my first game is coming to Steam! RoboSkate is a silly yet difficult physics based game, where you master the controls of a robotic arm attached to a skateboard and overcome a challenging journey.

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So uh, can we try and find the next banned word as soon as possible?

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Copypasta

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We had a shorter week, because Tuesday was the new day, but people definitely found the word

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*NEW NEW* Meta discussion thread

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MAME 0.222

MAME 0.222, the product of our May/June development cycle, is ready today, and it’s a very exciting release. There are lots of bug fixes, including some long-standing issues with classics like Bosconian and Gaplus, and missing pan/zoom effects in games on Seta hardware. Two more Nintendo LCD games are supported: the Panorama Screen version of Popeye, and the two-player Donkey Kong 3 Micro Vs. System. New versions of supported games include a review copy of DonPachi that allows the game to be paused for photography, and a version of the adult Qix game Gals Panic for the Taiwanese market.
Other advancements on the arcade side include audio circuitry emulation for 280-ZZZAP, and protection microcontroller emulation for Kick and Run and Captain Silver.
The GRiD Compass series were possibly the first rugged computers in the clamshell form factor, possibly best known for their use on NASA space shuttle missions in the 1980s. The initial model, the Compass 1101, is now usable in MAME. There are lots of improvements to the Tandy Color Computer drivers in this release, with better cartridge support being a theme. Acorn BBC series drivers now support Solidisk file system ROMs. Writing to IMD floppy images (popular for CP/M computers) is now supported, and a critical bug affecting writes to HFE disk images has been fixed. Software list additions include a collection of CDs for the SGI MIPS workstations.
There are several updates to Apple II emulation this month, including support for several accelerators, a new IWM floppy controller core, and support for using two memory cards simultaneously on the CFFA2. As usual, we’ve added the latest original software dumps and clean cracks to the software lists, including lots of educational titles.
Finally, the memory system has been optimised, yielding performance improvements in all emulated systems, you no longer need to avoid non-ASCII characters in paths when using the chdman tool, and jedutil supports more devices.
There were too many HyperScan RFID cards added to the software list to itemise them all here. You can read about all the updates in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

MAME Testers Bugs Fixed

• 00434: [Graphics] (gaplus.cpp) gaplus: Reverse scrolling background moves too slowly. (sasuke)
• 00480: [Graphics] (galaga.cpp) bosco and clones: Background is not erased correctly during title sequence. (hap)
• 00783: [Misc.] (nycaptor.cpp) nycaptor: High score initials entry times out too quickly. (GoldS_TCRF)
• 01731: [Graphics] (atarifb.cpp) atarifb, atarifb1, atarifb4, abaseb, abaseb2: LEDs are connected incorrectly. (hap)
• 05148: [Misc.] (ht68k.cpp) ht68k: System hangs when attempting to boot from floppy. (AJR)
• 05766: [Documentation] (armedf.cpp) armedf, armedff: Correct title is Armed F, not Armed Formation. (J.J.Boy)
• 06456: [Graphics] (seta2.cpp) mj4simai: Missing pan/zoom effects on scene transitions. (David Haywood)
• 06559: [Gameplay] (apple2gs.cpp) All sets in apple2gs.cpp: System 6.0.x freezes on boot. (Peter Ferrie)
• 06833: [Misc.] (einstein.cpp) All einstein.cpp sets: Buffer overrun on DSK image file with more sides than drive heads. (MetalliC)
• 06898: [Documentation] (8080bw.cpp) spclaser and clones: Space Laser and Intruder appear to be hacks of Space War. (GoldS_TCRF)
• 07171: [Documentation] (megadriv.cpp) genesis [babyboom]: Release year is incorrect. (ArcadeShadow)
• 07198: [Documentation] (slapfght.cpp) tigerh and clones: Title should be hyphenated. (AntoPISA)
• 07269: [Graphics] (seta2.cpp) penbros and clones: Incorrect scene transition effects. (David Haywood)
• 07369: [Graphics] (namconb1.cpp) machbrkr: Character sprite animations display incorrectly. (cam900)
• 07536: [Graphics] Prescale option does not work properly with D3D renderer. (Ryan Holtz)
• 07551: [Crash/Freeze] (nes.cpp) nes [galivan]: Game freezes after selecting start or continue. (girosintornillos)
• 07591: [DIP/Input] (pacman.cpp) crush, maketrax: Coin counter increases continuously. (Ivan Vangelista)
• 07620: [Gameplay] (tubep.cpp) tubep, tubepb: “GAME OVER” and stage clear screens are skipped. (hap)
• 07629: [Documentation] (ladybug.cpp) snapjack: Release year is incorrect. (jkburks)
• 07634: [DIP/Input] (subsino2.cpp) mtrain: “Double Up” DIP switch settings are reversed. (joepublic)
• 07635: [DIP/Input] (subsino2.cpp) mtrain: Big/Small button functions are not labeled. (joepublic)
• 07640: [Graphics] (armedf.cpp) armedf and clones: Vertical blanking interval is incorrect, truncating screen vertically. (sasuke)
• 07648: [DIP/Input] (dkong.cpp) dkong3: DIP switch settings use different terminology to game manual. (xelnia)
• 07651: [Documentation] (warpwarp.cpp) sos: Title, manufacturer and release year do not match earliest advertisements. (jkburks)
• 07652: [Documentation] (m10.cpp) andromed: Title, manufacturer and release year are incorrect. (jkburks)
• 07653: [Documentation] (galaxian.cpp) galaxiani: Game appears to be officially licensed, not bootlegged. (jkburks)
• 07656: [Known Issues/To-Do's] (atarisy1.cpp) Two BIOS ROMs are bad dumps. (hap)
• 07657: [DIP/Input] (selz80.cpp) selz80, dagz80: Keyboard auto-repeats when it shouldn’t. (AJR)
• 07663: [Graphics] (gaplus.cpp) gaplus and clones: Star field drawing area is incorrect. (sasuke)
• 07664: [Crash/Freeze] (skylncr.cpp) All machines in skylncr.cpp: [debug] Assertion failure in tilemap code. (AJR)
• 07667: [Crash/Freeze] (pengo.cpp) schick: [debug] Assertion failure on palette initialisation. (David Haywood)
• 07668: [Crash/Freeze] (seattle.cpp) sfrush, sfrushrk and clones: [debug] Assertion failure on start. (AJR)
• 07671: [DIP/Input] (atarisy1.cpp) roadblst and clones: Steering does not automatically return to center. (Tafoid)
• 07673: [Sound] All: Recorded MNG and WAV files are out of sync. (hap)
• 07674: [Media Support] (bbc.cpp) bbcb: Solidisk DFS (8271) *CAT command returns Diskfault error. (Carl)
• 07675: [DIP/Input] (gaelco2.cpp) wrally2, wrally2a: Analog steering control doesn’t work. (Ivan Vangelista)
• 07676: [Sound] (gaelco2.cpp) wrally2, wrally2a: Audio channels do not match default screen positions. (Ivan Vangelista)
• 07678: [DIP/Input] (btime.cpp) btime3: Bonus Life DIP switch settings are labeled incorrectly. (Tafoid)
• 07686: [Documentation] (sms.cpp) gamegear [shinobi2]: Title is abbreviated. (ArcadeShadow)

New working machines

• Black Hole (EFG Sanremo) [f205v, Ivan Vangelista]
• Fidelity Electronics Mini Sensory Chess Challenger (1982 version) [hap, Berger, Achim]
• Fidelity Electronics The Gambit (1989 version) [hap, Berger, Achim]
• Game & Watch: Popeye (Panorama Screen) [algestam, Ryan Holtz]
• Grant Searle Simple 6502 Machine [Frank Palazzolo]
• Grant Searle Simple 6809 Machine [Frank Palazzolo]
• Grant Searle Simple CP/M Machine [Frank Palazzolo]
• Grant Searle Simple Z-80 Machine [Frank Palazzolo]
• Hegener + Glaser Mephisto Junior (1982 version) [hap, Berger, Achim]
• Micro Vs. System: Donkey Kong 3 [algestam, Ryan Holtz]
• Millennium 2000 GmbH Millennium M505 Arcade Neo Portable Spielkonsole (Family Sport 100-in-1) [TeamEurope]
• Millennium 2000 GmbH Millennium M521 Arcade Neo 2.0 (Family Sport 220-in-1) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
• Morrow Designs MDT 60 Video Display Terminal [Bitsavers, AJR]
• Saitek Kasparov Simultano (ver. C) [hap, Achim]
• SciSys Chess Champion: Super System IV [hap, Berger, Achim]
• SciSys Mini Chess [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Radica / Capcom / Sega Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition [Ghouls'n Ghosts] (Radica, Arcade Legends) (USA) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Kev (FBN), anonymous]
• Radica / Sega Genesis Collection Volume 2 (Radica, Arcade Legends) (USA) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Kev (FBN), anonymous]
• Radica / Sega Super Sonic Gold (Radica Plug & Play) (USA) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Kev (FBN), anonymous]
• Speed Racer (Senario) [Sean Riddle, Kamaal Brown, David Haywood]
• Super Motor (prototype) [Mirko Buffoni, Roberto Fresca, Retromaniacs, Recreativas.org]
• TwinBee (Bubble System) [Raki, The Dumping Union, David Haywood]
• Vs Power Plus 30-in-1 [Sean Riddle, Kitsune Sniper]
• Zudu-go / 2udu-go [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, anonymous]

New working clones

• Air Duel (US location test, M82 hardware) [halowarrior40]
• Circus (bootleg) [f205v, caius]
• Cleopatra Fortune (Ver 2.1O 1996/09/05, bootleg) [Jorge Silva, White_Spot]
• Dirt Dash (Rev. DT1 Ver.A, Japan) [Guru]
• DonPachi (Japan, Satsuei version) [PEG]
• dreamGEAR My Arcade Gamer V Portable Gaming System (DGUN-2573) (set 2, older) [Sean Riddle]
• DTK Group PC-XT-Clones with DTK/ERSO-BIOS [rfka01]
• Fidelity Electronics Mini Sensory Chess Challenger (1981 version) [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Gals Panic (Taiwan, EXPRO-02 PCB) [jordigahan, ClawGrip]
• Golden Par Golf (Joystick, V1.0) [Brian Troha, The Dumping Union]
• Hegener + Glaser Mephisto Portorose 32 Bit (v1.04) [Berger]
• Hot Blocks - Tetrix II (set 2) [jordigahan, mariorq, ClawGrip]
• Hot Blocks - Tetrix II (set 3) [Victor Fernandez (City Game), ClawGrip]
• Jackie Chan - The Kung-Fu Master (rev 4?) [coolmod, The Dumping Union]
• Karate Dou (Arfyc bootleg) [Retromaniacs, ArcadeHacker, Recreativas.org]
• Matra & Hachette Alice with MCX-128 [Tim Lindner]
• Novag Super Expert (version A, set 3) [Berger]
• Pit Boss Superstar (9221-12-02, Minnesota version) [David Viens]
• Police Trainer (Rev 1.3B, Rev 0.3 PCB) [Brian Troha, The Dumping Union]
• Prebillian (bootleg) [Kevin Eshbach]
• Raiden II (Spain) [Jorge Silva]
• Road Fighter (set 3, unencrypted) [Porchy]
• SciSys Superstar 36K [Berger, Achim]
• Shuffleshot (v1.35) [Phil Bennett, Aaron Giles, FactoryDavey, Bri Hefele, Joe Drilling, runwhiteboyrun, Christian “Ferris Bueller” Deitering, Justin Khan, ColdPie, Joe Boyd, Vitorio Miliano, JFlow @scrapbrain, Darkstar, Tom Summersell, Ryan Holtz, Brian Troha]
• Shuffleshot (v1.38) [Phil Bennett, Aaron Giles, FactoryDavey, Bri Hefele, Joe Drilling, runwhiteboyrun, Christian “Ferris Bueller” Deitering, Justin Khan, ColdPie, Joe Boyd, Vitorio Miliano, JFlow @scrapbrain, Darkstar, Tom Summersell, Ryan Holtz, Brian Troha]
• Street Fighter (Japan, bootleg) [f205v]
• Tandy Radio Shack MCX-128 [Tim Lindner]
• Trivia (Questions Series 12 Alt Question Rom) [Brian Troha]
• Trivia (Questions Series 14 Alt Question Rom) [Brian Troha]
• Trivia (Version 1.03a Sex questions, Alt revision questions) [Brian Troha]
• Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (Brazil 970519) [Renan Eler, Roberto Louzada, Filipe Nascimento, CPS Raptor group, SHVB]
• Varth: Operation Thunderstorm (bootleg, set 2) [gmx, The Dumping Union]
• Video Pinball (4 ROMs version) [f205v]

Machines promoted to working

• Bingo Time [TeamEurope, Ivan Vangelista]
• Excalibur Electronics Ford Racing [David Haywood]
• GRiD Computers Compass 1101 [usernameak]
• Kick and Run (World) [dink, David Haywood]
• Ritam Master Monty [hap]
• Ritam Monty Plays Scrabble [hap]
• Tetris + Cherry Master (Corsica, v8.01, set 2) [Ioannis Bampoulas]

Clones promoted to working

• Kick and Run (US) [dink, David Haywood]
• World Class Bowling Tournament (v1.30) [Phil Bennett, Aaron Giles, FactoryDavey, Bri Hefele, Joe Drilling, runwhiteboyrun, Christian “Ferris Bueller” Deitering, Justin Khan, ColdPie, Joe Boyd, Vitorio Miliano, JFlow @scrapbrain, Darkstar, Tom Summersell, Ryan Holtz, Brian Troha]

New machines marked as NOT_WORKING

• Crazy Balls [TTL] [f205v]
• Dardomania (v2.1) [Juan Romero, ClawGrip]
• Densha de GO 3! Tsukin-hen (V2.03J) [andynumbers, The Dumping Union]
• dreamGEAR My Arcade Go Gamer Portable (Family Sport 220-in-1) [Sean Riddle, Kev (FBN), anonymous]
• GNAT Computers GNAT System 10 [Don Maslin Archive, AJR]
• High Roller [malcor]
• Indra / Amper Consola EMT [ClawGrip]
• Jackpot (Ver 16.16L) [f205v]
• JoMoX XBase 09 Midi Controlled Analogue Drum Module [DBWBP]
• Korg DVP-1 Digital Voice Processor [DBWBP]
• Lexibook Compact Cyber Arcade - Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man [Sean Riddle, Kitsune Sniper]
• Matthew Sarnoff Ultim809 [Robbbert]
• Micro-Term / Kurzweil Computer Products ERGO 201 (Special #9233) [Bitsavers]
• Novation BassStation Rack Analogue Synthesizer Module [DBWBP]
• Novation Drum Station [DBWBP]
• Novation Super Bass Station [DBWBP]
• Roland Boss GX-700 Guitar Effects Processor [DBWBP]
• Roland Boss SE-70 Super Effects Processor [DBWBP]
• Roland Boss SX-700 Studio Effects Processor [DBWBP]
• Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer [anonymous, DBWBP]
• Trebol [PinMAME]
• TV Learning Station (VTech, Germany) [Sean Riddle, TeamEurope]
• Yamaha DX11 Digital Programmable Algorithm Synthesizer [DBWBP]
• Zenith Data Systems Z-22 Terminal [Bitsavers]
• Zone 3D [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]

New clones marked as NOT_WORKING

• Corona Data Systems, Inc. Corona PPC-21 [rfka01]
• FreeWay (V4.31) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• G2 Systems MasterPieCe 800 Series [Ian Bradbury]
• G2 Systems MasterPieCe 900 Series [Ian Bradbury]
• G2 Systems MasterPieCe 900GX Series [Ian Bradbury]
• International Business Machines PS/1 2011 (international models with ROM DOS) [rfka01]
• International Business Machines PS/1 2121 [rfka01]
• International Business Machines PS/1 2121 (international models with ROM DOS) [rfka01]
• International Business Machines PS/1 2123 [rfka01]
• International Business Machines PS/1 2133 [rfka01]
• IQ Unlimited (Germany) [Alexandre]
• Jackpot (Ver 1.16L) [f205v]
• JUKO NEST 8088 and V20 [rfka01]
• Konglongwang - D-Kids VS Alpha Yaosai (China, Ver 2.501) (MDA-C0081) [tenyuhuang]
• Magic Bomb (Ver. A3.1A) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• Magic Bomb (Ver. AA.72D, 14/11/05) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• Magic Bomb (Ver. AB4.2, 11/10/01) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• Magic Bomb (Ver. AB4.5A, 07/10/02) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• Magic Bomb (Ver. L3.5S) [Cristiano-MDQ]
• Monotech NuXT [rfka01]
• Monotech NuXT v2 [rfka01]
• NCR Class 3302 Model 0110 [rfka01]
• The Raid (alternate set) [jordigahan, ClawGrip]
• Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG 386SX System 40 (VGA) [rfka01]
• Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG Tower AT 201, 202, 220, 240 and 260 (286,EGA) [rfka01]
• Sergey Kiselev Micro 8088 [rfka01]
• Sergey Kiselev Sergey's XT [rfka01]
• Sergey Kiselev Xi processor board [rfka01]
• Shinobi (Datsu bootleg, set 3) [hammy]
• Star Wars (1.01) [PinMAME]
• Super Six Plus II English Mark Darts (Spanish) [jordigahan, ClawGrip]
• Torch Computers Torch Model 301 [Nigel Barnes, Centre for Computing History]
• Torch Computers Torch Model 725 [Nigel Barnes, Jules Richardson]
• Twilight Zone (L-5) [PinMAME]

New working software list additions

• apple2_flop_clcracked: Animal Watch: Tracks (cleanly cracked), Animal Watch: Whales (cleanly cracked), Animal Watch: Wolves (cleanly cracked), Deutsch: Aktuell 1 (Second Edition) (cleanly cracked), Deutsche Grammatik: der-die-das (cleanly cracked), Dinosaur Construction Kit: Tyrannosaurus Rex (cleanly cracked), German Word Order (cleanly cracked), German Word Order (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Homonyms I (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Homonyms II (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Jabbertalky (cleanly cracked), MECC-A757 Computer Generated Mathematics Materials Volume 1: Problem Solving (Version 1.3) (cleanly cracked), MECC-A816 Electronic Money (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), MECC-A816 Electronic Money (Version 1.1) (cleanly cracked), MECC-A824 Classification (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), Pronouns I (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Pronouns II (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Rhymes and Riddles (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Sentence Combining (cleanly cracked), The Wizard of Id's WizMath (cleanly cracked), Verbs I (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked), Verbs II (Revision 2) (cleanly cracked) [4am, Firehawke]
• apple2_flop_orig: Ace Detective, Algernon: An Introduction to Programming Logic, Amazing Arithmetricks (Version 1.0), Animal Hotel, Asteroids in Space, Backyard Birds (Version 1.0), Bag of Tricks (Version 2.1), Ballyhoo (Release 97 / 851218), Barron's SAT: 1st Edition, Barron's SAT: 2nd Edition, Behind The Wheel: Blue Level, Bluegrass Bluff (Version 1.0), Bounce!, California Games, Cavity Busters (Version 1.0), Championship Golf, Cleanwater Detectives (Version 1.0), Colossus Chess IV, CommuniKeys (Version 1.1), Conquering Decimals (+, -) (Version 1.0), Conquering Decimals (×, ÷) (Version 1.0), Conquering Fractions (+, -) (Version 1.0), Conquering Fractions (×, ÷) (Version 1.0), CryptoQuest (Version 1.0), Decimal Concepts (Version 1.0), The Demon's Forge, Deutsche Grammatik: der-die-das, Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? (Version 1.0), Dunjonquest: The Datestones of Ryn, Eerieville Library (Version 1.0), Electrifying Adventures (Version 1.0), Estimation Activities (Version 1.0), Estimation Strategies (Version 1.0), Estimation: Quick Solve I (Version 1.0), The Executive Secretary (Version 4.2), Exploring Chaos (Version 1.0), Exploring Gas Laws (Version 1.0), Exploring Sequences and Series (Version 1.0), Fish School (Version 1.0), Five-Star Forecast (Version 1.0), Fossil Hunter (Version 1.0), Fraction Munchers (Version 1.0), Fraction Practice Unlimited (Version 1.1), Fraktured Faebles, Garbage Gang, GFL Championship Football, GraFORTH, Grammar Gobble (Version 1.0), Grammar Madness (Version 1.0), Grammar Toy Shop (Version 1.0), History Makers (Version 1.0), The Incredible Laboratory, Invisible Bugs (Version 1.0), The Last Gladiator, The Legend of Blacksilver, The Living Cell (Version 1.0), Lunar Greenhouse (Version 1.0), Magical Myths, Matterhorn Screamer, Measure Works (Version 1.0), Micro-LADS 1: Plurals and Noun/Verb Agreement, Micro-LADS 2: Verb Forms, Micro-LADS 3: Prepositions, Micro-LADS 4: Pronouns, Micro-LADS 5: Negatives, Micro-LADS 6: Deictic Expressions, Passive, WH-questions, Micro-LADS 7: Prepositions II, Miner's Cave (Version 1.0), Money Works (Version 1.0), Moving Museum (Version 1.0), Murphy's Minerals (Version 1.0), Number Munchers (Version 1.3), Nutrition Nabber (Version 1.0), Odd One Out, Paper Plane Pilot (Version 1.0), Path Tactics (Version 1.0), The Personal Secretary (Version 1.1), Phonics Prime Time: Blends and Digraphs (Version 1.0), Phonics Prime Time: Final Consonants (Version 1.0), Phonics Prime Time: Initial Consonants (Version 1.0), Phonics Prime Time: Vowels I (Version 1.0), Phonics Prime Time: Vowels II (Version 1.0), Picture Chompers (Version 1.0), Picture a Story (Version 1.0), Pizza To Go (Version 1.0), Poker Parat, Problem Solving with Nim (Version 1.0), Rocket Factory (Version 1.0), Science Toolkit Plus (Version 2.0), The Seven Cities of Gold, Snooper Troops and the case of The Granite Point Ghost, Stoichiometry, Sun and Seasons (Version 1.0), Take a Chance! (Version 1.0), Those Amazing Reading Machines I (Version 1.0), Those Amazing Reading Machines II (Version 1.0), Those Amazing Reading Machines III (Version 1.0), Time Navigator Around The World (Version 1.0), To Preserve, Protect and Defend (Version 1.0), Treasures for Sale (Version 1.0), Tycoon (Version 2.1), A View To A Kill, Weeds to Trees (Version 1.0), Wild West Math Level 5, Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood (Sunburst Communications release), Wonderland Puzzles (Version 1.0), Words at Work: Compound It! (Version 1.0), Words at Work: Contraction Action (Version 1.0), Words at Work: Prefix Power (Version 1.0), Words at Work: Suffix Sense (Version 1.0), World Games, Writer Rabbit (Version 1.3) [4am, Firehawke]
• bbc_flop_z80: Z80 Winchester Utilities [Nigel Barnes]
• bbc_hdd: Master 128 ADFS Hard Drive Image V1.03, Master 128 ADFS Hard Drive Image V1.05, Model B ADFS Hard Drive Image B1.06e, Model B ADFS Hard Drive Image B1.31 (Retro Software), Model B ADFS Hard Drive Image B1.42, Model B ADFS Hard Drive Image T1.07 [RetroClinic]
• bbc_rom: 512 FastBoot 1.00, 65C02 Assembler 1.60, AJS Fortran, Acorn DFS 2.45 Rev 1191, Advanced Disc Toolkit 1.71, Amcom E-Net 5.18, AMPLE Nucleus (patched), AMPLE Nucleus ID 108801, AMPLE Nucleus ID 57315, AMPLE Nucleus ID 73863, AMPLE Nucleus ID 80327, AMTOR MkII 3.05, The Artist 1.00, BeeBASE-1 1.02, Bitstik Service ROM 0.51, Chameleon ROM 1.0, Colour Dump Rom, Commstar 9003, CPFS+ 1.20, CTS Palette 1.10, Hierarchical DFS 1.05, HKR Utilities 1.00, HKR Utilities 1.10, HKR Utilities 1.20, HKR Utilities 1.30, Instat B00741, Master ROM 1.05, MasterPieCe 1.10, MasterPieCe 800 Manager 2.40, MasterPieCe 900GX Manager 1.20, Maxim 1.0, Meta Assembler 3.30A, Opus Challenger 1.00, Opus Challenger 1.01, Opus Challenger 1.03, OrthoCAM 0.02, Pen-Friend 1.21, Plotter 1.0, Prisma-3 1.30, Prisma-3 2.30, Pull Down RAM Driver 1.00, Quest 2.1B, RAMDisc 1.01, Sciways 2.01, SJ Control ROM 0.23, SJ Control ROM 0.30, System Delta 2.017, Text To Speech 1.01, U2 2nd Processor Utility 1.5, VideoNuLA 1.03, View A1.4, View A3.0 pms (Hack?), Workstation 1.4 #0135, Workstation 1.4 #0148, Workstation 1.5 [Nigel Barnes]
• cgenie_cass: Megapede, Pole Position [Jürgen Buchmüller]
• compis: Action1 Glosprogram (nät/skollicens), Coulombs lag (nät/skollicens), Datorn i kommunikation (enanvändare), Datorn i matematik (nät/skollicens), Får dataregister skvallra? (enanvändare), Får dataregister skvallra? (komplement), Internationella ord från grekiskan (nät/skollicens), Internationella ord från latinet (nät/skollicens), Jorden skiftas, folket skingras (nät/skollicens), Kinetik (nät/skollicens), Matematikverkstad I (beta, nät/skollicens), Millikans försök (enanvändare), Mät energi (enanvändare), MätEtt (enanvändare), RitEtt (enanvändare), Räkna lätt, räkna rätt (demo, version 6175), StatEtt - Analys, Stava rätt på nytt sätt (version 8481), Stil-Plus (alfa 1.0, nät/skollicens), Video-butiken (enanvändare) [FakeShemp]
• eti660_quik: Music Maker, Pong, Wipeout [Robbbert]
• excalibur64: Boot disk [Robbbert]
• fidel_msc:
  • Challenger Advanced Chess [hap, Berger, Achim]
  • Challenger Book Openings [Berger]
• fmtowns_cd: Dracula Hakushaku - Bishoujo-tachi no Chi no Shitatari, Hyper Planet, Lemon Cocktail Collection, Märchen Toshokan - Grimm Douwa - Bremen no Ongakutai, Nihon no Rekishi - Ishin-hen - Kurofune Raikou, Phobos, Towns Chiri - Jigsaw World [redump.org, r09]
• ggm: Capablanca Edition - Master Chess Endgame [Berger, Achim]
• ibm5150:
  • The Amazing Spider-Man, Eye of Horus [ArcadeShadow]
  • Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man [r09]
• ibm5170:
  • Alone in the Dark 2 (France), Cruise for a Corpse, Formula One Grand Prix (Euro), Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (EGA release), Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (VGA release), Police Quest in Pursuit of the Death Angel (VGA release), Roberta Williams' Laura Bow in "The Dagger of Amon Ra", Silverball 2 Plus, Speed Racer in the Challenge of Racer X, Subwar 2050 - The Underwater Combat Simulation [ArcadeShadow]
  • Chuck Yeager's Air Combat (Gravis Ultrasound version), Dune (5.25"), Frontier - Elite II, Gravis UltraSound (GUS) Installation - V2.05 [r09]
• msx1_cart: Ink - Exxon Surfing [anonymous]
• pc98: Eimmy to Yobanaide (Demo), Ekispert, Ekudorado - Kagami no Naka no Oukoku, Elm Knight - A Living Body Armor (Demo), Elthlead Senshi, EO System 3.0 (v1.10 installer), EPSON Jiko Shindan Program, EPSON MS-DOS 2.11 (Rev. E22), EPSON MS-DOS 2.11 (Rev. R15), EPSON Nihongo Disk BASIC v2.0, Estate, eXOn, eXOn (Demo), Expert-98 [Neo Kobe Collection, r09]
• qx10_flop: CP/M-80 R2.2 for QX-10 & QX-16 1983 [Carl]
• saitek_schess: Strong Play Module [Berger, Achim]
• sgi_mips:
  • Barco Creator 7.2, CATIA V5R16, Diagnostics 5.3, Hot Mix 4, IndiZone, IRIX 4.0.2, IRIX 4.0.4B for IP4, IP5, IP6, IP12 and IP17, IRIX 4.0.5, IRIX 5.3 Current Patches December 1997, IRIX 5.3 Recommended/Required Patches September 1997, IRIX 6.0.1, IRIX 6.1, IRIX 6.5.22, IRIX 6.5.30 [archive.org, Davide Cavalca]
  • IRIX 6.5.15 [archive.org, fsck.technology, Davide Cavalca]
  • IRIX 4.0.4 [archive.org, jrra.zone, Davide Cavalca]
  • Ada95 Compiler 1.2 for IRIX 5.3, 6.2 and 6.3, Ada95 Compiler 1.3 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5, C++ Translator 3.2, Compiler Execution Environment 7.3 for IRIX 6.5 through 6.5.4, Cosmo Software for IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, Cosmo Suite, DCE 1.2.2 Base Executive/Client for IRIX 6.5.2, Digital Media Dev Option 1.1, Documenter's Workbench 4.1.3, ENlightenDSM 3.1 for UNIX and NT, Hot Mix 18 - Explore Tools and Technologies for Silicon Graphics, Hot Mix 19, ImageVision Library 3.2, ImageVision Library 3.2.1, IRIS Development Option 4.1.1, IRIS Performer 2.2 Friends Demo CD for IRIX 6.2 and later, IRIS Performer 2.2 Yosemite Demo CD for IRIX 6.2 and later, IRIS Performer 2.2 for IRIX 6.2 and later, IRIS Inventor 1.1.2, IRIX 4.0.5H, IRIX 4.0.5H and 4.0.5IOP R4400 Patch, IRIX 5.1.1, IRIX 5.2, IRIX 5.3 for Indy R4400 175MHz, IRIX 6.2 Development Foundation, IRIX 6.2 Development Libraries, IRIX 6.3 Development Foundation, IRIX 6.3 Development Foundation 1.2 for IRIX 6.3, IRIX 6.3 Development Libraries, IRIX 6.4 Applications August 1997, IRIX 6.4 Development Foundation, IRIX 6.4 Development Libraries, IRIX 6.4 for Origin, Onyx2 and OCTANE, IRIX 6.5.1, IRIX 6.5.6, IRIX Development Foundation 1.2 for IRIX 6.2, IRIX Development Foundation 1.2 for IRIX 6.4, IRIX Networker 4.1.3, IRIX Patch 5.1.1.1, MineSet 2.0.1 for IRIX 6.2 and later, MIPSpro 7.2, MIPSpro 7.3, MIPSpro All-Compiler CD May 1999 for IRIX 6.5 and later, Molecular Inventor Development Kit 1.1, NetWorker 4.2.5 for IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, Networker 4.2.5 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, O2 Out of Box Experience, Open Inventor 3D Toolkit 2.1.2, Origin and Onyx2 System Disk Patches, Origin/Onyx2 Patch Supplement for IRIX 6.5, Performance Co-Pilot 1.3 for IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, Performance Co-Pilot 2.1 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5.5, Performance Co-Pilot for Oracle 2.0 for IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5, Performance Co-Pilot for Web Servers 2.0 for IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5, Performance Co-Pilot for WebServers 1.1, ProDev Developers Suite, ProDev Workshop 2.6.5 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, SCSL Scientific Library 1.2 for IRIX 6.4 and 6.5, Silicon Graphics 1600SW Flat Panel Monitor Owner's Manual, Silicon Graphics MultiLink Adapter Documentation, Visual Magic Tools 1.0, Wavefront Composer 3.5.1 Visualizer Paint 3.5.1, WebFORCE February 1998, WorkShop Pro MPF 2.7 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 [Bitsavers, Davide Cavalca] Desktop Special Edition 1.0 for Support Customers, European Language Module 1.3, Freeware 2.0 - Unsupported Software compatible with IRIX 6.2 and later, Hot Mix 18, IRIX 6.3 and 6.4 Recommended/Required Patches October 1997, IRIX 6.3 Applications August 1997, IRIX 6.5.13, IRIX 6.5.5, IRIX 6.5.7, IRIX 6.5.9, Insignia SoftWindows 95 4.0 for IRIX 6.3 and 6.4, Network File System 5.3, O2 Demos 1.1.1 for IRIX 6.3 including R10000, O2 IRIX 6.3 Recommended/Required Patches August 1997, ONC3/NFS Version 2, for IRIX 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4, Patch SG0000466, Support Advantage 12/95, Support Advantage 9/95, SupportFolio 5/96, SupportFolio June 96 [ClawGrip, Rampa]
  • Alias|Wavefront Advanced Visualizer 4.2, Alias|Wavefront Maya Composer 5.5, Alias|Wavefront PowerAnimator 7.51, Alias|Wavefront PowerAnimator 8.2, Common Desktop Environment 4.3, Cosmo Compress 1.1.1, Database Accelerator 3.0, Desktop Special Edition 1.1, Discreet Effect 6.1.3, Discreet Flame 4.0.2, ENlightenDSM 1.1 for UNIX and NT, European Language Module 1.2, Gauntlet 4.1 INTERNATIONAL for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5, Hot Mix Volume 11, Hot Mix Volume 12, Hot Mix Volume 17, Hot Mix Volume 8, I-DEAS Master Series Release 6, IMPACT Demos CD 6.2, IMPACT Digital Media 2.1, Indigo2 IMPACT Video for IRIX 6.5, IndiZone^2, IndiZone^3, Insignia SoftWindows 95 5.0 for IRIX 6.5, IRIS PERFORMER 2.0, IRIX 5.2 for Indy R4600SC/XZ and Presenter, IRIX 6.2, IRIX 6.2 Applications August 1996, IRIX 6.2 with Indigo IMPACT 10000, IRIX 6.3 for O2, Including R10000, IRIX 6.5.2, IRIX 6.5.26, IRIX 6.5.29, IRIX 6.5.4, IRIX 6.5.8, NetWorker 4.2.9 for IRIX 6.2, 6.4 and 6.5, Open Inventor 2.1.5 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5, Patches for IRIX 6.2 with Indigo2 8/96, PRISMS 6.4, Samba 2.0.0 for IRIX for IRIX 6.5 and later, SGImeeting 1.0 for IRIX 6.5.2, SupportFolio 10/96, Teleffect 1.0 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 for Microsoft NT 4.0 [Davide Cavalca]
  • IRIX 5.3, IRIX 6.5 [Davide Cavalca, ClawGrip, Rampa]
  • Adobe Illustrator 5.5, Adobe Photoshop 2.5.2, Adobe Photoshop 3.0.1, IRIX 6.5.10, IRIX 6.5.11, IRIX 6.5.12, IRIX 6.5.14, IRIX 6.5.16, IRIX 6.5.17, IRIX 6.5.18, IRIX 6.5.21, IRIX 6.5.23, IRIX 6.5.3 [fsck.technology, Davide Cavalca]
  • Indy IRIX 5.1.1, IRIS Development Option 4.0, IRIS Development Option 4.0.1, IRIS Development Option 5.0, IRIS Development Option 5.1, IRIS Development Option 5.3, IRIS Development Option 6.2, IRIX 4.0.1, IRIX 5.0, IRIX 5.2 Beta II, IRIX 5.3 All Indigo2 IMPACT, IRIX 5.3 for Indy including R5000, IRIX 6.2 Applications May 1996, IRIX 6.2 Auxiliary Applications, IRIX 6.5 Beta, IRIX 6.5.19, IRIX 6.5.27, IRIX 6.5.28, IRIX Update 4.0.4, IRIX W4D Update 4.0.1, Network File System 5.0, Network File System 5.0.1, Network File System 5.1, Network File System 5.2, NFS/ONC3 for IRIX 6.2 Version 1.2, O2 Demos 1.0 for IRIX 6.3 including R10000, O2 Demos 1.3 for IRIX 6.5 and later, O2 Out of Box Experience 2.4 for IRIX 6.5 and later, OCTANE Demos 1.3 for IRIX 6.5 and later, Silicon Graphics General and Platform Demos 6.5.12 [jrra.zone, Davide Cavalca]
  • Discreet Flame 7.6 [unixfiles.org, Davide Cavalca]
• super80_flop: CP/M boot disk, Super-80 DOS disk, Super-80 DOS disk with games [Robbbert]
• vgmplay:
  • Joe Montana II - Sports Talk Football (GEN/MD), Lotus Turbo Challenge (GEN/MD), Madden NFL '95 (GEN/MD), Teddy Boy Blues (GEN/MD), Urusei Yatsura - Dear My Friends (Sega CD) (GEN/MD) [Project2612, Tafoid]
  • 8-bit ADV Steins;Gate (NES), AntZ Racing (Nintendo Game Boy Color), Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH (ZX Spectrum 128), Batman (Arcade), Battle Gorilla (Music Mode) (NEC PC-8801), Battle Gorilla (NEC PC-8801), Bob the Builder - Fix-it Fun! (Nintendo Game Boy Color), Bonanza Bros. (ZX Spectrum 128), Commando (Atari 7800), Gauntlet (ZX Spectrum 128), Gauntlet II (ZX Spectrum 128), Gauntlet III - The Final Quest (ZX Spectrum 128), Golden Axe (ZX Spectrum 128), Hyper Olympic 1 (MSX), Hyper Olympic 2 (MSX), Hyper Sports 1 (MSX), Hyper Sports 2 (MSX, PSG), Hyper Sports 2 (MSX, SCC), Hyper Sports 3 (MSX, PSG), Hyper Sports 3 (MSX, SCC), L.E.D. Storm (ZX Spectrum 128), LEGO Island 2 - The Brickster's Revenge (Nintendo Game Boy Color), Mickey's Speedway USA (Nintendo Game Boy Color), Missile - Ground Zero (ZX Spectrum 128), Off The Wall (PC Engine), Puyo Puyo (NES, FDS), Road Runner (Atari System 1), Robot Construction R.C. (Sharp X68000), Sky Jaguar (MSX, PSG), Sky Jaguar (MSX, SCC), Solar Invasion (ZX Spectrum 128), Spawn (Nintendo Game Boy Color), Tetris (Fujitsu FM77AV), Tetris (NEC PC-88VA), Tetris (NEC PC-9801), Tom & Jerry - The Ultimate Game of Cat and Mouse! (NES), U.S. Classic (Seta 1), UWC (NES), Wild Gunman (NES) [vgmrips.net, Tafoid]
• vsmile_cart: Bob le Bricoleur - Les P'tits chantiers de Bob (France), Lil' Bratz Au Top de la Mode - Complices, Cools et Class' (France), Mission Pilote (France) [DisizDream]

Software list items promoted to working

• amigaocs_flop: Budokan - The Martial Spirit (Euro), Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle (Euro), Dungeon Master (Euro, v3.6), Dylan Dog - Ritorno al Crepuscolo (Ita), Elvira - Mistress of the Dark (Euro), Escape from Colditz (Euro), F1 GP Circuits (Euro), Fred (Euro), Graffiti Man (Euro, 5th Anniversary), Great Courts 2 (Euro), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Euro), Knight Force (Euro), Little Computer People (Euro), Loom (Euro, v1.2 19900510), Major Motion (Euro), Moebius - The Orb of Celestial Harmony (USA), North & South (Euro), Omega (Euro), Over the Net (USA), Ports of Call (Euro, v1.1, A600 Smart Start), Seconds Out (Euro, Budget), Shadow Warriors (Euro), Sim City (Euro, v1.2), Skrull the Barbarian (Euro), Strider II (Euro), Sword of Honour (Euro), Terramex (Euro), Thexder (Euro), Wonderland (Euro, v1.27i 19910422) [Angelo Salese, Dirk Best]
• bbc_rom: Solidisk ADFS 2.1 11/10/85, Solidisk ADFS 2.1S, Solidisk DDFS 1.5, Solidisk DDFS 1.9, Solidisk DFS 2.0 (Feb 85), Solidisk DFS 2.0 (Jan 85), Solidisk DFS 2.0A (8271/1770), Solidisk DFS 2.0J (8271/1770), Solidisk DFS 2.0L (8271/1770), Solidisk DFS 2.0m (8271/1770), Solidisk DFS 2.1 (Mar 85), Solidisk DFS 2.1A (1770), Solidisk DFS 2.1J (1770), VideoNuLA 1.02 [Nigel Barnes]
• jaguar: Attack of the Mutant Penguins, Troy Aikman NFL Football [Angelo Salese]
• pc98: Eimmy to Yobanaide, Elvira - Mistress of the Dark, Engage Errands - Miwaku no Shito-tachi, Engage Errands II - Hikari o Ninau Mono, Es no Houteishiki, Escape!, Eteris, Etsuraku no Gakuen, EVE - Burst Error, Exceed Jack - Casinopolis [Barry Rodewald, Angelo Salese, r09]
• x68k_flop: Ajax, Dai Makaimura, Nemesis '90 Kai [Angelo Salese]

New NOT_WORKING software list additions

• apple2_flop_orig: Wortgefect [4am, Firehawke]
• bbc_rom: ADDER 1.01, Artist Plus (Palette Pad), Artist Plus (Userport Pad), Futures 2.0a, Replay System WD1770 1.11, Richardson Hard Disk (306) 2.0, SEHK Terminal 2.00, SEHK Terminal 4.01 [Nigel Barnes]
• eti660_quik: Maze 2, Space Invaders [Robbbert]
• fmtowns_cd: Lip 3 - Lipstick Adventure 3 [redump.org, r09]
• gmaster: Space Invader, Tank War [Sylver BRUNEAU]
• ibm5150: Wizzardz & War Lordz [LGR]
• mobigo_cart:
  • Disney Fairies Explore Your Talents (USA), Disney Jake and the Neverland Pirates (USA), Disney Princess (USA), DreamWorks/Nickelodeon The Penguins of Madagascar - Mission Madness (USA), Thomas & Friends - Really Useful Engines (USA) [TeamEurope, Sean Riddle]
  • Disney La Casa de Mickey Mouse (Spain), Nickelodeon Bob Esponja - Defendiendo la Fórmula Secreta (Spain) [Sean Riddle, ClawGrip]
• nuon: Ballistic, FreeFall 3050 A.D., Iron Soldier 3, Merlin Racing, Space Invaders XL, Tempest 3000, Toshiba Sampler (11-1-2000) [incog]
• pc98: Eisei Meijin II, Elysion (2DD version), EPSON Software Installation Program (v2.17), EPSON Software Installation Program (v2.23), EPSON Software Installation Program (v2.27), EPSON Software Installation Program (v3.02) [Neo Kobe Collection, r09]
• st_flop: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Euro) [Mikerochip, FakeShemp]
• tvgogo: Baseball (US), Whac-A-Mole (US) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]
• vsmile_cart: DreamWorks Monstres contre Aliens (France) [DisizDream]
• vsmileb_cart: L'arche de Noé - L'aventure des animaux (France), Les découvertes de Mickey et ses amis (France) [DisizDream]
• vsmilem_cart:
  • Disney La Princesse Et La Grenouille - Le grand rêve de Tiana (France), Disney Manny et ses outils (France), Shrek 4 - Il était une fin (France) [DisizDream]
  • Disney Meister Manny's Werkzeugkiste (Germany) [TeamEurope]

We’ve all had a game that is a gateway to a specific genre. That one game which made us pay attention to a style of games and allowed us to fully experience the genre. It might not have been the first one we play, but it is definitely one that stays closer to our hearts. For me, this game was Darius.
I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I will say it again: Darius is the shmup that is closest to my heart. I loved the horizontal gameplay, I loved the Silver Hawk, I loved all the huge bosses that looked like fishes. The gameplay also hit bunch of chords that resonate with what I love about shmups. I’ve been waiting so long for this, so alas, I present to you: Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade!
Publisher: ININ Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: Jun 16, 2020
Price: $44.99
Tate: Built-in
Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is a collection of the Darius games released on the arcades. This wasn’t your typical cabinet, as one of its main features was the usage of multiple screens. Darius used 3 screens, while Darius II/SAGAIA used 2 screens. M2 really went out of their way to bring the most authentic arcade experience! The result is impressive to say the least!
This collections includes 4 games:

• Darius
• Darius II
• SAGAIA
• Darius Gaiden

Darius and SAGAIA include 3 and 2 different versions respectively, bringing it to a total of 7 playable games.
ARCADE GLORY
As hard as this might be to believe, I have never played an arcade Darius game before. I always mentioned Darius as my favorite shmup, but the truth is that I began with the SNES games. I had heard on the street that the arcade versions were superior so I was very excited.
When I booted the original version, I couldn’t help but feel like I was standing next to an actual arcade cabinet. The game greeted me with 3 screens places next to each other on the center of the screen. I was excited to play, so I pressed the coin button. I was not prepared for what I was about to experience…
As soon as I inserted the coin, a typical fanfare played along as my credit counter increased by one. But there was something else. The controller started vibrating to the tune of the music. I just can’t make justice to this effect with words. It felt like being inside an actual arcade cabinet. Vibrations and sound made the experience feel authentic. It made me think about the arcade days where you would hear cabinets everywhere and just feel the energy of the place.
As soon as I started to play, the screen changed and the empty spaces were replaced by arcade artwork. This artwork was exactly the kind you would see pasted near the controllers to show you how to play and other general information. Everything about the game was designed to make you feel like on the arcade. This is the kind of presentation that every other arcade port should try to achieve.
FISH GRAVY
What truly sets apart the Darius Cozmic Collection from any other collection is the amount of features and arcade fidelity that M2 added to the game. Every single aspect, every single menu and every single feature was lovingly added to create a masterpiece.
From the get go, you will be presented with the very familiar “A boss is approaching” message featuring King Fossil. The message just says that your game data is approaching fast. It really is only a fancy way of saying the game is loading, but it sets the tone to the orgasmic experience that you are about to have with the game.
After going through the intro scene, you will be greeted with the main menu which contains all 7 playable titles in this collection. You also have a replay, manual and staff options. If you are wondering where the options are, they are specific for each game, so they must be adjusted from within each game. My only complaint here is that the manual is in japanese. There isn’t much to learn from a manual though. The only thing was the Darius Gaiden capture mechanic, so I picked that one up from the internet.
AN ENTIRE LEGACY
Speaking of the games, 7 different titles can be quite intimidating. If you are anything like me, then chances are you don’t know what’s “new ver” or “extra ver”. Thankfully, each game features a sort of museum display that features a screenshot of the menu, the title, the launch date and a very thorough description of the game. The text will navigate you through each version of the games and specifically highlight why it is different from its predecessor or what was changed when going to western markets.
Each game includes a training mode for those who wish to challenge specific parts of the game. Training mode will let you choose to play any stage and customize a variety of settings such as the strength of your Silver Hawk and the game rank, which is the in-game difficulty. The obvious use for this mode is to practice your piloting skills and go for the 1CC. Even casual players can view this as a pseudo level select cheat code for maximum enjoyment!
Perhaps one of the most amazing inclusions of the collection is the replay mode. For every one of your play throughs, there is an option to save a replay of your play session. What differs from regular replays, is that they pack an incredibly robust set of features. Other than being able to watch a recording of yourself, you can see your inputs and control the playback of the replay. You can rewind, fast forward, go back, increase the speed or even go full slow-mo to analyze your gameplay.
KING OF THE ARCADE
Challenging oneself is one thing, but going after the world is the true spirit or arcade shmups. Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade features online rankings which are separated into 2 categories: “Arcade” and “All-mix”. Arcade is played with every setting on default and using only one credit. If you are playing and choose to spend an additional credit to continue, then your scoring is changed to “All-mix”. All-mix is a catch-all for every other style, from easy difficulty to hard or even static rank modes.
If you ever wondered what’s it like to play like the king of the leaderboards, then you’ll be glad to know you can download leaderboard replays! This allows you to watch the entire play throughs of top players, along with their inputs and the previously mentioned playback features of a replay. A must have for those willing to go for the record or even those curious about what it means to be a champion.
YOUR PERFECT CABINET
The in-game menu for each game will further let you customize your gameplay experience. The amount of options is truly staggering, so suffice to know that you can change in-game setting as difficulty and score for an extend, screen quality adjustments like scan lines and gadgets, and the controllers.
One menu I really want to highlight is the gadgets menu. Gadgets are responsible for making the gameplay experience truly stand out. They track all sorts of data from yourself and the enemies. From a friendly side, you can see your current level of power, the number of hits your arm can take and the information related to the current zone. From a less friendly side, you have all sorts of analyzers that display the current boss, their weakness and detailed HP for each of their parts. There’s even a life gauge that appears at the bottom of the screen for easy viewing when fighting bosses!
Although I could see an argument against being way too much information, I’m personally thankful because I’m a data nerd and I love knowing all this information. If it is too much for you, then you can always turn off the gadgets and customize the screen to your liking. The real beauty comes from creating your perfect cabinet.
THE EMULATOR ADVANTAGE
One of the main selling points of emulators has been the ability to use save states. Darius Cozmic Collection is no slouch and features save states of its own! These save states will let you cheese the game as much as you want, but they also let you replay specific sections and master them for your future arcade runs. I won’t judge you, so have fun with save states! The only caveat is that using save states will not record your score. Unfortunately, replays will only record from the last time you loaded the save state onwards. So there’s no chance of creating tool-assisted runs.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that bringing up the in-game menu will completely pause the game and show you a fully-fledged map of the game, complete with boss encounters for each zone and the amount of power-ups featured in said zone. It really is great for strategy purposes to know which stage will allow you to upgrade your Silver Hawk! Resuming a game will also give you a 3 second count down with a jumping robot animation to ensure you are ready for action. This detail wasn’t really needed, but it is one of the many ways in which M2 shows appreciation for Darius and the player.
Out of all this nitty gritty details, I have to say the song name is one of my favorites. In the bottom right corner of the screen there is a pop-up that appears when the song changes and displays the song name. I just think it looks really cool. By the way, don’t forget to check “Olga Breeze”, my favorite song!
DARIUS, THE OG
Darius, the game that started it all. Featuring 3 screens, this is the biggest Darius game featured in this collection (ha!). If I may add, I also think this is the game that highlights all the love M2 poured into bringing arcade experiences to your living room. With features such as the cabinet art and the body sonic vibration, it really brings home the arcade feeling.
As you can expect, playing the first game on the series is both, a nostalgic and a painful experience. Playing on 3 screens is truly magical, but at the same time, it is a victim to the older design choices. Not much that can be done here, after all, it is a decades old game. Just a small detail to keep in mind.
Darius helps establish the foundations of the franchise from the very first game. One of the Darius staples is the upgrade system for the Silver Hawk. Throughout the game, you can encounter 3 different orbs which are dropped by different colored enemies. The orbs can be red, green or blue.
SILVER HAWK
Red orbs will upgrade your primary fire. Each orb increases your power, but collecting 7 will upgrade your shot to the laser, and then the wave. Green orbs will upgrade your bomb, which is your secondary fire. Bombs also get stronger with more orbs and also upgrade when you reach 7. Blue orbs will give you a shield called arm. The initial shield blocks 3 hits and any additional orb will add 1 more hit. Just like red and green, you can upgrade after 7 orbs which will make it so that additional orbs give you 2 hits and then 3.
The downside to the upgrade system is that, upon death, you will lose every orb you collected in your current tier. The good news is that if you, for instance, managed to upgrade to the laser, then your shot can never fall below that. The bad news is that the number of orbs is limited per stage, which means it is almost impossible to upgrade within a stage the same stage where you died. The exception is a single stage that has 7 blue orbs in the old version and one with 7 green in the extra version.
THE FISH
The most distinguishable characteristic of the franchise is definitely the marine bosses. The stages are all over the place with a very diverse space settings, but the bosses are always one thing: fish. Actually, I’d say it is marine biology, but fish is an overly simplistic way to describe it. Darius also has one peculiarity which is that every set of stages has the same boss. For example, the 4th stage boss will always be Fatty Glutton in a different version depending on which zone you chose.
The other defining feature of Darius is being able to choose your adventure. After each boss, you can choose to go to one of 2 different zones. This choice is made by either being on the top or bottom half of the screen, as the stage actually splits after beating the boss. It certainly took me off guard the first time as I crashed into the divider. Despite having the same boss, the zones are drastically different and carry the strategic choice of having a different number of orbs. Your path will be determined by which aspect of your Silver Hawk you want to improve.
THE COINS
What struck me the most about Darius is how unforgiving it is. This is expressed in the descriptions of the newer versions. The thing about Darius, is that the game is next to impossible to beat if you didn’t fully upgrade. Later enemies are merciless and if you don’t have sufficient firepower, then you probably won’t stand a chance. This ruthlessness is exacerbated by the death system, as death will set you considerably behind. Because upgrades are usually a 2-stage effort, getting shot will set you back 2 levels worth of progress.
A fun aspect I found on Darius is the dynamic created by having 3 screens. This is probably the widest game I have played, and it brings new challenges to the table. The first one is that you need to gain screen position to succeed. Being at the front is usually better, with moving back feeling like losing real estate. The reason behind this is that you are able to shoot down enemies before they become a threat with their numbers. The other less obvious reason is the number of bullets allowed on screen. That number is limited, so it is in your best interest that those bullets expire fast so you can fire new ones. Being back equals more time before they reach the end of the screen, which is undesirable.
Overall, the game poses a unique challenge, but I’m not going to lie, it is actually really fun to play. Achieving an upgraded Silver Hawk is a hard endeavor, but that makes it even more rewarding when you pull it off!
DARIUS II/SAGAIA, THE PROOF US WESTERNERS HAVE SHORT ATTENTION SPANS
Darius II came in and simplified the game in some interesting ways. First of all it reduced the upgrade system so that it is now only a single stage that can be maxed out. The number of orbs was reduced to compensate. Another simplification comes courtesy of the screens themselves. The number of screens was reduced from 3 to 2 in order to be installed in other dual screen cabinets such as The Ninja Warriors.
Unfortunately, the single stage of upgrades means that the game is even more savage when you die. This time around, you actually lose all of your progress in terms of firepower. There will be special rainbow orbs which help you catch up a little, but even then they might be a little too late. As a result, my 1CC had to be done by never dying.
I ALWAYS WANTED A THING CALLED A TUNA SASHIMI
One thing I want to mention, is that Darius II has my absolute favorite intro sequence of any Darius game in this collection. From the music that goes ramping up to the main theme, to the voice lines calling out the launching sequence:
“Main engine energy level, 20% increase !”
“I always wanted a thing called tuna sashimi”
“3…2…1…”
It all creates an unbelievable sense of excitement!
A very fun piece of trivia is the existence of SAGAIA. It exists to be a compact version of Darius II to be sold on western markets. Then there’s actually 2 versions of it which feel like 2 pieces of the same game. If SAGAIA trimmed certain pieces of the game, then version 2 came to use those trimmed pieces and created another entry. It’s actually quite funny.
DARIUS GAIDEN, THE KING
Darius Gaiden is definitely the reason you will keep playing the arcade collection. Quality in older games under a modern eye is usually a product of nostalgia and design elements that still hold on in today’s gaming landscape. Contrasting with that, Darius Gaiden IS a fantastic game that I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase if it was released today.
For Darius Gaiden, less is more, as this time around the game was played on a single screen arcade cabinet. The game does seem to lack some of the ambient goodies such as the rumble effects, but it makes up for it in gameplay experiences.
TRUE POWER
One aspect that is radically different from its predecessor is the upgrade system. Whereas Darius II simplified the Silver Hawk upgrade system, Darius Gaiden took it back to its original Darius roots. This means that, once again, we have multiple upgrade points. Upgrades take considerably less red power-ups to achieve, which actually makes it possible to upgrade multiple times during the same stage.
Death penalties are lower as well with death only losing you a level of power. Because there are more power levels, it is more forgiving and doesn’t set you completely behind like the previous entries. Perhaps the best of all is that neither arm nor bombs have any penalty whatsoever. What’s more, you don’t even lose your arm or bomb level when losing a credit. I can say with 100% certainty that this game is actually possible to complete within a reasonable number of credits if you die on the later zones.
I would take it one step ahead and say this game has a little of the Contra syndrome. The original Contra is a game that was considered hard, but was significantly easier if you could maintain the spread shot. In the same vein, getting the earliest upgrades makes Darius Gaiden a breeze. A well deserved victory, if you ask me.
YOU’RE MINE NOW!
New to Darius Gaiden is the ability to capture mid bosses. Half-way through a stage, you will encounter a medium sized boss with a purple orb somewhere in its back. If you manage to take down the orb without killing the enemy, it will detach and slowly drift away. If you capture this orb, then the mid boss will fight alongside you until its timer expires. I gotta say that having a huge fish on your side is surprisingly satisfying!
Having a single screen makes the experience much more familiar for shmup enthusiasts. While it does lose some of the charm of the ultra wide field of view, it also rids itself of nuances such as your horizontal movement being low in terms of total horizontal space or the limit on on-screen bullets.
A combination of those factors I mentioned contribute to making Darius Gaiden a much better experience. It’s simple to play and forgiving when you lose. Every stage is unique and makes every new play through a completely different experience, not just in a different-ish way, but rather full blown new content!
A LEGENDARY PACKAGE OF NOSTALGIA
There’s one thing that you might be thinking, and that’s that I might be biased because it is Darius. It is true that I openly admit everywhere that Darius is my favorite. However, in this particular case my work was cut out for me, I don’t need to be biased because this is truly a wonderfully crafted collection that deserves to be on everyone’s Switch.
It contains every possible version of Darius you might have encountered on the arcades and then sprinkled some top notch features that make it stand on a class of its own when it comes to ports. It also helps that the Darius games remain to be as fun as they always have been, even with their caveats. I took 3-4 times more time to play this collection, not because it had a lot of content, but because I loved playing every second of it and wanted to try it all. Wanted to 1CC every version, wanted to traverse every possible stage, wanted to created masterful replays.
The only possible downside I can see to this collection is the price. $44.99 is a very high price compared to other shmups on the market. In terms of features and overall content (because remember, every game has more than an alphabets worth of different zones) it does warrant its price. Although I can see people double guess their decision, with this game being close to the cost of a first party title and significantly higher than other shmups.
TOP 3
My tentative placement for Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade was on the top 3 spots. I really had a hard time deciding where to put it, so I went back and revisited both Ikaruga and Psyvariar Delta. After finishing my Ikaruga play through, I was reminded of the magic that is Ikaruga and how special it is. Psyvariar Delta also reminded me of the buzz system and how the refined gameplay and level ups work towards creating an experience that I can’t quite put into words.
The main defining factor, however, was that I don’t think any of the Darius games in the collection beats the top 2 contenders. The 7 games as an aggregate, are certainly a force to be reckoned with thanks to the superb M2 porting labour. With that being said, I will award it a 3rd spot because the gameplay experience is incredible, but a little held back by the age of the games and the hefty price tag.
Still, Darius will always be #1 in my heart.
THE RANKING SO FAR:

1. Ikaruga
2. Psyvariar Delta
3. Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade
4. Devil Engine
5. Rolling Gunner
6. Blazing Star
7. Jamestown+
8. Tengai
9. Steredenn: Binary Stars
10. Stardust Galaxy Warriors: Stellar Climax
11. Sky Force: Reloaded
12. Strikers 1945
13. Black Paradox
14. R-Type Dimensions EX
15. Sine Mora EX
16. Shikhondo – Soul Eater
17. Ghost Blade HD
18. AngerForce: Reloaded
19. Aero Fighters 2 (ACA Neogeo)
20. Q-YO Blaster
21. Lightening Force: Quest for the darkstar (Sega Ages)
22. Pawarumi
23. Red Death
24. Task Force Kampas
25. Switch ‘N’ Shoot
26. Last Resort (ACA Neogeo)

MAME 0.221

Our fourth release of the year, MAME 0.221, is now ready. There are lots of interesting changes this time. We’ll start with some of the additions. There’s another load of TV games from JAKKS Pacific, Senario, Tech2Go and others. We’ve added another Panorama Screen Game & Watch title: this one features the lovable comic strip canine Snoopy. On the arcade side, we’ve got Great Bishi Bashi Champ and Anime Champ (both from Konami), Goori Goori (Unico), the prototype Galun.Pa! (Capcom CPS), a censored German version of Gun.Smoke, a Japanese location test version of DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou, and more bootlegs of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Final Fight, Galaxian, Pang! 3 and Warriors of Fate.
In computer emulation, we’re proud to present another working UNIX workstation: the MIPS R3000 version of Sony’s NEWS family. NEWS was never widespread outside Japan, so it’s very exciting to see this running. F.Ulivi has added support for the Swedish/Finnish and German versions of the HP 86B, and added two service ROMs to the software list. ICEknight contributed a cassette software list for the Timex NTSC variants of the Sinclair home computers. There are some nice emulation improvements for the Luxor ABC family of computers, with the ABC 802 now considered working.
Other additions include discrete audio emulation for Midway’s Gun Fight, voice output for Filetto, support for configurable Toshiba Pasopia PAC2 slot devices, more vgmplay features, and lots more Capcom CPS mappers implemented according to equations from dumped PALs. This release also cleans up and simplifies ROM loading. For the most part things should work as well as or better than they did before, but MAME will no longer find loose CHD files in top-level media directories. This is intentional – it’s unwieldy with the number of supported systems.
As usual, you can get the source and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page. This will be the last month where we use this format for the release notes – with the increase in monthly development activity, it’s becoming impractical to keep up.

MAME Testers Bugs Fixed

• 07560: [Crash/Freeze] (cave.cpp) hotdogst: Using debugger memdump command causes MAME to crash. (O. Galibert)
• 07603: [Documentation] (snes.cpp) snes [asterix]: Release year does not match title screen. (ArcadeShadow)
• 07615: [Documentation] (cninja.cpp) mutantf, mutantf2, mutantf3, mutantf4, deathbrd: Release years are incorrect. (jkburks)
• 07616: [Sound] (segas32.cpp) radr, radrj, radru: Sounds are incorrect. (Arzeno Fabrice)
• 07617: [Graphics] (rungun.cpp) rungun: Sprites are offset vertically. (sjy96525)

New working machines

• Anime Champ (GCA07 VER. JAA) [Windy Fairy, smf]
• Computer Chess (Conic, model 7012) [hap, bataais]
• CXG Systems / White & Allcock Sensor Computachess [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Denver (GMP-270CMK2) (Family Sport 200-in-1) [TeamEurope, David Haywood]
• Electronic Master Mind (Parker Brothers) [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Electroplay Quickfire [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Entex Select-A-Game Machine [hap]
• Fidelity Electronics Bridge Challenger [hap, Sean Riddle]
• Game & Watch: Snoopy (Panorama Screen) [algestam, Ryan Holtz]
• Goori Goori [Miso Kim, David Haywood]
• Great Bishi Bashi Champ (GBA48 VER. JAB) [Windy Fairy, smf]
• Gulun.Pa! (Japan 931220 L) (prototype) [lydz, Arcade-Projects]
• JAKKS Pacific Inc / Child Guidance / Pronto Games Thomas & Friends - Learning Circus Express (Sharp Cookie) (PAL, UK) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]
• JAKKS Pacific Inc / Namco / HotGen Ltd Ms. Pac-Man 7-in-1 (Wireless) (Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position, Galaga, Xevious, Mappy, New Rally X, Bosconian) (18 AUG 2004 A) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]
• SciSys Executive Chess [hap, Sean Riddle]
• SciSys Sensor Chess [hap, bataais]
• Senario Double Dance Mania - Techno Light Edition [Seam Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• Senario Guitar Super Star: You Take The Stage [David Haywood, Sean Riddle, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• Shenzhen Soyin Electric Appliance Ind. Co., Ltd. Dance 2000 / Hot 2000 (Jin Bao TV Dancing Carpet, SY-2000-04) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]
• Sony NWS-3260 [Patrick Mackinlay, Plamen Mihaylov]
• Speed Race (Seletron / Olympia) [hap, f205v]
• Spider-Man Super TV Air Jet (Lexibook Junior, JG6000SP) [TeamEurope]
• Super Space Invader 2 (Entex, black version) [hap]
• Tandy Corporation Sound Effects Chassis [hap, Kevin Horton]
• Tech2Go / WayForward Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle for the City [Sean Riddle, Kamaal Brown]

New working clones

• Big Run (11th Rallye version, US?) [system11, CoolFox]
• Cobra-Command (Japan, bootleg) [f205v]
• CXG Systems / Newcrest Technology Portachess (1985 version) [hap, Sean Riddle]
• DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou (Japan, 2002.04.05 Master Ver, location test) [ShouTime]
• Final Fight (bootleg with single OKI) [hammy, Boge, rtw, ekorz]
• Front Line (AA1, 4 PCB version) [Joe Magiera, The Dumping Union]
• G.I. Joe (US, UAA) [NeTaXe]
• Galaxy X (bootleg of Galaxian) [Andrew Welburn]
• Gun.Smoke (Germany, censored) [Saigononindou, Victor Fernandez (City Game), Jacinto Lozano]
• HP 86B Opt 001 [F.Ulivi]
• HP 86B Opt 004 [F.Ulivi]
• Jumping Break (set 2) [Kevin Eshbach]
• Jurassic 99 (Cadillacs and Dinosaurs bootleg with EM78P447AP) [TwistedTom]
• Koutetsu Yousai Strahl (Japan, bootleg) [hammy, ekorz, rtw, kuze, E.M.G]
• The Mah-jong (Japan, set 2) [ShouTime]
• Metal Slug 5 (bootleg) [TwistedTom]
• Mighty Monkey (U.Games bootleg) [f205v]
• Moon Cresta (Nichibutsu USA, encrypted) [pacman70, Asayuki]
• Pang! 3 (bootleg, set 3) [TwistedTom]
• Perfect Billiard (bootleg) [f205v]
• Pro Tennis (Japan) [ShouTime]
• Raiden Fighters 2 - Operation Hell Dive (Switzerland) [nnap]
• Route 16 (Sun Electronics) [Guru]
• Senario Guitar Super Star (red 'Gibson Flying V' style) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• Space Invaders Part II (Taito, smaller ROMs) [PokeMAME]
• Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (World 910411) [fluxcore]
• Super Contra (set 2) [Victor Fernandez (City Game), ClawGrip]
• T.A.N.K (bootleg, 8-way joystick) [Guru]
• Touchmaster 5000 (v7.11 U.K.) [Muddymusic, Porchy, The Dumping Union]
• Turbo (encrypted, program 1363-1365 rev C) [Digimon]
• Vanguard (Germany) [Paul Swan]
• Warriors of Fate (bootleg) [TwistedTom]
• Warriors of Fate (bootleg with PIC16C57) [hammy, ekorz, rtw]
• X-Men (4 Players ver UEB) [Joe Magiera, The Dumping Union]

Machines promoted to working

• Crazy Kong (Gakken) [hap]
• Lady Gum [Dirk Best]
• Luxor Datorer AB ABC 802 [Curt Coder]
• Milton Bradley Microvision [hap]
• Professor Trivia (set 1) [Dirk Best, Ivan Vangelista]

Clones promoted to working

• Atom (bootleg of Bombjack Twin) [Ivan Vangelista]
• Professor Trivia (set 2) [Dirk Best, Ivan Vangelista]
• Sangokushi II (bootleg) [TwistedTom]

New machines marked as NOT_WORKING

• Bandai Go! Go! Connie-chan! Asobou Mouse [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, gamehistory.org, anonymous]
• Carol Vorderman's Sudoku Plug & Play TV Game (All in 1 / Play Vision) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood]
• EuroPlay 2001 [Juan Romero, ClawGrip]
• Happy Skill (Italy, V611IT) [caius, The Dumping Union]
• JAKKS Pacific Inc / Handheld Games Ultimotion - Disney Fairies Sleeping Beauty & TinkerBell (JAKKS Pacific TV Game) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• JAKKS Pacific Inc / HotGen Ltd Hannah Montana G2 Deluxe / High School Musical G2 Deluxe 2-in-1 (JAKKS Pacific TV Game) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• JAKKS Pacific Inc / HotGen Ltd Sing Scene Pop (JAKKS Pacific TV Game) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Kev (FBN)]
• LeapFrog Didj [David Haywood]
• Master's Fury [Miso Kim, David Haywood]
• Montana Super Draw (4436-05, U5-0) [Brian Troha, The Dumping Union]
• Pacman BALL (PMB2 Ver.A.) [Muddymusic, Porchy]
• Roland JV-880 Multi Timbral Synthesizer Module [DBWBP]
• Roland MC-300 Micro Composer [DBWBP]
• Roland MC-50 Micro Composer [DBWBP]
• Roland MC-50mkII Micro Composer [DBWBP]
• Roland RA-30 Realtime Arranger [DBWBP]
• Roland S-10 Digital Sampling Keyboard [DBWBP]
• Roland S-220 Digital Sampler [DBWBP]
• Roland S-50 Digital Sampling Keyboard [DBWBP]
• Roland SoundCanvas SC-88VL [DBWBP]
• Roland U-20 RS-PCM Keyboard [DBWBP]
• Roland U-220 RS-PCM Sound Module [DBWBP]
• Roland W-30 Music Workstation [DBWBP]
• Saitek Kasparov Galileo [hap, Berger]
• Saitek Kasparov Renaissance (set 1) [hap, Berger]
• SciSys Kasparov Leonardo (set 1) [hap, Berger]
• Scorpion DX [ArcadeHacker, ClawGrip, Rampa, Recreativas.org]
• Sony NWS-1580 [Bitsavers, Patrick Mackinlay]
• TV Station (VTech, Spain) [Sean Riddle, ClawGrip]
• unknown Recreativos Franco slot machine [jordigahan]
• Yamaha TX81Z FM Tone Generator [DBWBP]

New clones marked as NOT_WORKING

• Alligator Hunt (protected, prototype?) [jordigahan, Heckler]
• Crazy Bonus 2002 (Ver. 1, set 3) [Ioannis Bampoulas]
• Frantic Fred (Release 2) [Brian Troha, The Dumping Union]
• Mario Kart Arcade GP (Japan, MKA1 Ver.C, update) [xuserv]
• NCR Class 3433 [rfka01]
• Olivetti Prodest PC 1 [Carl, rfka01]
• Roland MKS-100 Digital Sampler [DBWBP]
• Roland S-550 Digital Sampler [DBWBP]
• Saitek Kasparov Renaissance (set 2) [hap, Berger]
• Samsung Deskmaster 286-12 [rfka01]
• Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG Euro AT [rfka01]
• SciSys Kasparov Leonardo (set 2) [hap, Berger]
• Siemens PG 750 [rfka01]
• Siemens PG-750 486 EISA [rfka01]
• Striker Xtreme (1.00) [PinMAME]
• Zenith Data Systems Z-248 [rfka01]

New working software list additions

• apple2_flop_clcracked:
  • The Latin Hangman (Revision 1004) (cleanly cracked), The Sea Voyagers (cleanly cracked), The Wreck of the BSM Pandora (cleanly cracked) [4am, Firehawke]
  • Minerals of North Dakota (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Cities With Population 500 and Above (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Cities with Population Under 500 (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Counties (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Explorers (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Indian Tribes (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Parks and Historical Sites (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Plants (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Pride (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Symbols (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota U.S. Senators and Representatives (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), North Dakota Wildlife (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked), Notable People of North Dakota (Version 1.0) (cleanly cracked) [Frank Cifaldi, 4am, Firehawke]
• apple2_flop_orig: 816/Paint (Version 3.1), ABM, Alien Munchies, Aliens, The Bard's Tale III: The Thief of Fate, Crosscountry California, Hobgoblin's Revenge, John Madden Football, Kampfgruppe (Version 1.0), Lady Tut, The Latin Hangman (Revision 1004), Merlin's Castle, Meteoroids in Space, Microbe, Mines of Titan, Super Huey, Terrapin Logo Plus (Version 1.1), Tink!Tonk! Tonk in the Land of the Buddy-Bots, Typhoon of Steel (Version 1.0), Who Stole Cinderella's Slipper? (Version 2.0), Wild West Math Level 4, Will O The Wisp [4am, Firehawke]
• bbcm_cart: Master Smart Cartridge v2 [Nigel Barnes]
• c64_cass: Alice in Videoland, Boulder Dash 4, Collapse, Gemini Wing, Grandmaster Chess, The Greed Monster, Hacker II, Head Over Heels, James Pond 2: RoboCod, Kettle, Master Chess, Micro Rhythm, Midnight Resistance, Pulse Warrior, Realm, Summer Camp, Tetris [c64tapes.org, Zoë Blade]
• cgenie_cass: BängBäng - 2 player gun fight, Colour-Assembler NE555 timer chip information and calculator [Jürgen Buchmüller]
• dai_cass: De Acrobaten (NL) [Robbbert]
• entex_sag:
  • Baseball 4, Pinball [hap]
  • Football 4 [hap, Sean Riddle]
  • Space Invader 2 [hap, Kevin Horton]
• fmtowns_cd: The 4th Unit 5 - D-Again (Demo), Air Warrior V2.1L10, Ed Bogas' Music Machine, Ehon Writer - Denshi Ehon - Aesop World Dai-1-shuu, Gadget - Invention, Travel, & Adventure, GEdit Towns, HomeStudio V1.2L10, Hyper Address (HMB-106), Kanji Land 3-nen, Kid Pix Jr., Kotoba Asobi - CDView HiP Catch, Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, Master CD - Install Model-you, My Fair Lady CAN III. Intermediate, New Horizon CD Learning System II - English Course 1 (FM Towns Marty version), Niko², Oto to E no Deru Eigo Jisho No. 1 - Start with Words, The Queen of Duellist (HME-166A), Sargon V - World Class Chess, Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 1 (HMC-139), Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 1 (HMC-139B), Software Contest Nyuusen Sakuhinshuu 3, Virtuacall 2 [redump.org, r09]
• fmtowns_flop: Ai Shimai - Futari no Kajitsu, Doukyuusei 2 Special Disk, Music Pro-Towns (1990-05-23), S. A. 2, Shangrlia 2 Special Disk, Super Ultra Mucchin Puripuri Cyborg Maririn DX [r09]
• hp86_rom: HPIB service ROM, Service ROM [F.Ulivi]
• ibm5150:
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - The Action Game (5.25"), SimLife [ArcadeShadow]
  • Conflict Europe, Conquest of Camelot - The Search for the Grail, Harpoon, Harpoon Battleset 2 - North Atlantic Convoys, The Software Toolworks Game Pack 3 [Flyers80, FakeShemp]
  • Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places) [Gypsy Dave, FakeShemp]
  • 3-D FloorPlan Designer V2.0, Ad Lib Instrument Maker V1.51, Ad Lib Juke Box Registration Bonus Disk V1.51, Ad Lib Juke Box Registration Bonus Disk V1.62, Ad Lib Juke Box V1.5, Ad Lib Juke Box V1.6, Ad Lib Juke Box V1.64, Ad Lib Visual Composer V1.51, SYSGRATION Mouse Driver 7.03 (5.25"), SYSGRATION Mouse Driver 8.00 (3.5"), SYSGRATION Mouse Driver 8.00 (5.25") [Justin Kerk]
• ibm5170:
  • Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender-Bender, Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter (VGA release) [ArcadeShadow]
  • Jurassic Park [Flyers80, FakeShemp]
  • Pepper's Adventures in Time [Gypsy Dave, FakeShemp]
• itt3030: Master boot disk, System boot disk [Robbbert]
• microvision: MicroBird, Tetris (8021 version), Tetris (TMS1100 version) [hap]
• mm1_flop: Boot2 disk, Games disk, Games2 disk [Robbbert]
• neogeo: Metal Slug 5 (bootleg) [TwistedTom]
• pcd_flop: Lernprogramme, MS-DOS 2.11 boot disk, MS-DOS 3.1 boot disk, TDS diagnostics [Robbbert]
• saitek_schess: Classical Style Super Strong [hap, bataais]
• snes:
  • Cooly Skunk (Jpn, Prototype), Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle (Prototype) [Gaming Alexandria, ArcadeShadow]
  • Rayman (early prototype), Spot Goes to Hollywood (prototype 19950307), Spot Goes to Hollywood (prototype 19950805) [ArcadeShadow]
• sorcerer_cass: Kilopede (with sound), Starfighter [exidyboy, Robbbert]
• sorcerer_flop: CP/M v.1.42/3 (set 2) [Robbbert]
• svi318_cart: Music Mentor [Robbbert]
• timex_cass: 4K Race Refueled+, ACZ General Ledger 2000, AERCO 2068 Printer Driver V12, AERCO CP68 Printer Driver, Androids, Aritmetica, Artworx, Assalto A Embaixada, Astro Blaster (bootleg?), Auto Analyzer, Basic 64 Demo - TC 2048, Basic 64 Demo - TC 2068, Blam, Blind Alley, Britain Invaded, Budgeter, Capitalization Master, Checkbook Manager, Chess, Circuit Board Scramble, ColorPRINT, ColorTILE, Copy, Cozinheiro, Crazy Bugs, Crossfire, Cyber Zone, Demo (Keyboard Tutorial, Turtle Graphics, Home Accounting), Demonstração TC 2048, Desktop Publisher, Disassembler, Dragmaster, Financial Record Keeper, Flight Simulation, Frogger, Fun Golf, Fórmula 1, Guardian, Guerra estelar, Gulpman, Herói, Home Improvement Planner, Horace & the Spiders, Horace Goes Skiing, Horácio e as Aranhas, Hot Z Disassembler v1.43, Hot Z Disassembler v1.84, Hot Z Disassembler v1.95, Hungry Horace, Interface RS232, Invasores Lunares, JRC Catalog 3, JazzoFire, Keyword v1, Keyword v5.0, Language Usage, Math Wizardry I, Math Wizardry II, Minesweeper, Motociclismo, Mscript, Mscript (rerelease), Multi-Draw 2068, Musicola, Omnicalc 2, Orçamento Doméstico, Penetrator, Perigos Na Selva, Personal Home Finance, Personal Portfolio Manager, Pro Pinball, Pro-File 2068, Programa de a presentaçao, Quadra-Chart, Relocatable AERCO Centronics Print Driver, Simple Roulette, Smart Terminal 1, Space Raiders, Speech Synthesizer, Spelling I, Spelling II, States & Capitals, Stock Market Simulation, Super Hot Z Disassembler v2.51, Tape Corrector, Tasword Two, TC 2048 Demonstraçao, TC2048 Hi-Res Colour Demo, TechDraw Jr., Timachine, Time Teacher I, Time-Gate, Timex TC2048 Hi-Colour Demo, Toolkit, The Trader Trilogy, Travel with Trashman, TS-2068 DEMO, Upload-2000, VU-3D, VU-Calc, VU-File, War in the East, Window Print 32, Window Print 64, Word Play I, Word Play II, Wordcross, The Worx, Zeal Disassembler, Zeus Assembler [World of Spectrum, Spectrum Computing, ICEknight]
• vgmplay: The Berenstain Bears' Camping Adventure (GEN/MD), Loadstar (GEN/MD), Medal City (GEN/MD), MegaMind (GEN/MD), MegaRace (GEN/MD), Paddle Fighter (GEN/MD), Phantasy Star II Text Adventures (GEN/MD), Riddle Wired (GEN/MD), Robot Battler (GEN/MD), Slam City with Scottie Pippen (Sega CD) (GEN/MD), The Smurfs (GEN/MD), Space Harrier 32X (GEN/MD), Spirou (GEN/MD), Tintin in Tibet (GEN/MD), Waterworld (GEN/MD), X-Men - Mind Games (Beta) (32X) (GEN/MD), Yogi Bear's Cartoon Capers (GEN/MD), Zany Golf (GEN/MD) [Project2612, Tafoid]
• vsmile_cart: Avventura nel Parco Alfabeto (Italy), Disney/Pixar Toy Story 2 - Operazione: Salvataggio di Woody! (Italy), Nickelodeon Spongebob - Un giorno da Spugna (Italy), Spider-Man & Friends - La Sfida del Dottor Ock (Italy), V.Smile Football Club (Italy) [tag2015]

Software list items promoted to working

• fmtowns_cd:
  • Angel [r09]
  • Shamhat - The Holy Circlet, Suzaku [wiggy2k, r09]
• fmtowns_flop: Music Pro-Towns (1989-08-28) [r09]

New NOT_WORKING software list additions

• bbc_flop_torch: Graduate DFS, Graduate MS-DOS 2.11, Psion Xchange 1.24 [Nigel Barnes]
• cd32: Heimdall 2 - Into The Hall Of Worlds, Jetstrike, Microcosm, Project-X and F17 Challenge, Universe [Guru]
• fmtowns_cd: Ms. Detective File #1 - Iwami Ginzan Satsujin Jiken (FM Towns Marty version) [redump.org, r09]
• ibm5150: Mouse Software Test/Demo [Justin Kerk]
• leapfrog_didj_cart: Indiana Jones (USA), Nickelodeon Spongebob Squarepants - Fists of Foam (USA), Nicktoon Android Invasion (USA), Star Wars - The Clone Wars (USA) [TeamEurope]
• mobigo_cart: Marvel Super Hero Squad - Sport Heroes (UK), Merida - Legende der Highlands (Germany), Scooby-Doo! - Mystery Town (UK) [TeamEurope]
• n64: Viewpoint 2064 (Prototype) [Gaming Alexandria, Alexis B.]
• pi_storyreader_cart: 101 Dalmatiner (Germany), Arielle - Die Meerjungfrau (Germany), Bambi (Germany), Cinderella (Germany), Pinocchio (Germany), Schneewittchen und die Sieben Zwerge (Germany), Die Schöne und das Biest (Germany), Susi und STROLCH (Germany) [TeamEurope]
• picno: Nontan to Issho Anime Stamp [TeamEurope]
• tvgogo:
  • 4-in-1 (Flashcard Fishing, Break a Brick, Balloon Juggling, Penguin Maze) (US) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, anonymous]
  • Dodgeball (US) [Sean Riddle, David Haywood, Peter Wilhelmsen, anonymous]
• vsmile_cart: Disney Cenerentola - I desideri magici di Cenerentola (Italy, rev. 1), Disney/Pixar Toy Story 3 (Italy), Disney/Pixar Wall-E (Italy) [tag2015]
• vsmilem_cart: Disney La Maison de Mickey (France, Rev. 005), Marvel Spider-Man & ses amis - Missions Secrètes (France), Mon Youtou tout fou! (France) [DisizDream]

Source Changes

• cpu/z180: Moved some internal registers out of the base class, and implemented software-selectable clock divider. [AJR]
  
• cpu/mcs96: Added N8097BH and P8798 variants, and changed some variants to use 16-bit buses. [AJR]
  
• cpu/upd78k updates: [AJR]
  
  • Fixed disassembly of DBNZ and MOV A,!addr16 instructions for µPD78K/III.
  • Fixed disassembly of SFR-mode read/modify/write instructions for µPD78K/I and µPD78K/II.
• atarist.cpp: Fixed the 68K side of ACIA serial communications (keyboard microcontroller is not fully cooperating yet). [AJR]
  
• acia6850: Fixed transmission of a spurious character following master reset. [AJR]
  
• machine/upd7001.cpp: Added NEC µPD7001 analog-to-digital converter device. [AJR]
  
• dgnalpha.cpp: Removed old hack to ignore first floppy drive controller interrupt (now prevents disk boot). [AJR]
  
• mpu4dealem.cpp: Adjusted v4dealem CRT controller clock to make refresh rate more reasonable. [AJR]
  
• cpu/h8500: Added Hitachi H8/500 disassembler and skeleton CPU device family. [AJR]
  
• pasopia7.cpp: Use CRT controller to help draw screen [AJR]
  
• pasopia.cpp: Added RS-232 serial interface. [AJR]
  
• bus/pasopia: Added Toshiba Pasopia PAC2 slot, with RAM, Kanji ROM and expander options. [AJR]
  
  • pasopia.cpp, pasopia.cpp: Replaced fixed expansions with PAC2 slots.
• machine/m3002.cpp: Added M3002 real-time clock device. [AJR]
  
• europc.cpp: Fixed disk error, and replaced real-time clock implementation in driver with M3002 device. [AJR]
  
• machine/mos6551.cpp: Clear interrupt request output on reset. [AJR]
  
• Made debugger interpret numerical literals in expressions as octal for applicable address spaces in disassembly views. [AJR]
  
• machine/am9517a.cpp: Assert EOP during final DMA transfer, rather than after. [AJR]
  
• c64_cart.xml: Worked around error messages for unsupported cartridge types. [AJR]
  
• cpu/z8000 updates: [AJR]
  
  • Corrected width of Z8002 I/O space to 8 bits.
  • Forced sequence points after functions with side effects when calculating operands for certain instruction modes.
  • Implemented byte smearing for memory and I/O writes.
  • Improved misaligned word I/O implementation.
• machine/6883sam.cpp: Replaced custom banking with conventional address spaces. [AJR]
  
• bus/isa: Corrected CRT controller type for Olivetti M24 CGA card. [AJR]
  
• badlands.cpp: Use generic latch devices for CPU communications, added mirroring to 6502 memory map, and cleaned up handlers. [AJR]
  
• debuggeosx: Avoid crash if a non-existent disassembly or memory view source is selected. [AJR]
  
• cyberbal.cpp: Encapsulated Atari SAC sound board emulation as a device derived from the Atari JSA sound board device. [AJR]
  
• atarisy1.cpp, atarisy2.cpp, gauntlet.cpp: Cleaned up and modernized code. [AJR]
  
  • Replaced Atari sound communication device with generic latches, and improved handling of programmed sound resets.
  • Added the other 74LS259 addressable latch to gauntlet.cpp.
  • Corrected watchdog timeouts for all three drivers.
• cpu/m68000: Corrected 68010 DBcc timings. [AJR]
  
• atarisy1.cpp: Removed TMS5220C and VIA from machine configuration for marble and peterpak. [AJR]
  
• atarisy1.cpp: Marked indytemp as having imperfect sound and noted regression. [AJR]
  
• malzak.cpp updates: [Angelo Salese]
  
  • Added default non-volatile RAM content to Malzak II so that it boots as intended.
  • Converted playfield drawing to use a tilemap, improved playfield colors, and implemented playfield tile banking.
  • Added base mixing and priority.
• segas32.cpp: Truncate background layer color base to nine bits – fixes Arabian Fight and Soreike Kokology erratic black pens. [Angelo Salese]
  
• tmnt.cpp: Fixed Golfing Greats (Japan) inputs. [Angelo Salese]
  
• konamigx.cpp updates: [Angelo Salese]
  
  • Fixed Golfing Greats 2 inputs, re-worked DIP switches for all games, and added DIP switch locations.
  • Fixed right monitor sprite DMA with type 3/4 protection, and fixed right screen protection in Rushing Heroes and Run & Gun 2.
• pcktgal.cpp: Reset MSM5205 on changing sound bank (fixes annoying whistling sounds). [Angelo Salese]
  
• renegade.cpp updates: [Angelo Salese]
  
  • Fixed vertical sprite alignment.
  • Hooked up interrupt acknowledgement and corrected interrupt routing.
  • Hooked up coin counters.
• opwolf.cpp: Corrected Operation Wolf palette format according to schematics, and verified against PCB. [Bryan McPhail]
  
• cave.cpp updates: [cam900]
  
  • Implemented sprite position scale register.
  • Fixed ppsatan tilemap offsets.
  • Implemented sprite limits.
  • Added logging for unimplemented video register writes and expanded notes.
• atarist.cpp: Corrected DMA sound frequency calculation. [cam900]
  
• decbac06.cpp updates: [cam900]
  
  • Fixed flags map handling.
  • Added callback for system-specific tile attribute formats.
  • Refactored pen masking to use set_transmask.
• dec0.cpp: Cleaned up code. [cam900]
  
• madmotor.cpp: Simplified graphics layouts. [cam900]
  
• psikyo.cpp: Simplified dynamic tilemap size handling, converted drawing to use 32-bit RGB bitmap, and cleaned up code. [cam900]
  
• deco16ic.cpp: Fixed transparency handling with custom drawing, and added a callback for tile info and 8-bit mixing. [cam900]
  
• cninja.cpp updates: [cam900]
  
  • Fixed robocop2 8-bit tilemap drawing.
  • Fixed sound routing for games with mono output, and removed unnecessary graphics layouts. [cam900]
• darkseal.cpp: Cleaned up graphics decoding layouts. [cam900]
  
• sshangha.cpp updates: Cleaned up graphics decoding layouts, corrected palette size, and changed to mono sound output. [cam900]
  
• mirage.cpp: Simplified sprite drawing using priority callback. [cam900]
  
• snes.cpp: Split S-SMP and S-DSP emulation into separate devices, and cleaned up interfaces. [cam900]
  
• nmk16.cpp: Implemented vertical scrolling used by sabotenb, added timer for sprite DMA, and fixed sabotenb sprite delay. [cam900]
  
• ddealer.cpp, nmk16.cpp, powerins.cpp, quizpani.cpp: Use set_scrolldx for tilemap offsets. [cam900]
  
• ddealer.cpp, patapata.cpp: Use generic graphics layouts. [cam900]
  
• quizpani.cpp: Fixed visible area. [cam900]
  
• rpunch.cpp: Converted sprite drawing to single pass with priority, and cleaned up code. [cam900]
  
• powerins.cpp: Converted to derived class of nmk16_state and cleaned up code. [cam900]
  
• machine/tc009xlvc.cpp: Added support for TC0090LVC variant, and converted taito_l.cpp to use new device. [cam900]
  
• dfruit.cpp, lastbank.cpp: Removed unnecessary trampolines. [cam900]
  
• cpu/i386, machine/i8087.cpp: Handle aliases for fstp st(i) instruction. [Carl]
  
• pcxt.cpp: Added support for filetto voice output. [Carl]
  
• cpu/nec: Added support 8080 emulation mode. [Carl]
  
• mw8080bw.cpp: Added netlist-based audio for gunfight. [Colin Howell]
  
• video/apple2.cpp: Fixed DHGR shift – NTSC artifact colors now work with HLSL (GitHub #6308). [Colin Howell, R. Belmont]
  
• netlist library updates: [Couriersud]
  
  • Added pre-compiled static solvers (must be manually rebuilt when netlists are updated).
  • Improved performance of time step calculation.
• bus/abcbus updates: [Curt Coder]
  
  • Fixed default DIP switch settings for the Luxor 4105 SASI interface.
  • Added a ROM to the Xebec S1410.
  • Fixed the Luxor 55 21056 SASI interface (for ABC 850/852/856 hard drives).
• abc1600.cpp: Refactored to use modern Z8530 SCC device, and fixed floppy DMA. [Curt Coder]
  
• abc80x.cpp updates: [Curt Coder]
  
  • Fixed abc802 M1 opcode fetch.
  • Fixed memory banking for abc800c, abc800m and abc802.
  • Fixed HR graphics for abc800c and abc800m.
• nes_vt.cpp: Started moving SoC functionality out of the driver to devices. [David Haywood]
  
• triviaquiz.cpp: Hooked up question ROMs. [Dirk Best]
  
• cpu/m6805: Added support for MC68HC705C8A memory configuration, and made 68HC05 NCOP reset check that NCOP is enabled. [Dirk Best]
  
• mpu4dealem.cpp: Fixed tile background colors, made drawing use tilemaps, and added raw screen timing parameters. [Dirk Best]
  
• apple2gs.cpp: Fix missing 128 KiB RAM – ramsize option now configures fast RAM size (GitHub #6465). [gorlik, R. Belmont]
  
• emu/diexec.cpp: Don’t clear the input event queue on reset. [hackbar]
  
• cpu/mb88xx: Fixed interrupt handling. [hackbar]
  
• audio/namco52.cpp, audio/namco54.cpp, machine/namco50.cpp, machine/namco53.cpp: Hooked up reset inputs. [hackbar]
  
• machine/namco06.cpp: Improved emulation of NMI and chip select outputs. [hackbar]
  
• machine/namco51.cpp: Replaced simulation with emulation using internal CPU program. [hackbar]
  
• sstrangr.cpp: Added preliminary sound output using Space Invaders samples. [Ivan Vangelista]
  
• jedutil: Added support for PAL22V10 devices. [Kevin Eshbach]
  
• wiping.cpp: Updated ROM labels for rugrats. [Kevin Eshbach]
  
• yunsung8.cpp: Added placeholders for undumped secured PALs in magix and magixb. [Kevin Eshbach]
  
• buggychl.cpp, changela.cpp, cischeat.cpp, polepos.cpp, segaybd.cpp, tx1.cpp: Worked around the same input being assigned to a pedal and gear shift by default. [MASH]
  
• machine/74543.cpp: Added 74543 octal registered transceiver device. [Michael Zapf]
  
• machine/74161.cpp: Fixed state transitions for some corner cases and made terminal count output asynchronous. [Michael Zapf]
  
• machine/bq4847.cpp, machine/bq48x2.cpp: Added Benchmarq BQ4847, BQ4842 and BQ4542 real-time clock devices. [Michael Zapf]
  
• bus/ti99/peb: Added PGRAM battery-backed RAM card, fixed IDE adapter card, and made IDE card’s real-time clock type configurable. [Michael Zapf]
  
• Refactored AVI/MNG recording code to move it out of emu/video.cpp and reduce duplication. [Nathan Woods]
  
• luaengine.cpp: Added optional parameter to video::begin_recording() function for specifying video format. [Nathan Woods]
  
• unidasm: Added generic disassembler for Microchip PIC16 microcontroller family with extended instructions. [O. Galibert]
  
• cpu/s2650: Made interrupt acknowledge handler supply vector, and eliminated set_input_line_and_vector and HOLD_LINE. [O. Galibert]
  
• cpu/upd177x: Added disassembler for NEC µPD1771C and related processors. [O. Galibert]
  
• sound/ks0164.cpp: Added preliminary sample playback. [O. Galibert]
  
• machine/cxd1185.cpp: Added Sony CXD1185 SCSI 1 Protocol Controller device. [Patrick Mackinlay]
  
• machine/dmac_0266.cpp: Added Sony 0266 DMA Controller gate array device. [Patrick Mackinlay]
  
• news_r3k.cpp: Implemented graphics. [Patrick Mackinlay]
  
• machine/icm7170.cpp: Added ICM7170 real-time clock device (used by wxstar4k). [R. Belmont]
  
• model1.cpp: Improved swa analog throttle range. [R. Belmont]
  
• font_osx.cpp: Use Arial Unicode MS as the default font (fixes missing glyphs in many layouts). [R. Belmont]
  
• video/apple2.cpp: Fixed apple2gs fill mode behavior when no previous color is set. [R. Belmont]
  
• formats/h8_cas.cpp: Added H8T tape format (for Heathkit H8 software). [Robbbert]
  
• pasogo.xml: Corrected cartridge ROM hashes. [Robbbert]
  
• lordgun.cpp: Added default EEPROM content for lordgun. [Robbbert]
  
• ibmpcjr_cart.xml: Added disk images to lotus123 added usage instructions in a comment. [Robbbert]
  
• advision.cpp: Fixed some bugs exposed by the Code Red demo. [Robbbert]
  
• vgmplay.cpp updates: [Ryan Holtz]
  
  • Added multiple spectrogram visualization modes.
  • Fixed DC offsets occurring when chips are not used.
  • Added rate controls and a hold button.
• cps1.cpp: Added new PAL dumps. [TwistedTom]
  
  • Dumped remaining B board PALs for kodja and knightsja. [Bonky0013]
  • Dumped remaining D board PAL for wof and clones. [hammy]
  • Dumped remaining B board PAL for willowj. [Layer]
  • Dumped remaining B board PAL for cworld2j. [neocps1]
  • Dumped remaining B board PAL for kod and clones and dumped unprotected PALs for Street Fighter II Mstreet bootlegs. [Porchy]
  • Dumped remaining B board PAL for punisher and clones. [Wulfman]
• cps1.cpp updates: [TwistedTom]
  
  • Implemented B board ID register 03.
  • Added demo sounds DIP switch for ghouls.
  • Added notes about how /INT2 is generated and connected.
  • Added notes on pang3 B board and security chip.
• video/cps1.cpp: Added and updated mappers based on PAL equations. [TwistedTom]
  
  • Added CD63B, PS63B, MB63B, CP1B1F, TK24B1, WL22B, S222B, YI22B, MS22B, CK22B, KD22B, KR22B, VA24B and GBPR2 mappers.
  • Corrected KNM10B, Q522B and TN2292 mappers according to PAL equations.
• cps1bl_pic.cpp updates: [TwistedTom]
  
  • Improved dinopic sprite rendering (fixes missing tiles when character jumps and flips).
  • Disabled brightness control for bootlegs that don’t have the necessary components populated.
  • Improved wofpic emulation, making the game playable with some graphical issues.
  • Simplified wofpic graphics ROM loading.
• fcrash.cpp updates: [TwistedTom]
  
  • Simplified wofabl graphics ROM loading.
  • Removed EEPROM device from sgyxz and wofabl (these games use DIP switches for configuration).
  • Fixed sgyxz and wofabl player 3 inputs.
  • Added some DIP switch settings for sgyxz and wofabl.
  • Added hard-coded layer priority masks for sgyxz.
• gstriker.cpp: Added PAL dumps for vgoalsoc/twcup94 and clones. [TwistedTom]
  
• pcktgal.cpp: Added PAL dumps for pcktgalb. [TwistedTom]
  
• wc90b.cpp: Added PAL dumps from twcup90b2 board to all similar bootlegs. [TwistedTom]
  
• Various core clean-ups: [Vas Crabb]
  
  • util/strformat.h: Centralised instantiation of more of the formatting engine.
  • emu/fileio.cpp: Added support for iterating arbitrary numbers of path components to path_iterator and emu_file.
  • emu/romload.cpp: Made ROM loading code more straightforward.
  • emu/romload.cpp: Made software loading search the software path before searching the device path.
  • emu/romload.cpp: Made software loading correctly scan parent software for identical CHD files with different names.
  • emu/diimage.cpp: Refactored to share code for building a software search path with ROM loading and auditing.
  • emu/softlist_dev.cpp: Added validation for software parts and data areas.
  • Fixed multiple hangs when software parent relationships form a loop.
  • Re-implemented SHA-1, replacing multiple third-party implementations.
• sstrangr.cpp: Measured CPU clock frequency. [Andrew Welburn]
  
• 8080bw.cpp: Updated notes on Space Invaders PCB arrangements. [Andrew Welburn]
  
• segas32.cpp: Re-dumped radr sound ROMs. [Arzeno Fabrice]
  
• oneshot.cpp: Corrected ROM labels and PCB locations for the maddonna. [Brian Troha, The Dumping Union]
  
• vamphalf.cpp: Added idle-skipping speed-up hack for jmpbreaka. [Brian Troha]
  
• carrera.cpp: Dumped the bipolar PROM for bsebman and verified it matches the one from carrera. [caius]
  
• gsword.cpp: Decapped, dumped and hooked up AA-017 microcontroller for gsword – fixes coin handling. [Caps0ff, =/STARRIDER\=, EdHunter, developer12s, Belegdol, sadikyo, f205v, Vas Crabb]
  
• model2.cpp: Fixed airwlkrs ROM loading – fixes polygons and textures. [ElSemi]
  
• sorcerer.cpp: Added ESAG 1.3/B BIOS to sorcererd. [exidyboy]
  
• fantland.cpp: Improved parts list, measured clock frequencies and added two SN76489AN sound chips for wheelrun. [f205v]
  
• taitof2.cpp: Corrected clock frequencies and ROM labels for driveout. [f205v]
  
• megasys1.cpp: Improved documentation for kickoffb. [f205v]
  
• shisen.cpp: Verified clock frequencies, and corrected ROM labels and added placeholders for undumped PALs for sichuan2. [f205v]
  
• n64.xml: Added cartridge PCB documentation for 10 entries. [FakeShemp]
  
• docs: Disabled “smart” substitution of typographical quotes. [Firehawke]
  
• sound/disc_flt.hxx: Improved documentation for DISCRETE_FILTER1 and DISCRETE_FILTER2. [Frank Palazzolo]
  
• 2mindril.cpp, 3x3puzzl.cpp, alpha68k.cpp, alpha68k_n.cpp, crystal.cpp, lsasquad.cpp, pturn.cpp nycaptor.cpp, timeplt.cpp: Added DIP switch locations. [Guru]
  
• 39in1.cpp: Added notes about expected boot sequence and unimplemented DIP switches. [Guru]
  
• sstrangr.cpp: Added DIP switch locations, ASCII PCB layouts and additional notes. [Guru]
  
• model2.cpp: Re-dumped airwlkrs data ROMs. [Guru]
  
• btime.cpp: Added DIP switch locations, verified DIP switch settings, and fixed DIP switch settings for ptennis and clone. [Guru]
  
• decocass.cpp: Verified cptennis DIP switch settings against documentation. [Guru]
  
• snk.cpp: Added PCB layouts and notes, and updated DIP switch locations and ROM labels. [Guru]
  
• terracre.cpp: Added DIP switch locations and corrected ROM labels. [Guru]
  
• route16.cpp, shaolins.cpp: Added DIP switch locations, added PCB layouts and updated notes. [Guru]
  
• shadfrce.cpp, shangkid.cpp, taitosj.cpp: Verified DIP switch settings and added DIP switch locations. [Guru]
  
• cd32.xml: Re-dumped atr. [Guru]
  
• homerun.cpp: Updated notes. [Guru]
  
• cps1bl_pic.cpp: Re-dumped wofpic graphics ROMs. [hammy, TwistedTom]
  
• snk.cpp: Dumped two PROMs for victroad and added some PROM labels. [Joe Magiera, The Dumping Union]
  
• m52.cpp: Added missing PROM dump to original Moon Patrol sets. [Joe Magiera, The Dumping Union]
  
• Updated hiscore.dat for latest changes. [Leezer]
  
• naomi.cpp: Re-dumped ngdup23a GDS-0023A (previous dump had bad audio track). [MajorPBX]
  
• vgmplay.xml: Updated 18 entries. [Project2612, Tafoid]
  
• fmtowns_cd.xml: Updated twenty entries to current CHD format. [r09]
  
  • aircmb2s, beast2, dangel, dorbestj, dorse93, fbas1120, gforce2, hyprocea, oasyswin, psydet1, psydet2, psydet3, psydet4, psydetf1, psydetf2, pulirula, simant, townsmg1, tss2110a, win31l11
• fmtowns_cd.xml: Added all known serial numbers for entries. [r09]
  
• fmtowns_flop.xml: Replaced msdos62 disk images with images from the master CD. [r09]
  
• fmtowns_cd.xml: Switched to dumps with proper track indexes and offset correction for 29 entries. [redump.org, r09]
  
  • adtennis, alice, asu120ex, awesome, classrod, fractal, fsc10, fsc11, fsc6, fsc7, fsc9, fsc9, fwc2, fwc3, hypraddro, infest, links386, loom, oshacoo2, psydet5, sangoku3, softcon2, sotsu93, sshangh, takamiza, tdf, townsmg2, tss1130, viewpoin
• at.cpp udpates: [rfka01]
  
  • Added neat BIOS option to n286.
  • Added quadtel BIOS option to ht12a.
  • Added d674v320r304 and d620 BIOS options to pcd4x.
• europc.cpp: Added v1.04 BIOS option to euroxt. [rfka01]
  
• olivpc1.cpp: Added rev106 and rev107 BIOS options to olivpc1 and expanded notes. [rfka01]
  
• sunplus_unsp20soc.cpp: Re-dumped jak_hmhsm, and added Flash chip pinout. [Sean Riddle]
  
• kikikai.cpp: Dumped MC68705 microcontroller for kicknrun. [Sean Riddle]
  
• dec8.cpp: Dumped the PROM from an original Cobra-Command PCB. [Stefan Lindberg]
  
• equites.cpp: Dumped Alpha 8505 microcontroller from bngotime (also used in place of Alpha 8304). [TeamEurope]
  
• ibm5170.xml: Marked disk images with WinImage as bad dumps. [telanus]
  
• megadriv.xml: Fixed transliteration of the Japanese Streets of Rage titles. [xinyingho]
  
• c64_cass.xml: Processed tape images with tapclean, and added credits for dumps. [Zoë Blade]