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It’s the end of October, which means it must be time for MAME 0.271! It’s been another good month for gambling system emulation. A few Excellent System games are now playable, including Miracle Seven and Fever 13. Several more games from IGS were dumped and emulated. As well as mahjong games, there are a few card games, including several variants of a dou dizhu game. Speaking of IGS, Mahjong Senpu is now fully playable. This game is interesting as it feels like a poor-quality imitation IGS mahjong game, although it runs on completely different hardware and doesn’t appear to rely on stolen game code.

Numerous issues with NEC PC-98 emulation have been fixed, many of them affecting graphics. This has resulted in dozens of software list items being promoted to working. The Research Machines LINK 480Z is now emulated properly. This 8-bit computer from England could boot BASIC from ROM or CP/M from floppy disks or a network file server. We’ve also added support for a somewhat newer system built around one of the oldest integrated CPUs: Dmitry Grinberg’s Linux/4004. This system emulates a MIPS I CPU on an Intel 4004 CPU, allowing Linux to run from an SD Card. Using it is definitely an exercise in patience.

As always, there’s far more in this release than we’ve got time to talk about here. There’s some very visible improvement to Namco System 23 emulation, quite a few new chess computers, more Japanese TV games, some progress on Thomson computer emulation, and lots of additions to the Apple and Sinclair software lists.

You can read about everything that changed this month in the whatsnew.txt file, and the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available on the download page.

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We’re happy to announce that MAME 0.270 is ready! A lot of work has gone into a lot of different areas of MAME throughout September. One very interesting addition is the “Zoomer” PDA. Built by Casio and marketed under multiple brand names, this PDA ran MS-DOS 3.3, GEOS 2.0 and the PenRight user interface. It was one of the first PDAs to include software developed by Palm Computing. Other exotic systems include the Sony NWS-3270 workstation and 68000 development boards from Marion Systems and Motorola themselves.

The Hitachi Basic Master Jr. is now working, giving a glimpse of the Japanese home computer market in the early 1980s. UMC’s attempt at taking on Sega and Nintendo in the mid-1990s, the Super A'Can, is in a much better state than it was previously. Although it still isn’t considered working, numerous issues with graphics and sound have been addressed, and battery-backed cartridge memory is now supported. Several more Apple II input peripherals are now supported. Support for hard-sectored floppy disk formats has been added, which should open up storage options for computers from the S-100 era.

The effort to understand the IGS027A CPUs and dump their internal programs is paying off. Over a dozen slots, mahjong and card games from IGS are now playable. If you’re a fan of these games, you can now play them in the comfort of your home with no risk of blowing your paycheque.

That’s all we’ve got time to cover here, but you can read all the exciting (and mundane) tales of development in the whatsnew.txt file. As always, you can get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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It’s almost the end of August, which means it must be time for MAME 0.269 to be unleashed on the world! The widely-used Zilog Z8410 DMA controller emulation has had an overhaul this month. In concert with the recent Z80 CPU work, this allows more realistic I/O timings for numerous systems. If you’re curious about unreleased prototypes, BASIC is starting to show signs of life on the Commodore 65.

Two additional Japanese releases of Capcom fighting games on CPS-2 hardware have been found this month: a more recent version of X-Men Vs. Street Fighter than any previously dumped set, and a version of Hyper Street Fighter II released a bit over a week before the latest known update. The microcontroller for Irem’s Gallop on M72 hardware has been dumped, allowing simulation code to be removed. Thanks to Peter Wilhelmsen and XingXing, the pace of dumping internal ROMs from IGS027A ARM CPUs has picked up, so we might see more progress on IGS games soon.

Of course, there’s lots more to enjoy, including an 8085-based prototyping board, more chess computers, and improvements to MAME’s debugger. You can read all about it in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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We’re pleased to announce that MAME 0.268 is available for your enjoyment. This release adds support for Au, an almost forgotten four-way shooter released by Tehkan in 1983. Two IGS redemption games, Fearless Pinocchio and Super Kids, are now playable and have working sound. Speaking of IGS, the Super Poker games were also made playable this month. After many years, the last major issues in Merit’s Match’em Up have been resolved. The quiz game Revelations has had its LaserDisc dumped, and the game is now emulated.

Several more Apple Macintosh models are now working, including the high-end IIfx, Quadra 900 and Quadra 950, the Macintosh Portable, and the PowerBook 100. Three 68k-based workstations made by Hewlett-Packard in the early 1980s, the HP 9826A, HP 9836A and HP 9836C, have been added in this release. Speaking of Hewlett-Packard, the HP9133 external disk interface is now supported, giving you more storage options for the HP 9000/200 and HP 9000/300 series computers.

This release adds the original release of Pop’n Music Animelo 2, the Konami release of Guttang Gottong, and quite a few chess computers. Sanyo’s PHC-20 8-bit home computer and Thaler’s MPS-65 and CT-65 6502 development boards are now supported. Software list updates include a more complete collection of NV Magazine disks for MSX 2 computers and the latest clean cracks of Apple II software on floppy disks.

You can read about all the work that went into this release in the whatsnew.txt file. The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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Today’s the day for MAME 0.267, our midyear release. This month, we’ve got a brand new Z80 CPU core. It’s going to help us support more of the extensive family of Z80-like CPUs and also allow more precise control over bus timings. Speaking of CPU emulation, there are some nice fixes for long-standing Motorola 68k floating point unit bugs. They’re particularly noticeable in classic Mac applications whenever trigonometry is involved, but they also help some arcade systems.

The Tomy Prin-C children’s sticker designer system has come to life this month, with inputs and video output, and enough bug fixes to the Fujitsu F2MC-16 CPU core to get the software running. The printer isn’t emulated, but you can still have fun experimenting with this unique system. If you want something a bit more grown-up, some DMA fixes allow the MIPS-based Sony NEWS workstations to boot the earlier NEWS-OS 4.1R, and there’s a new software list with installation media to get you started.

Of course, there are far more improvements in this release than we can list here, but you can read about all the exciting updates in the whatsnew.txt file. The source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages are available from the download page.

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MAME 0.266 is ready just in time for the end of May. The first thing you’ll notice is that Taito F3 video emulation has been reimplemented, fixing numerous long-standing graphical issues. The dynamic range compression used by several Yamaha synthesisers seems to finally be understood, fixing audible distortion. Speaking of sound, a previously missing Game Boy Advance sound channel is now emulated.

Several additional members of Nokia’s MikroMikko 1 line of 8-bit business computers from the 1980s are now supported. In PC emulation, S3 ViRGE video accelerator emulation has been simplified and improved. A couple more cartridge types have been added for MSX home computers.

This release also adds plenty of software list items and arcade bootlegs. Lots of code has been cleaned up and modernised, with various bugs fixed along the way. We’ve also added a workaround for the regression in clang 18 that was causing build failures.

As always, you can read about all the changes in this release in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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It’s time for our very special MAME 0.265 release! April has seen development across numerous areas. MAME now has support for touch screens on Linux and Windows 8 or later, opening up new possibilities for interactive artwork. If you have a suitable multi-touch screen, you can now play chords on systems with on-screen piano keyboards. Check the documentation for specifics on how touch differs from mouse control in menus. You’ll need to turn on the enable_touch option to use touch screen support on Linux.

A pair of 1970s portable computers from IBM are now emulated in MAME: the IBM 5100 and IBM 5110. Based on a heavily microcoded 16-bit architecture, these systems ran APL software by emulating a System/360 mainframe and BASIC software by emulating a System/3 business system (ancestors of IBM Z and IBM i, respectively). Prior to the introduction of the IBM 5100, APL was exclusive to large mainframe computers. A self-contained 25 kg system running APL as well as BASIC was revolutionary.

You can now plug a virtual Super Game Module into your emulated ColecoVision, adding more RAM and better sound output. Many titles from the vibrant ColecoVision homebrew development community require or make use of the Super Game Module. There’s also a big update to the ColecoVision software lists, including lots of homebrew software to try out. Other software list additions this month include one of the remaining Bandai RX-78 game cartridges, two more GameKing III games, a batch of MSX2 floppy disks, and the latest Apple II floppy disk dumps.

Of course, we haven’t stopped working on arcade game emulation. For the first time, you can play Konami’s Tokimeki Memorial Oshiete Your Heart games. These spin-offs of the popular dating simulation series used heart rate and galvanic skin resistance sensors and printed the results from your game. What appears to be an early version of Visco’s Kokontouzai Eto Monogatari drop puzzle game has been found and dumped. This version has much less content in the data ROM and a smaller program. Another rare find dumped this month is a production version of the CES Galaxy Games StarPak 4 multi-game cartridge.

Other improvements this month include serial console support for the KIM-1 hobbyist computer and an option to use one binary file per track when extracting CHD CD-ROM images. You can read about everything that happened in the whatsnew.txt file, or get the source code and 64-bit Windows binary packages from the download page.

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