Log Message:
Updated mame to 0.183.

MAME 0.183

22 Feb 2017

Hi everyone! It’s been a busy month for MAME development, and we’ve
got a whole lot of surprises to unwrap today as we continue to
celebrate twenty years of MAME. First up, we’ve added some incredibly
rare systems to MAME. Omega is an Arkanoid-inspired arcade game
with a production run of about ten boards. Dodge Man is a rare Omori
title from 1983. The vertical version of Flash Boy, a DECO Cassette
title that borrows more than a little from a well known anime is
another very rare game that was at risk of becoming nothing but a
memory. Westinghouse Test Console #5 is possibly a one-of-a-kind
wire-wrapped prototype machine for field-programming some kind of
interlocking equipment (it has a rude easter egg – press X|TRAN in
calculator mode to see it). Less rare, but still awesome, are arcade
titles Galaxy Games StarPak 3, Sega Sonic Cosmo Fighter, and a U.S.
release of Puzznic with the digitised photos intact.

This release adds support for a number of electronic toys/handheld
games, including Atari’s Touch Me (a clone of Simon, which is itself
a clone of an Atari arcade game), GAF Melody Madness, Lakeside Le
Boom, and with possibly the most awesome title if not gameplay,
LJN’s I Took a Lickin’ From a Chicken. Many of these games have
colourful, clickable artwork. MAME is dedicated to preserving more
than just video games, and these systems are great examples of some
of the other experiences you can relive through emulation.

If you use MAME’s computer emulation and have been frustrated by
modifiers not working properly in natural keyboard mode, you’ll be
pleased to know that this release addresses that. Natural keyboard
mode now works properly with many more systems, including Amiga,
Sun and RM Nimbus. Speaking of Amiga, we’ve emulated a 3rd-party
variant of the Amiga 1200 keyboard and added support for many
different language variants, so chances are you’ll be able to use
keyboard that matches your Workbench language. And speaking of
keyboards, the Zorba keyboard now works properly, so you can try
out one of the last luggable CP/M machines.

Other improvements include fixing the crash on encountering invalid
cheats, allowing multi-part software list entries to load each part
on the correct interface, emulation of the Poly-Play light organ,
a brand new preliminary Interpro 2800 driver and Clipper CPU core,
support for VIC-20 and C64 speech synthesiser cartridges, support
for the Osborne-1 Nuevo Video 80-column modification, protection
MCU emulation in Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja and Bouncing Balls, audio
improvements to a number of supported games, and optimisation of
the netlist emulation.

Some of these improvements might seem inconsequential, or apply to
systems you don’t use, but they often lie in common components used
by many other systems. For example, the Amiga 1200 and Zorba keyboards
use the same MCU family used in a lot of arcade games published by
Taito. The same change that fixes the Zorba keyboard also fixes
enemy spawning and timing in Xain'd Sleena. The Nuevo Video board
uses a common Motorola CRT controller, so improvements made to
support it stand to benefit a lot of other systems.

Of course there are plenty of other improvements not listed here,
and you can read all about them in the whatsnew.txt file, or grab
the source or Windows binaries from the download page and join in
our 20th anniversary celebration.