Log message:
mame: Needs FORCE_DRC_C_BACKEND on non-x86

Log message:
mame: update to 0.224.

Are you ready kids? MAME 0.224 (our August release) is out now! As
always, there’s plenty to talk about. First of all, the Magnavox
Odyssey² and Philips Videopac+ G7400 have had a major overhaul,
with many graphical errors fixed, most software working, and support
for the Chess and Home Computer modules. The Gigatron 8-bit homebrew
computer, created by the late Marcel van Kervinck and based entirely
on 7400-series logic chips, is now working with graphics and
controller support. Acorn 8-bit expansions continue to arrive, with
several additions for the BBC Micro and Electron. Speaking of
expansions, regular contributor F.Ulivi has delivered serial modules
for the HP Integral PC and HP9825/HP9845 families.

Analog arcade audio continues to advance. If you’ve played Namco’s
Tank Battalion, ancestor of the NES classic Battle City, you’ll be
acutely aware of the limitations of the sample-based audio. That
has been addressed this month, with netlist-based audio emulation.
For Midway, 280 ZZZAP sound has been further refined, and netlist-based
audio has been implemented for Laguna Racer and Super Speed race,
which use similar circuitry. Sega G-80 games have received some
long-overdue attention, with netlist-based audio added for Astro
Blaster, Eliminator, Space Fury and Zektor, as well as better
Universal Sound Board emulation for Star Trek and Tac/Scan, and
more accurate CPU timing. Other games receiving netlist-based audio
are Destroyer and Flyball from Atari, and Fire One and Star Fire
from Exidy. On the topic of audio emulation, the ultra low cost
GameKing now has preliminary sound emulation, making the games feel
more complete.

Work on UK gambling systems has continued, with several more
Barcrest, BWB and JPM games working in this release. There are also
a number of new European gambling games, including several Cherry
Master and Jolly Joker sets. A significant number of arcade driving
games have had additional internal layouts optimised for use on
wide aspect ratio displays added. Other advances in home computer
emulation include Apple IIe RGB monitor mode support, Apple II CMS
SCSII II card support, and proper emulation speed for the VTech
Laser 500.

Log message:
mame: update to 0.223.

pkgsrc change: add a BUILDLINK_TRANSFORM that should fix the build
on powerpc (and possibly sparc64), from he@.

MAME 0.223 has finally arrived, and what a release it is – there’s
definitely something for everyone! Starting with some of the more
esoteric additions, Linus Åkesson’s AVR-based hardware chiptune
project and Power Ninja Action Challenge demos are now supported.
These demos use minimal hardware to generate sound and/or video,
relying on precise CPU timings to work. With this release, every
hand-held LCD game from Nintendo’s Game & Watch and related lines
is supported in MAME, with Donkey Kong Hockey bringing up the rear.
Also of note is the Bassmate Computer fishing aid, made by Nintendo
and marketed by Telko and other companies, which is clearly based
on the dual-screen Game & Watch design. The steady stream of TV
games hasn’t stopped, with a number of French releases from
Conny/VideoJet among this month’s batch.

For the first time ever, games running on the Barcrest MPU4 video
system are emulated well enough to be playable. Titles that are
now working include several games based on the popular British TV
game show The Crystal Maze, Adders and Ladders, The Mating Game,
and Prize Tetris. In a clear win for MAME’s modular architecture,
the breakthrough came through the discovery of a significant flaw
in our Motorola MC6840 Programmable Timer Module emulation that
was causing issues for the Fairlight CMI IIx synthesiser. In the
same manner, the Busicom 141-PF desk calculator is now working,
thanks to improvements made to Intel 4004 CPU emulation that came
out of emulating the INTELLEC 4 development system and the prototype
4004-based controller board for Flicker pinball. The Busicom 141-PF
is historically significant, being the first application of Intel’s
first microprocessor.

Fans of classic vector arcade games are in for a treat this month.
Former project coordinator Aaron Giles has contributed netlist-based
sound emulation for thirteen Cinematronics vector games: Space War,
Barrier, Star Hawk, Speed Freak, Star Castle, War of the Worlds,
Sundance, Tail Gunner, Rip Off, Armor Attack, Warrior, Solar Quest
and Boxing Bugs. This resolves long-standing issues with the previous
simulation based on playing recorded samples. Colin Howell has also
refined the sound emulation for Midway’s 280-ZZZAP and Gun Fight.

V.Smile joystick inputs are now working for all dumped cartridges,
and with fixes for ROM bank selection the V.Smile Motion software
is also usable. The accelerometer-based V.Smile Motion controller
is not emulated, but the software can all be used with the standard
V.Smile joystick controller. Another pair of systems with inputs
that now work is the original Macintosh (128K/512K/512Ke) and
Macintosh Plus. These systems’ keyboards are now fully emulated,
including the separate numeric keypad available for the original
Macintosh, the Macintosh Plus keyboard with integrated numeric
keypad, and a few European ISO layout keyboards for the original
Macintosh. There are still some emulation issues, but you can play
Beyond Dark Castle with MAME’s Macintosh Plus emulation again.

In other home computer emulation news, MAME’s SAM Coupé driver now
supports a number of peripherals that connect to the rear expansion
port, a software list containing IRIX hard disk installations for
SGI MIPS workstations has been added, and tape loading now works
for the Specialist system (a DIY computer designed in the USSR).

Log message:
*: revbump for libsndfile

Log message:
*: revbump after fontconfig bl3 changes (libuuid removal)

Log message:
mame: update to 0.222.

MAME 0.222

26 Jun 2020

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.

MAME 0.221

19 May 2020

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.

Log message:
mame: work around failures on aarch64

Log message:
Revbump for icu

Log message:
Recursive revision bump after textproc/icu update

Log message:
mame: update to 0.220.

In a world of uncertainty, perhaps you can derive a little comfort
from MAME 0.220, our delayed release for the March development
cycle. This month has seen fixes for some old bugs in Final Star
Force, Ribbit! and Night Slashers, emulation of Crab Grab (the
other Game & Watch title with a colour overlay), the acquisition
of Solite Spirits (an early version of what became 1945k III), and
preliminary work on the Naruto TV game running on the XaviX 2
platform. There are some big software list updates this month,
including a lot of Apple II software aimed at North Dakota schools,
and the latest VGM music packs. Speaking of which, the VGM player
can now show pretty visualisations while you listen.

Newly supported peripherals include the Baby Blue II CPU Plus card
for PC compatibles, serial and CP/M modules for the HP 85 and HP
86, more sound and disk expansions for the TI-99 family, the CoCo
PSG cartridge, and a variety of 8-bit Acorn expansions. We’ve added
ROM dumps for a lot of synthesisers in this release, and while most
of them are not working yet, they’re there to tinker with if you’re
interested.