Log Message:
mame: update to 0.257.

Well, it’s the end of another month, meaning MAME 0.257 is about
due! First of all, you might notice there are some big software
list updates this month. There are quite a few ZX Spectrum cassettes
and a pile of MSX cartridges. There’s also a boatload of original
Apple II floppy disk dumps, including plenty of Infocom, MECC,
Stickybear and Timeout titles. More 3.5" disks for 8-bit Apple II
computers are being dumped now, so make sure you have your emulated
drives set up properly if you want to try them out. Speaking of
Apple, Macintosh computers with 68040 CPUs are starting to reach
working status in MAME. Get ready to relive the confusing array of
Quadra, Centris and LC models from the early 1990s.

For many years, Capcom’s Avengers was an enigma. It was obvious
that substantial parts of the game’s logic don’t run on the main
CPU, but how it was actually implemented was a long-standing mystery.
It turns out the cheeky boys at Capcom put an 8751 microcontroller
under the sound module on the circuit board, and no-one noticed it
hiding there until Phil Bennett spotted it last year! Since then,
a microcontroller was sourced, and the internal program was
exfiltrated by Caps0ff. Unfortunately, the data was damaged slightly,
but it’s now running in MAME with a patch. This allowed the old
simulation code to be removed, providing a better representation
of the game’s original logic.

If you’ve been following updates this year, you might have noticed
the activity around the 16-bit Psion handheld computers. Quite a
few have been promoted to working this month, including several
Series 3 clamshell PDAs and the Workabout data entry terminal.
Naturally, there’s a software list for Psion Solid State Disk media
for you to try out. From the same corner of the world, MAME gained
support for the Bellfruit “Black Box” electromechanical gambling
machine platform. Although the games are marked as not working,
you can spin the reels without having to worry about losing your
shirt.

There’s lots more in this release, ranging from an overhaul for
Taito’s Change Lanes, to support for building against Qt 6 on Linux.