Log Message:
mame: update to 0.261.

MAME 0.261 will be the final MAME release of 2023, and it’s a real
ripper! We’re ending the year with a bang! Over a hundred pull
requests were merged this month, including several from first-time
contributors as well as many familiar names. Following up on the
work last month, two more Casio Phase Distortion synthesisers have
been added: the high-end CZ-1 keyboard and the unreleased MZ-1
module. The Yamaha MU50 XG tone generator module is also working
a lot better in this release.

Two home consoles with drawing features are now working: LJN’s
VideoArt from 1987 and Sega’s Advanced Pico BEENA from 2005. Although
they were both positioned as intellectually stimulating consoles
for children and both had drawing features, they couldn’t be more
different. The VideoArt was universally derided for its poor controls
and lack of entertainment value, drawing negative comparisons to
the popular Etch-a-Sketch toy. On the other hand, the BEENA was a
high-quality device using media combining a ROM cartridge with a
picture book, and featured dual pen digitisers. Its ARM CPU is
fairly demanding to emulate in MAME, so you’ll need a fast PC to
run it at full speed. We’re aware that the current scans of the
picture books are not perfect, but it’s still quite usable apart
from some peripherals that aren’t emulated yet.

On a completely different note, some of the Taito gambling and
medal games have started to come to life. The purpose of the games
is to separate you from your money, and there isn’t much gameplay
value, but they’re still interesting to see. Some of them feature
characters from popular Taito franchises. Speaking of gambling
games, a couple of Chinese-language mahjong gambling games from
BMC have been dumped.

Systems with AVR8 CPUs now run up to 50% faster, including the
Uzebox console, Linus Åkesson demos, and the homebrew Sega Master
System paddle controller. A means of dumping the microcontrollers
Jaleco used for protection in some Mega System 1 games has been
discovered recently, allowing the protection simulation code to be
retired for 64th St. - A Detective Story and Big Striker. Our
understanding of the gate array protection used for some other
Jaleco games has also improved. The internal Super A'Can now has
its main CPU’s internal ROM hooked up properly, improving the
accuracy of its boot process.

Of course, there’s far more in this release than we have time to
talk about here, including newly dumped Korean versions of arcade
games, bootlegs from Spain, support for PDS cards on the Mac
Quadra/LC 630 family, more Heathkit Terminal Logic Board variants,
and lots of new software list items.