2/12/97

Joystick Support for Trackball/Dial/Analogue Input!

Mouse Support is back!!

First new thing with this release is the ability to emulate the trackball and dial used in some games using the joystick. This means games such as StarWars and Crystal Castles can now be played using a joystick!

Since the v0.29 source release of the official Mame was missing the code necessary to compile with mouse support, I have rewritten from SCRATCH the mouse support for games. This means that now (again) you can use the mouse in games like Tron to control the dial while the joystick controls the player.

The mouse code is highly configurable as is the joystick code so there are a set of new command line parameters to use.

1/12/97

Clive has nearly got ready the first version of our multiple joystick arcade PCB interface. This will support two joysticks with many buttons through each parallel port via a nice PCB interface, allowing two of these for full blown four joysticks etc. etc. I should have a test version in my hands by the end of this week, and then I'll release a version of Mamep allowing two player Bubble Bobble (simultaneous two joysticks) by early the week after.

Thanks also to EmuXpress for the mention. BTW let me know WHICH games you would like two player best and I'll do those too.

Also, can anyone tell me if they have joystick support when playing starwars with Mame? I modified the code yesterday to mimick an anaolgue joystick using a digital one (works just great ;-) ), so I'll release this with the next Alpha.

30/11/97 MAMEP - Alpha 3

Phoenix

• Correctly implemented the alternate musics for even and odd levels. With the included modules it plays the Fur Elise for the odd levels and Greensleves for the even levels.
• Fixed a volume problem in the original release (OSD_PLAYMIDI) now supports a volume parameter
• Made the music playback more stable.

Bubble Bobble / Bobble Bobble

• Been looking at this one a little, and so far I have to play the one piece of music all the way through (not good). However this is much better than playing with no sound at all ')
• There are nice descriptions of musics and sfxs in the source (from Oliver White) so with a bit of luck, (and some samples!!!!) we can get these going to. Does anyone have any info. on the musics and samples, or even samples from the original / other ports (Amiga?) that we can use?

Multiple Joystick Support.

• By next release you should be able to play 2 player games with 2 joysticks using either 2 game ports, or 1 game port and the single parallel joystick.
• Coming Soon...

27/10/97

Added operating system dependant music playback facilites to Mame!

This means that games like Phoenix and Bubble Bobble which don't have music at the moment can do. I always been a massive fan of Phoenix and the lack of music in every emulator so far has been a down point for me, so with a bit of time I've added module support to Mame in the same way that sample support is added.

Now I know there is the massive debate of real emulation versus sampled emulation, but in some cases I think the time needed to replicate every custom sound system is just too much. So in the first release below, you will find 2 modules for Phoenix, which means you get music and sound!! I'm pretty sure I have the music wrong, but if you know better please mail to me at alex@surferdude.com and I will put in your version.

I'm currently working on Bubble Bobble too so if you have any music/snd effects for this please contact me.