emulation.net News Archives

March 1999

MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b8! Although this version still has several kinks to be worked out, it supports a significant number of new games.
A second update for Blue Label is available from the Lismore home page. This version fixes a lot of crash bugs and incompatibilities. I haven't had a chance to test it yet but hopefully more information will be available soon. (If you have not yet installed the first update, do that before installing the second update.)
IPS Patcher has been updated to version 1.0.5! This version is much more stringent about error checking, so the possibility of file corruption due to IPS problems have been reduced significantly.
A new Playstation emulator has been released for the PC, called Bleem! This emulator gives Virtual Game Station excellent competition--it supports hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, and has very modest system requirements. Fortunately, the Bleem team has announced that a Macintosh port is planned; not only that, but they promise that unlike Virtual Game Station, it will run acceptably on non-G3 Macintoshes.
CNET's Gamecenter.com has posted an interesting article about emulation, Emulation Nation.

Virtual Gameboy has been updated to version 1.5! This version fixes several bugs, and supports InputSprocket and RAVE mode!
freeMSX has been updated to version 0.98! This version supports MSX2+ and has status windows for PSG/OPLL sound. (This update has been around for a long time, but the page with the update wasn't connected to the main freeMSX page, so I had a hard time finding it.)
True Reality has been updated; this version runs more demos, and has better N64 video support.
Brad Oliver reports that MacMAME 0.35b7 may not be released for some time. Apparently, this release only adds one or two new games, but causes problems with a lot of the Macintosh-specific code in MAME. Hopefully these problems can be ironed out soon.
Thank you for the many, many helpful replies I got regarding Blue Label hard drive images! Blue Label users can now download pre-configured FreeDOS and Caldera DR-DOS hard drive images. Furthermore, MacBochs hard drive images work perfectly with Blue Label if you change their type and creator to what Blue Label expects them to be, so with only a bit of effort, the Debian Linux hard drive on the MacBochs homepage can also be used with Blue Label! (Another source of MacBochs hard drive images can be found here.)
Several users noted problems similar to mine with Blue Label crashing upon startup or on exit. Problematic devices include ix3D Ultimate Rez cards, Gravis Firebirds, Wacom Tablets, VST USB floppy drives and even USB keyboards--in each case, users were able to solve Blue Label incompatibilities by removing the device in question. Networking is apparently a common culprit, and trying to use any Macintosh USB device with Blue Label is quirky at best. One reader noted that MacBochs was about as cheap as Blue Label, and while slower, MacBochs suffers from many less stability issues, and is shareware; users can ensure that MacBochs does what they need before spending their money on it.
A copy of ][ in a Mac has been located! This is the first emulator ever released for the Macintosh. Although it doesn't work right on most Macs nowadays, since it requires the ability to switch into black-and-white mode, it is still interesting to check out this piece of Macintosh history.
ImageMaker GS is a utility which will help you make DiskCopy-compatible images on an Apple IIgs, for use with Bernie ][ the Rescue.
PSX MagiKard is a new utility which will allow you to manage the data on Virtual Game Station memory card files. Currently it only displays the contents of the memory card files, however.
The No-Frills CVGS Resource Page is a compendium of information on Connectix's Virtual Game Station.
The MacMAME Screenshot Library is a web site dedicated to catalogging screenshots of each game supported by MacMAME.
NESBase has been updated to version 7.5.
Several readers noted the release of USB Overdrive, a great utility for allowing USB gamepads and joysticks to work with software that only expects keyboard input. It's great for use with emulators which don't directly support InputSprocket.
Stella, an Atari 2600 emulator, will be updated to version 1.1 soon!

MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b6! This update fixes a bug which caused the sound to spontaneously disable itself on some occasions, and supports many new games as well!
Virtual Gameboy 1.5 is coming very soon!
Lismore has released the long-awaited Update 1 for Blue Label, which allows the emulator to start up on Blue and White G3s and iMacs! They have written a Frequently Asked Questions list as well, which documents several known issues with the emulator.
So far, my experiences with Blue Label have improved, but not dramatically so. Unfortunately, several conflicts keep me from really using the emulator successfully. Blue Label is still not compatible with my Kensington Mouse, so I have to disable its extensions before using the emulator, and seems to lock up entirely if I try enable my VST USB Floppy Drive as an emulated disk drive. It also refuses to run if I try to boot it with a Windows 98 hard drive from Virtual PC--this is probably due to Connectix's nonstandard extensions to Windows, however. Lacking floppy support or bootable PC CD-ROMs, I haven't been able to successfully install any OS with Blue Label. Furthermore, it seems to always crash the Macintosh with error type 10 after trying to quit the emulator. However, several users have mentioned that Virtual PC can be used to install basic OS software on a drive before using Blue Label--but if you've already got Virtual PC, it hardly seems worth an additional $20 to get Blue Label as well. Unfortunately, it seems that without a PC on your desk or another emulator already handy, installing Blue Label is almost impossible, and even with one handy, it is far from simple.
This dilemma leads me to a request to my readers. If one of you has a stable Blue Label configuration and an hour to kill, try downloading FreeDOS, RxDOS or OpenDOS and installing it on an empty, 10MB Blue Label hard disk image. Compressed, such an image would probably take under 3MB. I'd like to make it available on emulation.net so that first-time Blue Label users (including myself) would have one less hurdle to overcome while installing the software. Feel free to contact me about this, but don't just e-mail me with this file as an attachment! (My connection to the Internet from home is just a 56k modem.)

Connectix Virtual Game Station has been updated to version 1.2! This version increases game compatibility, optimizes speed on a few titles, supports DexDrive, and also strengthens the emulator's copy protection (although I have yet to hear of a way to run pirated CDs on version 1.1).
News about Blue Label continues to arrive. I'll try to summarize most of the mail I've been receiving:

A large number of users report that they cannot create hard disk files. This problem can normally be averted by rebooting with extensions off. Also, the emulator seems to accept Virtual PC hard disk images.
Several readers report that Blue Label will crash or lock up as soon as it begins to "start components." Currently there is no known fix for this problem.
One iMac customer found that downgrading the Mac OS ROM file from the newest version, 1.2.1, to an older version, found on his System Software CD, allowed Blue Label to run on his machine. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be an option on flavored iMacs, as these machines are shipped from the factory with Mac OS ROM 1.2.1.
One user found that the FaxSTF Menu extension, preinstalled on iMacs and several other Power Mac configurations, conflicted with the Blue Label Setup program. Booting with extensions off seemed to cure the problem.
G3s have the most problems with Blue Label; 603s and 604s have much better odds of running Blue Label without problems. (However, having a 603 or 604 is not a guarantee that Blue Label will run.)
Blue Label seems to be entirely incompatible with Kensington mice; the mouse component will fail to initialize for Mouse-in-a-Box or Thinking Mouse users.
Many users who can get Blue Label to start up are having problems installing an OS. I've read several reports that Windows 98 will occasionally fail in the middle of installation, reporting a "corrupt CAB file," even on brand new, shrinkwrapped CDs. Also, users installing MS-DOS report errors and crashes after attempting to eject the first diskette.
Blue Label running Windows has problems with Plug-and-Play; most notably, Windows will not detect the CD-ROM hardware.
The handful of users who can get Blue Label past the OS installation stage report that its DOS and Linux speeds are favorable in comparison to Virtual PC; however, in Windows 95 or 98, it is too slow to be usable. According to one report, WordPad took 35 seconds to load on a PowerBook 2400.
Many users, after completing their purchase, are not getting a serial number in their confirmation e-mail. Without this number, the installer will not run.
A user known as Bill Goose, temp1234, James 007 Bond, and other aliases seems to be planting testimonials for Lismore. He sent literally identical e-mails to me, MacNN, MacPC, MacInTouch, MacOpinion, and undoubtedly other sites as well. His English is very reminiscent of the broken English found in the Blue Label documentation, and he became extremely defensive when others began doubting his motivations, including threatening some people with lawsuits (for what? Defamation of character??). I am very, very suspicious of some of the testimonials I've read of Blue Label, but this one sticks out in its audacity.
The phone number listed for Lismore Technical Support is 1-095-538-6564, but this number is actually non-existent.
Digital River, the online distributor for Lismore, is investigating Lismore as a possible case of fraud. According to MacInTouch, they have been forced to offer refunds to many users.

Again I must urge potential customers to use caution with Blue Label; although some users have made it work, it's a bit of a gamble. Unless you're comfortable throwing away $20, I don't recommend that you take the risk. On a personal note, I still have yet to see Blue Label boot first-hand.

The mysterious PC emulator, Blue Label, was released yesterday at the stunning price point of $19.95! This price point is made possible through online purchasing--you type in your credit card, then download the software--and the fact that Blue Label comes with no OS at all; the user is required to download an operating system on their own, or install one from a CD-ROM. Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot recommend Blue Label under any circumstances, at any price. I have personally tested Blue Label on three machines--an iMac, a G3/400 Blue & White, and a Power Macintosh G3/266. Among these, this was the most interesting screenshot I could get--I could not get Blue Label to load at all on any of the test systems. In fact, I have only heard from one person who was able to get the program to start at all. To make matters worse, technical support has yet to respond to my e-mails, and the technical support phone number appears to be an overseas call! Suffice it to say, I feel cheated. Until the bugs are fixed, save your twenty dollars, or invest that money into RealPC or Virtual PC with DOS.
MacTX has been updated to version 0.9! If you're been running the alpha version, this is quite a step forward.
The Palm OS Emulator has been updated to version 2.1d26!
If you buy a new PowerBook G3 before April 31, you can get a free copy of Virtual PC, compliments of Apple!

SNES9X has been updated to version 1.1.8a! This fixes a small but noticable bug which was causing visible performance degradation for many users.
MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b5!
RealPC has been updated to version 1.0.5, and its companion SoftWindows has reached version 5.0.5! These versions support emulated hard drive sizes up to 2GB, simultaneous support for SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROM drives, support for USB floppy drives, and several bug fixes.

SNES9X has been updated to version 1.1.8! This version has several major improvements; definitely check this one out.
GBMac has been updated to version 1.1.0b2!
Bernie ][ the Rescue, an Apple IIgs emulator, has been updated to version 2.0.2! This version fixes shared volumes in ProDOS 8.
An emulator for the world's first stored-program computer, the Baby, has been released!
NEShots has been updated to version 0.38.
A French version of ColEm has been released.
Through March 31st, Connectix is offering a $40 rebate on Virtual PC with Windows 98! Just print out and mail in this rebate form.
I've made an effort to clean up a lot of the dead links on emulation.net. If you find any broken or outdated links, please let me know.

Some readers have found that Stuffit Expander 5.1 will not decompress many files found on this site--specifically, it mangles MacBinary ".bin" files, refusing to decode any files but often deleting the newly-downloaded archive. After looking into the problem, I am nearly certain that this is a bug in Stuffit; every other tool I tried has worked perfectly with these archives. For now, I highly recommend downgrading to Stuffit Expander 4.5, or simply using MindExpander 0.92 to decompress files. Although MindExpander still has its share of problems, it's easy to use and will likely improve with its next release, unlike Stuffit Expander which has been steadily getting worse with every update. (Note: if you choose to return to Stuffit Expander 4.5, make sure to remove any Stuffit 5 extensions from your Extensions folder.)
MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b4a! As usual, many new arcade titles are supported in this version.
SIDPlay, a Commodore 64 sound player, has been updated to version 2.0!
The price of Amiga Forever, a package which includes the Amiga emulator as well as necessary ROM images in a legal form, has been reduced to $29.99.
MacBochs, a shareware PC emulator, has been updated to version 990219! This version makes setup even easier than before--all you need to do to start is double-click the application.
A new version of SNES9X is coming soon!

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	MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b8! Although this version still has several kinks to be worked out, it supports a significant number of new games. A second update for Blue Label is available from the Lismore home page. This version fixes a lot of crash bugs and incompatibilities. I haven't had a chance to test it yet but hopefully more information will be available soon. (If you have not yet installed the first update, do that before installing the second update.) IPS Patcher has been updated to version 1.0.5! This version is much more stringent about error checking, so the possibility of file corruption due to IPS problems have been reduced significantly. A new Playstation emulator has been released for the PC, called Bleem! This emulator gives Virtual Game Station excellent competition--it supports hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, and has very modest system requirements. Fortunately, the Bleem team has announced that a Macintosh port is planned; not only that, but they promise that unlike Virtual Game Station, it will run acceptably on non-G3 Macintoshes. CNET's Gamecenter.com has posted an interesting article about emulation, Emulation Nation.
	Virtual Gameboy has been updated to version 1.5! This version fixes several bugs, and supports InputSprocket and RAVE mode! freeMSX has been updated to version 0.98! This version supports MSX2+ and has status windows for PSG/OPLL sound. (This update has been around for a long time, but the page with the update wasn't connected to the main freeMSX page, so I had a hard time finding it.) True Reality has been updated; this version runs more demos, and has better N64 video support. Brad Oliver reports that MacMAME 0.35b7 may not be released for some time. Apparently, this release only adds one or two new games, but causes problems with a lot of the Macintosh-specific code in MAME. Hopefully these problems can be ironed out soon. Thank you for the many, many helpful replies I got regarding Blue Label hard drive images! Blue Label users can now download pre-configured FreeDOS and Caldera DR-DOS hard drive images. Furthermore, MacBochs hard drive images work perfectly with Blue Label if you change their type and creator to what Blue Label expects them to be, so with only a bit of effort, the Debian Linux hard drive on the MacBochs homepage can also be used with Blue Label! (Another source of MacBochs hard drive images can be found here.) Several users noted problems similar to mine with Blue Label crashing upon startup or on exit. Problematic devices include ix3D Ultimate Rez cards, Gravis Firebirds, Wacom Tablets, VST USB floppy drives and even USB keyboards--in each case, users were able to solve Blue Label incompatibilities by removing the device in question. Networking is apparently a common culprit, and trying to use any Macintosh USB device with Blue Label is quirky at best. One reader noted that MacBochs was about as cheap as Blue Label, and while slower, MacBochs suffers from many less stability issues, and is shareware; users can ensure that MacBochs does what they need before spending their money on it. A copy of ][ in a Mac has been located! This is the first emulator ever released for the Macintosh. Although it doesn't work right on most Macs nowadays, since it requires the ability to switch into black-and-white mode, it is still interesting to check out this piece of Macintosh history. ImageMaker GS is a utility which will help you make DiskCopy-compatible images on an Apple IIgs, for use with Bernie ][ the Rescue. PSX MagiKard is a new utility which will allow you to manage the data on Virtual Game Station memory card files. Currently it only displays the contents of the memory card files, however. The No-Frills CVGS Resource Page is a compendium of information on Connectix's Virtual Game Station. The MacMAME Screenshot Library is a web site dedicated to catalogging screenshots of each game supported by MacMAME. NESBase has been updated to version 7.5. Several readers noted the release of USB Overdrive, a great utility for allowing USB gamepads and joysticks to work with software that only expects keyboard input. It's great for use with emulators which don't directly support InputSprocket. Stella, an Atari 2600 emulator, will be updated to version 1.1 soon!
	MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b6! This update fixes a bug which caused the sound to spontaneously disable itself on some occasions, and supports many new games as well! Virtual Gameboy 1.5 is coming very soon! Lismore has released the long-awaited Update 1 for Blue Label, which allows the emulator to start up on Blue and White G3s and iMacs! They have written a Frequently Asked Questions list as well, which documents several known issues with the emulator. So far, my experiences with Blue Label have improved, but not dramatically so. Unfortunately, several conflicts keep me from really using the emulator successfully. Blue Label is still not compatible with my Kensington Mouse, so I have to disable its extensions before using the emulator, and seems to lock up entirely if I try enable my VST USB Floppy Drive as an emulated disk drive. It also refuses to run if I try to boot it with a Windows 98 hard drive from Virtual PC--this is probably due to Connectix's nonstandard extensions to Windows, however. Lacking floppy support or bootable PC CD-ROMs, I haven't been able to successfully install any OS with Blue Label. Furthermore, it seems to always crash the Macintosh with error type 10 after trying to quit the emulator. However, several users have mentioned that Virtual PC can be used to install basic OS software on a drive before using Blue Label--but if you've already got Virtual PC, it hardly seems worth an additional $20 to get Blue Label as well. Unfortunately, it seems that without a PC on your desk or another emulator already handy, installing Blue Label is almost impossible, and even with one handy, it is far from simple. This dilemma leads me to a request to my readers. If one of you has a stable Blue Label configuration and an hour to kill, try downloading FreeDOS, RxDOS or OpenDOS and installing it on an empty, 10MB Blue Label hard disk image. Compressed, such an image would probably take under 3MB. I'd like to make it available on emulation.net so that first-time Blue Label users (including myself) would have one less hurdle to overcome while installing the software. Feel free to contact me about this, but don't just e-mail me with this file as an attachment! (My connection to the Internet from home is just a 56k modem.)
	Connectix Virtual Game Station has been updated to version 1.2! This version increases game compatibility, optimizes speed on a few titles, supports DexDrive, and also strengthens the emulator's copy protection (although I have yet to hear of a way to run pirated CDs on version 1.1). News about Blue Label continues to arrive. I'll try to summarize most of the mail I've been receiving: A large number of users report that they cannot create hard disk files. This problem can normally be averted by rebooting with extensions off. Also, the emulator seems to accept Virtual PC hard disk images. Several readers report that Blue Label will crash or lock up as soon as it begins to "start components." Currently there is no known fix for this problem. One iMac customer found that downgrading the Mac OS ROM file from the newest version, 1.2.1, to an older version, found on his System Software CD, allowed Blue Label to run on his machine. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be an option on flavored iMacs, as these machines are shipped from the factory with Mac OS ROM 1.2.1. One user found that the FaxSTF Menu extension, preinstalled on iMacs and several other Power Mac configurations, conflicted with the Blue Label Setup program. Booting with extensions off seemed to cure the problem. G3s have the most problems with Blue Label; 603s and 604s have much better odds of running Blue Label without problems. (However, having a 603 or 604 is not a guarantee that Blue Label will run.) Blue Label seems to be entirely incompatible with Kensington mice; the mouse component will fail to initialize for Mouse-in-a-Box or Thinking Mouse users. Many users who can get Blue Label to start up are having problems installing an OS. I've read several reports that Windows 98 will occasionally fail in the middle of installation, reporting a "corrupt CAB file," even on brand new, shrinkwrapped CDs. Also, users installing MS-DOS report errors and crashes after attempting to eject the first diskette. Blue Label running Windows has problems with Plug-and-Play; most notably, Windows will not detect the CD-ROM hardware. The handful of users who can get Blue Label past the OS installation stage report that its DOS and Linux speeds are favorable in comparison to Virtual PC; however, in Windows 95 or 98, it is too slow to be usable. According to one report, WordPad took 35 seconds to load on a PowerBook 2400. Many users, after completing their purchase, are not getting a serial number in their confirmation e-mail. Without this number, the installer will not run. A user known as Bill Goose, temp1234, James 007 Bond, and other aliases seems to be planting testimonials for Lismore. He sent literally identical e-mails to me, MacNN, MacPC, MacInTouch, MacOpinion, and undoubtedly other sites as well. His English is very reminiscent of the broken English found in the Blue Label documentation, and he became extremely defensive when others began doubting his motivations, including threatening some people with lawsuits (for what? Defamation of character??). I am very, very suspicious of some of the testimonials I've read of Blue Label, but this one sticks out in its audacity. The phone number listed for Lismore Technical Support is 1-095-538-6564, but this number is actually non-existent. Digital River, the online distributor for Lismore, is investigating Lismore as a possible case of fraud. According to MacInTouch, they have been forced to offer refunds to many users. Again I must urge potential customers to use caution with Blue Label; although some users have made it work, it's a bit of a gamble. Unless you're comfortable throwing away $20, I don't recommend that you take the risk. On a personal note, I still have yet to see Blue Label boot first-hand.
	The mysterious PC emulator, Blue Label, was released yesterday at the stunning price point of $19.95! This price point is made possible through online purchasing--you type in your credit card, then download the software--and the fact that Blue Label comes with no OS at all; the user is required to download an operating system on their own, or install one from a CD-ROM. Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot recommend Blue Label under any circumstances, at any price. I have personally tested Blue Label on three machines--an iMac, a G3/400 Blue & White, and a Power Macintosh G3/266. Among these, this was the most interesting screenshot I could get--I could not get Blue Label to load at all on any of the test systems. In fact, I have only heard from one person who was able to get the program to start at all. To make matters worse, technical support has yet to respond to my e-mails, and the technical support phone number appears to be an overseas call! Suffice it to say, I feel cheated. Until the bugs are fixed, save your twenty dollars, or invest that money into RealPC or Virtual PC with DOS. MacTX has been updated to version 0.9! If you're been running the alpha version, this is quite a step forward. The Palm OS Emulator has been updated to version 2.1d26! If you buy a new PowerBook G3 before April 31, you can get a free copy of Virtual PC, compliments of Apple!
	SNES9X has been updated to version 1.1.8a! This fixes a small but noticable bug which was causing visible performance degradation for many users. MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b5! RealPC has been updated to version 1.0.5, and its companion SoftWindows has reached version 5.0.5! These versions support emulated hard drive sizes up to 2GB, simultaneous support for SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROM drives, support for USB floppy drives, and several bug fixes.
	SNES9X has been updated to version 1.1.8! This version has several major improvements; definitely check this one out. GBMac has been updated to version 1.1.0b2! Bernie ][ the Rescue, an Apple IIgs emulator, has been updated to version 2.0.2! This version fixes shared volumes in ProDOS 8. An emulator for the world's first stored-program computer, the Baby, has been released! NEShots has been updated to version 0.38. A French version of ColEm has been released. Through March 31st, Connectix is offering a $40 rebate on Virtual PC with Windows 98! Just print out and mail in this rebate form. I've made an effort to clean up a lot of the dead links on emulation.net. If you find any broken or outdated links, please let me know.
	Some readers have found that Stuffit Expander 5.1 will not decompress many files found on this site--specifically, it mangles MacBinary ".bin" files, refusing to decode any files but often deleting the newly-downloaded archive. After looking into the problem, I am nearly certain that this is a bug in Stuffit; every other tool I tried has worked perfectly with these archives. For now, I highly recommend downgrading to Stuffit Expander 4.5, or simply using MindExpander 0.92 to decompress files. Although MindExpander still has its share of problems, it's easy to use and will likely improve with its next release, unlike Stuffit Expander which has been steadily getting worse with every update. (Note: if you choose to return to Stuffit Expander 4.5, make sure to remove any Stuffit 5 extensions from your Extensions folder.) MacMAME has been updated to version 0.35b4a! As usual, many new arcade titles are supported in this version. SIDPlay, a Commodore 64 sound player, has been updated to version 2.0! The price of Amiga Forever, a package which includes the Amiga emulator as well as necessary ROM images in a legal form, has been reduced to $29.99. MacBochs, a shareware PC emulator, has been updated to version 990219! This version makes setup even easier than before--all you need to do to start is double-click the application. A new version of SNES9X is coming soon!