On September 26, the developers announced the release of version 0.270 of the free software package MAME. MAME is primarily aimed at running arcade games, but it also supports the emulation of various classes of old devices, particularly, version 0.270 adds support for one of the first PDA devices released to the market.
The Zoomer PDA was designed by Casio and was released under various names. The device was equipped with MS-DOS 3.3 and GEOS 2.0 with a PenRight user interface. It was the first PDA to ship with software from Palm Computing. Among other exotic devices supported in this new release are the Sony NWS-3270 workstation and development boards for the 68000 processor from Marion Systems and Motorola.
The emulation of the Hitachi Basic Master Jr. has been brought to a working state, allowing a glimpse into the state of the home computer market in Japan in the early eighties. Support for Super A’Can and UMC's attempts to compete with Sega and Nintendo in the mid-nineties has been made more user-friendly. Although it is still not fully operational, many graphical and audio issues have been fixed, and support for battery-operated memory cartridges has been implemented. Support for several new peripheral devices for the Apple II computer has also been added, along with support for hard-sectored floppy disk formats, common data storage media from the S-100 era.
The efforts to investigate IGS027A processors and read their internal programs have proven successful. More than a dozen slots, Mahjong, and card games from IGS have become available for play.
Those interested in a more detailed account of the development process for the new version are recommended to refer to the file whatsnew.txt. The source code of the program and precompiled binaries for Windows 64bit are available on the downloads.
Source: linux.org.ru
