Hello everybody! Are you ready for the November MAME release? It’s definitely ready for you, and there are lots of reasons to get excited this time around. First and foremost, a number of ARM CPU core fixes mean you can now boot to the RISC OS desktop on an emulated Acorn Archimedes, and try some of the included applications. The same bug fixes allow a number of Aristocrat Mark 5 gambling machines to boot and run in demonstration mode. There are still some issues to iron out, but things have definitely improved enormously.

On the arcade front, protection on Atari Space Lords has finally been reverse-engineered making the game playable. This is an interesting space combat game for one or two players, where the second player takes on the role of the gunner/co-pilot. In another improvement that’s been a long time coming, The Acclaim RAX sound board is now emulated, bringing sound to Batman Forever and NBA Jam Extreme. There are substantial improvements to the Magnet System emulation (added in last month’s release) making these rare prototype bootlegs playable. David Haywood also fixed some graphical issues in Altered Beast, and Angelo Salese fixed graphical issues in The Lost Castle in Darkmist.

There are some other notable improvements in computer emulation, too. Barry Rodewald has added support for IC Card (PCMCIA SRAM) storage on the FM Towns, and substantially improved LSI Octopus emulation. The Mac 128/512/Plus drivers have been modernised, and serial port support has been added to the Apple IIgs driver. Another DEC Rainbow 100 update from Bavarese fixes colours in high-resolution mode among other improvements.

Newly supported systems include RC De Go (Go By RC outside Japan), newly dumped versions of 1945k III, Forgotten Worlds, Sol Divide and Vendetta, the Italian release of Mustache Boy, 286-based versions of the Intel iSBC, bootlegs of Blue Shark, Pole Position II and Ozma Wars, more Fidelity and Mephisto chess computers, and more electronic toys.

As usual you can read all the gory details in the whatsnew.txt file, or go right ahead and get source or Windows binaries from the download page and have some fun.