MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: MAME 0.223

My thanks too for all the various contributions regarding this outstanding release version.

>Former project coordinator Aaron Giles has contributed netlist-based sound emulation for
>thirteen Cinematronics vector games: Space War, Barrier, Star Hawk, Speed Freak, Star
>Castle, War of the Worlds, Sundance, Tail Gunner, Rip Off, Armor Attack, Warrior, Solar
>Quest and Boxing Bugs. This resolves long-standing issues with the previous simulation
>based on playing recorded samples.

I have mentioned it before, but nice to have the long ago worry about Armor Attack external audio samples, back in 2001 when host web site of Retrocade emulator had crashed and Retrocade no longer being worked on and posters asking then of how to rescue Armor Attack external audio samples recordings from Retrocade emulator. Fortunate that folks then in 2001 had explained that the Armor Attack service manual had analog audio schematics printed in service manual. It was a matter of patience of when things may eventually happen to where analog audio component emulation might take place. And it finally has thanks to Aaron and company rewrite from the years 2008 to 2010 and then couriersud's component netlist emulation, other early contributions prior to 2020 and now once again Aaron and others getting Cinematronics and Vectorbeam games analog audio in working shape and making external audio recordings no longer needed except for those using earlier older versions of MAME.

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>Colin Howell has also refined the sound emulation for Midway’s 280-ZZZAP

// A netlist description of the Motorola MC3340 Electronic Attenuator
+ // IC, a voltage-controlled amplifier/attenuator. It amplifies or
+ // attenuates an input signal according to the voltage of a second,
+ // control signal, with a maximum gain of about 12-13 dB
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Applauds to Colin's Midway work and the MC3340 work in which also helps get Exidy Fire One audio becoming a reality. Some of the games in next future release (.224), although users can do their own builds these days, will be just as notable like Cinematronic games.

>For the first time ever, games running on the Barcrest MPU4 video system are emulated
> well enough to be playable. Titles that are now working include several games based on
> the popular British TV game show The Crystal Maze, Adders and Ladders, The Mating Game,
> and Prize Tetris. In a clear win for MAME’s modular architecture, the breakthrough came
> through the discovery of a significant flaw in our Motorola MC6840 Programmable Timer
> Module emulation that was causing issues for the Fairlight CMI IIx synthesiser.

I agree with this being big achievement because the fix helped get fruit machine emulation back on track and Fairlight emulation further along. The Fairlight work itself will make me twist my own arm and save any spending money for getting a newer computer.

I applaud the update, but still wish an actual real Exidy Death race pcb can still be found and proms dumped. I have a question about this, but will post about it on emuchat forum later. Stiletto is correct with this stuff still having to be further sorted out later since the early goal in years 2013 to 2015 was to document the proms and store in code so they wouldn't disappear over time, but also help out actual pcb owners that might need to replace a prom on their own pcb in the meantime since this was what Nicola's idea was when it started back in the days.

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https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/6851

chicago.cpp, exidyttl.cpp: Corrected ROM dumps, and added a skeleton driver for Exidy Destruction Derby. [Frank Palazzolo]

(destdrby) Rom Image Corrections/Fixups:

stilett0 https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/6851#issuecomment-649891270

Are even the ROM filenames like we would create the same? F205v should still have all his Robot Hunting info online including PCB scans...

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/6851#issuecomment-667859768

It's still early days for TTL drivers and our initial impulse was to organize drivers by publisher at least until things became more than just skeletons. As these drivers mature and netlists are created and perfected, parent/clone relationships will become much more important and apparent. Pong was cloned and altered dozens of times, as was Breakout.
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