> > OFF TOPIC:Out of curiosity,when did MESS begin? > > If I'm to believe the filedates listed for the first DOS MESS source/binary package, > it's June 4th, 1998 which places it in between 0.33b3 and 0.33b4 releases of MAME.
I researched this a month or so ago.
The earliest binaries built and offered online for all ports have a build date of June 3rd, 1998, so you can use that. http://mess.org/downloads (Mac OS binary - June 3, 1998 (I think) - ARM/RISC OS binary: June 3rd, 1998 - DOS/Windows binary: June 4th, 1998 - but the documentation revision date for both is June 3rd, 1998)
... and the first announcement is on USENET (for the ARM/RISC OS port) on June 4, 1998. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys....7e9a5893842f906 (dunno about where news on the DOS version would have been posted)
Diving into the private MESSDEV mailing list archive, looks like the source was uploaded to a public FTP on June 3rd, 1998.
Given all that, I'd use June 3, 1998.
... I should probably add this to the MESS wiki somewhere
(FWIW, I was not around for any of it. I didn't start with MAME til around 1999, and not with MESS until many years after.)
- Stiletto
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