Recently a NES version of it popped up on eBay and I was lucky enough to nab it (for $42…). Definitely a nice piece to have in my small NES cart collection, as its apparently quite rare having only been released in PAL territories. According to the UK NES Rarity list, it rates an A-; “These Will Require A Lot Of Looking“.

Would have been nice if it came with a box though, although that would no doubt have jacked up the price even more.

Basically you run TorrentZip on your ROMs directory. It re-zips all your ROMs to match the hash for all the ROMs in the bittorrent. It’ll take a few hours to do this if you’ve got stacks of ROMs. After you’ve done that, its a matter of joining the torrent, pointing your bittorrent client at your ROMs directory and away you go. I joined in the torrent the other day at around 67%. Looks like my collection was a tad out of date :-\

For more indepth instructions, check out the guides on how to do it over at the Pleasure Dome.

The Fujitsu FM Towns was one of those funky Japanese game systems from the late 80′s/early 90′s which I used to drool over in PC Mags like the NEC PC Engine. Unlike the PC Engine which atleast made it to the States and the UK, the Fujitsu FM Towns never seems to have made it outside of Japan. It was pretty ahead of its time, having alot the things that the MPC1 and MPC2 standards aspired to at the time, like a CD-ROM, game controllers, high color video card (which had a color palette of 16.7 million colours) and sound cards. This were all pretty awesome stuff to be having in a 386 at the time!

Another interesting thing about it was the different variations on this machine. First up there was the FM Towns, then after that there was the updated FM Towns II. Somewhere along the line came the FM Towns Marty. Searching around I’ve also come across the FM Towns II UR, which appears to be the same as the FM Towns II EX and the FM Towns HR-20. These three models sport the updated 486. There also appears to be a FM Towns 20F, but it seems to be another name for the FM Towns II.

And here some more interesting FM Towns links:

• FM Towns Linux
• FM Towns Debian
• FM Marty
• FM Towns @ Wikipaedia
• FM Towns Marty

* Running ePSXe emulator version 1.6.0.
* Memory handlers init.
* ePSXe: PSX BIOS loaded [/home/common/emu/psx/bios/scph5500.bin].
* Loading ISO Format [BIN/IMG2352] ok
* NTSC cdrom detected.
* Init gpu[0][libgpuPeopsSoftX.so.1.0.16]
* Open gpu[0]
* Init spu[0][libspuPeopsOSS.so.1.0.9]
* Open spu[0]
Segmentation fault


Update: Maybe I’ll have to check out this ePSXe on Linux howto when I get home. (ref)

Its the Namco TV Classic 5 in 1 Games. Features Pacman, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Bosconian and Rally-X, all in this little joystick. So now you know what to buy me for my birthday And if your feeling generous, you could get me the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Games at the same time!

Changes since 0.81.1:

• Everything from MAME 0.82 and MESS 0.82.
• The romcmp tool now builds on Solaris.
• Improved the message that is displayed when a suitable X11 visual cannot be found. Fixes Bugzilla bug 219. (Christopher Stone)
• Fixed the most egregious formatting errors in the xmame.6 manpage. (Andre Majorel)
• Converted the documentation from LinuxDoc to a more modern DocBook format.
• Added x86 SIMD options to the makefile. (Patrick Roberts)

A patch and full sources are available from the usual places:

• http://x.mame.net/download/0.81.1-0.82.1.diff.bz2
• http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.82.1.tar.bz2

• Star Gladiator
• Street Fighter EX
• Street Fighter EX 2
• 1945k III
• Tylz (prototype)
• Dynagears
• Super World Stadium
• Various Megatech sets
• Agress
• Time Crisis (Version A)
• One + Two

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Continental Circus (US set 2)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Racing Beat
• Mission Craft

• Strider 2

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

• Monster Bash (2 board version)
• One + Two

0.81u8
New Games supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Atari Mini Golf (prototype)
• Inca (clone of Maya)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• MACS (Multi Amenity Cassette System)
• Namco FL (Speed Racer / Final Lap R)

Apparently other great shoot ‘em ups for the Saturn are Soukyugurentai and Thunder Force V. And it looks like the pricing on those are a little more sane.

• Twin Eagle 2 [Olivier Galibert]
• Megaplay : Sonic the Hedgehog [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay : Tecmo World Cup [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay : Golden Axe 2 [Barry Rodewald, GreyRogue]
• Megaplay still has a few issues (continue without extra coins etc.)

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Area 51 (R3000 Version)
• Ninja (clone of Sega Ninja)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Battle Balls (Asia)
• Super Pang

• Renju Kizoku
• Neratte Chu

New Non-Working games / clones supported:

• Mayjinsen
• Mayjinsen 2
• Super Eagle Shot
• Super Real Mahjong P5

• Brave Blade
• Ray Story
• Pirate Treasure

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• NBA Maximum Hangtime v1.03
• Leprechaun (Pacific Polytechnical license)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• MegaPlay: Tecmo World Cup
• MegaPlay emulation is still incomplete
• Vapor TRX
• San Francisco Rush: The Rock
• Hyperdrive

I’m also currently got a Dreamcast VMU, Keyboard, Mouse and extra game controller on order. Now all I’ve got to find now is a Broadband Adapter and I’ll have a nice cheap web terminal for the TV room.

• Ghostlop
• Super Rider
• Groove On Fight
• Othello Shiyouyo
• Danchi de Hanafuoda

New Clones supported or promoted from GAME_NOT_WORKING status:

• Driving Force (Galaxian hardware, bootleg)
• Snow Bros (set 4)

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• Lord of Gun
• Densya De Go (1, 1ex, 2, 2ex)
• Side by Side (1 & 2)
• Landing Gear

• Cool Boarders Arcade Jam

New Non-Working games / clones supported

• CPS-3 System
  this will never work (encryption etc.) driver does NOTHING, for reference only
  Street Fighter III etc