http://www.aarongiles.com/

I know a bunch of folks have been itching to know what's going on with the whole MAME trademark issue. Well, with the help of several prominent friends, we consulted a trademark attorney and decided to see if David Foley was up to his word.

 

Last week, Nicola's application (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=...=Request+Status) began showing up in the USPTO database. Once that happened, I contacted Mr. Foley and asked him to abandon his claim to the trademark, which you can see he did. (http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=...=Request+Status)

 

So, what does this all mean? First, it means that the MAME trademark is in the hands of the people who really ought to own it.

 

Second, it means you can all end your hate mail campaigns against Ultracade and David Foley. Comments here which attack either will be deleted and users will be banned. There's really no sense in yelling and screaming; let's just all be adults about the matter (I realize that it's hard for some in this crowd, but please try).

 

Third, however, it means that some responsibility comes along with owning the trademark. In order to use the trademark, we are going to have to set up some rules under which it can be used. This is likely going to come in the form of, simply, "You must request explicit permission to use the MAME trademark."

 

Of course, permission will be given to many legitimate uses (still have to ask, though!) But there is indeed a growing commercial sector that is abusing the MAME name to make claims that aren't true without violating the law ("Play 1000s of arcade games!" -- yeah right, show me your license for that), and quite frankly, many of the MAME team members are as against that as Mr. Foley is.

 

We'll be announcing more details shortly, but the most likely end result is going to be: if you want to use the MAME name, you've got to get rid of your illegal ROM links, your information on how to buy/download illegal ROMs, and your claims that anything you sell will let you play 100s or 1000s of games (unless you've legitimately licensed them).

Thanks to kevinbro for the heads up. Dualis release 3 has been released. You can download it at the homepage and also check out some new screenshots there. Here is the change log:

2005-03-14

CPU: Fixed ARM->Thumb changes on LDR

CPU: Fixed SP-relative Thumb stores

GPU: OBJs with the "OBJ disable" bit set are not rendered anymore

GPU: Fixed some OBJ clipping issues

GPU: OBJs are now checked for display priority relative to BGs

GPU: Added optional Direct3D rendering (D3D8)

GUI: Made touchscreen IPC address selectable (Memory tab)

GUI: The Run, Pause, and Reset keyboard shortcuts now work even when the video output window has focus

>> Official Homepage: http://dualis.1emulation.com/

MEKA, the Sega Master System emulator, has been making some progress, this progress only affects the Windows build at the moment, but here's what's new.

- In SMS mode, fixed color filling when VDP rendering is disabled. Previously disabled parts where filled with black, instead of the current border color. No commercial game exhibited the problem. Chris Cowell's port of Aleste 2 from GG to SMS did.

- Tile viewer now display tile starting address.

- Tile viewer now update information while mouse hovering.

- When used in the interface, analog peripherals supported by the mouse now only perform their action if the mouse has focus on the game window.    This prevent accidental in-game shooting when using tools or debugging. Of course, you should not use the interface if you only intend to play.

- Official WIP Homepage

PMame is a MAME port to the Tapwave Zodiac and Pocket PCs. The changes in 009 are:

- The loader is spiffed up a bit. (Thanks Antiriad!) You also return to the search you had previously entered. I also fixed a memory leak.

- Core: Got more games working and made a change to screen size. Some games had double size in one direction. So I've changed it so that the display is made from the visible screen size. This seems to work well, I didn't find any games broken because of it but there must be some!

- Official Homepage