0.33b2 1998/05/08 [#038 - Nicola Salmoria]
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Well, you know that I usually don't celebrate recurrences, but we have just hit the 500th ROM set supported (OK, OK, I know that many of them don't work) and by pure coincidence it happens to be a very special one:
Faster, Harder, More Challenging Q*Bert. This is a sequel to Q*Bert which was never released to the public. You can find its story, as recalled by the author, Warren Davis, at http://www.coinop.org/coinop/features/qbstory.html. Thanks to everyone who made this possible.


New ROM sets supported (in no particular order):
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Heavy Barrel (new, complete set). The old one has been renamed & modified to include 4 ROMs which were missing. [Bryan McPhail]
Magic Sword [Paul Leaman]
Slap Fight (preliminary) [Keith Wilkins]
Space Dungeon [Dan Boris]


These drivers have improved GRAPHICS:
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- Fixed background layer colors in Trojan [Paul Leaman].
- Fixed invisible ball in Champion Baseball. Some of the graphics are still broken. The reason is unknown [Nicola Salmoria].
- Adjusted the brightess of the background in Popeye, which should make it correct according to the schematics. Maybe now it's too dark? [Nicola Salmoria].


These drivers have new or improved SOUND:
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- Fixed fuel alert sound in Lunar Lander [Keith Wilkins].
- Added speech to Champion Baseball [Nicola Salmoria].


These drivers have HIGH SCORE support:
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- Swimmer, Pop Flamer [Brad Oliver].
- Fixed Wonder Boy Deluxe [Chris Moore].


Other drivers changes:
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- Heavy Barrel is playable to the end, but there are still some problems  [Bryan McPhail].
- Improved speed in the CPS1 games [Paul Leaman].
- Fixed speed in Berzerk/Frenzy [Zsolt Vasvari].
- Adjusted timing in the vector games [Bernd Wiebelt].
- Some game information is displayed in the introduction screen [Nicola Salmoria].


Source:
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- Further changes to the palette handling code.
  * osd_create_display() no longer takes the total_colors, palette, pens arguments. They are handled by osd_allocate_colors(), which is called after osd_create_display().
  * The convert_color_prom() functions now take a unsigned short *colortable parameter instead of unsigned char *.
  * Drivers for games which have a FIXED palette (i.e. they don't call osd_modify_pen()) of more than 256 colors are now allowed to declare it as such in the MachineDriver. The palette will be automatically shrinked to fit in 256 colors. Note: this assumes that the palette is actually composed of no more than 256 unique colors. This is currently the case in all the games. Examples: Kung Fu Master, Lode Runner, Arkanoid, Popeye.
  * Instead of calling osd_modify_pen(Machine->pens[color],r,g,b), drivers should call palette_change_color(color,r,g,b). Note that the function does the Machine->pens[] mapping for you.
- Added WatchPoint support to the debugger (i.e. check a RAM location and stop execution whe it is changed) [Ernesto Corvi].
- Fixed a bug in 6502/dasm.c (this only applies if you compile it to get a standalone disassembler - it is not part of MAME) [Christophe Verre].