MAME version 0.256 has been released. MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and it is a program that makes it possible to create a large number of Classic card games to play. MESS stands for Multi Emulator Super System and emulates a large number of legacy systems Computers, such as Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Gameboy, and ZX Spectrum. An extensive list of changes is available here; Release notes can be found below.

MAME 0.256:

Yes, it’s already time for MAME 0.256, our mid-year release! Many very rare and exciting things came out this month. Remember that rally racing game Top Driving that was added last month? This month, Mortal Race, a rarer previous game based on the same codebase, was found and dumped. The rare Mighty Boxer Gamate Cartridge has finally been tracked down and dumped, which means that all Gamate games released have counted. Taiko no Tatsujin RT: Nippon no Kokoro has been phased out, bringing us closer to completing the Namco System 10 collection. This offshoot of the popular series is designed for places like hospitals and nursing facilities. It does not accept coins, and features easier songs. Four more versions of the prototype arcade game Turbo Sub were also taken out and added.

For PCs, there are plenty of software menu additions, especially MSX and ZX Spectrum. The Heathkit H89 now has enough simulated functionality to distinguish it as working. You can now add ROM cards to emulated Apple II computers, and FLEX now works on the TRS Color Computer family.

There are also plenty of simulation improvements, including fixes for some Taito F3 graphical bugs, and better graphics layer mixing on the Sharp X68000. Behind the scenes, we’ve been working on support for wait states in the MOS 6502 and Hitachi H8 CPU families and there were some changes to simplify the code.

As always, you can read all about everything that changed this month at whatsnew.txt file.