apple2ix/NEWS

Changed in 0.7.4:

Many bugs have been fixed, including a calling-convention mistake that
could cause unpredictable behavior on reboot.  Potential buffer overflows
have also been corrected.  

Some key assignments have changed.  Joystick buttons are now Left-Alt, 
Right-Alt & Insert.  Delete, formerly a joystick button, now produces the 
DEL ascii code.  Reboot is now Break (Ctrl-Pause), and Reset is now 
Ctrl-Printscreen.  (This is reversed from 0.7.3)

Some significant optimizations were also made in the assembly code. The 
large memory-access indirection table is now compressed using virtual 
memory tricks, to slightly reduce cache load and swap requirements.

Also many cleanups have been made in the internal code.  This is
user-invisible, and far from complete. When done, it will become easier to
add new interface cards, video drivers, and other stuff, as well as port
to other unixes. 

Changed in 0.7.3:

More makefile/configuration bugs were fixed.

The `Mystery House' sample disk, which was accidently omitted from my 
distributions, has been reinstated. Also, I've added a new sample 
disk image - William Night's emulator performance tests.

Changed in 0.7.2:

The configure script will now react to absence of X Windows or SVGAlib by 
only building an emulator for the remaining graphics system.

A makefile bug that caused xapple-80col not to depend on 
all it's source files was fixed. Also, the alternate character set is now 
correctly restored on exit from the <F10> menu.

Some major cleanups were done to the assembly-language files. This is
invisible to the user, but should make further enhancement a little saner. 

The banners on the source code have been synchronized.

Changed in 0.7.1:

1. Fixed a makefile bug that caused xapple-80col to be miscompiled.

2. Put sample .apple2 (config file) back in. It was accidentally excluded 
from 0.7.

3. The SVGA emulator is again named `apple2', not `sapple2'. 

Changed in 0.7: (Sep 98)

Version 0.7 - Michael Deutschmann <michael@talamasca.wkpowerlink.com>

1. Replaced "character.rom" and Aaron's MouseText table in misc.c with 
a single file, font.txt, which is converted into a packed c table by a 
generator utility.

2. Overhauled Makefile system. We now use GNU autoconf/automake.

Note: This hasn't been tested extensively. Also, there are a few automake 
tricks I haven't bothered with - I added them to TODO.

Changed is 0.06: (Aug 98)
-------------------------

Version 0.06 - Aaron Culliney <chernabog@baldmountain.bbn.com,
			       aculline@bbn.com>
My code changes have nothing to do with my employer, GTE
Internetworking, BBN Technologies.  They were written completely on my
own time and on my own machine.

	1) Separated SVGAlib specific stuff into svideo.c.  Added X Windows
	frontend support in xvideo.c.  The X frontend works by doing an
	X(Shm)PutImage() of the emulator's framebuffer around 30 times a
	second.  This saves us from changing the internal video routines (they
	assume direct access to an 8bit framebuffer), and it's a heck of a lot
	faster than trying to do an XPutPixels() on each change.  The X
	frontend only currently works for 8bit displays.  Make sure you run it
	using a mode (specified in XF86Config) that has a bit depth of 8 (not
	16 or greater).

	2) We now build three versions of the emulator: svideo_320x200,
	xvideo_320x200, xvideo_640x400.  The last one really isn't 640x400 for
	optimization reasons (568x384) although it probably should be...
	Sorry, but there's no support for switching resolutions on the fly, we
	ifdef it in with a new define "_640x400".

	3) Provided 80column support for the 640x400 X version.  Now you
	can PR#3 (running as //e) and get 80 columns.  This change required
	a resolution of at least 560 horizontal pixels (Apple //e specs).

	4) Both SVGA and X versions need to be suid root (for PC speaker port
	access and SVGA stuff).  But both versions now give up root access
	during video initialization.  This means that disk access is now done
	as *you* (not root) even when g(un)zipping images for loading.
	Before images would be g(un)zipped as root.  There was something about
	this that made me uneasy...  Now it's up to you to give the
	appropriate user/group permissions to your disk image repository.
	I make no claim about the security fitness of this emulator.  See the
	other READMEs and files for more information/disclaimers.

	5) Did a 180 on the disk image selection menu.  <RET> now tries
	to open disk images as read-only, 'W' for both read-write.
	Of course this will only work if you have the correct
	file permissions set (see 5 above).  I find this more convenient b/c
	I play alot of the arcade games where you don't ever save game state.

	6) Removed the disk "Information" submenu.  I never use it.  Do you?



Changes in 0.05: (Feb 98)
-------------------------

Version 0.05 - Aaron Culliney <chernabog@baldmountain.bbn.com,
			       aculline@bbn.com>
My code changes have nothing to do with my employer, GTE
Internetworking, BBN Technologies.  They were written completely on my
own time and on my own machine.

	1) Added support for 65c02 instructions.  The programs that
I've tested which use them work just fine.

	2) Added support for 128k //e EXCEPT 80 column mode, B/W
DHIRES mode, and MouseText character set.  The two unimplemented video
modes require major changes to current video routines, thus a next
version...  New supported images are copy ii+ 9.0, diagnostics //e,
marble madness, airheart, legend of blacksilver, pirates!...

	3) Fixed some old problems with HIRES colors being off around
byte edges in interpolated/color modes.  but we still give you the
option to use these "lazy" modes since emulation is faster with them
enabled...

	4) You now have several new options in your .apple2 file.  I
suggest either copying the distributed one over your existing one, or
merging the changes in.

	5) Fixed some potential security bugs where a user could
traverse into sensitive directories by using the disk selection
interface.  The current emulator version is not guaranteed to be
foolproof since it has to be installed suid root for normal users to
use it.  Sysadmins should take extra precautions as they see fit.

	6) Added and deprecated some options in the debugger interface
to support the new 128k //e.  see the DEBUGGER file for more info.
DEBUGGER support is not default compiled in.

	7) added some extra options to the .config file that you build
into the emulator.  One big one: a way to set the max delay count in
the emulator to bring Apple ][ emulation rates down to normal on high
end pentiums!...  100 is the default delay rate (which works just fine
for low end 386-Pentium100's).



Changes in 0.04: (June 97)
-----------------------------

Version 0.04 - Aaron Culliney <chernabog@baldmountain.bbn.com,
			       aculline@bbn.com>
My code changes have nothing to do with my employer, BBN.  They were
written completely on my own time and on my own machine.

	1) Added PC Joystick Support.  You must have the joystick
kernel loadable module 0.8.0 correctly configured and installed to use
this feature.

	2) Changed the way the emulator handles the language card
memory space.  We no longer patch rom/ram on lc_c08x functions.  I did
this because under certain conditions the previous versions of the
emulator would run a lot slower.  Now you may notice the emulator
running a tad slower in general (because of the range checking), but
Ultima 4 and Arctic Fox (formerly unplayable) should now be just fine.

	3) Changed the way the .apple2 preferences file is handled. I
Did this mainly to support saving of PC Joystick parameters, and I'd
rather let flex do the dirty work of regexp matching.

	4) Changed the disk interface and main interface menu.  In the
disk interface, you can now see which disk is in the drive, and with
what permission <rw1> for read/write drive 1.  You can eject this disk
or force it to be write-protected.  In the main menu screen, you have
more parameters to play around with (associated with the pc joystick
add-on).

	5) Disk image files are now opened with user privileges, not
root privileges, even though the program is suid root.  gzip'ed disks
are still handled as root, but we no longer call the unsecure system()
to do the dirty work.  Instead we fork and directly exec "/bin/gzip".

	5) General bug fixes and enhancements.


Changes in 0.03: (Jan-Feb 97)
-----------------------------

Version 0.03 - Aaron Culliney <chernabog@baldmountain.bbn.com>
My code changes have nothing to do with my employer, BBN.  They were
written completely on my own time and on my own machine.

	1) Fixed language card initialization bug.

	2) Improved colors.  Seems that Greens and purples we're
switched around.  The colors are still slightly off, and color
interpolation seems screwy (TODO).

	3) Added apple II debugger interface.  This requires flex
version 2.5.2.  (You can compile this into the program or leave it
out.)  Type F7 to get into the debugger and type a '?' to see a
command summary.  Check out the file DEBUGGER for more info.

	4) Added support for standard 232960 .nib disks.

	5) Added a more intuitive interface to selecting disks.  You
can now traverse forward and backward in a directory hierarchy with
the base directory set by your .apple2 config file.

	6) changed keymap: shift-p = @ and shift-N = ^, just like my
old II+ keyboard.

Changes in 0.02: (8 Dec 1995)
-----------------------------

  * Ctrl-C will not kill the emulator with newer SVGAlib.  Please
    use SVGAlib > 1.2.9 for best results.
  
  * Rudimentory REPT key handling.  It's too fast though.
  
  * The assembler files now compiles under ELF.
  
  * Not every SVGA card can do page-flipping.  The emulator now
    checks for this and fall back to VGA if it can't.

  * Keymap has changed a bit.  Backspace and ']' is now <-, '[' is
    REPT.

  * Disk extension changed to the more common .dsk (and a2d.info to
    dsk.info).


Changes in 0.01: (9 Oct 1994)
-----------------------------

  * Standard VGA support with some performance degradation.
    (When page flipping occurs, 64K memory banks are swapped;
     hence the performance degradation.)

  * -vga flag switch added, e.g. "apple2 -vga"; forces standard
    VGA detection.

  * (Trident) TVGA8900 page flipping bug fixed.

  * File names may now contain any character codes. (The previous
    version had some problems with compressing/uncompressing file
    names with extraordinary characters.)

  * Diskette selection retains last cursor position.