 Offend
v0.83
By Simon Ashford

Offend is a multi -emulator frontend.  It currently supports the following emulators :-

V7800 - Atari 7800
DVE - Vectrex
Z26 - Atari 2600
Euphoric - Oric
Hu Go! - PC Engine
Metalynx - Atari Lynx
Emerson Arcadia 2000
M.A.M.E.
Bliss - Intellivision (I hope) !!
M.E.S.S. 
SNEESE
MadNES
NES9X
Squeem
Boycott
KGB
SynkGB
VGB
VSS
Neopocott
Reality Boy
VMS
WPC Mame

If you have any major problems with this program, please e-mail me at psyman@emuhq.com and I will
attempt to fix any bugs.

To run Offend, just place it anywhere on your harddrive & run it.
The first time you use it you will need to configure the program to tell it where your emulator and rom files
are stored.  This is very straightforward & shouldn't confuse too many people !
There is also a general configuration screen which is used for altering more options such as sound etc.

You may distribute this program freely but please do not distribute this program together with emulators or
roms.
You may also make this file available for download from your web-page provided that you do not alter the
program or this text file in any way & that you do not add or remove any files to/from the original zip
archive.

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Changes in 0.83

* Added support for Neopocott
* Added support for Reality Boy
* Support for VMS (Dreamcast VMS emulator for DOS)
* Included support for WPC Mame
* Updated the MESS part to fall in line with the latest MESS release - the MESS support will be cleaned up & greatly improved hopefully in the next version.
* Clicking on the word "EMULATOR" on the main screen will now take you to the selected emulators homepage.
* Made the load/save routines more efficient - if anyone has any problems with config files generating errors while loading/saving them please let me know.
* Made it possible to run MESS without needing to select a ROM
* Lots of core changes & alterations.  Let me know if you find that anything has stopped working.

Changes in 0.80

* Added a Universal Options setter.  What this means is that you can set a number of common options such as what sound card you have, what joystick you have etc. and the program will apply these to all of the supported emulators.
* Offend no longer crashes if an invalid rom name is selected or the emulator command produces an error.
* Support for Boycott
* Support for KGB
* Support for SynkGB
* Support for VGB
* Support for VSS
* Fixed a bug which caused a crash if the selected roms folder is moved/deleted.
* Made a snazzy Q*Bert icon !! You gotta download this just to see it !!

Changes in 0.78

* Now support for SNEESE

* I went Nintendo crazy & added support for 3 NES emulators !!  MadNES, NES9X & Squeem.

* Much improved MAME & MESS support.  Occasionally, these may crash if you select too many parameters, we are talking lots more than most people would normally use here.  I'm working on the problem but it is a limitation of DOS which only accepts 126 bytes maximum for a command, however most people will not encounter this problem.

* Added ability to double click on game to launch it.

* Started adding support for displaying screenshots.  Currently only .bmp .gif & .jpg formats allowed.  If anyone can give me help on how to display other types of pictures in Visual Basic 5 (eg. .pcx, .png etc.) please contact me on psyman@emuhq.com

Changes in 0.75.1

* Fixed a bug in the M.E.S.S. driver which was not correctly setting the selected media.

* Fixed a bug in the M.E.S.S. driver which displayed incorrect files on startup sometimes.

* Made the main window a little bigger :-)

Changes in 0.75

* Fixed a bug which caused Offend to crash if a emulator folder/file has been moved or deleted.

* M.E.S.S. support !!  Offend finally supports M.E.S.S. which was my primary goal to begin with !  The M.E.S.S. section is still not complete (for example, loading of multiple images not yet supported and only the basic command line options are supported) but it works and is easy to use.  If you always wanted to try M.E.S.S. but couldn't find a frontend you could get along with (like me) then try this !!

* Fixed a bug which caused Offend to crash if the file location has not been selected & the user presses Go !

Changes in 0.72

* Support for Emerson Arcadia 2000 emulator.

* Limited support for M.A.M.E.

* Support for Bliss - I hope anyway as I can't get Bliss to work on my computer.

* Program code optimised.

Changes in 0.68

* Support for Hu Go ! emulator

* Support for Metalynx emulator

* Eliminated one of the config screens to make Offend look a bit neater.

* Now remembers the last game played for each emulator.

* Various small fixes & changes.

Changes in 0.63

* Support for Euphoric emulator (Oric 1, Atmos & Telestrat)

Changes in 0.62

* Z26 roms can now be in a different folder to the Z26 executable.

* Added more Z26 options.

* Z26 seems to insist on filenames being in 8.3 format.  If you are having trouble loading Z26 files then this may be the reason.

Changes in 0.6

* Support for Z26 Atari 2600 Emulator.

* Changed config file so that it now resides in the same folder as the Offend executable.

* Each supported emulator now has its own config file.  Offend will attempt to correct old versions
of the config files & generate correct ones.  However I cant guarantee that this function will 
work every time.  If it fails then it should create a config file with default settings (I really
dont think that this will cause any problems for anyone).

* Various small bugs & glitches ironed out.

Changes in 0.5

* Support for non-dos filenames (eg filenames with spaces in).  This is especially useful if you have used
Cowerings GoodTools or another rom-renaming program.

* Support for the DVE Vectrex emulator.

Changes in 0.4

* The cancel buttons now work properly !!!

* Fixed the General Configuration screen to display the correct current settings.

* Code optimised a little to remove sloppy programming.

* Save version number along with config file.

* Support for V7800 Atari 7800 Emulator.

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Questions & Answers
=================

What is Offend?
Offend is an emulator front-end.  It makes using certain emulators a lot easier as you dont need to mess
about typing long command lines and parameters etc in DOS.

Which emulators will Offend support in the future?
I hope to support a number of other emulators in later versions of Offend.  I haven't actually decided which
ones will be next but keep an eye on the website for future releases.

Why is Offend so dull looking?
This is a work in progress release and I have just spent time getting it to work properly.  Flashier features such as screenshots etc. may be included in later versions.

I want to use the M.E.S.S. support but I'm still a little confused... it keeps asking for roms etc. What do I do?
Firstly, I'd say do what you should do with any emulator, read the docs first.  For M.E.S.S. to emulate certain machines it needs the system roms too.  Don't ask me for these because you won't get a reply but if you look on the net you are bound to find them.  The easiest way to use them is to place them, still zipped into the BIOS sub-folder in your M.E.S.S. folder.  

How can I contact you?
E-mail me at psyman@emuhq.com

Where can I get the latest version of Offend?
The latest version and news can be obtained from www.emuhq.com/offend




(C) 2000 Simon Ashford

