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2005 - The Year In Review
Posted by Csabo on 2005-12-31
3... 2... 1... And that was 2005, previously known as the future. The occasion of another whole year passing is significant enough for us to pause a little, and think about what kind of year it has been.

Emulation is a very important aspect of the current Plus/4 life. On Windows platform, YAPE is the de-facto standard. Cheers to Gaia for his continued work on this free emulator, which is now up to version 0.64. Minus4j and Forever Plus/4 Emulator also got updated. VICE is still being worked on, but there's very little Plus/4 specific improvements.

There were no significant changes in terms of websites, the current "players" are still there and continue to evolve. (Although some were forced to changed address.) On our end we've officially opened the Plus/4 Encyclopedia, an effort to gather all Plus/4 specific knowledge to a free, open and accessible place. It's difficult to rate it either as a success or a failure, let's just say it's still there and has potential to become something great.

Our collection is still growing, we've passed 5250 pieces of software. We're thankful for everyone who sends us covers and TAP images, but C16 Chris deserves a special thanks. He basically flooded us with so much content, that processing and uploading everything will take well into the new year.

There's still new software being released. Chaos was this year's Questionmark (down to the fact that they both have ambiguous names), a breakthrough trackmo taking the top spot on the Top List. There's one effect in particular that's worth mentioning, a long-time dream of coders everywhere: displaying graphic on (or "removing") the side border. The scene also produced Crackers Demo 4, the participation and the quality are something to be proud of. Cheers to Luca for his great effort to bring CD4 together. Skoro deserves special kudos for being one of the most prolific coders this year. Lone News and Club Info were the two diskmags still being produced. Finally the recent release of Storm +4 V1.1 marks the only significant game release this year, and the return of Kichy. Last minute update: T.M.R has just released two new games! Check out Lunar Blitz and Reaxion!

We wish everyone a happy, successful, productive new year! Keep the Plus/4 alive!

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