
  MEKA 0.63b - Documentation
 ============================
  Multi machine emulator for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
  (c) in 1998-2002 by Omar Cornut / Bock (Zoop) (omar @ cornut.fr),
  Hiromitsu Shioya / Hiro-shi and Marat Faizullin / Rst38h.
 =========================================================================
  This documentation is best viewed with a fixed width font.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 0 : I am a speedy guy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 If you are looking for how to register, press Up, Down, Right, Left and
 start directly at Level 7. However I strongly recommend reading that whole
 documentation, if only to make me think I haven't wrote it for nothing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 1 : Introduction
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 MEKA is a Sega 8-bit emulator, made by the following people:

 > Omar Cornut / Bock (Zoop) (omar @ cornut.fr)
   Machine emulation (drivers), tools, graphical user interface and the rest.

 > Hiromitsu Shioya / Hiro-shi (shica @ cool.ne.jp)
   Sound emulation (emulation of PSG and additional Yamaha 2413 chipset).

 > Marat Fayzullin / Rst38h (see web address at the end)
   Z80 CPU Core (publicly released a while ago, and used in MEKA).

 MEKA in its original flavor, is for MS-DOS.
 MEKAW is the codename for the MS-Windows version of MEKA.

 Because anything else, please do NOT e-mail Hiromitsu about MEKA, as
 he does not speak english fluently and has currently ceased his work
 on MEKA. If you do speak Japanese however, feel free to send him a
 mail thanking him for his past work, I'm sure he will appreciate.

 MEKA officially emulates the following systems:

  - Sega Game 1000        / SG-1000  / Japan, Oceania
  - Sega Computer 3000    / SC-3000  / Japan, Oceania, Europe
  - Super Control Station / SF-7000  / Japan, Oceania, Europe
  - Sega Mark III         / MK3      / Japan
     + FM Unit Extension  / MK3+FM   / Japan
  - Sega Master System    / SMS      / World Wide
  - Sega Game Gear        / GG       / World Wide
  - Coleco Vision         / COLECO   / America, Europe
  - Othello Multi Vision  / OMV      / Japan

 You can play other systems on it only if you are smart enough to figure how.
 And if you are, I doubt you will want to play Nintendo games. So forget it.

 Now let me tell you more about these cool systems:

 -- on the Sega side --

 The SG-1000, for "Sega Game 1000", was released in Japan in July 1983.
 Heavily based on the MSX hardware, it is the first known Sega home system
 (until someone proves me wrong, which I would love to have happen).

 The SC-3000, for "Sega Computer 3000", is a variation of the SG-1000 (still
 compatible with it) with a keyboard, and some optionial peripherals such as
 a printer (SP-400), a tape recorder (SR-1000), or that big black box called
 the Super Control Station (SF-7000), providing a 3" floppy disk drive, a
 Centronics printer port, and more available memory. The SC-3000 was released
 in November 1983 in Japan, and then was sold in certain countries around the
 world (Oceania and Europe to my knowledge), usually shipped with a BASIC
 programming cartridge.

 Later, Sega released some updates to these systems, including, but not
 limited to the SC-3000h (a re-release of the SC-3000 with a hard keyboard),
 and the SG-1000-II (also called Mark II). The SK-1100, for "Sega Keyboard"
 was an upgrade to the SG-1000 and SG-1000-II to be able to use keyboard
 softwares such as the BASIC or the Music Editor.

 The Mark III, released in 1985 is the first Master System compatible system,
 and still have the necessary ports to plug the printer, or the keyboard. A
 FM extension was made available later, providing much better sound hardware
 which is supported by most games released in Japan between 1986 and 1988,
 Out Run being the game that first brought FM.

 The Mark 3 is backward compatible with SG-1000/SC-3000 games.

 In 1986 came the Sega Master System, much after Nintendo released the
 crappy gray box. It was sold just about everywhere, but the Japanese version
 had the FM extension embeded and profited from it because of better musics.
 Other differences with the Mark 3 are the 3D Glasses mini jack port and the
 embedded rapid fire unit, none of them being available on non-Japanese units.
 The Master System is also backward compatible with the older systems, with
 a darker palette than originally, when playing SG-1000/SC-3000.

 Later came the Game Gear, which was nothing but a portable Master System
 with a smaller screen, a communication port (for dual gaming) and more
 colors to choose from. The old SG-1000/SC-3000 video modes are still
 supported but with incorrect colors.

 -- on the other side --

 There was a machine called the Othello Multi Vision, released in Japan,
 which is in fact a SG-1000 with a new shape (and it is pretty small).
 Eight games were released for it, but it is totally compatible with
 SG-1000 softwares at my knowledge.

 (following text by Tincho DJ)

 In 1982, Coleco (COnnecticut LEather COmpany) released the Coleco Vision.
 In those years, Atari led the home video games market with Atari 2600, a
 4-bit console released in 1978. Coleco wanted to release Coleco Vision with
 Donkey Kong, the Nintendo's arcade smash hit. But it wasn't possible; Mattel
 (the Intellivision manufacturer) and Atari released this game first. Anyway,
 Coleco could release Donkey Kong four months later, acquiring KING KONG's
 rights from Universal Studios (Nintendo had been demanded by Universal, due
 to suspicious similarities between Donkey Kong and King Kong. Some months
 later, Nintendo won). This wasn't the last controversy in which Coleco was
 involved. In 1983, a cartridge adaptor was released by Coleco. This adaptor
 would let you use Atari 2600 cartridge on the Coleco Vision. Of course, Atari
 demanded Coleco; but Coleco won.

 Later, Coleco released Adam, a computer based on Colecovision hardware. It
 wasn't very successful. Colecovision's time was running out, and production
 was stopped in 1984.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 2 : Features
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Graphics
 --------
 Unlike some other emulators, MEKA doesn't feature thousands of different
 graphic engines, but only one, and a working one. Therefore most games
 should be working, as it uses a true line-per-line refresh, and supports
 raster effects (including palette effects).

 Consequently, MEKA is slow. This is the price to pay for accuracy.
 If your computer is not a fast Pentium, I suggest using BrSMS instead, which
 will run fast on most games not relying on lots of effects. It is available
 at the following address: http://www.lsi.usp.br/~ricardo/brsms.htm


 Sound
 -----
 MEKA emulates both sound hardware featured in the supported systems:

  - SN-76496 Programmable Sound Generator (PSG) by Texas Instrument
  - YM-2413 FM Generator (FM) by Yamaha

 Although technically better, the FM hardware is only supported by certain
 Master System games, mostly released between between 86 and 89. As told
 earlier, this hardware only exists as an add-on for the Mark 3, or in the
 Japanese Master System. So for most of you FM musics will sound unusual.

 FM emulation is disabled by default but it would like to open your ears
 on a better kind of sound you didn't have the chance to get, back in the
 past, you can freely enable it back in the SOUND menu of the emulator.

 The four channels of the Programmable Sound Generator should be correctly
 emulated, and waves are realtime synthetized. Last but not least, the way
 the sound is updated allow voices to be heard in games that uses them (not
 perfectly, though, there are often incorrectly pitched).

 The Yamaha YM-2413 chipset features nine channels, fifteen pre-defined
 instruments, and one user definable. Three channels can be used for
 percussions, and the chipset provides hardware vibrato and amplitude
 modulation. Technically speaking, YM-2413 is emulated using an OPL chipset
 wrapper. OPL chipsets are present in most soundcards, including the ones
 from Creative, but emulation will NOT sound right on many of the newer
 soundcards. Throw you SoundPCILivePNP256 away.

 Supreme1 sent me a tips regarding SB128 sound cards. Quoting him: "in the
 Creative Configurator, just enable 2 MB Waveset ver. 3 (maybe 4 MB ver. 4
 works as well, haven't tried it) that should fix it".

 If for some tragic reasons you have to use Windows NT or Windows 2000, you
 may want to get such program in order to enable sound in MEKA:
   https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/
 Sound should work natively with MEKAW throught DirectX.

 Peripherals
 -----------
 MEKA supports/emulates the following peripherals:

  - Standard, two buttons joypads:
    [all systems]
    Control with keyboard or joypads plugged into your computer.

  - Light Phasers:
    [Master System]
    Control with mouse. First mouse button (by default) is the trigger.
    Although you can use two Light Phasers on the same time (for Gangster
    Town), it is not very practical with a single mouse.

  - Paddle Controls (Rolling Controllers, ala Steering Wheel):
    [Mark 3 / Master System]
    Control with mouse. First button has the usual behavior, and the second
    button recenter the controller in the middle. Although you can use two
    Paddle on the same time (for Galactic Protector), it is not very
    practical with a single mouse.

  - Sport Pads:
    [Mark 3 / Master System]
    This heavy trackball is supported by a few sports games.
    Control with mouse. First and second buttons has the usual behavior.
    Same comments as above, as for using two Sport Pads on the same time.

  - Keyboard:
    [Sega Computer 3000]
    Used in all Sega Computer 3000 specific programs such as the BASIC.
    Control with your PC keyboard. See key assignements somewhere below.

  - 3-D Glasses:
    [Mark 3 / Master System]
    MEKA let you play 3-D games with three differents methods. The first
    method, entirely software, is that MEKA can show up on the screen only
    graphics of one eye, thus you can play but with a reduced framerate.

    More interesting methods are by using real 3-D glasses.
    If you tell MEKA to keep 3-D rendering as is, you will be able to
    enjoy the effect by using a video card such as the ASUS AGP-V6600
    which is said to uses the same technology. I didn't try it myself
    so I cannot confirm, but you should be able to play 3-D Games with
    MEKA using such card and its dedicated 3-D glasses pair.

    An even more interesting method is to use real Sega 3-D glasses!
    Check out the TECH.TXT file about how to build an adaptor to plug
    such glasses on your computer. If following the schematic correctly
    MEKA will supports your glasses and let you enjoy the ultimate 3-D
    experience :-)

  - Terebi Oekaki (TV Draw) Graphic Board:
    [Sega Game 1000 / Sega Computer 3000 / Mark 3 / Master System]
    This is a graphic board and pen set which was available in Japan only,
    and directly connected to a drawing cartridge taking advantage of it.
    Control with mouse. First button simulates a pen press, and second
    button simulates the pen being away from the graphic board, so you
    can control the cursor with a joypad as the software supports it.


 Interface
 ---------
 A feature that most emulators lack is a graphical user interface (GUI).
 MEKA has one, which does not require particulars skill to use. Just use your
 mouse to point and click. Experienced users that are sick of using mice are
 also able to use keyboard shortcuts to activate certain functions. However
 to give you some fun, they aren't all working or even documented, due to me
 being a lazy bastard.

 The graphical user interface is quite slow, and a very fast machine (P2) is
 recommended to use it in optimal conditions (without having to skip frames).
 Of course, it doesn't affect the emulation speed while in fullscreen mode.

 All of this slowness is because I am obviously a bad programmer and when I
 originally programmed the interface I knew almost nothing about C.
 Now that I have some lot ideas on how to optimize it, time is lacking.


 Other things
 ------------
 A lot of work has been done on certain other things that most people won't
 notice (specifically because they have been worked on), including, but not
 limited to:

  - Compressed file support: you can keep your roms compressed in the ZIP
    file format to save space, MEKA does know how to handle them.

  - Patching system: this allows you to hack ROMs without having to modify
    the original file. Check the file called "MEKA.PAT" if you are curious.

  - Smart Configuration File technology: MEKA will never bother you because
    of a corrupted configuration file, or some bad options in it. The file
    itself is rewritten and recommented everytime you quit the program.

  - Definable video modes with some nice fullscreen effects available such
    as TV scanline simulation or Eagle graphic destroyer. Eagle is actually
    very nice with a few games, R-Type coming to mind.

  - Save states. You can load and save ingame, using F5 and F7 keys, with
    up to a hundred slots for storing a game state (change with 0-9, F6, F8).
    In addition, it is possible to load old Massage states by renaming them
    to the MEKA naming convention. MEKA will automatically convert them.

  - BIOS inclusion. You can play the snail game in MEKA, provided you know
    how to access to it (alright, if you forgot, try pressing UP+1+2).
    Originally, MEKA was supposed to use my own reprogrammed BIOS. Then I
    found that someone already dumped them so I stopped working on mine and
    included the original one instead. MEKA even includes the Japanese BIOS,
    which you can check by setting the machine to Japanese and booting it
    without any game loaded. It shows a little demo with a scrolling ground
    and plays the Space Harrier music theme using the FM Chipset.

  - A very precise compatibility list. MEKA was heavily tested, unlike some
    other emulators that you doubt they were even ran by their author before
    being released. Also thanks goes to Mxs, Jossa and Tincho DJ for their
    past help with the Game Gear and Coleco Vision lists.

  - A game database, with full name, proprietary checksum, product number
    when available, and comments in some cases. A lot of time was spent
    making and updating this unique database.

  - Logging of sound output to WAV and VGM formats. VGM (for Video Game
    Music) is a logging format developed on S8-Dev. You can check out
    http://www.smspower.org/music for more informations, and an archive.

  - A Graphical User Interface: I hope you did notice there was one.

  - Easter eggs / secret features: edit everything, click everywhere,
    try all keys combinaisons.. and you may get lucky several times.
    Or unlucky playing Mario.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 3 : "Does it work ?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I tried to make MEKA as compatible I could make it.
 Unfortunatly, not every single game is working perfectly with it. If you
 want to know which, be sure to check the compatibility list provided in
 the COMPAT.TXT file. If it happens that would find some kind of bug not
 mentionned in the compatibility list, a report of it would be welcome.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 4 : "I just checked it.. Heh ! where did you got all these roms ?!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Monitor this site: SMS Power - http://www.smspower.org
 New roms are appearing regularly here, and then the day everything will
 be available on the internet, the site will slowly transform into a Sega
 8-bit web museum with hundred of pages that will make you drop tears and
 consider building a time machine.

 Please take the time to search on the internet if you want something,
 before asking to every single person on the planet. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 5 : Usability
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 You can run MEKA from the command line. Simply type "MEKA" (or "MEKAW",
 depending on the version you are using) followed by the filename of the
 ROM you want to run. You can also pass the "/?" parameter to the program
 to get in return a crap command line help, describing the usual hidden
 features, of course.

 Inside the emulator, the default keyboard mapping is:

 Common to all systems
 ---------------------
  D-Pad ...................... Arrow Keys
  Button 1 ................... Left Control
  Button 2 ................... Left Alternate

 Master System / SG-1000
 -----------------------
  Soft Pause ................. Space
    This is the same pause as if you pressed the button on a real machine.
    It can be used only if the game supports it at the moment you press it.
    On some game, pressing pause will get you a menu, etc..
  Hard Pause ................. Alt-P or F12
    This "special" pause with simply freeze the game, without changing
    anything. It is usable everytime, everywhere.
  Soft Reset ................. Backspace
    This is the same reset as if you pressed the button on a real machine.
    It can be used only if the game supports it at the moment you press it.
    On some emulated systems that does not support software reset, like the
    Game Gear, pressing this key will actually produces an hard reset.
  Hard Reset ................. Alt+Backspace
    This "special" reset with completly reset the emulated system.
    It is usable everytime, everywhere.

 Game Gear
 ---------
  Start ...................... Space
  Hard Reset ................. Backspace

 SC-3000/SF-7000 (anytime using the SK-1100, in fact)
 ----------------------------------------------------
  Soft Reset ................. Break

 Other keys are mapped at the same place as the Sega Keyboard (SK-1100).
 So be sure to look at the provided picture carefully. For example:

  Control .................... Caps Lock
  Graph ...................... Left Control

 The "Pi" key, also used to type the "Ro" character in Japanese, has
 unfortunately no equivalent on today's PC keyboard in many country.
 Because of this, you can also either use the backslash key on the
 bottom left of your keyboard, OR the slash key on the keypad, to
 replace the missing "Pi" key.

 Coleco Vision
 -------------
  Numeric Pad ................ Keys 0 to 9, Minus and Equal

 Miscellaneous keys
 ------------------
  Switch to next fullscreen blitter ........................ F1
  Switch between automatic and standard frameskipping ...... F2
  Decrease speed (automatic) or frameskip (standard) ....... F3
  Increase speed (automatic) or frameskip (standard) ....... F4

  Save Game .................. F5
  Load Game .................. F7
  Previous/Next Game Slot .... F6/F8
  Set slot (0 to 9) .......... 0 -> 9

  Show FPS counter ........... Alt+F

  Change control device ...... F9
  Enable/Disable keyboard .... Alt+F9

  Enable/Disable sprites ..... F11
  Enable/Disable background .. Alt+F11

  Quit emulator .............. F10
  Save screen ................ PrintScreen
  NOTE: to use PrintScreen under a Windows environnement, you have to
        tell the system to stop intercepting the event, in the DOS box
        configuration panel.

 Notes
 -----
  To use a mouse (for the graphical user interface, and Light Phaser / Paddle
  emulation), be sure to have an appropriate driver loaded in DOS mode. Some
  drivers or system are known to cause problems. This another driver in this
  case, such as "Cute Mouse Driver", and be sure to report if you are having
  such problem.

  If you are experiencing problems using a joypad/joystick, edit the MEKA.INP
  file with a standard text editor and use your brain and goodwill.
  I am getting billions of e-mails asking how it does work, so please do not
  e-mail me before having actually tried by yourself and made research.
  I think you can understand I have time constraints which prevent me to do
  custom answering for everybody, especially when the answer is findable :(

  And if you have a SideWinder to donate to me, that would be a nice gift.
  (that should be better than my keyboard)

 How to use SC-3000 and SF-7000 Softwares
 ----------------------------------------
  Original SC-3000 games were the same as for SG-1000, being provided as
  cartridge and thus loading the ROM is the only thing you need to do to
  make them run. However, since the SC-3000 provided a BASIC cartridge,
  and more over, the SF-7000 an easy way to store programs (on floppy),
  homemade programs may prove being trickier to load.

  SF-7000 disks are rarely self-bootable (this is of course the case of
  the Disk Basic), and for most of them they need to be run from inside
  of the Disk Basic. Once it is loaded and running, load the floppy disk
  (.SF7 extension) you want to use, and type the FILES command to be given
  a list of files on the disk.

  To load a specified program, use LOAD "program name" where the program
  name is usually ending with the .BAS extension. You can move your cursor
  to the line the FILES listing gave you, add the LOAD command and press
  enter, that'll do it. Afterward, the RUN command will start the program.

  The cassette drive (CLOAD command on Disk Basic, and LOAD on original)
  is not yet emulated and thus you will not be able to use it now :-(
  I am always looking for tapes if you have some you can send them, they
  might prove being useful in the future.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 6 : "It is slooooooooow !!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Yes.
 MEKA was mostly programmed by me, in C language, with few parts in
 x86 assembly.

 One of the reasons for that (MEKA being slow) is that it emulates the
 system properly. MEKA provides a real line-per-line graphic engine, dynamic
 palette emulation, and many of those technical words that make the emulator
 compatible with practically everything. Some of these features are missing
 in other emulators or sometimes disabled, making them faster. Thus, if you
 have a slow system, I suggest choosing another emulator.

 You can also try running MEKA in pure DOS mode.
 You can also try upgrading your DirectX driver and run MEKAW.
 Close all boxes in the interface. The tiles viewer slows things down with
 some kind of games.

 Disable YM-2413 hardware emulation for games that use it.
 It slows down emulation.

 Or disable whole sound emulation.
 Or erase MEKA.

 Another reason is that in MEKA, everything is buffered, to avoid flickers.
 If you want to give a speed boost to the interface, edit the configuration
 file and change the entry "gui_access_mode" from "buffered" to "direct".
 Maybe I'll work on finding a way to make the interface usable in this mode,
 as it is much faster.

 The last thing you can do is to configure MEKA to use VESA modes, if your
 video card supports them. Edit MEKA.CFG and/or MEKA.BLT and change the
 driver entrys to one of the values mentionned on following line.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 7 : "Man, I still like MEKA !" - How to register
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Thanks. In this case, if you want to help further development and support
 the author, you are welcome to register MEKA.

 To do so, you will simply have to help the SMS Power cause. This can be
 done by several ways. The first is to donate Sega 8-bit cartridges to us.
 We would love that. Donating hardware is even more welcome. If you plan
 to donate anything, be sure to e-mail me beforehand. And remember it is
 not because a game or a system is common that I have it. I am actually
 missing a billion of common game I would love to get.

 If you cannot find any cartridges then you can send money. Money helps
 SMS Power in buying cartridges to dump and/or for the museum, as well as
 getting weird pieces of related hardware. Due to me trusting the cool
 people who are happy to help a great cause, there is no more minimal
 amount to send to get registered. So basically even if you send 1$ you
 will get registered. Of course the more the better. I honnestly tend to
 get depressed when someone send 1$ for a four-years work.

 If you don't have an idea on how much you must send, then you are not on
 the right track. What matter is that you are helping a cause, and for that
 reason the more is always the better. Don't stop feeding your children or
 plan to sell your house to donate the money to our cause, though. Just
 think about how much *you* would pay for that software if it was commercial.

 I like to have fun writing documentations, so here is a formula to
 calculate a good price:
   P = (S / (k * 5)) + (M / k)

 Where:
   P is the price a nice guy would pay.
   S is the speed of your CPU.
   M is the amount of memory in your video card.
   k is defined as 3 * Pi for year 2002, and will increase with time.
     (approximately 9.42)

 For my own computer:
   P = (350 / (3 * Pi * 5)) + (8 / (3 * Pi)) = 8.25$ (pretty cheap)

 A faster computer:
   P = (1600 / (3 * Pi * 5)) + (32 / (3 * Pi)) = 37.34$ (ouch)

 With in-between prices for average computers, obviously.
 Isn't that a great idea to accomodate programs prices to the speed of
 your computer ? The rich pay more than the poor. :)

 Of course if you end with something like 19.50 or 22.25 don't bother
 sending coins, you can round it up. And of course you can still round
 it up without any specific reason, it you feel it is too much or too
 low to pay. In fact, you are the one who decide.

 Please do not send checks, since they are expensive to cash (for me).
 Please do not send money orders, since they are expensive to send (for you).
 In both cases, it is not worth wasting a lot of money on a small donation.
 Cash in your country currency is usually a good thing.
 Please e-mail be beforehand if you are unsure.

 My address is:    Omar Cornut
                   45 rue Rebeval
                   75019 Paris
                   France

 Please note this is my new address. I moved house on the 1st of July, 2001.
 And I can also receive money with PayPal (very practical), under the
 following address: cornut @ noos.fr.

 Finally, if your main pretext for not registering is lazyness, then you
 know yourself it is not a valid pretext :)

 If you do not agree these terms, then you can delete this software now, as
 it will destroy your computer after a certain amount of time using a non
 registered version. Also, if you have dogs living in your house, MEKA will
 autodetect them and kill them by sending ultra sonic waves through the PC
 speakers. Just don't say I made it for the money, please.

 Registered users will receive information and new version before others.
 They will also get access to roms on SMS Power, other things I may
 show off, and more importantly: a clean conscience.

 Enjoy!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 8 : Reasons to use MEKA instead of those other emulators
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 There is no reason why you should use it instead of another emulator.
 USE IT IF YOU LIKE IT.

 I first made MEKA for my own use, to play my own cartridges on my own
 computer. So competing with any other emulator is not my primary goal.

 When starting it, I planned to do only quality releases, instead of
 releasing a new (buggy) version every week. That is why there is not
 a new version every week of the day. Testing if a long time process.

 MEKA is meant to be used to play and enjoy games.
 Please enjoy games with it.

 MEKA should be kept updated, in respect for registered users. If I ever
 have to drop MEKA on my side, finding someone to continue the project
 wouldn't be hard. Or releasing the sources, maybe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 9 : I am a freak, tell me everything !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 MEKA was made the open way, in the sense that many of its features
 are user accessible to let everyone do modifications. Here is a quick
 description of the ressource files that comes with MEKA:

 --MEKA.CFG-- or --MEKAW.CFG--
 This is the configuration file where MEKA stores most of the options
 and user definable parameters. Some are accessible from the interface,
 but some, more complex ones, are only available by manually editing this
 file. It should be self explanatory, but here are some comments:

 Sound rate usual values are 11025, 22050 and 44100, the highest being the
 best quality but also the slowest.

 Screenshots and musics dump filename templates are configurable for those
 who have websites and likely would like to avoid renaming a hundred of file,
 or generally if you want to share the produced files. Templates use LibC's
 PrintF formatting rules, which am I going to explain quickly, and for use
 in that context. PrintF gurus will pardon me.

 The syntax of the string used by MEKA must be in that form:
    ...%[.name_max_length]s...%[0number_padding]d.file_format
 Where things inside brackets are optional and '...' is anything you want.
 When I say "anything you want", you can truly put anything you want.
 However if you want to use spaces, replace them with asterix (*)
 characters. Here are some examples to hopefully make things clear:

 screenshots_filename_template =

  %.5s_%02d.pcx (default setting)
  Limit game name to 5 characters and pad capture number to 2 characters.
  Save file with PCX format and extension.
  Playing "Psycho Fox.SMS" will get you capture filenames such as
  "Psych_01.pcx" or "Psych_42.pcx".

  %s-%02d.pcx
  Does not limit game name, pad capture number to 2 characters.
  Save file with PCX format and extension.
  Playing "Psycho Fox.SMS" will get you capture filenames such as
  "Psycho Fox-01.pcx" or "Psycho Fox-42.pcx".

  %s*(%d).pcx
  Does not limit game name, and let capture number as it is.
  Save file with PCX format and extension.
  Playing "Psycho Fox.SMS" will get you capture filenames such as
  "Psycho Fox (1).pcx" or "Psycho Fox (42).pcx".

 Available file format for screenshots are PCX, BMP and TGA.
 Incorrect use of this feature can leads MEKA to crash in a horrible and
 painful way. You were warned.

 --MEKA.BLT--
 This file contains the configuration for fullscreen video modes.
 It is self documented. I strongly suggest giving it a look to enable
 VESA video modes on your system and so get a speed boost. Maxim's
 Meka Configurator allows you to edit this file easyly.

 --MEKA.INP--
 This file contains inputs configuration. It is automatically rewritten by
 MEKA when quitting, and most of the functionnaly are available from the
 interface. However experienced users may want to tweak with it and try some
 of the possibilities it offers.

 --MEKA.MSG--
 This file contains text messages used in Meka and allows you to create
 translation in new languages or dialect using latin letters (ABC..).

 --MEKA.NAM--
 This file contains the name, product numbers and comments database that
 are used by Meka. If you are curious you can edit it. And if ever you have
 comments to add about any games in it, send them to me for future inclusion
 in the distribution version.

 --MEKA.PAT--
 This file allows you to tells Meka to apply simple patches on ROM when
 loading them, on the fly. Nothing extraordinary but programmers and hackers
 will find such feature useful maybe. The file is self documented, in case
 you were looking for help.

 --MEKA.THM--
 This file contains themes available from the user interface. If the current
 GUI colors are boring you, this is the place to check. The file is self
 documented also. To make thing easier you may want to use an external tool
 called "Wonder Theme" which is a graphical theme editor, by Lilac. It is
 available from MEKA homepage. You can also get pictures for uses with some
 of the default themes at http://www.smspower.org/meka/themes.

 --MEKA.DAT--
 This file contains data used by the emulator and its interface. Editing
 it will shows you a bunch of garbage so it is not a really good idea.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 10 : Cool things to do when playing games is not enough
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Connect to an Efnet IRC server and join #meka to meet happy and strange
 people. Be sure to kick Aprentice from there as much as you can.

 Check out http://www.smspower.org and participate to the healthy debates
 on the forum. Also check out the developer section and see some great
 homemade programs and projects in the work.

 Check out http://www.smspower.org/music for a great Sega 8-bit music
 archive, informations, tools and a forum.

 If you are a musician, use your skills to make us some great remixes of
 Sega Master System musics.

 Register the programs you like and that deserve it.
 Common, I know ACDSee is on your hard drive.

 Play Wonderboy 3: the Dragon's Trap over and over until you figure out
 you cannot get bored with it.

 If you are unsure about other games to play on the Master System assuming
 you are not familiar with it, I can suggest you:
    Alex Kidd in Miracle World
    Cyborg Hunter (Borgman)
    Double Dragon
    Fantasy Zone 2
    Golden Axe Warrior
    Kung Fu Kid (Makai Retsuden)
    Power Strike 2
    Psycho Fox
    R-Type
    Wonderboy in Monster Land (Monsterworld)
    Wonderboy 3: the Dragon's Trap (Monsterworld 2)
    Zillion
 And I could name a hundred of other ^_^
 A full list of all existing Master System games is available there:
    http://www.smspower.org/museum/lists/

 Enjoy!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 11 : MEKA was made using..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  DJGPP (GNU C Compilator) by a bunch of people.
  Allegro (video and inputs library) by Shawn Hargreaves and contributors.
  Seal (sound library) by Carlos Hassan.
  UPX (reduce the executable size) by Markus Oberhumer and Laszlo Molnar.
   All the above great programs are free and are great replacements to
   the expensive Microsoft offers (Visual C, Direct Draw, Direct Sound).
  MS-Dos and Windows to handle these softwares.
  My poor working computer to handle these operating systems.
  Myself to take care of the computer.
  My dear love to take care of me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 12 : Last Boss
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 To defeat the Vampire Dragon, stay at the bottom middle of the screen
 and wait for him to come level with you.  When he comes close, jump and
 hit his cape. When he goes down, below the screen, fly up so he won't
 come up and hit you! Repeat this procedure until he is destroyed. You
 will get the SALAMANDER CROSS and be able to change into Hu-Man.

 (Written by Clint Dyer, for Sega of America)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Level 13 : End Credits
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I would like to thank the following persons:

 Hiromitsu Shioya (Hiro-Shi):
  for having done the sound/music emulation in Meka. without him, you would
  be using the emulator with a crap and buggy sound engine (read: mine).

 Phillip Smith:
  for being a cool guy, having shared a lot of things together and being
  one of the brain behind SMS Power :)

 Mike Gordon:
  another nice guy who like toying with hardware stuff. He also brought
  some very interesting things to the growing Sega 8-bit emulation scene.
  and generally has been very helpful to me.

 Casiopea, Masato, RedS, Sankichi, Skyhigh, Toshi, Yakmo, Yoneda, Yujiro:
  doumo arigatou to my all Japanese friends,
  for being friendly, shared lot of informations, brought help, support,
  dumps, and helping to improve my collection ^_^
  http://bto8.smspower.org (Casiopea)
  http://www.loose-logic.com (Masato)
  http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/sega2001 (Toshi)
  http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/~fwik0826/ (Yoneda Mitsunori)
  http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Denei/8588/ (Yujiro)

 Amaury, Arnaud, Douglas, Joseph, Karim, Michael, Miki, Najib, Philippe
  and others I forgot, for their support, vannes et autres trucs dans le
  genre - merci. Je vous prend tous en mme temps au jeu que vous voulez.

 Maxim Gready (Maxim):
  for general support, various work, and being a nice guy.
  Maxim is the author of various programs related to MEKA, the first and
  probably always best VGM player, as well as other tools related to VGM.
  He's also the first to come out when there's something related to sound
  to work on. The only drawback with Maxim is that he once collaborated
  with the evil enemy, but after all, he is a great person. :)
  http://www.smspower.org/maxim

 Nicolas Warren (Heliophobe):
  for general support, various work, and being a nice guy. 
  Nicolas is the author of SMEG, the great SMS emulator for Dreamcast, and
  as made various contributions to the SMS development scenes, with homemade
  programs (such as the world famous Tetracycline game, and Damiana).
  http://www.kenseiden.com
  http://www.kenseiden.com/smeg

 David Michel (Rony):
  for Magic Engine, support, advice, help and being my second hard drive,
  all back in good old days. Bonk power!
  http://www.magicengine.com

 Nicolas Hamel (Gouky):
  for the invaluable help at the very beginning. A while ago.
  http://www.multimania.fr/gouky

 James McKay:
  for Massage, and because when you ask him a simple technical question,
  he answers in ten pages. He tooks the time to kindly answer all the crap
  questions I asked when I was starting. And he is very nice guy.
  http://www.enterspace.org/world/massage.htm

 Charles Mac Donald:
  for SMSPlus, sharing lot of things together - nice chats, and being one
  of the most productive hardware tester and hacker. Impressive person.
  http://cgfm2.emuviews.com

 Marc Le Douarain:
  for help with SF-7000 emulation and dumps of his old disks.

 Ulrich Cordes:
  for providing the base source code of the FDC-765 (floppy disk controller),
  as used for SF-7000 emulation. It was actually rewritten but the original
  technical work is from him.

 Mr Lee, Billy Jr:
  for being impressive hardware hackers and doing a lot for the "scene".
  private message: hurry up, Lee! :)
  http://www.billyjr.com

 Marat Fayzullin:
  for Master Gear, for being the one all users and authors should respect,
  for having released the sources of most of his emulators and CPU cores,
  and contined, despite people who early profited from his work without
  respecting some elementary rules. Also because he wrote a technical
  document about the Master System. Now if you are the kind of person who
  hate him for no other reasons that the Windows ports of his emulators are
  not free, remember he is one of the father of console emulation, and that
  without him, many emulators wouldn't exist.
  http://fms.komkon.org

 Ricardo Bittencourt:
  for BrSMS and BrMSX (great emulators).
  http://www.lsi.usp.br/~ricardo/brsms.htm

 Jon (the unknown one):
  this guy is the one who wrote the (old) document with all the knowledge
  on which the first emulators were based. I am also pretty sure the first
  dumps came from him. Although I doubt he's still on the internet, I would
  love to be in contact with him. Jon, if you're reading, e-mail me ;-)

 Super Majik Spiral Crew (the):
  for having written a technical documentation about the SMS.

 Richard Talbot Watkins:
  for having written a technical documentation about the SMS, although I
  found it recently and it didn't helped me much. He is also the author of
  Miracle, a SMS emulator for Acorn machines.
  http://www.willothewisp.demon.co.uk/SMS/

 Richard Bush (Antiriad):
  for Raine, support, advice and help. Also for his patches to Allegro.
  http://www.rainemu.com

 Sean Young:
  for writing great technical documentation about the TMS9918a and Z80.
  http://www.msxnet.org

 Andrew Lindsay:
  for having dumped tons of roms, and for SMSCheck. If you don't know him and
  his site, then I'm afraid you missed the golden age of emulation.
  http://members.aol.com/smsstuff (do not even try, it was closed in 1997)

 Leonard Silva de Oliveira and Flavio Morsoletto:
  for their help with hardware hacking and precious reports:
   "It eats +5 and GND (duh!). One line reports trigger activity. The last
    line goes (theoretically) low when the phototransistor is lit."

 Eric Quinn:
  for being there a long time ago already, dumping a few roms, and managing
  an excellent SMS site (The Sega Notebook). Eric is also an active member
  of the S8-Dev community, author of a development-oriented emulator (MesaDX),
  and produced some interesting SMS code such as the PFR test.
  http://shell0.elnet.com/~gm-quinn/sms/

 Dump Masters (ViperZ and Omega):
  for having dumped a few roms (including those crappy Brazilian hacks ;)
  http://www.emucamp.com/dump_masters

 Charles Doty:
  this guy contributed a lot to the console development scene. He also wrote
  an old text demo for Game Gear, which is from where I started learning Z80.
  http://www.pcisys.net/~cdoty/console

 Lasse Reinikainen (of Image/Helsinki/Finland):
  for beta testing and tons of ROM dumps, including the old and original
  Master System BIOS. Before getting it, me and Martin Skog spent a lot of
  time recreating it from stratch. Then a few days before the release, Lasse
  sent me the ROM. Believe it or not, there was only one different pixel
  between the original Sega logo and the one I drew :)
  Keep faith, you will get your Dracula one day.

 Dirk Stevens:
  for having released the sources of his Eagle graphic filter, supported
  in MEKA if you enable the corresponding blitter.

 Leonardo Pires (s0rcerer):
  for great support, advice and help in various things.
  http://emucity.unae.com

 Nicolas Lannier (Archeide):
  for SNEmul, support, advice and help.
  http://www.epita.fr/~lannie_n/english.html

 Richard Mitton (Nodrog):
  for TNZS-Emu, RAZE, support, advice and help.
  http://www.emucamp.com/tnzs

 Mxs:
  for having done the old GG compatibility list and some smart beta testing.

 Christopher Coleman
  he is such a coolman - even if for some reasons he dared saying
  Castelo R Tim Bum graphics were nice.

 Sam Pettus:
  for your Sega 8-bit Compatibility Chart, others amazing documents,
  and being the most strangest, paranoid and serious guy I ever met on
  the internet. Take it easy :)

 Chris White:
  4 ur great hlp , support& terreeble whay of typinng mails ;-)
  Yogi Bear power !

 Martin Skog (MoonTrip):
  for the Wonder Boy 3 music he made (dadada dada dadada) and the very good
  work on the Sega sound reproduction (the one that was about to be used
  in the reprogrammed boot ROM, before Lasse sent the original one).

 Jonathan Griffith (Lilac):
  alright, I had to put you somewhere :)
  for all his suggestions, and WonderTheme (a Meka theme editor)
  http://www.emucamp.com

 Larry M (Ellum):
  for the Wonder Boy 3 music he made. This game definitively rocks !
  http://sega-zone.com/sega_haven

 Olivier Aichelbaum and the_unknown_contributor_who_send_it_to_ACBM:
  for my first owned SC-3000h, the BASIC cartridge and the documentations.
  http://www.acbm.com

 An unknown guy:
  for the rendered Master System picture used on the interface.
  no one knows who you are but you are getting famous. I love you.

 Puyolin:
  for the "Ocean" and "Emucamp" color themes (used in the interface), and
  for correcting(corrected) mistake/s? in/on? (the?) first documentation/s?
                 ~~~              ~~~~          xx                     ~~~
 Westone (including Shinichi Sakamoto and Ryuichi Nishizawa):
  for making Wonderboy 3, the best game ever.. ten years ago :~)
  http://www.westone.co.jp

 *All people* who bothered registering MEKA and supporting SMS Power.
 You know who you are and your support is greatly and always appreciated.
 Everyday MEKA lives it is thanks to you.

 And of course thanks to SEGA, for such a cool system and great games !

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                
     Goodnight Brave Warrior,                                  
     Goodnight Monster-land.                                          
                                                             
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        |    |   | |                                                
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
