Firstly, thanks for the messages of support. They are very
reassuring. Also, although I'm going to do my best to keep these
messages forum relevant, please don't think that I am not taking an
overview and can only think in these times of the ElectrEm emulator.

The good news is that they removed my tumour and it was self
contained within its region, the bad news is that it was cencerous
and that pre-cancerous cells are lurking nearby, so radiotherapy
and/or kemotherapy have become a certainty. I have not yet had tests
to determine if any cells have spread to further regions. This means
that I have had to take a one year break in my university studies and
am under instruction to rest as much as possible, while the various
parts of my body that have been adversely affected repair.

Hence, in the short term, the result for ElectrEm is an increase in
available time, not a decrease. In the medium term I cannot be sure
how the various radiation therapies will affect me. At the source
level, ElectrEm is undergoing significant change at present and beta
10 is unlikely to be ready for a while in any event. I may start
uploading biweekly source snapshots or something if it all doesn't
seem to be coming together for too much longer.

Newest features to be added are all for the Windows/DirectX version
and constitute a fix to the CPU hogging, the option to run in a
window and use of hardware acceleration where available. I intend to
perform the first of these fixes on all UNIX versions and the last
two to at least the SDL port. Also I've fixed it so that the number
of graphical buffers allocated at any one time is near-minimised,
which is good news for anyone hoping to port ElectrEm to things such
as the new breed of mobile devices. Finally on the graphics front,
the necessary changes to support 16bit graphics output (as is
probably overkill but is possible with one multiplexing arrangement
when in mode 2) are nearly complete.

A graphical tape browser within the menu system allowing you to
effectively wind the tape is working for UEF & T2P files, but the UEF
code still needs to be properly adapted to support writing at any
point rather than just to the end as was the previous 'quick fix'.

If I keep this up, ElectrEm may even one day reach version 1.0!

Thanks again for the messages of support.

-Thomas