===========================================================================================
|
|   UNOFFICIAL SNES POWERPAK FIRMWARE V2.00-BETA1 (CODENAMED "SIMBA")
|   (c) 2012 by ManuLwe (http://www.manuloewe.de/)
|
|	*** CHANGES LIST ***
|
===========================================================================================



CHANGES IN V2.00-BETA1 (INITIAL RELEASE):
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- ported over blargg's SPC player from sd2snes to replace the half-broken previous one. Works too awesome to be true, and yet it is! :D
- fixed SPC playing timer so it won't show hex numbers beyond 09:59 but instead reset to 00:00, plus it now runs at the correct speed in PAL mode, too
- modified the developer's note module introduced in alpha3 to load an SPC file from CF via blargg's player instead of bootloader-hardcoded music. This requires another additional file in the "POWERPAK" directory (SD.SPC), which might even be updated with another composition of mine in the future!
- added three different logo/cursor sprite sets, and made them user-switchable (try setting LOGO=1, LOGO=2, or LOGO=3 in CONFIG.TXT). I know this is nowhere near a truly themeable GUI, but it's still a lot better than having to look at the exact same graphics over and over again! :D
- removed startup mosaic effect introduced in alpha2 to speed up booting and logo switching
- added plenty mosaic stuff to the developer's note instead ;-)
- added page-by-page navigation with L/R shoulder buttons to the filebrowser. Works better than expected! :-)
- changed/fixed miscellaneous button assignment on the intro (directional pad is now ignored) and GG code editing screens
- work on the bootloader itself is mostly complete, I guess :-)



CHANGES IN V2.00-ALPHA4 (UNRELEASED):
______________________________________________________________________

- added a "wait for H-Blank" routine before data is DMA-ed from CF during active display to avoid DMA <> HDMA conflicts on CPU rev1 SNES units. This also completely eliminates HDMA "flickering", with the drawback of slightly increased ROM loading times (namely, by less than 0.3 seconds for a 32 Mbit game and just about 0.7 seconds for the decompressed 96 Mbit version of Star Ocean). Thanks to ikari_01 for suggesting a fine solution like that! :-)
- added "Loading ..." message screens where appropriate
- changed hardcoded intro module reloads to warm resets, which for now works around a rarely encountered (?) crashing bug present in v1.0X
- changed button assignments in the filebrowser in a way that's to be explained in the readme :p (subject to change)
- started to improve the SPC player, no major breakthrough as of yet
- polished up SRAM saving messages (finally!)
- polished up option screen messages (finally!)



CHANGES IN V2.00-ALPHA3 (UNRELEASED):
______________________________________________________________________

- added CPU revision check to dynamically disable HDMA on rev1 consoles (DMA <> HDMA crashing bug workaround). Sorry for the time being, rev1 users! :-/
- added Developer's Note (with music!) by means of an additional CF module file (SD.MAP), to be accessed by pressing L+R at the titlescreen
- added button assignment hints at the bottom of the screen (subject to change/be removed again)



CHANGES IN V2.00-ALPHA2 (UNRELEASED):
______________________________________________________________________

- any text (as well as the cursor sprite) is now automagically indented both at the top and on the left of the screen to ensure nothing gets cut off e.g. on older CRT TVs
- HDMA windowing prevents "garbage" lines from showing up in the filebrowser
- while I was at it, I implemented a nice HDMA background color gradient effect :D
- ROM mapping now handles rare 9 Mbit games properly (this fixes e.g. Alcahest English v1.0 Beta)
- automatic save name matching now compares up to 52 characters instead of only 28 like v1.05 did
- fixed screen logging, which was broken in alpha1. Caveat: LOG.TXT has to be 2048 bytes in size as from now!
- added small mosaic effect to the intro screen
- huge code cleanup, not finished yet by far ...



CHANGES IN V2.00-ALPHA1 (UNRELEASED):
______________________________________________________________________

- pseudo-hi-res mode for better display of long filenames
- buffer was expanded to 128 bytes per entry
- partial rewrite of the file browsing/loading routines to make use of the changes mentioned above
- two new custom fonts (one per BG layer, to work around Mode 5's 16x8 tile size limitation), each with added drop shadow. Thanks to ikari_01 for hints on how to enhance the print handler to make this possible!
- changed titlescreen sprite to classic "four dots" logo (subject to change)
- changed background color to dark blue
- changed cursor size and appearance (subject to change)
- new startup messages (subject to change)
- re-arranged bootscreen elements
- fixed fast scrolling button behavior when choosing SRAM (L and R were swapped in v1.0X)
- deactivated the file verification feature for now, which was/is totally broken in v1.0X (to see for yourself, browse to a ROM file and press Select instead of A)
- reduced content of the "POWERPAK" directory on the CF card to the necessary files only:
	/SAVES
	CONFIG.TXT
	LASTSNES.TXT
	LOG.TXT
	SA.MAP
	SB.MAP
	SG.MAP
	SI.MAP
	SM.MAP
	SN.MAP
	SO.MAP
	SP.MAP
	SQ.MAP
	TOPLEVEL.BIT

