It's two months for the price of one, since we missed the roundup last month.
Aleph One, the open-source continuation of Bungie's Marathon 2 engine, has reached its 1.0 milestone after 12 years in development. For those unfamiliar with the project, Aleph One allows all three games in the Marathon trilogy (which are now freeware) to be played on modern systems, with OpenGL shader support, mouse-look, gamepad support, mod support, and Internet co-op and multiplayer. The new version fixes lots of bugs, offers a plethora of Lua updates, adds HD graphics to Marathon 2, and more. Get it, and the Marathon games, from the Aleph One homepage.
Legacy computer emulator OpenEmulator has reached version 1.0.1. The Apple I emulation is now working. The authors claim to have the first emulator that features a fully functional Apple Cassette Interface Card and CFFA1 expansion card emulation. Other new features include an audio recorder and a selection of several virtual monitors. Check it out on the official OpenEmulator website.
ScummVM is celebrating ten years of existence with a new release. Version 1.4.0 adds support for Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, Blue's Birthday Adventure, and Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, along with the Amiga version of Conquests of the Longbow. Notable new features include PC speaker support for SCUMM v5 games, better handling of digital/synthesized sound effects in SCI, and out-of-the-box support for building with MacPorts. See the Release Notes for the full list, or head over to the ScummVM homepage.
Mini vMac author Paul C. Pratt is now offering a Custom Variations service for custom-made, sponsored versions of Mini vMac. If you want to support the development of classic Macintosh emulation, this is currently the best option.
Continue reading for more emulation updates...
Boxer, a DOSBox-powered DOS emulator, has been updated to version 1.3. The 
Multi-system emulator Mednafen has been updated to version 0.9.22-WIP, while Jazzin's launcher app NekoLauncher Mednafen received an update (0.9.22 Build 21) to fix a crash bug. Mednafen's new version includes improvements to and L3 and R3 button simulation in the PlayStation emulation, improved Sega Genesis/Mega Drive YM2612 emulation, and broken compatibility with 0.9.21-WIP Genesis/Mega Drive save states. See the 
Amiga emulator FS-UAE has been updated to version 1.2.1, fixing a crash that occurred when saving states with mounted directories. See the 
There's a new emulator for us to play with! QDAE, a multi-platform Quick and Dirty Apricot Emulator, emulates the Apricot F1, Xi, and Portable, as well as the Wang Professional Computer. The current version, 0.0.8, supports emulation of the 8086 processor, the infrared keyboard and mouse, the screen, floppy drives, up to two hard drives (why are they called Winchester disks?), and the support chipset. Be warned, however, that it is very early in development, and may not work well -- if at all. You can download the source from the 
Previous brings NeXT computer emulation to the Mac, with the 0.3 version released in late January. This update brings partial read compatibility to SCSI disks, but apparently breaks the MMU emulation. Head over to the 
Commodore 64 emulator micro64 has been updated to version 1.00.2012.01.13 Build 665. I believe this is the first time we've written about micro64, so here's a quick summary of its goals and functions. The developers want micro64 to become the most accurate Commodore 64 emulator available. Development is still in the early pre-alpha stages, with plans for a big GUI overhaul soon. Check out the 
Highlights in Apple news this past month include the announcement that the Mac App Store will open on January 6 and the passing of a new milestone in market capitalisation. Apple’s market cap 
Open-source x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualisation tool VirtualBox received a major update shortly before Christmas. Version 4.0 provides a major reworking of the GUI, adds support for new virtual hardware, removes the 1.5/2 GB guest RAM limitation on 32-bit hosts, and more. See the 
In news we missed last month, MS-DOS emulator Boxer has entered public beta for version 1.0. New builds were released throughout December, with the biggest changes being that games can be imported “painlessly” from CDs or folders, there is a dedicated games folder automatically created, and the program launches with a welcome panel. Check out the 
