Archives for the month April 2021 of Genesis8 Amstrad Page





CLK by Thomas HARTE, a multi platform emulator including Amstrad CPC

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CLK par Thomas HARTE is a latency-hating emulator of 8- and 16-bit platforms : the Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, Apple II/II+/IIe and early Macintosh, Atari 2600 and ST, ColecoVision, Commodore Vic-20, MSX 1, Oric 1/Atmos, Sega Master System, Sinclair ZX80/81 and ZX Spectrum.




Ramiro IV, a WIP Amstrad CPC game by the Mojon Twins

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Ramiro el Vampiro is at the start a platform game for the ZX Spectrum by The Mojon Twins, released in 2013 with an upgraded version in 2016.

The Mojon Twins are actually working on Ramiro IV for ZX Spectrum (test version) and for Amstrad CPC in a earlier state (link in spanish).



A speedrun of Express Raider par Ourson in about 16 minutes on Amstrad CPC

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Express Raider (US name, Western Express outside USA) is an arcade game written in 1986 by Data East Corporation. It was edited by U.S. Gold in 1987 on Amstrad CPC.

On OursoN Retrogames's youtube channel, Ourson is showing a speedun in a little bit more than 16 minutes on Express Raider.



ZEsarUX v9.2, an Amstrad CPC 464 emulator (other computers like ZX Spectrum too)

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ZEsarUX v9.2 is a multi platform emulator, Amstrad CPC 464 included. You can compile the unix sources directly or get a binary for :

  • linux 32/64 bits
  • Mac OS X
  • Windows
  • Raspberry pi (raspbian)


Conference with Louis-Marie Rocques (Silmarils)

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The Bibliothèque nationale de France has organized the tuesday 6th April 2021 a "Rendez-vous du jeu vidéo" with this time Louis-Marie Rocques, the author of the game l’Aigle d’Or and founder with his brother André and Philippe Plas of Silmarils.




Oil Panic by Crazy Piri for Amstrad CPC

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After Tetris and Puzzle Bobble, Crazy Piri has released Oil Panic, un remake of a classic Nintendo game and watch.



Turbo Pascal programmation on Amstrad CPC by Nemo 59 : a hardware sprite editor, and more

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Nemo 59 is programming in Turbo Pascal on Amstrad CPC a software : a hardware sprite editor for Amstrad CPC+, and much more. I invite you to go see his youtube videos and read his posts on CPCRulez.

He also wrote a pascal framework (TP-tools v0.2 with its documentation), the objective is to have a v1.0 with more pascal units, for Amstrad CPC and CPC+. TP-Tools v0.2 is actually organized in 4 units :

  • UGraph.inc : graphics management
  • USound.inc : sound management
  • UKBoard.inc: keyboard and joystick management
  • UAsic.inc : ASIC CPC+ management

Other pascal units will be added in the future v1.0 (UCrt, USprite, ...).




PunyInform v2.3 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson to write text adventure games

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PunyInform v2.3 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson is a library written in Inform 6 to create adventure game (pure text, no graphic support contrary to DAAD) using the Z-machine virtual machine which will run on 8bit computers (or more recent computers too). PunyInform has a parser, knowing of common verbs and a framework to write adventure games.

PunyInform is based on the Inform 6 library written by Graham Nelson. Its goal is to make easily adventure games in Inform 6, with a manual describing the differences between the official library and PunyInform..

Games using PunyInform can be compiled in z3, z5 and z8 format (z3 being the best format for 8bit computers, other formats have more features). Compared to the Inform 6 library, it means that there is no support for the Glulx virtual machine but z3 format is important as Inform 6 doesnt support it.

To compile games written with PunyInform, you should use the Inform 6 compiler maintained by David Kinder. Binaries are available on if-archive. PunyInform needs Inform v6.34 (or more).

They are tutorials to write adventure game with PunyInform (end of the page).

To try your game after compilation, you can use WinFrotz by David Kinder, to create map easily you can use Trizbort.



CPCEPower v2104, an Amstrad CPC emulator by Megachur (linux, windows, MAC, PI)

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The last version of the Amstrad CPC emulator CPCEPower by Megachur is available on cpcwiki.

The goal of this emulator is to emulates as best is possible the Amstrad CPC, like ACE.



ACE v1.23, an Amstrad CPC(+) emulator for MorphOS/Haiku by Philippe Rimauro

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ACE v1.23 is available. Since v1.22, this emulator can use plugins which emulates :

  • Amdrum (Cheetah) sound card which lets play 8bit samples, seen in ads a percussion synthesis
  • X-Mass IDE interface
  • Albireo card by PulkoTronics

A SDK exists if you want to program your own plugin for the ACE emulator.



Music of Ghosts'N Goblins played on piano by art88tum

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Ghosts'N Goblins is a classic arcade game by Capcom in 1985 and released by Elite in 1986 on Amstrad CPC.

On art88tum's youtube channel, you can listen him playing Ghosts'N Goblins on piano.

Yes, it's another JB le Daron, but no singing though !



Amstrad Diagnostics ROM v1.10 by Noël Llopis

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Noel Llopis has written an Amstrad CPC diagnostic ROM which is already at version 1.10 and whose sources are available on Github.

Changes since v0.91 :

  • New main menu and summary screen
  • Checking for 464 vs 664 models
  • Fixed crash on DSK build
  • Fix: Upper RAM test on Plus and GX4000 working again
  • Improved keyboard layout in keyboard test
  • Support for 464/664, 6128, and matrix keyboard layout (use TAB to cycle through them)
  • Tries to autodetects Amstrad model and pick correct keyboard layout automatically
  • Tries to autodetect ROM language and picks Spanish or French keyboard layout if necessary
  • Fix: Upper RAM test doesn't trigger FDC


SugarPI v1.2.0, a bare metal emulator for Raspberry PI 3/4 by Sugarbox

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Sugarbox has already written two Amstrad CPC emulators, after Sugarbox v1 and v2, it's now SugarPI v1.2.0 which is working on a Rapsberry Pi 3 ou 4 wihtout raspbian : it's a bare metal emulator.



dMagnetic v0.30, a Magnetic Scrolls emulator by Dettus for various BSD and Linux distributions

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dMagnetic v0.30 by Dettus is available for several versions of Unix (BSD, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo) with ANSI drawing in a terminal. This utility lets you play adventure games by Magnetic Scrolls. This version adds support for extended DSK.

The emulator is using the original files of the games for Amstrad CPC, C64, msdos, windows (1991 compilation), .MAG et .GFX files on the magnetic scrolls memorial.



An Amstrad PPC 512 operated by Noël Llopis (repairing, upgrading, screen changing) in 5 videos

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Noel Llopis did start 4 months ago a serie of videos about an Amstrad PPC 512 whose screen has suffered just a little bit... The videos are very interesting and my resume below cant show how interesting these videos are. Take the time to see them from start to end as I did.

  • first video in which he will open the beast and trying to replace the broken screen with another screen from a PPC donor. Then he will use the CGA2SCART PRO made by Retro Erik. The CGA2SCART Pro permits to replace a CGA/EGA screen with a television using a SCART cable (RGB signal). Then he is running two of his msdos programs he wrote mayn years ago : Return of Frankenstein (3D isometric game) and Bouncing Ball
  • second video where the screen will be repaired after many tests, a real work of a police investigagor but in electronics
  • third video, it's time for upgrading (adding and testing a Gotek, adding and testing more RAM to get 640 Kb) and some reparations (the handle and the protection hatch at the back) to finish by dumping the spanish ROM of the PPC which wasnt available on internet, to be used with an emulator (MAME or PCEM)
  • fourth video, the screen has been repaired but it's not perfect. So the original screen will be changed, two solutions being tested : MCE2VGA (which I use with my own PPC 640) and the GBS 8200
  • fifth video, it's the part two of the fourth video where he is using a third solution to replace the original screen with a Raspberry Pi zero and the HAT RGB to HDMI which allows the use the HDMI output of the Pi (bare metal emulation, no raspbian OS used)


Amstrad PPC 640 replica running RetroPie by Bill Kar

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You have a dead Amstrad PPC and you heart is too heave to throw it inside the bin ? Then why dont you use a magic wand to transform it into a retro console or better to use PCEM to emulate an Amstrad PPC ? It's what Bill Kar did with its PPC 640.



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