Archives for the month July 2018 of Genesis8 Amstrad Page






Babaliba for Amstrad CPC by ESP Soft, a WIP game

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Babaliba is a game originally out on ZX Spectrum. In 2014 it was presented at the RetroMadrid in a beta version (check the video) still at the start. Then the development froze at a moment, but a message from one of the two developpers on the 10th February 2018 stated that the project is on the move once again and that news will be given as soon as possible.



Interview of Jorge Azpiri by Un pasado mejor

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Jorge Azpiri, nephew of Alfonso Azpiri (a great illustrator who died in August 2017) has been interviewed by Un pasado mejor (spanish). He made the graphics for the Amstrad CPC Navy Moves game (Dinamic) and for other 16bit Topo Soft games (Lorna, Viaje al Centro de la Tierra, Titanic).



A WIP Toki Amstrad CPC 6128 game by AmstradGPP

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A first teaser appeared on the 3th April on Twitter, and no it's not faked news. Toki is a work in progress by two frogs. It wwill be released first on Amstrad CPC 6128 (forget 64 Kb CPC without memory extension) then a bit later on CPC+ (CPC+ version canceled finally).

Toki for Amstrad CPC wont use the hardware to the maximum but will have all graphics, monsters and levels. The sound part and programmation are well advanced.

Their twitter has messages in french, english and spanish !



M7-Galaxy and Zen80 boards by Duke

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Everybody know the M4 wifi board by Duke for our Amstrad CPC. The M7-Galaxy board is an extended version of the M4 but intented for the Amstrad GX4000 as the board will interface inside the Z80 socket and the processor will be on the board. It features :

  • WiFi
  • disk drive emulation, it emulates the DFC765 chip so all read/write accesses are redirected to a .DSK image like a Gotek or HxC without the need of a FDC chip
  • Rom board
  • cartridge emulation
  • RAM expansion, probably 320 Kb + the original 64 Kb
  • using a wireless keyboard and mouse

So you can upgrade an Amstrad GX4000 in an Amstrad CPC+ without any soldering. For more informations, see Duke's page.

front of the galaxy board by duke for Amstrad GX4000

back of the galaxy board by duke for Amstrad GX4000

GX4000 without the galaxy board by duke

GX4000 with the galaxy board by duke

The Zen80 board is similar to the galaxy board, but is used as the M4 board : externally and not internally. It will feature 8MB SDRAM (and MCU with more GPIO's), which would be hard to fit in the internal version without going BGA.

The boards will have an approximative price of 60 euros, there is no preorder at the moment.



Memory Full, the memory of the Amstrad CPC demoscene get some Push'n Pop content

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Memory Full got a few days ago the authorization to put some content of the defunct site Push'n Pop on theirs.

It means for example interviews (No Recess, Voxfreax, Batman Forever team, Fano, Lotharek and Jeff, Wake Up! team, Ronaldo) and technical stuff (Zoom initiation, La genèse du Starkos).



RASM v0.90 by Roudoudou, an assembler/disassembler (multi platform) for Amstrad CPC

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The last version of RASM is v0.90 (27th June 2018). This multi platform assembler (linux, windows, but not only like MorphOS on Amiga) let you program for Amstrad CPC.

The online documentation is available.

The french video is about the new features of RASM.



iMPdraw v2 by AST/Imp4ct soon released

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Released in April 2016, iMPdraw v1.2 is the last version of this Amstrad CPC painting program by AsT.

The version 2 showed at the meeting Reset #30 with fullscreen mode and Amstrad CPC+ support, will be soon released.

Other painting program exists : GOS (CPC+ only) and Claudia (CPC and CPC+).



Caprice Forever v2018-07, an Amstrad CPC emulator by Frédéric Coste for Windows

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Caprice Forever v2018-07 by Frédéric Coste is a modified version of the Caprice emulator (by Ulrich Doewich) for windows.

  • Fix Z80 instructions display
  • Fix theme display at first launch
  • Fix minor bugs



Symbiface III being worked on since at least April 2018

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TMTLOGIC gave informations in April 2018 about the developpement of the Symbiface III card (see CPCWiki source too) :

  • USB mass storage device FAT32, tested with an speed of 700Kb/sec, seen as drive D
  • USB wireless mouse
  • 512 KB RAM
  • RTC (not compatible with the SF2 RTC) and a battery
  • OLED display

The final choice of the features isnt frozen, you can propose other features on CPCWiki.



Use of flipping 15 years later for the better by Sylvestre (Sucres en morceaux)

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Sylvestre wrote a new article, this time about how to get a better flipping of an image to get a much nicer look starting with an image of a 15 years old demo : a step beyond (Dirty Minds in 2003).



RASM v0.97 by Roudoudou, a multi platform assembler for Amstrad CPC

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The last version of RASM is v0.97 (27th July 2018). This multi platform assembler (linux, windows, but not only like MorphOS on Amiga) let you program for Amstrad CPC.

The online documentation is available.

  • bugfix conditionnal code inhibition with macro declaration
  • better alias infinite recursivity detection


The Amstrad Times by Ivor Spital (ingénieur chez Amstrad)

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Ivor Spital is an engineer at Amstrad, who at the start of the eighties when the company was looking for a new sector to bring profit growth, , did propose to enter the home computer markest, so work started in 1983 to make the Amstrad CPC 464. He is also one of the persons who wrote the Amstrad CPC 6128 manual.

I let you discover what The Amstrad Times is, written of course by Ivor Spital.





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