Archives of Genesis8 Amstrad Page from 1999 to 2020 about programmation







Memoir of Jordan Mechner, already in french and now in english

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Replay : Mémoires d'une famille is the history of Jordan Mechner, hist family and the programming of the mythic game Prince of Persia on Apple 2 as a comic.

I was able to buy it directly from Jordan Mechner and I did read voraciously, and I did loan to my mother and other people, all loved it. It's a dive into the history of 20th century in Europe with the Mechner family. The first reading can be difficult because the reading is not linear in time, you jump from one era to another but you really have to hang on because it is simply an extraordinary reading, 320 pages of pure joy, I wished there were more. I rediscovered historical facts through reading it, in addition to discovering the genesis of the Prince of Persia game. And I'll read it again as soon as I get it back from the last person I lent it to.

It is now available in english : Replay, memoir of an uprooted family. Buy it, read it !



Source code of the adventure game : On the Queen's footsteps by Davide Bucci

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Davide Bucci is the author of adventure games, including On the Queen's footsteps for several platforms. On the 3rd February 2024, he has released the source code of his game on Github.

His game is written with The Adventure Writing System (AWS) by Aristide Torrelli and his own utility aws2c which translates AWS ascii files directly in C code. As his utility uses Z88DK to create the ZX Spectrum version, it was easy for him to write an Amstrad CPC version.

Here is the introduction of the game : today is August 27th, 1904. Nine months ago, you, Emilia Vittorini, joined the Italian Archeological Expedition in Egypt led by Ernesto Schiaparelli, the director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin. You are now back in Genova, Italy: your steam ferry arrived three days ago with 25 wooden boxes containing Queen Nefertari Meritmut's grave goods, a real treasure! They left Genova by train, heading towards Turin, yesterday evening. While they were in transit, you were invited to a sumptuous reception organised by a wealthy art lover, Eugenio Collovati, count of Raligotto, but it would be hard to say that you appreciated the evening. But the reception was yesterday: now, you must catch the train to Turin and check that the treasure arrived safely. I will be your eyes and ears. Good luck.

After the loading screen, press the Return Key to get the start of the game (see second screen below).

On the Queen's Footsteps par Davide Bucci, loading screen On the Queen's Footsteps par Davide Bucci, start of the game




Programming in basic (compiled) on many computers with ugBASIC by Marco Spedaletti

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Even if I knew ugBASIC for having seen it on the System-CFG forum, I didnt write about yet. It's interesting as it is a compiled basic which works on many computers including the Amstrad CPC(+). So it's Amsnews which reminds me to do my duty. In fact this compiler write the code so a program works whatever the features of the targeted computer, a feature who doesnt exist in hardware will be managed by software. For ugBASIC's github it's here, the official site here, an official FB group of ugBASIC and even now an ugBASIC forum. Good reading.



SDCC v4.3.0 (C programming for Amstrad CPC) on PC and MacOS

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A new version of the ANSI-C compiler SDCC v4.3.0 is available since the 7th June 2023 for windows, linux and MacOS.





Second book about assembly on 5 new CPUs par keith56

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Keith56 has released a second book about assembly on 5 new CPU : ARM Thumb, 65816, 6809 PDP-11 and Risc-V CPUs. The first book was about many CPUs, including the Z80 of course.

If you buy the book on Amazon, he will give you a PDF version.



SDCC v4.2.0 (C programming for Amstrad CPC) on PC and MacOS

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A new version of the ANSI-C compiler SDCC v4.2.0 is available since the 8th March 2022 for windows, linux and MacOS.



Learning Z80 assembly, are you Rodnay Zaks or Lance A. Leventhal ?

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To learn Z80 assembly, I only knew the book by Rodnay Zaks, but it seems it's not the best one after reading this Twitter thread. So the book by Lance A. Leventhal would be more didactic and less redundant.

These two books are available on Amstrad CPC Mémoire Ecrite, but beware the last edition of the Rodnay Zaks's book is 1982, the one by A. Leventhal is 1983. Don't download an older version. Rodnay Zaks also exists in french, spanish and german (in 1982 and 1987).



SDCC v4.1.0 (C programming for Amstrad CPC) on PC and MacOS

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A new version of the ANSI-C compiler SDCC v4.1.0 is available since the 8th March 2021 for windows, linux and MacOS.



NOMWARS, an Amstrad CPC game written with 8BP v041 (and more)

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Jose Javier Garcia Aranda has released a new version of NOMWARS (tape and disk) written with 8BP v41 (8bits de poder : 8bits of power), his RSX library to write Amstrad CPC games in basic and asm.

A physical edition of the game can be bought on Hobby Retro.

You can download 8bp on github.

You can also get SPEDIT v14, an utility to capture sprites from games or pictures made with an utility such as ConnvImgCPC, Martine...

And finally, he is working on a menu application for DES cartridges, to allow easy launching on games installed inside such a cartridge.



3DManiaks, an Amstrad CPC demo by the group Impact

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3DManiaks by Impact is their latest production, an Amstrad CPC demo which is quite nice to see. You can download it on Pouet or on CPCWiki. You can also see 3DManiaks sur Youtube.

The demo has been written by :

  • Demoniak (code)
  • Kris (art)
  • CMP (design)
  • Mast/FtL (music)


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