QuickCMD v2.2 is out, a shell-based user interface by NoRecess.

These are the changes:

• Added support for Bryce's MegaFlash
• Renamed RO and RW commands to READONLY and READWRITE
• Removed CRTC command
• Reset screen to QuickCMD’s default if external RSX changed video mode
• DELROM now clears a rom with &FF value (was using &00)
• Fixed: was overwriting first byte after HIMEM
• Fixed: not assuming anymore than Amsdos area is always at &A700

Ikari Warriors is out on PS3 and Xbox360.

Remember the CPC+ modded by DeepFB ?

Here is another mod of a 464+ by Badstarr, with 128 Ko and of course the ubiquitous HxC floppy emulator.

P.S. : go read the source of this news for more photos at the page 2.

Inside the modded 464+, there you see the HxC floppy emulator and the whole SD card.

Here is the bottom, you can see a tiny part of the SD card from the hole.

Metr81 isnt the only one to post videos of Amstrad CPC gameplay on Youtube, there is also Cholo and Xyphoe.

The first video made by Xyphoe announced there is Shadow Dancer written by US Gold in 1991.

R-Type was written in 1987 by Keith A Goodyer for Activion (Electric Dreams label) which gave him only 21 days to write the port, by using the ZX Spectrum version (written by Bob Pape). He used the PDS system written by Foo Katan, probably the world first IDE editor, cross assembler, linker and debugger development. it was running on a PC (ms-dos) with extra hardware that allowed to send the compilted code directly onto the target hardware. It eventually supported development for Z80, 6502 and 68K.

Here is the method he used :

Given the extream time limits i was given to the port this is basic strategy that I took to do the port... (I hope i remember all this correctly).

The spectrum had its ROM in the lower 16K, and the 48K of RAM above it. So I configured the Amstrad to locate the MODE 1 screen in the lower 16K, and loaded the spectrum version in the top 48K (As it would be located on a spectrum - and ran it). I then went through the code line by line, modifying anything that 'plotted' pixels on the screen to something that would plot the equivalent pixels on on Arnolds screen.

As the spectrum screen is 'Attribute Based' I continued to used all of Bobs 'Colour' code, and the whole 768 bytes of the spectrum colour attribute screen is running on the Amstrad version. When ever there was a 'Byte' write to the spectrum screen, I would use a look up table to indexed by the byte and the value of the corresponding spectrum colour attribute to extract the two bytes required to produce the correct pixels on the CPC screen. Then all I had to do was port the control (Sinclair/Kempston) to CPC stuck, and the Sound and the job was done. A few days with DJL to add the 'Protection' and the job was done.

Now the sad news... about 5 years ago, I had a massive leak in my roof, and all my records (including the source code) was destroyed.

Now some Trivia: At the time I had a 464, 664 and a 6128 - I took the final masters down to Activision, and it would not run on their 6128. It tuned out that at some point in time, Amstrad had made a small revision to the design that meant that a the interrupt would fire just before a frame fly back pulse, where on previous versions it would occur just after. The net effect was that when my code was waiting for the frame fly back pulse to occur, the interrupt would trigger just before it, go off do some processing, and by the time it had finished the processing and returend to the main code loop, had missed the pulse - and locked up.

A R-Type remake by Fano (code), TotO (graphics) et iXien(sound) is going to be available very soon, you can actually read Fano's interview on Push'N'Pop.

I let you check differences between the screenshot of the original R-Type and its remake (first screen of the Youtube video)..

Another HD video by Metr81 of the prayer of the warrior.

Though this time there is more to say about this plat-form game, which was written in 1992 by 2 brothers : Francisco Javier Serrano García (programmation) et Emilio Serrano García (graphics). It was meant to be edited by Zigurat to be finally canceled. It is now available due to ESP Soft (also available on CPC Power). Code has been modified by SyX, the cover is by Lopez ESPI.

Here is a new HD video by Metr81 of Barrio Peligroso written by Edisoft in 1987.

Here is a new HD video by Metr81 of Birdie written by Stéphane PICQ (ERE Informatique) in 1987.

Here is a new HD video by Metr81 of Devil's Castle written by Chip in 1986. It's a sorcery clone.

Check this Ebay auction of 4000 Amstrad CPC tape games.