News about Amstrad CPC, PCW, Notepad NC100 NC150 NC200, PDA600 and also Amstrad PC






GrafX v2.1 (bitmap editor)

-

An update of GrafX (v2.1) is available.

It's a bitmap paint program that allows to draw in more than 60 video resolutions (from 320x200, including most of the standard Amiga resolutions, provided your videocard knows how to handle them). It was written originally for DOS, but has been modified to use SDL and modern operating systems. Its layout is not very different from Deluxe Paint or Brilliance.




Forest, an Amstrad CPC picture by Marlene Johansen (LuBlu Entertainment)

-

Marlene Johansen, one of the 2 members of LuBlu Entertainment (authors of the Amstrad CPC game Sort'Em), has drawn a nice picture on Amstrad CPC (mode 1, 4 colors) that you can see below, you will also find 2 others Amstrad CPC pictures on her web site.

screenshot of a forest by Marlene Johansen



Remake of Sapiens by the original authors : Didier and Olivier Guillion

-

It has been ages since I last went on the web site of the 2 Guillion brothers, the authors of Sapiens. There is a newer (though not recent) version of their windows remake of this nice game, one of the few I finished on my Amstrad CPC. You should download this remake, for the music if only, but if you want to play it, dont forget the authors, it's a shareware for 10 € only.

screenshot of Sapiens for windows




the disk drive is dead, hail to the disk drive

-

Since the announce of the last french CPC meeting in May 209 organized by Eliot, I learned that he uses a disk drive replacement based on SD cards. But there are some others too, but one isnt finished atm, and for the 2 others, the most difficult part is to get one, unless you are good at making your own :

In fact, there is a 4th one, made by RAM7 based on USB key, that he showed to the last meeting, but I have no more informations about it.



Alien 8 remake for MSX2

-

After the Knight Lore MSX2 remake, there is also one of Alien 8 (still for MSX2) by Manuel Pazos (Guillian) and Daniel Celemín (LordFred).

They are both now working on a remake of la Abadia del crimen. You can go on Retroworks to see some pictures.

You can see a video of this Alien 8 remake for MSX2 on Youtube.



Making Amstrad CPC music on CPC or PC

-

If you need to write some music for an Amstrad CPC program (either demo, game, etc...), you can do it either on an Amstrad CPC :

Or you can do it on a PC :

  • WYZTracker for windows (needs .NET v2.0) by Augusto Ruiz, an .AY (Amstrad and Spectrum) music creation utility using a pattern-based editor, spanish interface only at the moment, short english manual inside
  • Vortex Tracker II v1.0 beta 19, a Win32 PT3-editor, can load, play, edit PT1, PT2, PT3, STC, STP, SQT, ASC, PSC, PSM, FLS, GTR, FTC, FXM, AY (ZXAYAMAD) files and save them in PT3 format or in temporary text format. You can export modules into SNDH-format to play it on Atari ST, and into HOBETA (with player or without player), AY's ZXAYEMUL format, SCL or TAP to play it on Amstrad CPC ou ZX Spectrum, for more information go see Vortex tracker's website.

Also, it's possible without an emulator to listen to .YM, .AY and .AYM files with ZX Spectrum Computer Sound Chip Emulator (same address than above).

If you use other music tools, thanks to let me know so I can add informations here and in the comp.sys.amstrad.8bit FAQ).



CPC Wiki is moving to a faster server

-

CPC Wiki is moving to a faster server.