A portable computer like the Amstrad PPC 640, released in 1988 has no ISA expansion ports, he has only a feeble speaker. So you may think it isnt possible to get some nice sound except of simple beeps ?

On the Amstrad CPC it was possible to have a better sound using a Digiblaster sound card connected to the parallel port. It was a simple electronic device with several resistors, not difficult to make in fact.

Well, there is the same thing on PC since ages : the Covox Speech Thing.. It is possible to buy a Covox 4 on Serdashop which is an upgraded version of the Covox Speech Thing (higher precision resistors : 0.1% and low pass filter). For more informations about the Covox, I recommand reading the related articles on Nerdly Pleasures.

I also bought the MCE2VGA on Serdashop which lets you use a VGA external screen instead of only using the internal screen which is quite lacking.

The software used here is Mod Master XT beta 18 by FreddyV which you can download on Vogons.

We are in 2020, and at least it is possible to send a SMS using an Amstrad CPC thanks to Kiragregis. It uses an RS232 interface (by Amstrad) connected to a GSM A6 module bought on AliExpress.

If you understand french, you should really listen to the vidéo by Kiragregis, it's a funny one. If you dont understand, maybe the youtube subtitle will be good enough to understand it.

Super Sylvestre wrote a new article, this time about the Amstrad Plus or the myths of the CPC+.

Damien Guard made a 3D print faceplate to use a 3 inch disk drive inside a PC in a 5,25 inch spot.

The symbiface 3 is presented on twitch by Oncle_ced. The video really starts at 11 minutes.

The firmware v1.1.1 of the Imperium Solo by Duke is available (more wireless gamepads supported).

It's an adaptator to use USB joysticks (PS4, Xbox One...) on a standard joystick port of an Amstrad CPC (and later ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga and Atari ST).

The firmware v1.1.0 of the Imperium Solo by Duke is available (more wireless gamepads supported).

It's an adaptator to use USB joysticks (PS4, Xbox One...) on a standard joystick port of an Amstrad CPC (and later ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga and Atari ST).

Started since 1971 computer science was being introducted in french schools (6 years to 18 years). In 1985 the plan Informatique pour tous was bringing Thomson MO5 and TO7/70 computers linked in a network controlled by a PC with two 5,25 inc disk drives (later with a hard disk). What most of people like me didnt know, there was a definitive plus for technology classes : Youpi is a robotic arm with 5 liberty degrees made by JD Productique. It is controlled through the parralel port with a basic program and assembler routines on a Thomson MO5. You will find below two french interesting links :

• the réference site by Edouard Forler
• the assocation VoRoBoTics

Youyoudid was able to get a Youpi which he wanted since his young age. He wrote about it on CPCRulez. In a frist video he is controlling the arm in basic, but the movement is slow so he wanted to accelarate it with a basic compiler :

But finally thanks to the Turbo-Pascal compiler (CP/M) he is able to give a new youth to the robotic arm to let it serve a drink from a plastic bottle.

ATTENTION, you need a VGA monitor which supports 15 khz !

The VGA adaptator is now available for only 13 euros.

Someone just got a nice PC keyboard (made by WASD Keyboards) for his anniversary, following the reading of a CPCWiki thread.

The firmware v1.0.9 of the Imperium Solo by Duke is available. It's an adaptator to use USB joysticks (PS4, Xbox One...) on a standard joystick port of an Amstrad CPC (and later ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga and Atari ST).

ATTENTION, you need a VGA monitor which supports 15 khz !

On a saturday morning when you start the day seing an Operation Wolf remake, you can feel that the day will be a good one.

And then comes a VGA adaptator for Amstrad CPC by Edu Arana and from the same person a card to let use Amiga joysticks and a TZXDuino included.

Will I found more goodies today (send me some sun rays, lacking in this respect) ?

The Aleste 520EX is a russian clone of the Amstrad CPC and the MSX. It works not with AMSDOS but with the MSX DOS (see this russian site in english). There was already a thread about the Aleste 520EX on CPCWiki, but this time Sebastian Blanco is talking about the Aleste kit he just bought. Finally he isnt the only one in the Amstrad CPC community to have one. If you are interesting it's seems to possible to buy one kit by writing to tetroid at inbox ru like Sebastian did.

You can see a youtube video of an Aleste 520EX running the Phortem demo by Condense (and MSX games at the start of the video).

A modified version of Caprice32 permits to emulate at least in part the Aleste 520EX.

If you are interested by the hardware of the Amstrad CPC (and GX4000), you should go read Noel Llopis's Twitter.

His Youtube channel Noel's Retro Lab has at the moment a video about repairing and servicing a 3 inch floppy disk drive.

I did just buy an Amstrad PPC 640 (sold starting 1988) on french site le bon coin. It's a PC weighing 6 Kg, with a green monochrome screen, a real standard keyboard, 640 Kb (no EMS/XMS), a NEC V30 (8 Mhz) replacing the 8086 found in PC 1512 or 1640, two 3,5 disk drives, a 2400 bps modem (v22bis, v23), printer and serial ports, a standard MDA/CGA/EGA video port, a port to connect a PC 1512 or 1640 screen and two extension ports. It runs msdos 3.3

And tonight I am reading on CPCWiki (link below) a quite nice information linking to Hackaday about a modded Amstrad PPC 640 by Retrohax.

He changed one of the two 3,5 inch disk drive with a gotek, but he especially replaced the green monochrome LCD screen with a color screen (coming from a television set) using the MCA2EVGA available on Serdashop. The MCA2EVGA isnt visible as it is now in the room where you could put 1O C size batteries to run the computer (about 1 hour of autonomy).

But even without changing the screen, the MCA2EVGA can be used to connect a VGA screen with the video port at the back of the PPC 640. Doing this you wont need to look for an Amstrad PC 1512 or an Amstrad PC 1640 whose screen can be connected to the PPC 640 for the video (dont forget to change the switches at the left of the PPC) and bring him electricity at the same time, avoiding using its own alimentation.