I wish you all a happy new year 2024, health and success, for you and those who count in your heart (other also). And of course a lot of new Amstrad CPC programs, new hardware expansions and why not a CPCNext like the Zx Spectrum Next or a CPC-X64 which we are lacking news since a moment.

Personnally I am for a CPCNext which would incorporate all hardware expansions which exists already with an HDMI output for a simple reason, our Amstrad CPC won't last forest. Giving them a new corporal enveloppe will ensure a longer life (well till our own end at least :-). And no need to extract components from existing CPC, there are already replacements for the gate array and the AY-3-8912 sound chip, other will come certainly later.

Merry Christmas 2023, have a nice diner and night with the people you are caring for.

Targhan has created CPC Scene Radio as Roland Radio has some problems since a few months.

Also, I just saw that there is now a version of Arkos Tracker v2.0.1 for Raspberry PI (also on linux, windows and mac).

To make so beautiful Amstrad CPC loading screens like Eric Cubizolle (Titan), it's easy, you just need to use the same painting program : Multipaint by Tero Heikkinen AKA Dr. Terrorz, and maybe a bit of talent and mostly a lot of work.

Titan is describing Multipaint as a mmix of OCP Art Studio and Deluxe Paint for windows which offers the possibility of using the resolutions and palettes of a whole bunch of old computers including the Amstrad CPC (mode 0 and 1, overscan possible in mode 0).

Two videos presenting Multipaint (beware they are both from four years ago, so not about the latest version and features) :

• discovering Multipaint, a photoshop to draw 8bit screens (video in 2019 in french)
• presentation video by the author himself during a demo party : ZOOParty 2019 (see below)

Reading an interview of BDCIRON on AMSnews, I saw the link to his web site Zilog.fr which has two sub sites :

• ASMtrad CPC about learning Z80 assembler on Amstrad CPC
• Sinclair Spirit about the ZX Spectrum family

An interesting interview of Christian BALLANDRAS (co-writer on the RPG game Mandragore) done by BDCIRON is available on AMSnews.

Border 0 organizes his ninth score contest on the game Relentless (shoot them up by Axelay, Rexbeng and Tom&Jerry) till the 31st Novembre 2023. See the site for the rules, you will have to use the WinAPE Amstrad CPC emulator to record a SNR file.

If there is someone who did a lot for the Amstrad computers, it's Frédéric BELLEC whose web site ACME is a reference.

Todays he is needing our help to replace his A4 scanner which is not well suited for scanning items bigger than A4. He wants to buy an A3 scanner whose model he choosed and you can participate to buy it on Leetchi (63 days left to participate).

Retro Maniac has done an interview of David Thompson. It's in spanish, but there is also an english traduction at the middle of the page.

Amstrad Power is at the start a Telegram group, since the 21th October 2023 it's also a Amstrad news web site, a new concurrent after Amsnews (french).

More is better, it's a sign of vitality of the Amstrad scene (software and hardware).

Doh sorry for tonight but copy/paste the french text (hit the french flag up there to the right) in google translate if the photo below make you drool. Will try to translate it myself tomorrow, sorry.

To make it short, there are 7 models of the protection :

• french, english and spanish CPC 464 (472 for the spanish one)
• french and english CPC 664 (there is no Azerty 664, so the difference is just on the disk drive, both keyboards are Qwerty)
• french and english CPC 6128

Price is 17 &euros; including shipping for France and 20 &euros; for Spain (shipping included too). For any other international shipping, contact him first.

Included in the packaging :

• protection folded in its sealed cellophane
• documentation for washing and ironing
• protective bubble envelope
• shipping with tracking number
• a small gift to boost your happiness

For ordering, you must :

1) payment with Paypal of the good amount (number of order x price : 17 or 20) to fredisland at acpc dot me. You cant ask to reserve for later.

2) at the same time you pay on Papyal, you can leave a message, it's really important as you must leave your postal address, which protection you want and how many, or send these informations as a private message on Facebook or by email.

Frédéric will confirm your order (by PM or email) that your order will be processed (well if you leaved all the needed informations). As his original message was in August and as he has now the protections in stock, shipping should be quick but don't forget he is a one man show not Amazon, sometimes humans needs to eat, sleep, work too (Genesis8bit opinion, not a translation of Frédéric's words).

Retro Maniac has done an interview of Patrick HINRICHS (The Fraggle) at the end of August 2023. It's in spanish, but there is an english traduction at the middle of the page.

AMSnews is a new Amstrad news web site, which is open since the 4th September. Competition is welcome.

AMSnews is looking for help, but to be honest me also as this site is a one man show since the start.

It's an interview of Super Sylvestre himself that you will find on his site les Sucres en Morceaux, which should have been published somewhere else but wasn't finally.

Super Sylvestre wrote a new article (in french), this time about cars and Amstrad CPC, not an usual one.