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 :

• Floppy Disk Emulator : SDiskEmul by Sundance,
• HxC Floppy Emulator, there is an USB version (CPC is connected to a PC) and a standalone sdcard version(which supports writing). The author may create a batch of these sdcards cards soon, more informations when I have some,
• TFE (Tolga Floppy Emulator).

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.

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.

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 :

• STarKos v1.21 by Targhan,
• Digitracker v1.4 by Prodatron,
• Soundtrakker 128k by Oliver Mayer,

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.

I am sad to say that NoRecess hasnt been always faithful to the Amstrad CPC, he has also made a demo in 2007 for the Sony PSP : Recession maxidemo.

CPC-Topsites is back, you can vote again for Amstrad CPC sites.

Arnold by Kevin Thacker is back, watch for a coming release soon.

His popular website "Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource" is also available here.

I am the happy owner of 2 Orion Prime (see below). Well 1 copy will be given there as soon as I find a proper contest.

As you can see the exterior of the box is really nice, and what you will find inside is as good as the exterior (very funny, but I wont say more). There is also an audio CD inside.

Orion prime did let me know that : 1) I have a dead CPC (thanks god, my MP-2F is still working), 2) I have a CPC with a bad video cable, 3) I have a CPC with keys which wont work anymore, 4) I have a working CPC, 5) I have a working CPC+ but with no 3,5" drive (which I already knew). Thanks Orion Prime :-) That said, I should have 1 or 2 more CPC somewhere else in my home, but I will do some archeology work later.

First experience with the game, graphics are nice (but we already knew that), the interface is simple and easy to use, the texts are loaded with a good sense of humor (any Heinlein lovers in Arkos and Les sucres en morceaux ?), and I know at least that I can open doors blocked with codes.

Dont forget that Orion Prime is out tomorrow 16th September 2009 (french only, but english, german and spanish will be available later). If you ordered Orion Prime, you will receive it soon. Otherwise you will only be able to download it as a .DSK file the 28th October 2009.

After Elevator Action, it's the turn of Ramparts,  you will find a music remake of Ramparts on Youtube by Ömer Aydin (Noisywan).