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






A new version of Martine is available (v0.27)

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Martine is an utility converting JPG and PNG images to Overscan screen or window for Amstrad CPC (and Plus series). The last available version is v0.27 which was released today.



New articles on 64 NOPS, a blog about the Amstrad CPC programmation by Hicks and Toms

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New articles are available on 64 NOPS, a blog about programmation on Amstrad CPC by Hicks (Vanity) and Toms (Pulpo Corrosivo).



ALCON 2020 by Abalore is available on any 64 Kb Amstrad CPC

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A.L.C.O.N. 2020 is a shoot them up already existing on Amstrad CPC since 1987. Abalore started to work on a remake in 2016 and it's now available.

The PlayCity extension is not required but recommended to hear the full 6 in-game audio channels. A 2-button gamepad or joystick (best) is also a nice addition to enjoy the full arcade experience.

Programmation is by d'Abalore, graphics by TotO, and music by Targhan.


Youtube video



CPCEC, an Amstrad CPC emulator for windows by CNGSoft, 19th release

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CPCEC (windows) is a new Amstrad CPC emulator by CNGSOFT first released in 2019, which replaces CPCE (dos/windows). This 19th version (fixed) was released the 12th December 2020.

This new version adds hardware rendering, which can be desactivated if it is better without.



CapriceESP32 v0.7.1 by Millim, an Amstrad CPC emulator on Odroid Go

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A new version of the Amstrad CPC emulator for Odroid Go by Millim : CapriceESP32 is available (v0.7.1).

It features mute sound and support for cheating (read documentation for using it). To access both features use the Menu Key + B, then Menu Key + Down arrow.

You must put the directory /cpc at the base of the Odroid SD card (especially /cpc/dsk), the .FW will be in /odroid/firmware as usual.

I recommand to read the documentation of CapriceESP32. You must use the Menu key + B to access the .DSK directory then Menu + right arrow to go to the file list, select file with A, press Menu + B once again to launch the selected file. To use the virtual keyboard, press Menu + A and once again to remove it. There is no sound mute at the moment. If you want to reset the emulator, just choose another disk and file to execute.



A new version of ConvImgCpc by Ludovic Deplanque

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A new version of ConvImgCpc by Ludovic Deplanque is out (1st december 2020).

It's a windows xp utility to convert PC images to Amstrad CPC.


Youtube video



PunyInform v1.8 by Fredrik Ramsberg to write text adventure games

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Infocom is a company created in June 1979 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) staff and students. This company has created well known adventure games (interactive fiction).

They choose an interesting solution to create their adventure games, they could have created games and adapt them on other platforms, instead they choosed to separate the game engine and the game data. So they only have to write an new game engine for each computer.

This game interpreter or virtual machine is called the Z-machine. It was created by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979. The original compiler by Infocom has been lost but Graham Nelson has written in 1993 Inform which can ccompile the source of an adventure game for the Z-machine virtual machine or for the Glulx virtual machine (which removes some limitations of the original virtual machine by Infocom).

The compiler Inform 6 since the v6.30 can compile either for Z-machine or Glulx virtual machine. There is also a version 7 of Inform.

And now comes PunyInform v1.8 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson which is a library written in Inform 6 to create adventure game (pure text, no graphic support contrary to DAAD) using the Z-machine virtual machine which will run on 8bit computers (or more recent computers too). PunyInform has a parser, knowing of common verbs and a framework to write adventure games.

PunyInform is based on the Inform 6 library written by Graham Nelson. Its goal is to make easily adventure games in Inform 6, with a manual describing the differences between the official library and PunyInform..

Games using PunyInform can be compiled in z3, z5 and z8 format (z3 being the best format for 8bit computers, other formats have more features). Compared to the Inform 6 library, it means that there is no support for the Glulx virtual machine but z3 format is important as Inform 6 doesnt support it.

To compile games written with PunyInform, you should use the Inform 6 compiler maintained by David Kinder. Binaries are available on if-archive. PunyInform needs Inform v6.34 (or more).

They are tutorials to write adventure game with PunyInform (end of the page).

To try your game after compilation, you can use WinFrotz by David Kinder, to create map easily you can use Trizbort.



Turbo Rascal SE v0.11.5 and an Amstrad CPC demo in pascal by Leuat : Mørketid

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Turbo Rascal SE (TRSE) is a complete suite (IDE, compiler, programming language, image sprite level resource editor) intended for developing games/demos for 8 / 16-bit line of computers, with a focus on the MOS 6502, the Motorola 68000, the (GB)Z80 and the X86. TRSE currently supports application development for the C64, C128, VIC-20, PLUS4, NES, Gameboy, PET, ZX Spectrum, TIKI 100, Amstrad CPC 464, Atari 2600, 8086AT, Amiga 500 and the Atari ST 520 (complete list here). With the benefits of a modern IDE (error messages, code completion, syntax highlighting etc) and a bunch of fast built-in tools, it has never been easier to program for your favorite obsolete system !

TRSE runs on Windows 64-bit, Linux 64-bit and OS X. Development began on Feb 24th 2018. The TRSE framework contains a number of project examples for multiple platforms, including almost 200 runnable tutorials. TRSE also contains a real-time ray tracer that can export (compressed) data for demo and game production.

Join TRSE on Facebook !

Leuat has written an Amstrad CPC demo with TSRE : Mørketid released for the Syntax demo party 2020. The group is Proxima with code and graphics by Leuat and music by Mibri.


Youtube video



CapriceESP32 by Millim, an Amstrad CPC emulator on Odroid Go

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Seen on Odroid's forum (there also), there is finally an Amstrad CPC emulator for Odroid Go by Millim : CapriceESP32 !

You must put the directory /cpc at the base of the SD card (especially /cpc/dsk), the .FW will be in /odroid/firmware as usual.

I recommand to read the documentation of CapriceESP32. You must use the Menu key + B to access the .DSK directory then Menu + right arrow to go to the file list, select file with A, press Menu + B once again to launch the selected file. To use the virtual keyboard, press Menu + A and once again to remove it. There is no sound mute at the moment. If you want to reset the emulator, just choose another disk and file to execute.

the Amstrad CPC emulator CapriceESP32 runnin Throne Legacy



dMagnetic v0.28, a Magnetic Scrolls emulator by Dettus for various BSD and Linux distributions

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dMagnetic v0.28 by Dettus is available for several versions of Unix (BSD, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo) with ANSI drawing in a terminal. This utility lets you play adventure games by Magnetic Scrolls. This version adds support for extended DSK.

The emulator is using the original files of the games for Amstrad CPC, C64, msdos, windows (1991 compilation), .MAG et .GFX files on the magnetic scrolls memorial.