Archives of Genesis8 Amstrad Page from 1999 to 2012 about emulators

JavaCPC émulates since a moment also the CPC+. You can check CPC+ demos on this site with the emulator.

I should have written about this subject since a long time. I have a list long as my arm of things to write about, from time to time I fish in this list but I have the feeling that I am like one of the Daughters of Danaus.

JavaCPC is an Amstrad CPC emulator (and CPC+ since a few moment) by Markus Hohmann (Devilmarkus). It's a java applet (needing an internet navigator, whereas JavaCPC Desktop is a standalone emulator).

This emulator can store the high scores of 13 current games, so you can show to all other people how big is your score ! More than 1000 games are already playable online.

Recently CPC+ emulator was added (see the video) and better processing of the sound processor. Time for you to see for yourself.

SAMdisk v3.3 by Simon Owen is out.

The utility supports transfers between floppy disks and disk images, and is designed to work with almost any soft-sectored disk format compatible with the PC floppy controller, including some copy-protected formats.

Low-level floppy device access requires the fdrawcmd.sys driver to be installed.

Version 3.3 (2012-06-14)
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- Added built-in support for zipped and gzipped files
- Added support for repairing 8K sectors with bad CRCs
- Added support for raw hard disk images
- Added identify device data reading, where available (non-USB)
- Added --hdf to force HDF version (10 or 11), with v1.1 now the default
- Added --no-identify to ignore source identify data
- Added --no-cfa to suppress CFA festures in generated identify data
- Enhanced identify to include  CHS/LBA28/LBA48 sector counts and CFA
- Enhanced verbose disk list to show serial+firmware and MBR partitions
- Changed disk list to show all devices by default, not just BDOS
- Fixed repairing to blank target tracks, with new density check
- Fixed HDD access beyond 4GB boundary, extended -s range to 2TB
- Fixed SAD image writing with custom sector sizes
- Fixed status messages being written to log and not erased correctly
- Improved FDC integrity checks during sector reads, for suspect hardware
- Improved total sector count to CHS mapping

ACE v1.1 is an Amstrad CPC emulator for MorphOS by Philippe Rimauro (written in C).

• ACE does not allow emulation of a CPC+ with CRTC 1,
• ACE does not hurt the PSG musics,
• ACE does not damage what is displayed of the screen,
• ACE does not embed too many integrated monolithic tools,
• ACE does not need a nuclear power plant.
• ACE does only allow emulation of real CPC,
• ACE does emulate an accurate PSG the way it is mixed on CPC,
• ACE does show on screen what the real CPC would,
• ACE does offer infinite expansion capabilities thanks to it's AREXX interface,
• ACE does run one frame on a small little G4.

There are already 2 Amstrad CPC emulators on Android : AndCPC and CPCDroid.

Both of them are based on PSPCAP32 by Ludovic Jacomme which is a port of Caprice32 open source Amstrad CPC emulator.

To my dispair, the excellent adventure game Orion Prime cant work with PSPCAP32, is it the same thing with these 2 emulators ?

Anyway, there is an incoming Amstrad CPC emulator on Iphone ! My dream comes true (read the source for more and future informations).

CPCWiki is back after a few hardware problems, you can download on it the lastest beta version of the PC-CPC emulator by Ludovic Deplanque (Demoniak).

Caprice v2.8 for Palm OS is out since 28th June 2011. For Palm OS you can also use CoPaCabana v0.75 (also exists for windows).

WinApe v2.0 alpha 18 is out since 2 days. This new version of this Amstrad CPC(+) emulator brings major sound and emulation improvements, full-sized AVI writing, debugger enhancements and a lot of other small fixes.

If you care about sound accuracy on Amstrad CPC emulators like Mr_Lou, you should know that at the moment the best emulator is CPCE (last version is v1.94 patched on 2th June 2011).

Thanks to this interesting discussion on CPCWiki, dont doubt that more emulators will have soon a better sound accuracy, a new version of WinApe may even be out soon.

César Nicolas Gonzales released for his birthay (on 17th May, happy birthday, just a month too late) a new version of his CPCE emulator.

The entire "Ecole Buissoniere" (plus the secret part) works perfectly (it stopped working on v1.90), LPTCPC doesn't forget to calculate the sector size in 1-sector tracks, file extensions are lower case by default, the new AUTOTYPE option provides a more flexible boot method, better SVGA support for DOS and DPMI, Z80 dummy DD/FD bugfix ("Skateball.cdt" by Dlfrsilver), RAR archive support, the TZX direct recording block is now operational, Simon Owen's DSK extension for unstable sectors was added, a new debugger function (bytelogger), LPTCPC is now menu-driven, LPTPC has a Windows NT/XP port, LPTPCIO, the tape motor relay pause is emulated (Opera Soft tapes need it), there's a little Easter Egg for the WIN32.IMAGE_DOUBLE=1 mode... A new corrected v1.92 version was released the 2th June.

Next version will offer CPC+ and Gunstick emulation.

RFTM ! While reading the documentation, I just discovered that CPCE let you play on internet, one person acting as a server, the second one connect to the server as a client. I will try this and let you know about it later.

Cpcdsdk is a project aiming to collect the various bit of existing sourcecode in one common place for the linux OS relative to the Amstrad CPC, add the missing features, and make life easier for all developpers :

• The Caprice Reloaded emulator, with integrated assembler and debugger, for windows and linux,
• gfx2crtc, a tool to convert pictures to the amstrad sceen format,
• An imporved version of Ramlaid's cpctools, now running under linux, with (limited) support for usb floppy drives
• A special version of STSound from Leonard, modified to emulate an AY3 more accurately (the original emulates the slightly different YM chip used in the Atari ST)
• Hideur Maikeur by Downwater for handling AMSDOS headers
• iDSK from sid for manipulating dsk images and files inside.

GameBase CPC v15 is out.

Gavin Pugh updated his twitter account, XNACPC is now working, an Amstrad CPC emulator for Xbox 360.

Source code will be later available, but it could take weeks or months.

You can download the latest version of the PC-CPC emulator and of ManageDsk v0.17 (.DSK file handling utility) by Ludovic Deplanque (Demoniak).

This last version of the emulator corrects 2 bugs, one about CLI use (command line interface) and the other about the 2nd joystick handling.

AmeDS v4.0 is out, which let you download programs with wi-fi from CPC-Power. It features enhanced sound too.

You can download the latest version of the PC-CPC emulator by Ludovic Deplanque (Demoniak).

This version corrects bugs and adds choice for color and green monitor, an assembler, the start of the CPC+ asic emulation.

You can download the emulator MAC-CPC v0.9.2a for Mac OS X by Flynn. MacCPC is the C and Objective C port of his second Amstrad CPC emulator called WinCPC.

Be fast to get the C64 emulator for Iphone free for a short duration.

Caprice v2.6 for Palm OS is out.

DevilMarkus has written a new utility in java : Cdt2Wav, so you can use it on Windows, Linux and Mac.

For Linux and Mac users, launch the cdt2wav.jar with the following parameters : cdt2wav.jar -Xms512m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m (or set all to 256 if you want only 256 Mb max. ram usage).

DSP v0.9 beta 4 is available, it emules several computers, including the Amstrad CPC.

DSP v9 beta 3 is an Amstrad CPC emulator (programmed in Delphi, support to compile with Lazarus and Free Pascalhas begun), it supports Amstrad CPC since June 2009.

CPCemu for dos by Marco Vieth was the first Amstrad CPC emulator I used. It exists also for win32 and linux, and the last version now supports other keyboard than the qwerty one.

CPCGamesCD is a live CD by MiguelSky with emulators and the NVG Amstrad game collection. It has been updated :

• Includes frontend, new CPC Loader 2.5 by Troels K.
• Includes NVG games update 10/18/2009
• Includes Snap-Pack by MiguelSky (3589 images)
• Added new version 6.2 of JavaCPC emulator
• Includes Linux version of CPCLoader 2.5 and emus update
• Includes Maps folder of NVG and support for that
• Includes Links to T.A.C.G.R.

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

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

Wiituka v0.98.8 is out, an Amstrad CPC emulator for the Nintendo Wii by D_Skywalk (though web site mentions 15th May 2009). It features :

• Bug fixes in libogc/grrlib with some TV sets
• Page can be changed with + and -
• Added option in XML to avoid connect to internet
• Added internal mp3 player, feels the 80s!
• In virtual keyboard now you can clean all binded keys using A+B
• Participates in Scenery beta 2009

2CDT by Kevin Thacker, a line command windows utility to add files into a .CDT file (image of a tape) with a GUI by DevilMarkus in java.

The Amstrad CPC emulator PSPCAP32 has been updated with the support of an atari joystick (used by Amstrad CPC).

Roland is an Amstrad CPC emulator for windows and linux (sources available).

Last version of Joyce (v2.2.1) by John Elliott is still fresh (January 2009), it emulates an Amstrad PCW (including the PCW16) for Unix and Windows.

Wiituka is a brand new Amstrad CPC emulator for the Nintendo Wii by D_Skywalk. It features :

• a comfortable interface that tries to look like Virtual Console
• online support for downloading games
• CPC Gunstick Emulation

Next version will feature :

• Redefine WiiMote Keys
• Game List with Screenshots
• Snapshot (and tape?) Support
• Roms details, votes and much more!

The Amstrad CPC emulator PSPCAP32 has been updated :

• Emulation speed (small improvements)
• Improve file requester with virtual keyboard to choose sequentially rom files beginning with a given letter
• Add documentation for settings in help menu

The Amstrad CPC emulator WinAPE offers a new floppy controller and drive emulation, CPC Symbol fonts and a stack of minor enhancements and bug fixes.

The Amstrad CPC emulator AmeDS v2.1 for Nintendo DS allows you to download Amstrad CPC games from the web, a nice new feature.

The Amstrad CPC emulator CPCE v1.90 brings a new LPTCPC.BAS to allow sending by parallel port extended .DSK (supporting more copy protection) and corrects FDC commands to be able to read these new extended .DSK, and some improvements to Z80 seach function and ZIP files management.

The Amstrad CPC emulator PSPCAP32 for PSP has been updated once again, with mostly emulation speed increase, new hotkeys, and auto-fire.

The Amstrad CPC emulator PSPCAP32 has been updated :

• improve speed (+3 fps at 222Mhz)
• add new hotkeys : settings such as fps, delta_y or render mode can now be directly modified inside the emulator (no need to enter in the settings menu), and quick save / quick load current state (no need to enter in the main menu)
• bug fix in green/monochrome default settings