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






The Key, a point and click adventure game using the Paket engine available the 27th April 2024

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The Key is a point and click Amstrad CPC graphical adventure game using the Paket engine discovered in 2019 in this video of the demo game Escape the ROM created by Jordi Sureda (graphics) et Santi Ontañón (code). The game demo in spanish and english of Escape the ROM is available on their web site



Space Debris ported on Amstrad CPC by BSC

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space_debris.mod in a well known musical file for PC, to be read with Mod Master for example.

BSC did port Space Debris on Amstrad CPC and it's simply wonderful ! Well in fact this video is one year old, too bad I missed it before.

You can check his Soundcloud page.





Microweb v2.0, a web navigator pour msdos et 808x (+) by James Howard

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MicroWeb v2.0 par James Howardest un navigateur web pour processeur Intel 8088 (et +), CGA, EGA, VGA ou Hercules, interface réseau ou port série et driver EtherSLIP), souris recommandée non nécessaire, 640 Ko de mémoire recommandé, EMS/XMS non nécessaire (mais permets de charger des plages plus importantes en taille). Cette nouvelle version apporte les fonctionnalités suivantes :

  • Support for more video modes, including monochrome and colour modes (including Amstrad PC 1512 in 16 colors mode)
  • GIF images are now loaded
  • PNG and JPEG dimensions are loaded but not the content
  • Improved font rendering and better Unicode support for accented characters
  • More HTML tag support including tables and forms
  • Can now leverage EMS memory (if available) for larger pages and images



Amspirit v1.0 RC1, an Amstrad CPC emulator by Dmanu78

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A new version of Amspirit, an Amstrad CPC emulator by Dmanu78 is available on its own web site now for windows. There is a 32 and 64bit version.

This version features :

  • IPF and HFE file formats are now supported
  • Binary files (with AMSDOS header) can be loaded into ram by dragging them onto emulator's window
  • More and better command line options. Common file formats are automatically detected
  • Improved UX and interface
  • Extended RAM support, up to 4 Mb
  • And as always, some bug fixes, including a major AY emulation fix, FDC timings adjustments, and a better handling of a couple of Z80 opcodes

The next major version will feature CPC+ and GX4000 emulation.

The thread on CPCWiki is here.




40 Years Of The Amstrad CPC 464 with ChinnyVision

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I do hope that we won't be faced with a midlife crisis, as this year the Amstrad CPC 464 is just 40 years old. I leave you to the good hands of ChinnyVision who will talk about it better than me.





PunyInform v5.4 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson to write text adventure games

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PunyInform v5.4 by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson 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 v6.35 (or more).

They are tutorials to write adventure game with PunyInform (end of the page) and all the documentation including a 8 page cheat sheet (quick reference)..

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

And finally, to create an Amstrad CPC and PCW disk image, you will have to use the Puddle BuildTools which works under linux, windows 1x with WSL2 or MacOS with Intel processor and OrbStack.