During the last weeks there were some entries in the CPC forums where people searched for the CPC Imperium page and it’s huge page about the Amsoft software. The old address is down, but in cooperation with Devilmarkus, Pentagon, the creator of the CPC Imperium website, brought it back. So if you are looking for Amsoft software, you should browse to http://amsoft.cpcwiki.eu now. Thanks guys for bringing it back!!!
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Axelay, well-known for his great game Star Sabre (128k), has released a new action game “Dead on Time” for the CPC. You have to defeat enemy waves to earn time. If your time runs out, the game is over. Simple, isn’t it  ? The game itself features nice graphics and music, so be sure to download and play it.
You can download it directly from Axelays website or at the end of this news article. The game will be available on physical media (cassette) from Psytronik in the future.
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Good news from Arkos: The Arkos Tracker, a Windows based music tracker program, will be released within a few weeks. You can compose songs on the PC which will be later played on the CPC or any other computer which uses the same music chip (AY-3-891x and YM2149). It will be released with a pack of Z80 players and tons of music and sounds.
For now, you can have a look at the video:
UPDATE: Targhan, the developer of the Arkos Tracker, provided more information about it in the CPC Wiki forums. Here are the features of the Arkos Tracker:
Features:
- 256 patterns available.
- Each pattern is composed of 3 independent tracks.
- 512 tracks available, each being reusable in any pattern, or even several times in the same pattern.
- Each track can be transposed independently in a pattern.
- A track has a height from 1 to 128 lines, independently of the pattern that uses it.
- 255 instruments available.
- The instrument editor allows you to modify each registers of the PSG.
- Replay frequency of 13, 25, 50, 100, 150 or 300hz.
- Possibility to put "events" in your song. They can either be used to synchronize your music with your production, or trigger digidrums for exemple.
- Big news: instruments are divised into two channels : a Software, and Hardware one. These channels can be independant or dependent from each other. Allows using two waves at the same time!
- Allows you to play sound effects in a very flexible and powerful way. You can also play the SFXs without any music.
- You can import any STarKos song.
- NO SID/DMA for CPC+ for now. I may plan that…
About the Player:
- Only 25 scanlines maximum used!
- On top of being faster than the STarKos player, it’s lighter: one and a half kb.
- The player works on Amstrad CPC, MSX, Spectrum or Pentagon (using conditional assembling : only the necessary code is used).
- The generated songs are very light (about as much as the STarKos song. Sometimes a bit lighter, sometimes not).
- Can be used in Basic (call the player by yourself, or use it under interruptions), and Assembler.
- The source of the player is given, and documented.
- The format of the music is given. So you’ll be able to create your own custom tools (conversion, new players…).
- Fade in/out available.
About the sound effects:
- Every instrument of your song becomes a sound effect.
- You can play/stop a sound effect on any, or all, of the 3 channels.
- You can choose the note, volume, speed of any triggered SFX.
- You can add Pitch to them (useful to add randomness to the sounds, for example).
- Sound effects are in a seperate file : you can use the same sound bank even if you change the music.
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Posted by Octoate in Amstrad CPC, Hardware, tags: 2010, ACID, cartridge, cpc wiki, fano, forum, hardware, nocash, plus
I already wrote a news article about the search on how to decrypt the ACID protection of the Amstrad Plus computers. Now NoCa$h, also known for his No$cpc emulator for DOS, received a Amstrad CPC Plus cartridge by Fano and decrypted the ACID protection of the cartridge within a few days. To do this, he desoldered the ACID protection chip from the cartridge and connected it to the printer port of the PC. With a small program he sent data to the chip and tried to find a way to reproduce the signals of the chip. He found an algorithm which produces the same sequence.
With the decryption of the chip, the last big unknown mystery of the CPC is now resolved. In the future we can produce new cartridges for the CPC Plus and maybe someone will develop a reprogrammable cartridge.
You can find the pseudocode in the thread about the ACID protection in the CPCWiki forums and this information will also be included in the CPCWiki article about the ACID protection in the future, too.
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Emilio Guerrero released a new version of his CCZ80 compiler which understands C style code and is aimed for Z80 CPUs.
Here are the new features / bugfixes of the new version:
- Allow initializate a text string with string instruction.
- Fixed functions printf, fprintf and lprinf in libraries for Amstrad CPC for write negatives real numbers.
- Show information about the binary file created.
You can download it from the CCZ80 homepage.
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Redbox released his first Amstrad Plus demo called “Blob”. It features music and a scroller.
You can download it from the CPC Wiki forum and at the end of this article.
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Flynn released a port of his Amstrad CPC emulator called WinCPC for the MacOS-X operating system. It is currently in alpha stage, but the following features are already implemented:
- FDC emulation is complete. In MacCPC, stepping rate is considered as well.
- PSG/sound rendering is complete.
- CRTC/VDU emulation is complete. If desired, PAL emulation can be switched on.
- Tape emulation is complete.
- DSK and ZIP support.
- CDT and ZIP support.
- SNA and ZIP support.
- Integrated debugger a la WinCPC.
You can download MacCPC directly from Flynn’s homepage or at the end of this posting.
[UPDATE: Flynn updated the emulator to version 0.9.2. This version resolves some problems with screen output in MacOX 10.6]
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You are searching for a game where you only can remember a part of the gameplay or some screens? Then you can use the Amstrad CPC Screenshot Catalog, which was assembled by Lex Sparrow and ZX4Ever, to find the game. It currently contains more than 3500 screenshots (only in-game screens – v1.0 contained loading screens, too).
You can download the PDF file from PressPlayThenAnyKey or the CPCWiki share hosting.
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A new version of DSP, an emulator for various computer systems including the Amstrad CPC, is now, after a long time of development, available. You can download the new version from the DSP homepage.
Changes:
• General
+ENHANCE: Started portability Lazarus + Free Pascal, now DSP can be compiled in Delphi, Lazarus under Windows and Lazarus under Linux (arcade drivers only ATM).
+BUG: Fixed a bug closing audio in Windows
+ENHANCE: Added a variable in the INI file to locate the language files
+ENHANCE: Create the INI file even if DSP don’t find language files
+BUG: Fixed a bug in the scroll, when the length of the screen was equal to the scroll window
+ENHANCE: Added sprite functions to use other sprites sizes than the original of the uncompressed graphics.
+ENHANCE: YM2151 – More speed (for example the opening scene of Jackal don’t slow down)
+BUG: Fixed some bugs when you select a portion of the tape directly from the panel.
+NEW: i8255 – Device i8255 (Mode 0 only)
+ENHANCE: M68000 – Added some more opcodes.
+ENHANCE: Fixed some bugs in the initial list of game load (initial preview, the initial list, default image, etc.)
• Spectrum
+ENHANCE: Implemented the special ULA+ colors function
+ENHANCE: Implemented screen with scanlines 2X and 3X.
+BUG: Fixed a bug in 0×19 block of TZX, don’t pause and games with protection Speedlock 1 does not work.
+ENHANCE: Implemented the initial state of the EAR with the symbols of the TZX 0×19 block, now load more games.
• Amstrad CPC
+NEW: Implemented i8255, more games load ( ‘Baby Jo Going Home’ saga ‘Barbarian’, etc), the color palette changes correctly.
+ENHANCE: Keyboard works much better (‘Antiriad’ works)
• Contra
+NEW: Added driver with stereo sound. Sprites problems, possible bug in the M6809 core
• Mappy
+NEW: Added driver without sound. Possible bugs in the M6809, graphical glitches.
• Rastan
+NEW: Added driver with sound (bugs in the M68000, so you can not pass the second stage).
• Legendary Wings Hardware
+NEW: Added Legendary Wings driver with sound
+NEW: Added Section Z driver with sound
+NEW: Added Trojan driver with sound, missing ADPCM sound
• Street Fighter
+NEW: Added driver with sound, missing ADPCM. When you start the driver, make some sound, and then stops all.
You can download the new binary (for windows and linux) and the source from here.
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Lachlan Keown released a new version of his sprite editor for Windows. With AMSprite you can paint your graphics / sprites on a Windows PC and use them for your CPC productions, so it is perfect for cross-development. You can donwload it from the CPC Wiki article.
Changes in version 1.4:
- Included option to output mirrored sprites.
- Outputs hardware sprites in compressed format.
- Supports video import under 64-bit OS.
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