A new version of the FreeOCP, a decompiled and modified version of the OCP Art Studio, project was just released. In version v0.010 a few CPC+ features were supported. Go and download it from the project homepage.
Jul 302007
Jul 292007
The former members of the SCUG (Schneider / Amstrad CPC User Group) decided, that there will be regular meetings in the future. The meetings will take place on every third thursday in the month 19.00. It always takes place in Maestral, Guardinistr. 98a, 81375 Munich / Germany.
Next meeting will take place on the 16. August 2007 at 19.00 – all CPC users are welcome.
Update: The meetingplace is closed due to vacation. Read more about the next meeting on the SCUG homepage.
Jul 252007
Today, Prodatron announces that the second Symbiface II batch is in production and will be finished until the end of next week. You will be able to order it after the completion of the second batch. Here is Prodatron’s message from the SymbOS mailinglist:
Hi again,
I am glad to be able to announce, that the missing SYMBiFACE II cards
of the second batch will be finished soon. Several people already got
their new cards during the last weeks, and a few other pre-orders have
been served, too.
The remaining pieces of the 2nd batch will be produced during the next
month and can be ordered then.Please note:
– some incorrect information about a higher price have been published,
but the price didn’t change and is still 120 Euros (shipping costs
included).
– same source mentioned a so-called “CPC-IDE II” several times. Such a
thing has never been produced and doesn’t exist, so you can ignore
this misinformation, too.
– we hope to have a first full-featured exemplar of the SYMBiFACE 3
card finished in december. As already told on the RetroEuskal 2007,
this card will include at least the ethernet module with an onboard
TCP/IP stack, an MP3 decoder and a quite powerful USB controller.CU,
Prodatron
Jul 152007
Today a brand new version of Z88dk, a Small-C cross-compiler for Z80 based computers like the Amstrad CPC, the Z88, the Spectrum, etc., was released today. You can download the new version from the Z88dk homepage.
Here are the changes of the new version:
- Support for Newbrain, Rabbit, Sega Master System SMS, TS2068 as new targets
- Z80asm supporting Rabbit
- Much of the library rewritten to use FASTCALL and CALLEE linkage for faster and small library function calls
- malloc library can now allocate from a scattered map of available RAM and supports multiple heaps
- balloc library introduced as a block memory allocator
- interrupt mode 2 library added
- stdlib and strings now completely implemented in assembler and expanded
- abstract data types library introduced initially containing linked list, heap, stack and queue
algorithms library begun initially containing an implementation of the A* search algorithm - ZX Spectrum : Stefano’s ZX basic fcntl driver
- ZX Spectrum : SP1 software sprite engine added
- ZX Spectrum : Residos packages support
- ZX Spectrum : Improved Spectrum library includes new display functions
- ZX Spectrum : Input library added for direct access to keyboard, joystick and mouse devices
- + Many more
If you are able to understand german, you can read my article about how to use Z88dk for cross-compilation with the Amstrad CPC.
Jul 102007
The Computer Emuzone Game Studio (CEZgs) just released a new game for the CPC which is called Aqua. In Aqua you will play a bubble which have to reach the water surface, but it would be too easy if there weren’t enemies like animals or plants. Try to help our little friend and download the game here.
Hint: Since it is a spanish game the ingame text is written in spanish. If you want to play via keyboard, you can redefine your keys with ‘3’ in the main menue, you then have to press the key for down, right, left and fire (in this order). After you defined them, press ‘2’ to play with keyboard controls.
Here are some screenshots:
Loading screen
Ingame:
