Sep 212016
 

Probably you have read it on this page before: one of the main components of the Amstrad CPC, the Gate Array aka Amstrad 40010, was decapped and high resolution photos were shot from the internals of this integrated circuit. Finally, Gerald found some time to reverse engineer the schematics of the Gate Array and released them in the CPCWiki forums. With the schematics it is possible to better understand what’s happening inside, find eventually existing hardware tricks / bugs and finally build a replacement of course.

Ash Evans has already “ported” the schematics to Verilog, so it is possible to use it in your own CPLD or FPGA designs.

Amstrad-40010-612px-am2_metal

Thanks a lot for your work to reverse engineer the last integrated circuit (for the classic Amstrad CPC), which can help us to preserve the Amstrad CPCs for the future :-)!

Nov 172015
 

Does your Amstrad CPC work correctly or do you have stability issues? Not sure? Well, then you can at least check the RAM of your CPC with Geralds new RAM tester. To run this program on classic CPCs (464, 664, 6128), you will need a LowerROM board or an X-MEM memory expansion in boot mode. Use the .bin file in this configuration.
If you want to run it on an Amstrad Plus or an Amstrad GX4000, you will need a C4CPC cartridge and use the .bin or .cpr file with it.

If the RAM is ok, you will see the following image (green bars at the side of the screen):

RamOk

If something is wrong, you will see a red bar at the side of the screen:

Ram4LsbBad

You can download the binaries at the end of this news and discuss it in the CPCWiki forums.

If you need to check your systems memory without having an expansion board, you can also use Nilquaders memory check utility.

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