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






GRIMM, an adventure game creator for Amstrad CPC in french

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Warning: The following text is taken from the Itch.IO page. I don't think I can do a better job than its author when presenting this utility used to create text adventure games for the Amstrad CPC.

GRIMM is a retro game creation utility to produce text adventure games in the spirit of the Amstrad CPC.

It combines three essential elements:

  • an adventure engine
  • a dedicated editor
  • a simple, structured, and readable scripting language

GRIMM is for authors, creators, and retro-computing enthusiasts who want to design parsable adventure games, interactive fiction, and old-school exploration experiences without having to build a complete engine from scratch.

The principle is simple: you write your game's content, organize your locations, objects, and rules, and then generate a final playable version.

With GRIMM, you can :

  • create locations, objects, and interactions
  • define exits, hidden passages, and conditions
  • write an introduction, an ending, and death sequences
  • manage Object properties and simple game logic
  • Set up a score and usage counters
  • Associate images with the introduction, ending, death, or locations
  • Export your project as a final playable build

GRIMM is not a modern drag-and-drop game maker. This is a focused authoring tool, built around:

  • clarity
  • structured writing
  • deliberately retro constraints
  • an old-school philosophy

It will be particularly suited to those who enjoy :

  • the Amstrad CPC aesthetic
  • parser games
  • text adventures from the 80s and 90s
  • dungeon crawlers and exploration
  • compact and readable game logic

This project includes :

  • the GRIMM editor
  • the scripting workflow for GRIMM V1
  • export/build tools
  • documentation
  • files example

This publication corresponds to GRIMM V1, the first stable, production-oriented version. It is in French. The next version will allow the use of English.



PicoZ80 by Engineers@work, a replacement of the Z80 processor

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The PicoZ80 by Engineers@work is un replacement of the Z80 using a Raspberry Pico 2. It features a faster CPU, more memory (ROM/RAM banking), virtual devices, networking (WiFi, BT thanks to an ESP32), rapid application loading from SD card and WiFi management.

It is possible to configure the PicoZ80 with a .JSON file to adapt to the host machine, already working for the Sharp MZ-700 (and later for the MZ-80A, MZ-80B, MZ-800 and other Sharp computers). The author want to also to provide a profile for the Amstrad PCW. So I think it isn't impossible to make one later for the Amstrad CPC.

PicoZ80 par Engineers@work



ELKS v0.9.0 by Gregory Haerr, running Linux on a 8086 PC (and up)

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ELKS v0.9.0 by Gregory Haerr is out since the 21th March 2026. It's a version of Linux for the processors 8086, 8088, 80188, 80186, 80286, NEC V20 and V30 and compatibles. ELKS can work with 256 Kb of RAM but you will be better with 512 Kb (128 Kb only with a ROM). It doesn't need a memory management unit (MMU) which you get on more recent processors.

You can see the video below of ELKS running on an Amstrad PC 2086. You will find more informations on the wiki and the documentation of ELKS. And yes Doom is running under ELKS. You can even test ELKS online.


Youtube video



rtzx v0.5.0 par Phil Stewart, un utilitaire de gestion de fichier cassettes (TZX et CDT)

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rtzx by Phil Stewart is an utility for windows and linux written in Rust language to manage tape files for ZX Spectrum (TZX) and Amstrad CPC (CDT). It can inspect, convert to wav, and play to audio.




WIP Q*Bert for Amstrad CPC+/GX4000 by Chris PERVER

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Christ Perver is currently working on an Amstrad CPC+/GX4000 port of the Q*Bert arcade game released in 1982 by Gottlieb. He wants the Amstrad CPC+ version to be as close to the original as possible. It is available as a cartridge version (joystick support for GX4000), but also on floppy disk (and tape later). I encourage you to visit Chris Perver's website and read his PDF explaining the game's development.


Youtube video



Microweb v2.1, a web navigator pour msdos et 808x (+) by James Howard

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MicroWeb v2.1 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).





rtzx v0.4.0 par Phil Stewart, un utilitaire de gestion de fichier cassettes (TZX et CDT)

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rtzx by Phil Stewart is an utility for windows and linux written in Rust language to manage tape files for ZX Spectrum (TZX) and Amstrad CPC (CDT). It can inspect, convert to wav, and play to audio.