New articles has been added lately on Amstrad Noob's which I recommand to read to fight the current heat...

Retro Erik has done a vidéo on the use of a USB key for l'utilisation une clé USB sur un PC XT ou AT sous msdos (voir la page de Lo-tech).

FreddyV is working on a modification of the driver for better speed on a PC XT or AT. It will be easier then using a Compact Flash card with a XT-CF.

Retro Tech Chris has made a 3D model of a bracket for this ISA card.

See the thread on Vogons.

Rodrik Studio has done two really interesting videos. The first was about adding an external gotek to your Amstrad CPC without needing to remove the three inch disk drive. And the second one is the following of the first : adding the gotek inside a 3D printed box preserving the look of the Amstrad CPC.

The version 1.0 of Mod Master XT by FreddyV is available on Vogons.

This msdos utility lets you hear a lot of music modules formats on any PC even a PC XT (CGA), for example an Amstrad PC 1512/1640 or a PPC 512/640...

By modifying ROMs, McArti0 was able to obtain news resolutions on Amstrad CPC : 256x256 and maybe 1024x512 in an emulator like sugarbox.

He also wrote another thread on CPCWiki : CPC joining to VGA monitor by 5 wire interface which gives 512x464 in mode 2, complete with schematic and pinout.

In fact, you can reconfigure the CRTC chip in an Amstrad CPC and OS to use all 65 Kb of the video RAM. Amstrad can show a maximum resolution of 1024x512 at 25Hz (or 1072x480).

CPCDiskAdapter by Michael Wessel is an universal Floppy Disk Drive Adapter for the Amstrad CPC. It's a PCB which lets you connecting disk drives other than the standard Amstrad DD1 / FD1 drives to the CPC via the disk controller, which usually requires some floppy cable mods. Moreover, these mods usually fix the drive to either being CPC A or B drive.

With this adapter board, one can flexibly use the DIP switches to select 2 out of 3 possible disk drives, and flexibly determine which one is A or B. Moreover, no more (destructive) cable mods are required with this board.

The following drives can be used:

• the standard Amstrad DD1 / FD1 3" floppy
• standard PC 3.5" floppy (with READY signal if possible)
• 5.25" floppy (with READY signal if possible)
• Gotek floppy drive

If the drive does no emit the READY signal, then it can be "faked" by grounding the READY line with the corresponding READY DIP switch (this is a standard CPC floppy cable hack)

Noel Llopis has written an Amstrad CPC diagnostic ROM which is now version 1.3 and whose sources are available on Github.

Changes since v1.2 are : fixed upper ROM detection that was failing in some cases.

The python converter of MIDI music files written by Michael Wessel in python is availabe. It let you play MIDI files on an Amstrad CPC with two hardware expansions :

• The Ultimate CPC MIDI Sound & MIDI Interface Card by LambadMikel
• Willy which can use either a S2P by Serdashop to use MIDI or the OPL3LPT by Serdashop to play adlib music with SA2 Surprise! Adlib Tracker by Madram and a VGM player by PulkoMandy

Source of the MIDI player in Z80 assembly is available.

You are so used to it, but the cover of your Amstrad CPC disk drive has some informations. Why not getting an upgrade of these informations by getting the one made by Frédéric Bellec (ACME web site) ? It's available in azerty and qwerty, and in english.

If you still didnt buy the MegaCard to upgrade your MegaPC, there is another useful upgrade. Replacing the Megadrive ASIC on the ISA card as it's an early version with a bug. Beware, you need to be careful when removing the bugged ASIC and putting a new one coming from a Megadrive donor. It will let you use flash cartridges with more success like the MegaEverdrive PRO (other source here).

Freedos v1.3 is available and there is a version for 8086 with a FAT32 feature! So it should be usable on an Amstrad PC. I will test it this week-end.

The first project for remplacing the Gate Array did start in 2016. It is finished by Gerald, the author of the C4CPC used on CPC+. The difficulty is getting the components to build it...

The second fonctionnal project but still being worked is the one by Bread80, go see his videos on his Twitter account.

Third project more recent, the one by SerErris as a CPLD who was inspired by the thread of the first project.

The Gate Array has also being remade for emulations solutions using FGPA.

A new Gate Array would also mean to be able to add new features !

I am not alone to be interested by using MIDI on Amstrad CPC : blog Amstrad Noob did write about it some days ago : First looks at the Ultimate CPC MIDI Sound and MIDI Interface Card.

A video is now available.

Something I should have written about much sooner.

These last years several expansions allows you to use mass storage (USB or sd...) on Amstrad CPC, each needing a ROM to use it correctly.

And if you use two of these expansions, you will need to load two ROMs, so less RAM for your Amstrad CPC.

So Offset did write UniDOS and drivers to be able to use another expansion, needing only one ROM with features being the same whatever the expansion. Unidos can manage actually :

• Albireo by PulkoTronics
• M4 Board by Duke
• X-Mass by Tot0
• Symbiface II by Dr.Zed
• Nova by PulkoTronics

Offset also wrote UniDOS Cartridge Creator (v1.4) which is an utility to create Amstrad Plus cartridges equipped with a patched firmware which allows to add UniDOS and its DOS nodes. You can furthermore configure up to 30 additional tool ROMs (such as Utopia, Maxam, Protext..) in the cartridges (compatible with ParaDOS and Burnin' Rubber) without requiring a real ROM board. The tool also let you automatically download the latest UniDOS ROMs from the official web site.

Michael Wessel (LambdaMikel) has written a python converter of MIDI music files which can then be read on an Amstrad CPC with a player with at least 2 hardware expansions (with 512 Kb support and soon 4 Mb support) :

• The Ultimate CPC MIDI Sound & MIDI Interface Card by LambadMikel
• Willy which can use either a S2P by Serdashop to use MIDI or the OPL3LPT by Serdashop to play adlib music with SA2 Surprise! Adlib Tracker by Madram and a VGM player by PulkoMandy

MIDI was the ultimate sound during the msdos era before windows 95 and the coming of audio card with samples like the Gravis Ultra Sound, it is time that MIDI arrives on Amstrad CPC.