FreddyV is still working on the drive of the CH375 which permits to use USB mass storage on any PC XT and AT. The last version of the driver is v22, which was released the 30th June 2022 for PC XT. There is also a version for PC AT (286 and plus).

Retro Erik has done a video on the use of this USB-ISA card (see the Lo-Tech web page).

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

See the thread on Vogons.

Retro Erik has done a vidéo on the use of a USB key for mass storage on any PC XT or AT under ms-dos (see the Lo-tech web page).

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.

Tommorow friday the 22th 2022 at 10pm (frog hour, so 11pm for the beef eaters), Roudoudou will stream about Amstrad CPC programming : ASIC (on CPC+), hard sprites and integrating music.

Martine v0.35.0 is an utility written by the Impact group :

• converting JPG and PNG images to Overscan screen or window for Amstrad CPC (and Plus series)
• new tile map mode, which allow to analyze an image of a level game, and produce .imp and .til readable by tile tool from Impact

This version was released the 20th April 2022. It is available for Windows, MacOS, ARM64 and linux.

The last version of RASM is v1.7 (11th April 2022).

Rasm is now available on Github (documentation included).

This multi platform assembler (linux, windows, but not only like MorphOS on Amiga) let you program for Amstrad CPC.

Tonigh Friday the 8th 2022 at 9:30pm (frog hour, so 10:30pm for the beef eaters), Roudoudou will stream about Amstrad CPC programming : ASIC (on CPC+), hard sprites and integrating music.

RECOIL is an application for Android, Windows, macOS and Linux to view 20th century computer pictures, including the Amstrad CPC. Seven pictures formats of the Amstrad CPC are recognized (some I dont know) :

• CM5+GFX (mode 5)
• FNT (8x8 font)
• HGB (HinterGrundBild)
• PPH+ODD+EVE (Perfect PIX)
• SCR+PAL (Advanced OCP Art Studio)
• SGX (SymbOS)
• WIN+PAL (Advanced OCP Art Studio)

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.

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.

Symamp by Prodatron is a musical player for SymbOS which let you play these formats :

• MOD (4 canals)
• SA2 (Surprise! Adlib Tracker 2)
• SKM (compiled Starkos modules)
• ST2 (Soundtrakker 128 modules)
• PT3 (ZX Spectrum Protracker/6channel Vortex Tracker)
• MP3

It supports the following sound cards/chips (all internal sound chips of course) :

• Dave soundchip of the Enterprise 64/128
• CPC Playcity expansion
• MSX Darky catridge
• Dk'tronics AY soundcard for the PCW
• any MP3MSX compatible MP3 decoder on any platform
• OPL4 (MoonSound, MonsterSound, OPL4 Shockwave, Dal So Ri)
• carte Willy de Pulkomandy

Zym by Prevtenets is an adventure game interpreter for Infocom like games using the Z-machine. It can play infocom games with using the format Z3, 4 5 and 8.

AST continues to work on SYSco which is a file manager compatible with many new DOS such as AlbiDos (usb/sd), Amsdos (Floppy A and B), iMPdos (X-Mass 128/512 partitionned) and probably the M4 board and Unidos later (if you use AlbiDos, you should move to Unidos btw).

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.