It just needs a lot of tapes...

Cpcdsdk is a project aiming to collect the various bit of existing sourcecode in one common place for the linux OS relative to the Amstrad CPC, add the missing features, and make life easier for all developpers :

• The Caprice Reloaded emulator, with integrated assembler and debugger, for windows and linux,
• gfx2crtc, a tool to convert pictures to the amstrad sceen format,
• An imporved version of Ramlaid's cpctools, now running under linux, with (limited) support for usb floppy drives
• A special version of STSound from Leonard, modified to emulate an AY3 more accurately (the original emulates the slightly different YM chip used in the Atari ST)
• Hideur Maikeur by Downwater for handling AMSDOS headers
• iDSK from sid for manipulating dsk images and files inside.

CPC Game Reviews has 6 new reviews (Deathscape, Diamond Mine, Unitrax, Whopper Chase, Alien Storm and Space Hawks).

Kevin Thacker is finishing working on a conversion of a Magic Bytes reflexion game released in 1989 : Blue Angel 69 (C64, PC CGA and EGA) written by Winfried Stappert. The original game is turn based (vs computer or another player). The screen draws a 8x8 chessboard filled with positive or negative numbers. Each turn, the player must choose a number whichs on the same linge (or column for the other player) that the last chosen number. Once chosen the number est removed from the chessboard and added or substracted from the player score. The goal of the game is of course to have more points than your adversary at the end of the game (where you will see the sexy robot fully).

For the history, the term Sexy Robot is used to describe Hajime Sorayama's renditions of the female robot forms which is covered with silver metal, first created in 1979. Initially, Sorayama had the idea to combine robots with eroticism to create the Sexy Robots.

César Nicolas Gonzales released for his birthay (on 17th May, happy birthday, just a month too late) a new version of his CPCE emulator.

The entire "Ecole Buissoniere" (plus the secret part) works perfectly (it stopped working on v1.90), LPTCPC doesn't forget to calculate the sector size in 1-sector tracks, file extensions are lower case by default, the new AUTOTYPE option provides a more flexible boot method, better SVGA support for DOS and DPMI, Z80 dummy DD/FD bugfix ("Skateball.cdt" by Dlfrsilver), RAR archive support, the TZX direct recording block is now operational, Simon Owen's DSK extension for unstable sectors was added, a new debugger function (bytelogger), LPTCPC is now menu-driven, LPTPC has a Windows NT/XP port, LPTPCIO, the tape motor relay pause is emulated (Opera Soft tapes need it), there's a little Easter Egg for the WIN32.IMAGE_DOUBLE=1 mode... A new corrected v1.92 version was released the 2th June.

Next version will offer CPC+ and Gunstick emulation.

RFTM ! While reading the documentation, I just discovered that CPCE let you play on internet, one person acting as a server, the second one connect to the server as a client. I will try this and let you know about it later.

SAMdisk v3 by Simon Owen is out, it's a command-line disk image utility for Windows 2000 or later. The utility supports transfers between floppy disks and disk images (DSK/MGT/IMG/HDF), and is designed to work with almost any soft-sectored disk format compatible with the PC floppy controller, including some copy-protected formats. Low-level floppy device access requires the fdrawcmd.sys driver to be installed.

You can use a java GUI written by DevilMarkus : SAMdisk GUI.

This utility requires a floppy drive connected to a standard motherboard connector. USB floppy drives cannot be supported as there is no way to access their embedded floppy controller chip.

Need some Amstrad CPC parts ? Well time to go on Eliot's shop !

Rules of this useful shop :

- parts are aimed to be used in the CPC community or any other 8bits friendly community,
- some parts are rare so please order only what you really need,
- please do not resell parts you got from the site.

Welcome to Coutances, home of Amstrad Expo meeting, organized by the tiredless Eliot. Arrived Friday in the morning, 2 people already, myself and a distinguished member of Greece : Voxfreak.

Symbos running on Eliot's computer with a symbiface and a Compact Flash card working as a hard disc.

Voxfreak (left) and Eliot (right).

Bad news, GamebaseCPC will stop to share its work.

Good news, dumps of programs will still be available on CPC-POWER.