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






The Picomem card by FreddyV for all 808x computers in video by Rodrik Studio

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The Picomem ISA card created by FreddyV is for all 808x computers and brings additionnal RAM (if you don't have 640 Kb), EMS memory, hard disk and disk drive images support, thanks to a Raspberry Pico (like the PicoGUS sound card). It's still work in progress. Rodrik Studio did two videos about the Picomem, one in english, the other in french :


Youtube video



Replacing the original sound chip of the Amstrad with an AY-3-8912 clone by vRetro

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Seen on CPCWiki, it is possible to replace an AY-3-8912 original sound chip (originals for sell are costly) by a replacement chip created by vRetro Design (better to put the chip in a socket after removing the original) : AY-3-8912 functional equivalent for 25 euros.

There is another replacement chip : AY-3-8912A-TS (Turbo Sound) but contrary to what was thought at the start of the CPCWiki thread, it isn't usable on an Amstrad CPC. It's only for ZX Spectrum and it offers 2 AY instead of one.

The clone had a timing problem but it has been corrected by vRetro on the 12 October 2023 as announced by SerErris.





Amstrad CPC CRTC Compendium v1.6 by Longshot (July 2023)

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Longshot has released version 1.6 of the Amstrad CPC CRTC Compendium (July 2023) which is a documentation about the CRTC 6845 (and some others circuits). Note that the CRTC is a generic component used in several computers including the IBM PC.

It is possible to check if an emulator is good with the SHAKER tests by Longshot. SHAKER is a program designed to run on CPC machines produced by AMSTRAD in the 80s-90s. The objective of this program is to carry out extensive tests on the video circuits of this machine. These video circuits are the GATE ARRAY and the CRTC 6845. AMSTRAD produced several series of GATE ARRAY and used CRTC models produced by different manufacturers (HITACHI, MOTOROLA, UMC, AMSTRAD). This has been causing compatibility problems on operations that exceed the functional specifications of these circuits. The identified CRTCs are numbered from 0 to 4.



Memory Full, history of the Amstrad CPC demo scene by Hicks (soon)

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Informations about the availability (24th September 2023) of Memory Full, history of Amstrad CPC demo scene by Hicks : all the work will be sent to the printer this week, and you will received a message as soon as the shipping delay will be known. Then 80 kilogrammes will need to be shipped by the post office.




Mimo's quest, an adventure game by Chris PERVER for Amstrad CPC

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Mimo's Quest by Christ PERVER is an adventure game released in 2020 and last updated in August 2023.


Youtube video




New games for DOS and Amstrad CPC by the New Retro Show

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Looking at videos on Youtube, I stumbled on the New Retro Show and two of his series of videos :

One nice game in the video is Cara Grabs Antimatter which is playable on the page (finished it in 11:22 with some time off keyboard). The game is using CGALIB by Cyningstan, a library for Open Watcom C.

A good part of the DOs games showed will work on CGA and 8086 processor.


Youtube video