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






Imperium Solo by Duke, an adaptator to connect an USB joystick or mouse on joystick port

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Duke has released his Imperium solo which is an adaptator to connect USB joysticks (PS4, Xbox One...) or mouses on a standard joystick port for Amstrad CPC. It will be available for other computers later thanks to an update done with the USB port (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga et Atari ST).

He will soon start to ship the pre-orders, if you want one it is time to order one but you will have to wait for all pre-orders to be shipped first. I have ordered two adaptators myself.

Check Duke's site about Imperium Solo.

The split cable you see in the video to power the CPC and the adaptator is included with the adaptator for the price of 15 euros, add shipping and paypal cost too.


Youtube video




Amstrad.EU new look soon

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Write on your agenda to be free for the Friday 12th April at 21h00 (french time) to see first hand the twitch channel of Passion Jeux Vidéo TV for checking at the new look of Amstrad.EU.



RVMEngine and CPCTelera to play Amstrad CPC games on Android

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For the moment I have few informations, but it will be possible to play Amstrad CPC games programmed with CPCTelera on Android with RVMEngine which is an emulator with the CPC game inside, more informations in a spanish video if you understand it better than me.


Youtube video



CPCEC, an Amstrad CPC emulator for windows by CNGSoft, 9th release

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CPCEC (windows) is a new Amstrad CPC emulator by CNGSOFT released in 2019, which replaces CPCE (dos/windows).

A 9th release is available since the 30th April, the news are :

  • 20190419 - eighth public release : added options for image and sound interpolation; tape automatically rewinds itself when it reaches the end (à la FUSE); fixed a bug in TZX files that store 0 instead of 8 in the "used bits" field, another bug in CUSTOM INFO blocks in TZX files, and another one when ZXSEC loads a 48K SNA file in Plus3 mode (users should manually switch to a safe model beforehand anyway). INI files now remember the names of the last used files
  • 20190430 - ninth public release : softer B/W Spectrum palette; fixed bug in FDC sector size calculation if GAP datas are stored (Loriciels' discs); added simple memory contention to ZXSEC ("Amaurote", "Black Lamp", "Puzznic", "Sly Spy", "Zub"...)

There is a graphical menu since the third release.





CPCEC, an Amstrad CPC emulator for windows by CNGSoft, seventh release

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CPCEC (windows) is a new Amstrad CPC emulator by CNGSOFT released some days ago, which replaces CPCE (dos/windows).

A seventh release is available today, the news are :

  • Fixed a bug in the YM3 file recording, another one in the ZXSEC internal timings, and one more in the debugger commands with optional parameters
  • Fixed a Z80 emulation bug in IRQ logic. Configuration (computer model and file paths) is kept across sessions in a INI file
  • Tapes can be browsed, either by file position (WAV and CSW) or by block (CDT, TZX and TAP)

There is a graphical menu since the third release.



RASM v0.112 by Roudoudou, a multi platform assembler for Amstrad CPC

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The last version of RASM is v0.112 (5th April 2019). This multi platform assembler (linux, windows, but not only like MorphOS on Amiga) let you program for Amstrad CPC.

The online documentation is available.

update v0.111

  • error management code cleanup
  • new options with directive INCBIN for wav import
  • allow EDSK with invalid track sector size or supernumerary tracks if sectors are DATA compliant
  • bugfix confusion between generated global labels and local labels for export
  • bugfix EQU with generated names AND curly brackets formulas inside a loop
  • bugfix invalid REPEAT values will increment the error counter

  • update v0.112

  • bugfix single NOP wasn't increment nop counter ^_^
  • bugfix NOP count with ADD/SUB/XOR/AND/CP (IX+n)/(IY+n)
  • bugfix in WAV importv


Creation of Adventure games, something old, something new, something borrowed

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In quite old times, creating a new adventure game without programming it from A to Z meant using programs like :

  • The Quill written by Graeme Yeandle and published by Gilfsoft (a british company created by Tim Gilberts in the early 1980s) on ZX Spectrum in December 1983. With the success of the tool Gilsoft released Illustrator to add graphics to games written by the Quill. First published on ZX Spectrum, it was also released on Amstrad CPC, C64, Atari 8bit, Apple 2, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. It was using a parser with only verb noun understanding
  • Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) sometimes called PAWS for Professionnal Adventure Writing System is also written by Graeme Yeandle, Tim Gilberts and Phil Wade, still published by Gilsoft in 1986. It featured graphics directly without an addon, a better parser, could use 128 Ko (at least on ZX Spectrum). It was released on ZX Spectrum and other CP/M computers but did exclude the BBC Micro and C64. An updated CP/M version of PAW was ported for MS-DOS under the name PC Adventure Writer. A bit more history about Quill and PAW on Graeme Yeandle's website and Stefan Vogt's website (including download of the Quill and PAW for several computers) and an interesting interview of Tim Gilberts by Stefan Vogt. PAW was used recently for the game Doomsday Lost Echoes in 2016 (original web site of the game). Check Gilsoft's Text Adventures' Engines Reservoir if you want to write a game with PAW
  • Graphic Adventure Creator (GAC) written by Incentive Software in 1985 by Sean Ellis on Amstrad CPC initially and later to ZX Spectrum, BBC, Acorn Electron (without graphics), C64 and also at STAC (ST Adventure Creator) on Atari ST
  • DISEÑADOR DE AVENTURAS DE AVENTURAS AD (DAAD) or Adventure Designer for Aventuras AD was written by Tim Gilberts in the late 1980s for the company Aventuras AD. So he wrote a new multi platform adventure writer which could target 8bit and 16 bit computers like C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and PCW, MSX, Atari ST, Amiga and MS-Dos. It was programmed from 1988 to 1991 but development stopped with the banruptcy of Aventuras AD. DAAD was used recently for the game PANDEMIA XXI

DAAD could have been lost forever, except that the systems disks were found in 2014 by Mr. SAMUDIO and released in the public domain sadly without english support which was missing. Happily Tim Gilberts teamed with Stefan Vogt (author of Hibernated 1 released in 2018, a science fiction adventure) and restored and extended the english language support, and letting use a modern editor. The new version supports the same platform than the original DAAD. A new version of DAAD (v2 R2) (all tools to create a new game) was released in 2018 and a DAAD compiler v2.42 update in 2019. DAAD also supports the german language now.

But today you can use other tools than excluding or complimentary to DAAD :

So want to write game, what about reading tips about using Quill/PAW/DAAD by Stefan Vogt ?