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






Survive Hadley's Hope by DevilMarkus, an adventure game for Amstrad CPC (and HTML)

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Survive Hadley's Hope by DevilMarkus is a graphical adventure game for Amstrad CPC (english and spanish) in mode 0 and 1 and HTML which you can even play online on the author site. The HTML version has an auto mapping as you move.

It's of course a game following Alien Escape.


Youtube video



Alien Escape by DevilMarkus, an adventure game for Amstrad CPC (and HTML)

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Alien Escape by DevilMarkus is a graphical adventure game for Amstrad CPC (english and spanish) in mode 0 and 1 and HTML which you can even play online on the author site. The HTML version has an auto mapping as you move.

You are Ellen Ripley, sole survivor of the Nostromo crew. The alien xenomorph has killed everyone else. Your mission : reach the escape pod and get off this ship before the creature finds you. The ship's self-destruct may be your only option, but first you need to gather essential items. Can you find Jones the cat and escape together ?


Youtube video



ELKS by Gregory Haerr, running Linux on a 8086 PC (and up)

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ELKS v0.8.1 by Gregory Haerr is a version of Linux for the processors 8086, 8088, 80188, 80186, 80286, NEC V20 and V30 and compatibles. ELKS can work with 256 Kb of RAM but you will be better with 512 Kb (128 Kb only with a ROM). It doesn't need a memory management unit (MMU) which you get on more recent processors.

You can see the video below of ELKS running on an Amstrad PC 2086. You will find more informations on the wiki and the documentation of ELKS. And yes Doom is running under ELKS. You can even test ELKS online.


Youtube video



The Chambers Beneath by Cyningstan Retro, a PC game for CGA/Hercules card

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The Chambers Beneath by Cyningstan Retro (on Twitter) is a game for msdos with CGA or Hercules video card. It's a RPG/roguelike/dungeon crawler video game, which I like personally.

No dosbox, PCEM or PC XT ? It's not a problem, there is a windows download too which will configure all what is needed to play the game on your current PC. You can also play The Chambers Beneath online.

There are also other games on Cyningstan Retro web sites, including two C libraries used for the programming of these games : CGA library and keyboard library.


Youtube video



Scans of the Chase HQ 2 Amstrad CPC+ cartridge by Lee Cook

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Thanks to Gareth Fenwick and Kevin Moon, Lee Cook has scanned the box and manual of the Amstrad CPC+ cartridge of Chase H.Q. 2. I let you discover the photos by following the link. This box had not the original cartridge sadly. But if Lee Cook finally discover such a cartridge he will dump it for the pleasure of everybody.



The Mindscape Music Board PC sound card with 2 AY-3-8910 and the PicoMem card

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But why is this PC sound card interesting? In fact, they are the sound chip twice on the board : AY-3-8913, yes a version derived from the AY-3-8910. The Amstrad CPC is using the AY-3-8912 variant also used by the MSX (or its Yamaha variant the YM2149F), ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Oric. The PicoMEM card from FreddyV supports this Mindscape Music Board card since the 26th May 2025 firmware.

The Mindscape Music Board (video by The Oldskool PC) which appeared in 1986, a year before the Adlib sound card in 1987, which became a standard, followed by another standard with the Sound Blaster cards (1989). Only 2,000 cards were created at the time, and only four are believed to still exist today. The Mindscape Music Board was sold with the Bank Street Music Writer editing software, written by Glen Clancy, in two editions (one for the Tandy 1000 and PC Junior with just the software, and the other with a physical card for all other PCs with an 8-bit ISA card). The software was intended to be a word processor for music with 6 channels for notes and percussion, with octave changes, volume, envelope, and other features, with official music notation that could, of course, be printed. No MS-DOS game apparently supports this card due to its rarity, it losts foot when the Sierra company pushed the Adlibe sound card and the MIDI synthesizer Roland MT-32.


Youtube video



The Amstrad CPC from A to Z, a video by ORIGAMI Média

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The Amstrad CPC from A to Z is a YouTube video by ORIGAMI Media (with Raphaël Lucas, Patrick Hellio) about the history of the Amstrad CPC range over two hours, followed by 30 minutes of gameplay, then the end of its life (arrival of the CPC+ and GX4000 ranges) and the conclusion which is about the present state of the Amstrad scene.


Youtube video



Arkos Tracker v3.2.7 by Targhan is available

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Arkos Tracker v3.2.7 by Targhan is available on his web site. This is no longer a beta version, the site has many tutorials. This version is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux (Intel and ARM).

It contains some important bug fixes, but also a FAP export, and a digidrum player! More doc and tutorials about digidrums and samples are going to be added to the website in the following days.




Head over Heals enhanced by Habi Soft for Amstrad PCW (April 2025)

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Head Over Heels enhanced is an enhanced version of Head Over Heels first released in 1987 on Amstrad CPC and PCW (monochrome of course, 4 colors for this version), édited by Ocean Software and made by Jon RITMAN, Bernie DRUMMOND, F. David THORPE and Bob WAKELIN. It was ported on Amstrad PCW by Habi Soft with colour support and some optimized routines .


Youtube video