And one more article by Sylvestre this time about howto identify your Amstrad CPC graphic chip : the CRTC.

After the article about calibrating the Amstrad CPC monitor by Sylvestre (Sucres en morceaux), here is a new article about fading colors.

First, be aware that if you open your Amstrad CPC monitor, read all the text in french by Sylvestre (Sucres en morceaux) especially the part about the very high tension and direct current (DC), even if your monitor is disconnected from current.

This article will let you repair and calibrate your goold old Amstrad CPC monitor CTM640 or CTM644.

A preview version of SymbOS by Prodatron is available with wifi support (needs the M4Board extension card by Dukes.

Beware, this version isnt 100% stable.

Habi Soft is working on a prototype adding on an Amstrad PCW motherboard a PS2 keyboard and video (PAL/NSTC). Also you can use a joystick and a mouse.

Check the youtube channel of Habi Soft.

For 30 euros, you can order one of the 9 Dk'tronics mouse interface clone made by Talrek.

Want to see a modded Amstrad GX4000 by Zaxon ?

Click on the source below to find photos of an Amstrad CPC 464 upgraded with a X-Mem card (memory extansion by ToTO) inside the keyboard.

Xyphoe just published a new video on Youtube, but not about an Amstrad CPC game as usual, this time it's about how to comme d'habitude, mais comment repair an Amstrad CPC 6128 disk drive (belt replacement and cleaning the head).

Available on NoRecess : a new version of HxC Manager forr 464/664 and an interview of Thriller (Cadjo Clan) a demomaker.

Happy X-Mass to everybody

This is a disguised advertisement for the X-Mass by TotO, available for pre-order.

If you want to check the inside of an Amstrad notepad NC100 being repaired by EEVblog, that's here (australian accent inside).

A new hardware interface by TotO the hero which should be available for Christmas on Cent Pour Cent. See below, it's just a copy and paste of this site about the X-mass.

Shown at the ReSeT #18 event in France, the X-MASS is actually work in progress.

This last MX4 expansion is a mass storage. It embed a 128MB turbo flash drive for storing thousands of files into your CPC and definitively make it autonomous as no PC is required to configure and use it.

Developers will be able to work on more ambitious projects requiring megabytes of resources and code to be compiled, breaking the floppy limitation. Used in conjunction with X-MEM, the cross-dev will be no more the only issue for the future.

Last but not least, users will be able to copy, load, save, run files faster than ever !

By the way, the X-Mass can already be used with SymbOS.

After the article Why the Z80's data pins are scrambled, here is another one by Ken Shirriff : down to the silicon: how the Z80's registers are implemented.

The Amstrad CPC use 3" disks because Alan Michael Sugar got a large batch of 3" drives, and then stayed with it for compatibility. Game editors started to add protections to avoid piracy. Amstrad CPC emulators are using the .DSK format to store the content of a disk (but it assumes that each track have only one size). This format can't manage well protections, for this you need the extended DSK format where each track can have a different size to support more protections, but still not all of them. That's why hardware solutions are necessary to preserve the exact content of the original disks in their totality (and then you can write them again to real disks) such as :

• Kryoflux, this is the official hardware developed by The Software Preservation Society. More on Kryoflux features here. The kryoflux creates a file for each track of a disk in raw format (the track is read 5 times so about 250 Ko per track). Then there is the CT Raw, one file created from the raw tracks, and lastly the .IPF resulting from the CT Raw.
• SuperCard Pro (SCP), contrary to the kryoflux, the SCP creates one file for one disk. With a firmware update, the SCP will be able soon to become a floppy disk emulator like the HxC Floppy Emulator by Jean-François DEL NERO

There is a problem to create .IPF for Amstrad CPC programs, the real disks have been either :

• written in an usine so they will be seens as originals and IPF will be created
• written on a real Amstrad CPC, so they will be seens as copies and IPF wont be created

Every emulator can use the raw or CT Raw kryoflux files if using the SPS decoder library. If an emulator doesnt use this library, then the best thing is to use .DSK created from kryoflux files with Samdisk like those dumped by Maxit on CPC-Power. SuperCard Pro support must be added internally into an emulator. Sugarbox already supports the SCP and of course the kryoflux (from a kryoflux raw or CT Raw, sugarbox can create a SCP file). Samdisk will soon support the SCP hardware, so it will be possible to read one track only.