| This appears to be what you're thinking off, I had the exactly the same ones back in the day. |
Amstrad CPC thread • Page 4
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StarchildHypocrethes 33,974 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoHah! That was the one! .gif)
I loved Roland on the Ropes and Harrier Attack. -
Grump 1,208 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoThanks Pterarch
Harrier Attack! that was the one I was racking my brains to remember. I thought it was hilarious that your plane could fly faster than the missiles you shot. It was possible to fire one off, fly past it and end up shooting yourself down.
Tip: Don't bomb the aircraft carrier when you take off at the start of the level. You won't have anything to land on when you finish! -
StarchildHypocrethes 33,974 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoA tip I learnt to my childish horror -
Back in the day, wanting to upgrade (like you do) from the ZX Spectrum 48k to something better. I made the huge mistake of buying an Amstrad CPC 464, when I should have gone for the Commodore 64, which incidentally I did, some months after owning an Amstrad CPC 464
For all of its 8bit colours, around 27 of them, the Amstrad CPC 464 appeared to lack power, smooth scroll, memory, thus rendering it pretty much useless as a games machine. The only positive were a couple of games, that played ok. These included:
Sorcery: Colourful graphics, flip screen affair, effective title screen tune
Gryzor: Colourful graphics, flip screen affair (the arcade game smooth scrolled)
Who Dares Wins: 4 colour hires graphics, flip screen Commando style game
Yie Ar Kung-Fu: Colourful graphics, a choice of 2 static backdrops, played slow
Batman: 4 colour hires graphics, really quite impressive
The Never Ending Story: Great theme tune, colour graphics. It was an adventure game.
..and that’s about the lot. Just about every other game sucked. For a laugh, you might like to check out, using an emulator:
Hyper Sports: Lol! - The game loads 3 events maximum into memory, and the quality of the graphics are beyond poor, sound non existent, playability zero
Green Beret: In all its flip screen glory
Once the Amstrad CPC 464’s tape deck packed in, the machine was dumped.
Yay! Yeah! Woohoo! Party time! -
wayneh 2,599 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 13 years agoI remember getting a CPC464 for xmas one year, got really excited until I found out they had bought me the one with the green screen. By age 11 I was already a dab hand with a soldering iron after having to repair the DIN cable that connected the monitor to the keyboard due to the shit build quality. Still really enjoyed the machine though and in my opinion is pissed all over my mates C64. -
silversun 149 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 12 years agoGot the old Amstrad 464 plus out of the loft and it still works, it plays burning rubber cart but not sure if the tapes work.
The controllers at first did not work but i used the master system 2 controller and it did the job to make game run, now need see if tapes still work. -
Ah, my old Amstrad 6128 with Harrier Attack on a floppy disc.
Never could land it at the end of the level.
Highlights- Oh Mummy!, Choplifter, Chuckie Egg (I think, although that may have been on my mate's C64) all the Dizzy games and Saint Dragon.
And a game set in a school- it wasn't School Daze, it was something else- a sidescroller like Manic Miner with all kinds of hazards and monsters in each room. I remember it being tough, but not much else. Any ideas? -
Page1 2,628 posts
Seen 7 months ago
Registered 14 years agoBack 2 Skool? -
warlockuk 19,519 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 17 years agoMindshadow, Moon Buggy, Jet Set Willy/Manic Miner, Gauntlet... there were loads of great games on the 464 / 6128.
Covenant! -
Nope, it definitely had monsters (one room had floating toilet seats or something like that!). Just looked at a list of games and nothing jumped out.
What I remembered as Choplifter was actually Chopper Squad. Also, Gemini Wing, Silkworm and Target: Renegade I enjoyed at the time. -
warlockuk 19,519 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 17 years agoAnyone remember Jack the Nipper? -
Adn Jack the Nipper 2. Both good fun. -
wobbler147 5,255 posts
Seen 5 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoI used to spend hours on Footballer of the Year, also had the same problem with the DIN cable and used to rest a book on the connector to make the connection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azr5UeCQpPM
Edited by wobbler147 at 15:28:26 19-06-2012 -
BeebleB 1,340 posts
Seen 10 hours ago
Registered 13 years agoI still play chuckie egg and bruce lee on my cpc emulator on my psp, cauldrun too..I used to love all the codies sports games, beach buggy simulator and the like. -
warlockuk 19,519 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 17 years agoSummer/Winter games were pretty cool, too. So many joysticks snapped in half. My dad repaired one with a steel shaft inside - it was so tough you could throw it and the things it hit would break. You didn't snap that bastard in half, it snapped you. -
Steagz2020 28 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 12 months agoLittle disappointing how almost nobody on YouTube covers the cpc 464 -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoXyphoe has pretty much everything you need in one YouTuber. Some awesome interviews, reviews and playthroughs:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Xyphoe
Batman Group created the 'Batman Forever' CPC 6128 demo:
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Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoProdatron has been busy over the past 20 years creating a multi-tasking Windows clone supporting 1MB RAM, networking, video playback etc for Z80 machines - the CPC being the first up:
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Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoImpressive, but a bit of a caveat to multitasking there. More so long as you're not doing anything else.
And while it's a cool project, it's hard to define how completely worthless it is.
Edited by Dirtbox at 14:53:25 19-02-2021 -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoBatman Group have successfully and impressively ported Pinball Dreams to the unexpanded, stock CPC 6128.
The CPC was generally a victim of slapdash Spectrum ports, not taking advantage of the systems capabilities. It also came along too late for its hardware spec, and the C64 & Spectrum had already captured the UK market.
It's therefor usually not the lead platform for English games. These, and other projects really show what's possible when coding specifically for the CPC:
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Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoNoRecess is currently porting the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog to the Amstrad Plus machines, which added hardware sprites, scrolling and a larger colour pallette - but way too late in 1990, and without tile support ala the rival systems.
It was also a hassle to make use of the new graphics hardware, in comparison to the ease of using the C64's hardware, for example.
Still - he's jumping through the hoops, and it shows how the CPC/Plus machines were in a situation akin to the Saturn, where the hardware had abilities that were just a pain to tap into due to design decisions and poor management, strong competition etc...
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Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoDirtbox wrote:
I can imagine that if you wanted to give anybody an example of your efficient coding skills by way of a portfolio - coding a fully working version of Windows to a Z80 system, running in 128K of RAM would seal the deal and get you in.
Impressive, but a bit of a caveat to multitasking there. More so long as you're not doing anything else.
And while it's a cool project, it's hard to define how completely worthless it is.
Writing Firmware requires such efficiency, and that's just for starters.
Still... #Dirtbox
Edited by Ryze at 15:05:12 19-02-2021 -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years ago@Steagz2020
You'll find plenty with a simple search:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Amstrad+CPC
Also have a look for Zaxon's hardware expansions that add an extra 64-512K to the 464, as well as USB disk drive support.
For SD card Mass storage and Wi-Fi support, have a look for Duke's M4 adaptor.
He also sells a USB control pad adaptor supporting moving up-to-jump controls over to a button press. Supports all of the popular pads.
Edited by Ryze at 15:24:31 19-02-2021 -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoBatman Group are also working on a driving game that looks like pushing the hardware to new limits:
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Grumpyoldman72 39 posts
Seen 22 hours ago
Registered 10 months ago@Ryze Bloody hell that is impressive if this is a stock CPC machine? That is knocking on the door of period arcade quality. Those car models in the menu are Playstation 1 quality!
I had my CPC464 in 1984 for Christmas when I was 13, loved that machine until 1989 when I bagged a PC Engine. Mind you my CPC was utterly battered by then with a concaved keyboard due to the utter hammering it received and elastic bands driving the tape deck as the original drive belt had turned to mush.
I thought all the original Amsoft titles were bloody awful personally, it was only in later years 87 onwards when Ocean Software got to work on it that the system for me started to shine. Loved the early 3D titles such as Driller, even the 3fps was bearable. Would love to see the kids today whinging about 30fps deal with a tenth of that.
Edited by Grumpyoldman72 at 16:50:26 19-02-2021 -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years agoAll stock hardware.
Adding RAM makes SymbOS into a usable OS - there's an SDK somewhere with a Visual Studio-esque app builder, otherwise assembler can do the job - the source code of loads of apps are on the website.
SymbOS can run on a 464 with a 64KB RAM upgrade. I've plugged 4MB into a 464 and it works great - can run a video file and music simultaneously using SymAmp and the Quicktime player-alike program.
Loads of the stock Windows apps are already there, including network stuff such as a terminal app - so that immediately makes it useful. If paired with an M4 SD adaptor, you'd gain use of the autoexec.bas functionality, so I may well look at writing a launcher for normal CPC software that can run from either the SD card (full FAT32 access - I use a 32GB card), or a Gotek USB disk emulator (or standard disk drive).
The BG group stuff all runs on a stock 6128 and can run from an original 3" disk via a .dsk file. I've tried it all on original stock hardware. No tricks.
Sonic can run on a stock Plus machine, but the ROM isn't in the wild. Xyphoe interviewed NoRecess from Canada where he's relocated to (he's French). I believe the current build of Sonic GX is way too big for a standard GX cart at the moment, so he needs to shrink it down as he continues development. But - GX carts can potentially go up to 4Mbit unless I'm mistaken, but none of the released software was anywhere near that size.
So - yes - all stock hardware. -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoThe video is sped up so it seems like it's doing 60fps, but aside from that, it's pretty damn cool.
A little weird to say they could have done this all along if they had developed for the CPC first, new coding techniques, tools and engines, plus a solid grasp of the hardware has put the modern demo scene head and shoulders above coders of years past. Plus they've got a stack more memory to work with. -
Ryze 3,767 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 15 years ago@Grumpyoldman72
The best thing about Amsoft was that in 1984 or whenever the CPC launched, it didn't have a software drought - everyone had a decent number of games to play, while it caught up with the competition.
They're basic, though. Some are actually BASIC. The machine code is in Data statements.
Ocean and the French developers pushed the hardware:
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Dirtbox wrote:
I can only assume you've combined two of my sentences to create a strawman, as the games from the 80s / early 90s that were either downported from the ST / PC or developed for the CPC specifically, are great.
The video is sped up so it seems like it's doing 60fps, but aside from that, it's pretty damn cool.
A little weird to say they could have done this all along if they had developed for the CPC first, new coding techniques, tools and engines, plus a solid grasp of the hardware has put the modern demo scene head and shoulders above coders of years past. Plus they've got a stack more memory to work with.
At no point would I expect that modern dev tools and hardware experience could have been matched back in the 80s.
But - again - #Dirtbox
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