Would you welcome a new model to the CPC range?

[Swainy]

Just wondering what the general feel is amongst Amstrad fans about the current trend in these new reincarnations of old 8 bit machines. Would you like to see the CPC get another crack of the whip, perhaps with upgraded hardware in a similar fashion to the Spectrum Next or would you prefer that it was just left alone?

[remax]

At first i had though it was exciting, but now i think it's a bad idea.

I don't see the point of having a average PC in a CPC case (usually for quite a high price) to play emulators that play really well on my today PC.

I now more excited by extensions for a real CPC.

[||C|-|E||]

I would definitely welcome a new Amstrad, but a real one, not an emu running in some other hardware, custom or not 

[Swainy]

What sort of features would you like to see if a real follow up was to be released?

[khaz]

Like the Spectrum next? Definitely. Well, not quite like it, as I'd rather like it used at least an original Z80, but an FPGA recreation is still cool. I'd be really interested in a board that fits in an original CPC shell, which would add some of the cool addon people here have designed, like the extra RAM, ROM, Amiga/SEGA controller port, etc.

The main problem with a complete CPC recreation is the disc drive. Unless people can actually manage to reproduce it as well, which would make me very happy.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

The Spectrum Next should be able to support the CPC if the effort was put into it, as I believe it is just an FPGA.


TBH I think the time has long passed for a CPC reboot, and by that I mean the Plus was too late for that time too, at least with what it provided.


However, if FPGA variants start implementing new features, it would be good for these features to be (a) individually detectable (e.g., feature register) and (b) based upon a common specification so we didn't get incompatible versions of the same feature.


For example, a tweak to a Plus FPGA variant would be to have the 16 hardware sprites reference a sprite image from a sprite memory (e.g., a bank of 256 sprites) instead of having static images per sprite. It would make sprite animation trivial. Another tweak would be having several sprite palettes configurable on a per sprite basis. After that, larger sprites, more sprites, etc.

[Zoe Robinson]

I would love to see a new Amstrad. I've been thinking of what this Amstrad would feature and what I've come up with is this:


Full CPC software and hardware compatibility via a CPC Plus card (basically a JustCPC board or something similar, with 100% Plus compatibility).
Linux-based main system that can access the CPC card and run the CPC in either a window at original resolution, or full screen.
System boots from SD drive into Linux, for fast turn-on; or can be switched to boot solely into full-screen CPC mode.
SD card slot, 3" drive slot and cartridge slot.
Ability to use modern keyboards, modern mice and modern joysticks with full keyboard, mouse and joystick compatibility in the CPC mode/CPC window.
Built-in ability to record the CPC, for use in streaming. Ideally this would include a live streaming feature.

[khaz]

[...]

So... A PCIe CPC card in a modern computer?

I believe there are PCIe FPGA cards, which could do what you are asking. Now whether there is software to access it like you want is another question.

[Bryce]

If it's done properly it could be a good idea, but the attempts I've seen so far were far from good. However, the CPC isn't exactly rare, there's still enough real ones for everyone that wants one. Other computers like the Jupiter Ace make much more sense to make modern clones of.

Bryce.

[Lazy Dude]

The Spectrum Next should be able to support the CPC if the effort was put into it, as I believe it is just an FPGA.

Yikes, ported speccy hardware!! 

[radu14m]

    I would definitely welcome a new Amstrad too

[Bryce]

  I would definitely welcome a new Amstrad too

Why? What's wrong with the ones we have now?

Bryce.

[radu14m]

nothing, you know: oldies but goldies.


but a new one is always welcome.

[Gryzor]

Would I enjoy a nice, good-quality and CPC-looks keyboard/case? For sure. But it still wouldn't be too practical for much; my MiST FPGA can handle stuff pretty well (hell, they even released a Gameboy core lately), it's very small and has most of the stuff I realistically need.


So, for me a relatively low cost but good quality case that I could use to house, say, a Pi or something to do whatever I want with it would be lovely, but an overpriced CPC wannabe like those other machines? No much sense in it.

[Lazy Dude]

yeh, I'm with Gryzor on that one. Can't say I would be tempted by an expensive new CPC either.

[TFM]

A first step to a new CPC would be to create one single expanson board containing RAM, ROM, TotO's expansion (all!), Albireo, M4, dxs RTC(!) and some more gimmicks.

A second step would be to make a new PCB out of the CPC and this expansion board.

A third step would be to add special features like double up the whole system speed. Also I wouldn't mind to think about using a 20 MHz Z80 (with 4 MHz compatibility mode).


IMHO a new CPC makes only sense when adding features which can't be added by expansion cards (f.e. higher speed, math coprocessor, additional video features - means CRTC can access more than only 64 KB etc.).