To celebrate 40 years of the mighty Arnold, the Australian Computer Museum (https://acms.org.au/) in Croydon, Sydney will be hosting a special one-off event next month.
Amstrad enthusiasts of all ages are invited to drop in, load up and play on with some of Australia's most incurable computer hoarders, surrounded by as many working machines as we can squeeze into a light-industrial-zoned warehouse just off Parramatta Road!
I'll have my own game CPC Wars with the custom twin-stick controller I built, and show off a new one I'm working on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXq4Ph71ltw
We'll also be unboxing some new sealed games from Poly.play (https://www.polyplay.xyz/) and trying them out together. It's been some time since I've seen a fresh 3-inch diskette, so I'm very excited for this!
Both Rod Lawton (long-serving Amstrad Action editor) and Roland Perry (yes, the Roland!) have agreed to do video interviews, which I'll be recording soon and will play on the day. If I can convince either to get up really early on Saturday we might get a live call-in later in the day, but no promises on that.
I'm still chasing up any old Amstrad Australia staff who might want to speak, if anyone out there is or knows one of these guys please let me know. The last one I spoke to is keen to come but really doesn't like public speaking, maybe just give him a nod and a wave or something...
At the museum we have a 464, a 6128, a PCW8256, a PC1512, an NC100 portable and a PPC640D still in the original box. There are also a couple of Spectrums and I'll put the Oric out because I think it looks nice.
I'm chasing up a Plus owner in another city, but if anyone in Sydney has one please get in touch. More generally, we'd love for people to bring in their own CPCs, games, magazines, software or peripherals to show off.
We're setting up an Eventbrite page and I'll post the link when it's ready. June 22, save the date!
Here's a video from our Commodore day in 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcnmP0CKtug
Don't worry, I'll be checking carefully to make sure no Commodore machines are on display for Amstrad Day!
Very nice! Quick question: Is there any Australian game for the CPC?
Quote from: cwpab on 18:01, 23 May 24Very nice! Quick question: Is there any Australian game for the CPC?
I found an old disc at the museum that had files from a Queensland Amstrad user group, including some BASIC games. You can check them out in the Zip below.
A quick Google search turned up an AFL game: https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/australian_rules_football.htm
There's also "Aussie Games" but it's published by US Gold so it may not have been made in Australia: https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/australian_rules_football.htm
I'm sure there were loads of homebrew games back in the day, but they'd be hard to find unless the authors get in touch with the museum and send us a copy.
Ticket sales are now open: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-acms-presents-40-years-of-amstrad-tickets-910149189727
If you have any way of getting to Sydney on the 22nd, you should come along, as I can't imagine there being any other Aussie Amstrad events in my lifetime unless I organise those too!
I spoke with Rod Lawton last night, he was really nice and had some great stories to tell!
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Quote from: Amagni on 14:34, 30 May 24I spoke with Rod Lawton last night, he was really nice and had some great stories to tell!
When can we see/hear this?
Quote from: Amagni on 06:45, 24 May 24Ticket sales are now open: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-acms-presents-40-years-of-amstrad-tickets-910149189727
If you have any way of getting to Sydney on the 22nd, you should come along, as I can't imagine there being any other Aussie Amstrad events in my lifetime unless I organise those too!
I would love to come along to this, but I'll have to miss out, as travelling from Adelaide and renting accommodation is a bit too hard at the moment. :(
I hope it all goes well.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 18:12, 30 May 24Quote from: Amagni on 14:34, 30 May 24I spoke with Rod Lawton last night, he was really nice and had some great stories to tell!
When can we see/hear this?
Book a flight to Sydney, I'll be playing it for the attendees on the 22nd!
Failing that, I'm planning to put the video up on YouTube at a later date but not sure when.
Quote from: ervin on 00:05, 31 May 24Quote from: Amagni on 06:45, 24 May 24Ticket sales are now open: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-acms-presents-40-years-of-amstrad-tickets-910149189727
If you have any way of getting to Sydney on the 22nd, you should come along, as I can't imagine there being any other Aussie Amstrad events in my lifetime unless I organise those too!
I would love to come along to this, but I'll have to miss out, as travelling from Adelaide and renting accommodation is a bit too hard at the moment. :(
I hope it all goes well.
We should get a bus and tour around the country like Timothy Leary, but instead of handing out LSD it'll be 8-bit games!
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As we've had a lot of interest from people in other states or countries, we've added a Streaming ticket option.
For AUD$5 you can watch all the presentations live, ask questions or comment online, and in between we'll take the camera around to look at all the exhibits in detail: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-acms-presents-40-years-of-amstrad-tickets-910149189727
Roland Perry interview has been recorded, he was also really great to talk to. I told him it was like meeting Mario in real life!
I spent today preparing the space for Amstrad Day, there are still a few machines due to come on the day but we've already got a very nice collection of playable CPCs (and a PCW) up and running!
I took a quick video showing what we've got set up so far.
Amstrad Day was an absolute blast!
I was busy most of the day but I managed to get a few photos:
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A 464 with restored colour monitor, a 664 and 464 Plus still needing repairs, my modded 6128 with twin-stick controller and a PCW running Batman.
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The Clueless Engineer (https://www.youtube.com/@Brfff) showing off his 6128 Plus with Gotek next to another 464 with a green screen.
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More CPC tapes than I've ever seen in my life!
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Playing the Rod Lawton interview, you can see the livestream camera at the back.
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We recently got some Silicon Graphics machines donated, not sure what we can do with them but they look cool!
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DOS gaming PC, PlayStation 3, Sega Megadrive, PlayStation 1, Xbox and Philips G7000 all ready to play.
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Australia's own Z80-based school computer, the Microbee, with a TEC-1 (https://youtu.be/vyOMq7JOuHs?si=_S-30-EP6vOTnIfn) kit computer.
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Sega arcade machines pop-up book, and a bunch of the Usborne programming guides most of us read as kids.
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I gave the Sinclair guys a table as there's a family connection.
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It's not apparent in photos, but the computer on the right is so small and even has a tiny CRT monitor!
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The first copy of an English edition of Fanzine GX, Kickstarter coming soon.
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The PCW had a bad drive so I used the one from my CPC to boot it.
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A freshly-unwrapped copy of the Poly.play collection loaded up on the 464. Golden Tail looks great, but why is there such a tricky jump on the first screen?
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The Island of Misfit Computers - I put the Commodore, Oric and MSX in here to prevent fights from breaking out among the fanboys.
Looks like it would have been a great day.
Wish I could have been there!
That museum seems like a nice place with an huge amount of stuff to explore and dig through :D .
Quote from: cwpab on 18:01, 23 May 24Very nice! Quick question: Is there any Australian game for the CPC?
I know of two software houses called "Little red hen" that published educative software ("Kid-Calc", "Logic games" and probably other titles), and "Satchel" ("Mathbooster", "Jara-tava - The Isle Of Fire", "Granny's Garden", "Kadimakara", "Picture Book"...)
Quote from: Amagni on 01:22, 24 June 24Golden Tail looks great, but why is there such a tricky jump on the first screen?
I checked a longplay of this mysterious game (I'm from Spain, but I wasn't aware of its existance) and it looks like you don't actually need to jump (https://youtu.be/5NP_PS4yi1Q?si=3wGp5Bugy4Fb0YxB&t=60) on this screen (and many more).
In case you missed it, here's a full recording of the morning presentations from Amstrad Day!
The afternoon was just everyone fooling around on the computers, I'll go through the video and see if there's anything worth sharing from that session as well.