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Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

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#1
avatar_Golem13
Games / Re: Ghosts'n Goblins for Amstr...
Last post by Golem13 - Today at 21:21
#2
Quote from: Gryzor on 07:53, 29 April 24Been following the Mastodon official stats for a while now out of morbid curiosity. The platform has been losing about 1000 users a day, steadily, for months now. It's probably going to drop below 900k active users this week. It's a pity, but the writing was on the wall from the beginning...

It's very good for the techy people. In fact "Auntie John" is on there. However I find Blue Sky better for day to day stuff.

Twitter, never going back. Poisonous site.
#3
Hello friends, 

  I've arrived too late to this thread, does anybody have the files of the google drive links?

   If you have these files please upload them to the amstrad ftp server:

ftp://amstrad:amstrad@amstrad.serveftp.com
the incoming directory has write permission

There is more pcw and cpc software in this ftp.

Thank you.

#4
avatar_iXien
Games / Re: Converted GX4000 .cpr - Th...
Last post by iXien - Today at 19:02
To start the weekend, we thought this one was missing. Many thanks to @Urusergi , as usual ;) :

MACH 3 from Loriciels

Controls:
J1B1 = Fire
J1B2+UP = Normal controls
J1B2+DOWN = Reverse controls
Pause button = Pause game (any button to resume)

Modifications for the GX4000 version:
    - Wait for fire on title screen
    - Patch keys
    - Bugfix, the game no more crash crossing an arch
    - Poke: Unlimited lives

This conversion is based on the international release of the game, with music on a main screen absent from the French version 8)
#5
N
Games / Re: The Key, a A "full" point ...
Last post by Nich - Today at 17:45
Quote from: GUNHED on Yesterday at 16:25Well, just add a ZIP here...  :)

Did you not read XeNoMoRPH's earlier post first?
#6
Thanks for the info. For some reason I struggle when making ribbon cables and can never trust myself to get them the right way up. :picard:

And really I should go to the effort of adding an edge slot key but never do.  :picard2:

Anyway just in case I forget which way up it should go, I always leave my future self a handy hint.  :)

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#7
@eto I managed to load Relentless, and I think I can see that issue. It is just shaking and I agree it makes it unplayable. I think I know where the issue is, and I will try to fix it. As I understand, what they do is a combination of actually shifting pixels on screen and changing the duration of hsync (the one the is part of c-sync on GA's output, not the one on GA's input). My problem is that I shift twice too much when duration of hsync changes. As a result, instead of shifting one pixel per frame, it shifts by 1 pixel, 2 pixels, 1 pixel, 0 pixels. I probably messed up something with timing when waiting for csync to end.
#8
If you get the cables upside down, all signal lines from the drive will get connected to GND and all signal lines from Interface will get connected to GND as well.

However it looks like that the architects of the CPC again thought about that issue and developed protection

Lets analyse the technology  if you connect one end wrong way.

Lets see how that would look on CPC end:

All output signals from 765 Controller are connected to 74LS38  "2-INPUT POSITIVE-NAND BUFFERS WITH OPEN-COLLECTOR OUTPUTS". Those open collectors mean, that they can only pull a line down, but cannot send out +5V on their own. It requires that the line is getting pulled up via a pullup resistor against +5V power source. Those pull-up resistors are located in the drive itself. That does two things: First the current possible to flow from +5V to this input is limited by this pullup resistor. Second this open-collector output will get connected to GND if you put the cable upside down, so it is anyhow and allways GND and no current will flow at all, so no damage to that side.

Input signals to 765 are connected the other way around via a Schmidt-trigger buffer chip, that also requires a pull-up resistor. Those input-pull ups are located in the interface of the CPC and the only current flowing is from +5V from CPC to GND in the drive via the pull-up resistor. That means the input is protected, it will never get any high current flowing in. The maximum current in this particular case at +5V with 680Ohm pull-up is 7.5mA .. That is the total impact per line to the power supply of the CPC. So for any input signal there is no harm to the CPC.

Now lets look at the drive end:
Here again all Output lines are requiring pull-ups and connecting the outputs directly to GND will not harm them in any way. There is simply no current going through it at any time.

Regarding the input lines. They are all connected again to pullups (as described above). In the drive case it is 1k resistors so the current is even lower at 5mA. This is very low and it will get directly go to gnd, and that is the maximum current that is drawn per line from the power supply. As this is a 1A power supply it also will have no problems with it.

The last lines that are potentially dangerous are our beloved +5V power supply lines for DDI-1.
On the CPC side of things, there is no damage, as the lines are directly connected to GND and that does not harm the CPC at all.

However it is potentially dangerous on the drive side as this can grill the voltage regulator. It will have no effect on the drive logic (the drive itself), but it may damage the power supply of the drive. Also there are two independent +5V rails inside the power supply. One is for the drive logic itself and one is just for the power supply for the DDI-1. However those 7805s typically come with short protection or overheat protection. If you would short the output to GND it will proabably overheat at some point and then just shut down (no power injected any longer). The worst case would be, you need to replace a burned 7805, which you can then replace with a proper one with short protection nowadays. Maybe that is a good idea anyhow :-)


TLDR:
All in all - nothing will probably happen if you connect the connector upside down and looking at the CPC side of things, actually nothing will happen if you connect it upside down. It could potentially grill the 7805 in the drive, that should power the DDI-1 but that its about it and probably (not sure as my Japanese for the original Sanyo part is not that good :-) ), even that is protected against in the regulator itself.

There is one last thing to mention.
With the correct cable it is impossible to connect it the wrong way. The cable had a particular nose on the drive side and a gap in the connector on CPC side, that prevents it from being connected wrong. So all this topic is a pretty modern issue, where people do not have the original plugs with the coding in the connector to ensure correct connection.

If you look at the connector for the drive on the CPC there is the gap in the pcb, where there is a key in the connector. So you actually would not be able to insert it the wrong way.

Of cause for the Schneider CPC 6128 variants it would even be the connector itself, that will prevent it from getting plugged in the wrong way (Centronics V-Shaped connector)








#9
C
Games / Re: The Key, a A "full" point ...
Last post by cwpab - Today at 16:17
And Italian, French and German versions will follow very soon, according to Jordi (on the following message).

He says it's very easy to edit thanks to the PAKET engine... That engine needs to go public ASAP (or at least they should do like Carmack and release it when they create the PAKET 2.0 one).  ;D
#10
avatar_dodogildo
Games / Re: The Key, a A "full" point ...
Last post by dodogildo - Today at 16:15
Amazing work!
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