Recent posts

#1

Games / Re: Fruity Frank Steve Wallis

Last post by Prodatron - Today at 20:29

Steve Wallis was a hardcore left-wing extremist, conspiracy theorist etc etc - somehow the full program. But I always respected him, he created Fruity Frank for both the CPC and the MSX (the only two platforms for this great game), and Fruity Frank was probably the CPC game which I played most. I even played it during my MS-DOS time after leaving the CPC scene in the mid 90ies on PC demo parties.

Here you can visit his website from 2008:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080623094507/http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/games.htm

15 years ago I recognized, that he did Fruity Frank for the MSX as well, which was very special, as the MSX wasn't popular at all in the UK.

R.I.P. Steve, thanks do you I had countless of great hours with my CPC!

#2

Games / Re: Fruity Frank Steve Wallis

Last post by Misel982001 - Today at 20:22

He suddenly passed away while he appeared to be well.

#3

M

Technical support - Hardware related / Re: CPC 6128 - white screen, b...

Last post by mmldrm - Today at 20:21

Ok first We must short IORQ and READY , and turn on CPC.

pin 20 Z80 should be 0

First instruction is:

LD BC,#7F89
OUT (c),c

Our Z80 is stopped at write to GA

next we add RED connect and check if Pin1 244 is 0. If not, RED to reconnect.

GA is stopped.

now 244 is open and Left and Right side should be 89h 1000 1001.

I'm back! Sadly no MacGyver here, but a few kind family members are better than nothing.

Left and right sides were:

Code Select Expand

    Left  Right
D0  1.5  5
D1  0    0
D2  0    0
D3  0    0
D4  5    5
D5  0    0
D6  5    1.5
D7  0    0
Maybe that is right and left? Left=pin2-17. Right=pin3-18.

Anyway, 10001010 I think. 8Ah? 🤔 Not quite right.

I will try again when my helpers are home, to get two sets of data .

#4

Games / Bar War

Last post by XeNoMoRPH - Today at 19:48

In Bar War, the player will enter the character launched in 1983 by Bally Midway where he must serve beer to eager and thirsty customers, collect empty pitchers and accept tips.

https://fitosoft.itch.io/bar-war

#5

C

Other retro / Re: Most expensive "vintage co...

Last post by cwpab - Today at 18:39

I just learned the Nuon gamepad by Logitech costs almost 400 dollars.

#6

Games / Re: Fruity Frank Steve Wallis

Last post by Gryzor - Today at 18:29

Oh that's sad indeed... And even sadder that he passed and nobody noticed, this was such a gem of a game and a really loved memory of mine.

#7

Games / Fruity Frank Steve Wallis

Last post by Misel982001 - Today at 18:10

Hi guys. I began playing Fruity Frank again with my kids. I began wondering who is Steve Wallis the creator of the game and where is he now. During the past years I have contacted famous CPC game creators and I decided to contact him. Unfortunately, I found that he passed away at the age of 48 on 14th September 2014. I felt very sad. Can anyone tell me about his life, some details if possible? I know that he suffered from a mental disease and that he had turned into a left activist, called Thatcher of the Left, trying to create a more equal society. I also found some videos where he talks about the rights of people. If anyone can offer some info it will be appreciated.

#8

Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by eto - Today at 17:38

Ghosts'n Goblins looks good. 

If you have issues loading Relentles, you can try Edge Grinder and Super Edge Grinder. These are also two candidates that rarely work on anything but a CRT.

#9

G

Amstrad CPC hardware / Re: VGA through rpi pico - How...

Last post by gregg - Today at 16:48

@eto  I did some of the tests you recommended. Could you take a look if it looks OK? Please ignore noise (flickering pixels) and sometimes screen shifted to the right - I am already working on these issues.

IMO Vertical overscan (Ultima Ratio) looks OK. I also tried horizontal overscan with Super Cauldron and it was OK.

Scrolling it much more interesting. I tried Ghost'n'Goblins and I think they are OK, but please take a look, too. Sorry for blurry video, my camera went out of focus.

Smooth vertical scroll (Mission Genocide) also looks OK, but sometimes a little bit choppy. I am not sure if it is expected.

Horizontal smooth scroll totally does not work. I tried Skate Wars, and it was a total mess. I am just reading about tricks with HSync here: https://shaker.logonsystem.eu/ACCC1.7-EN.pdf and I have some ideas how to fix it, but first for sure I will need to use csync from Gate Array instead of Hsync from CRTC.
Besides that I found a lot of issues with how I handle or do not handle syncs. e.g. Mission genocide has less lines (305 it total), so instead of hardcoded value I will need to start actually use VSync. And BTW how I use HSync also sucks - sometimes screen is shifted to the right.

I did not manage to load Relentless yet, but I believe issues will be similar to Skate Wars.

#10

General Discussion - Introductions / Re: CPCRadio module

Last post by Prodatron - Today at 15:48

I suppose it's cool because it hasn't been done before.

A radio for the CPC has been done already around 2017, it is called SE-One and produced by Hans/TMTLogic. There was both an MSX and a CPC version, I still have the latter one:

You cannot view this attachment.

Beside playing FM radio...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvlGBS3nNiY
...it was fully compatible to the old MP3MSX hardware (like the SF3 etc.) and so was able to play MP3s as well.

Indeed TMTLogic produced a DAB radio later as well. Unfortunately his website is a little bit limited now, but there are links to a huge Google Docs repository.

There are players for both the FM and the DAB radio hardware in SymbOS, developed by EdoZ:
http://www.symbos.de/appinfo.htm?00053
http://www.symbos.de/appinfo.htm?00052





But I guess it's not compatible to this new hardware.