News · NoRecess464

August 21, 2026

My website has been rebuilt!

Big news: my website has been rebuilt from scratch! No more Weebly – it is a proper static site now, generated by a compiler I wrote myself, so I finally control every single page that comes out of it. Which was mostly an excuse to do all the things the old site never let me do: 4 languages. Every page is now published in English , French , Spanish and German – articles, production pages, all the news, even the ones from ten years ago. Pick one in the header and the site stays there. A light theme and a dark one. The site reads either way, and every page of it now works properly on a phone. Its own permanent address. Everything is now served securely at www.norecess464.com : pages, downloads, images, RSS feeds, and shared links all use the same address. The very old diskmags I took part in as a teenager are now readable online! The 68 rubriques of Ghoul’s Fanz and Baba Fanz are there, exactly as they were written at the time. I was 13 years old in 1993 when the first issue of Ghoul’s Fanz came out, and it shows – of course, it is all there for nostalgia only. Don’t judge. :) Every comment Pouet left on my productions is archived here , on the page it belongs to. Those threads are part of the story of each release, and I would rather not depend on somebody else’s database to keep them. Every file the site offers is hosted here. The demos, the tools, the sources, the manuals –…

March 29, 2026

PiStudio: a Raspberry Pi-powered IDE for the Amstrad CPC

I’ve been working on a personal project for some time now called PiStudio . It’s a new development environment that runs on a Raspberry Pi and connects to an Amstrad CPC through the CPC-CPLINK from Revaldinho . PiStudio transforms the CPC into a development workstation where you can code, compile, debug, manage files, and explore/maintain Git repositories, all directly from the CPC’s keyboard and screen (in a full-overscan 92x32 character resolution). It’s built around a suite of integrated tools that work seamlessly together, featuring a shared clipboard, a unified interface and the ability to open documents across applications. It’s designed to run entirely offline, with certain optional features leveraging network connectivity. At its core, the idea is simple: the Pi quietly handles all the heavy work, while the CPC remains a responsive front-end. The experience feels natural and authentic, you are working on your CPC, just with capabilities that would have felt like science fiction back in 1985! The editor is the heart of PiStudio. It’s a full-featured code editor tailored for development, but equally capable for any text file. Key features: Multiple open documents with tab-like navigation Split-view editing (horizontal or vertical) to compare or edit two files side by side Find & Replace in current file or across the entire project Bookmarks for quick navigation between…

December 18, 2025

Retrospective 2025

Like every December for the past three years, it has become a small ritual for me to write about what I have been doing with my Amstrad CPC/Plus hobby during the year. I already wrote retrospectives for 2023 and 2024 , so now it’s time to look back at what 2025 brought. :) This year began with the arrival of two magazines. CPC Anachronie #2 and 64 NOPs #3 The first one was CPC Anachronie #2 , written entirely in French. It really stands out because of its excellent printing quality. With over about a hundred pages, it mainly focuses on new games created by the community. It also includes some more general content that is not directly related to the Amstrad, which I think is a great idea. The only part I don’t really connect with is the “Pop Culture” section, because it is a bit far from my personal interests (cosplay, interviews with YouTubers, and so on). Overall, I recommend it: it’s a relaxing magazine to read before going to sleep. The second magazine I received was 64 NOPs #3 , and this one is entirely in English. The team behind it has clearly found its style and rhythm, as it comes out at the same time every year. It feels like much more than a magazine you read once and forget. In a way, like Amstrad Live back in the day, 64 NOPs is becoming a strong technical reference: something programmers can return to later, depending on what they are building. 64 NOPs #4 should…

October 26, 2025

SONIC GX IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD!

This ambitious project began in 2018, and after seven years of dedication, we’re thrilled to announce that it’s now officially available for download ! We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who showed interest, support, encouragement, and motivation throughout all these years – your energy truly kept us going strong. CREDITS Code & Level Design : Arnaud “ NoRecess ” Storq Graphics Conversion : Cédric “ CeD ” Quetier Audio Conversion : Julien “ Targhan ” Névo Design & Support : Richard “ TotO ” Gatineau Instruction Manual : “ Slype ” We sincerely hope you’ll enjoy playing SONIC THE HEDGEHOG on the Amstrad console. A little tip: yes, you can beat the game in about 10 minutes if you speedrun it – but to achieve the best scores, you’ll need to find all the Chaos Emeralds, carefully hidden across the levels… Have fun, share the build, and let’s make the GX-4000 shine the way it always deserved to! 👉 CLICK HERE to download the GAME CARTRIDGE, its INSTRUCTION MANUAL and the TECHNICAL PRESENTATION. Everything about Sonic GX in one place How it was made, the manual and the technical presentation page by page, and what was said about it on YouTube. Open its page in Productions

January 18, 2025

HxC Manager V4.2 released

A new version is available. What’s new: CLR key added to move back to root folder while navigating C key added to clear current slot (that was removed since version V3.0 and +) ROM version can be launched with |HXC,0 or |HXC,1 to force physical drive 0 or 1 upgraded from SDCC 4.3 to SDCC 4.4 Download the program here .

December 18, 2024

Retrospective 2024

One year has passed since my post called Retrospective 2023 . I really enjoyed writing it (especially after receiving some positive feedback about it), so why not create a follow-up for 2024! This article is not intended to provide a close representation of the progress of the Amstrad community. Instead, it’s an annual overview of my activities around my favorite hobby: the Amstrad CPC/Plus. I’m going to start with literature. This topic has been a serious focus for me for a few years now, and I’m giving an increasing interest on books, magazines, and other publications related to my preferred 8-bit machines. I had a lot of fun this summer isolating myself on my patio to immerse in such readings, or simply as a healthy screen-free activity before bedtime. To begin with, I received some high-quality magazines in my mailbox. The first is the issue #2 of 64 NOPs (January 2024, French content). To me, that issue represents a great step-forward: varied content, mainly for advanced programmers, complemented by satellite articles (interviews and meeting reports). I admit I haven’t “digested” everything yet, but trust me that’s a good thing – 64 NOPs is the kind of publication I enjoy revisiting, especially for its fascinating snippets of source code that grabbed my attention but take a few reads to fully understand. But my favorite discovery of 2024 is CPC FANZ BZH #2 (March 2024,…

August 7, 2024

A "marathon" interview with Dr JVTek

I sat down with Nicolas “Dr JVTek” PERRET to talk through my career in the video game industry, and I got to cover the hobby side of it as well: programming for the Amstrad CPC and GX-4000 machines. The full interview, in French, on Dr JVTek’s YouTube channel. Watch it on YouTube

July 29, 2024

Sonic GX for the Amstrad GX-4000: new preview (JULY 2024 UPDATE)

So after all this time, you thought that Sonic GX was vaporware, right ? How wrong you are! :) Many things happened to the game in the last months… First, we rewrote the title screen , this time it’s almost a 1:1 with the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis version. Of course, it’s fully animated with all the horizontal scrollers, if you had a doubt. Actually, now many elements are highly inspired from the 16-bit version of the original game. Above: the “ zone name ”, the “ scoring ” and the “ game over ” messages are now displayed directly into the game viewport… And below, those are screenshots of the new boss-fights , all of them featuring unique gameplay. Now each zones have their own unique Bonus Stages… Sonic now moves faster and features small/long jumps (as a consequence, the camera moves faster, too). Checkpoints have been added in the middle of the maps to avoid restarting from the beginning when loosing… Many levels were enhanced with better gameplay. Also, many bugfixes were provided, and all the numerous collision issues we had are now gone. Those previewed screenshots/video are probably the last ones before the final release of the game. We don’t want to spoil anything… So the eternal question – when does this game will be available to everyone !?? Well, the answer is simple: this game is a labor of love, we keep adding stuff till we can, and we will continue till we are…

December 14, 2023

Retrospective 2023

Since it’s mid-December 2023, I think it’s a good time to look back and see what I have done this year. Now that I have moved into my new home and that I’m fully installed, I decided to invest massively into my hobby (for the long term). I’m really fond of the Amstrad CPC machines, it’s not a secret: I grew up with those, as a kid, but also many years later as an adult. And now I want to preserve all of that for the years (decades…) to come. One of the first thing I did, was to invest into a decent physical setup. I already had the desk, but with some reorganization I was able to properly arrange my Amstrad CPC 6128, the Amstrad Plus, the Amstrad GX-4000 and yes, the humble Amiga 600 from Commodore (I will get back to it later in this post). I also invested into some decent shelves for my retro-addiction. I already collected some important software, books and stuff through the years, and I was able to acquire new ones in 2023. All those items matter to me. They made part of my childhood at some point, some are classical references for any Amstrad programmers, and others are just for pure nostalgy. I was able to retrieve the very first book about computers I was in contact with, “Le guide Hachette du Micro-Ordinateur” (1983) for few euros! I was probably 8 years old when I first read it (it’s for kids) and I always kept fond memories about it. A simple look on all of that…

December 5, 2023

CATRUN v1.2 released

In this new version, on top of the existing features of V1.1: 464 crash-fix + added Shift+TAB/COPY key usage for 464 users use A or B key to switch current drive to A: or B: use P key to open an ASCII file with with Protext use S key for multi-select files. You can combine that with delete operations. I had some fun lately with the great UniDOS. If it gets detected: current path gets displayed on top of all printed catalogues use CLR key to navigate to root folder use DEL key to navigate to parent folder use RETURN/ENTER/COPY to navigate into a sub-folder use N key to create a new folder use C key to copy a file to the other logical drive (can also be combined with S key (multi-selection)) There are also some other minor improvements (build date shown in Help, don’t assume AmsDOS rom is at ROM 7, etc). Click here for the download link ! Thanks to Poulette73 & Offset for the preliminary testing!

December 5, 2023

HxC Manager V4.1 released

A new version of the program is now available. This is the changelog: crash-fix + new keys for the Amstrad CPC 464 users: Shift+LEFT/RIGHT to select slot, COPY key to assign to current slot upgraded from SDCC 4.2 to SDCC 4.3 (provides slightly better ASM code for faster FAT32 parsing) does not assume anymore that AMSDOS ROM is at ROM 7 Click here for the download link!

September 14, 2023

I created a new tool called CATRUN for the Amstrad CPC machines

CATRUN in action CATRUN is a simple tool for the Amstrad CPC machines to fasten the process of disc’s content discovery / launch a program. When inserting a new disc into the machine, I bet than 95% of the regular Amstrad CPC users will first type the CAT command to discover its content, then type RUN”FILENAME to launch a targeted program. With CATRUN, the user can press CTRL+TAB at machine startup (or any other time, of course) to show the list of files stored on the disc, then use the arrow keys to select the targeted file to execute, and finally press RETURN to exit back to BASIC prompt and auto-type the RUN command. Few key presses are saved in the process, while enhancing (a little bit !) the launching experience. While selecting a file, It’s also possible to: type ESC key to just get back to BASIC (cf. discard the RUN command) type TAB key to redo a catalogue discovery (cf. when the user is willing to change disc and rebrowse its content) unrelated helper: type R key to rename the selected file unrelated helper: type D or E key to delete the selected file And that’s all :) For more details, please click here to access the dedicated webpage Download: click here This program is useful to me. With some luck it will also be useful to you ! :) Big thanks to TotO, Poulette73 & roudoudou for the testing & discussions. :heart:

August 18, 2023

New HxC Manager V4.0 available!

Yep, I’m not kidding – I’m still doing some side maintenance on this good old program :) As a reminder, the HxC Manager V4 is designed to run on Amstrad CPC/Plus computers. Its main purpose is to select disc images to be used by the HxC Floppy Emulator . Please take note this is also compatible with all the Gotek devices. The most noticeable improvements in this version are: User can now edit up to 20 slots (previous version: 15 slots was the max.) New UI , removed the old “demomaker style” presentation, now displaying more files on screen (with longer filenames) DEL key added to move back to parent folder while navigating The manager now skips DSK files when using a HxC SD/Slim device The Help page now reports the firmware version + build date of the Manager Switched compilation to SDCC 4.2.0 (resulting better Z80 implementation) Now compiled using RASM from roudoudou (previous version: Pasmo) Now compressed using ZX0 packer (previous version: the good old Bitbuster) Smaller binary (11KB) resulting a faster load from BASIC prompt (previous version: 16KB) It remains compatible with the 64KB RAM-based machines, and the ROM version is directly available into the AUTOBOOT.HFE file. Please click here to DOWNLOAD , and here for more details about the Manager.

June 26, 2023

Sonic GX for the Amstrad GX-4000: preview of the Special Stage (JUNE 2023 UPDATE)

Here is some news regarding the development progress of Sonic GX , with a focus on the new Special Stage introduced today. While still being a WIP (disclaimer: expect some changes); it’s now advanced enough to provide a preview. The gameplay is inspired (not a copy!) from the Special Stage as found in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Megadrive. Of course, it has been adapted to match the Amstrad GX-4000 limitations. Gameplay description: with the Special Stage, Sonic can’t lose anything, only wins an extra new life. He must collect rings on time, while avoiding holes and bombs. We are still working hard on Sonic GX. For sure, it’s taking more time than expected, but there is no need to rush its development :). Watch it on YouTube Watch it on YouTube

January 20, 2023

Fanzine GX #2 & 64NOPs #1: impressions

Fanzines for 8-bit Amstrad machines are nothing new, and yet I remain pleasantly surprised by the quality of the various efforts that have appeared here and there of late. Two new issues arrived in my letterbox, and I would like to say a word about them here. Fanzine GX #2 is out. The first thing you notice is immediate: the printing, on glossy paper, is of far better quality than the first issue, and it handles perfectly, more pleasantly. The content, still mostly “gaming” oriented, has nevertheless moved on in this issue to offer a few articles on hardware. The small hand-drawn illustrations are as pleasant as ever. Unexpected, and a good surprise: the “marathon” interview with Roudoudou, very interesting to read (the passion comes through faithfully — thank you for sharing it!). Working in the Amstrad world mainly as a programmer, I am still left technically hungry; but never mind, it is a great pleasure to find oneself plunged “player side” into the GX-4000 catalogue. So well done to Oncle Ced and his team, the approach is right and I am looking forward to the next issue — to which I have just lent a hand, as it happens, by writing two articles. I also had the honour of receiving the first issue of a new magazine, 64NOPs . Here too the printing is impeccable, and the whole comes with a very careful presentation. The content, written in faultless French, leans heavily…

November 30, 2021

Amstrad Cent Pour Cent #50 & Fanzine GX #1: impressions

I recently came across two efforts that are close to my heart, and I wanted to share what I made of them. A new issue of Amstrad Cent Pour Cent , picking up the codes of the original, came out earlier this year. The wager DarkSteph and his team took on strikes me as well won: the editorial team knows what is going on in the Amstrad community, the articles are for the most part interesting and to the point, and technically solid. The sometimes volatile tone that people were happy to attribute to the original ACPC is there, and the whole is dressed with small, funny, offbeat illustrations — some of them drawn by hand! — and now and then a straight lift from a period advertisement. There are a few things that could be better, to my eye: since a real printing service is being used, I would have gone for paper closer to a newspaper than for glossy stock. I would also have liked more variety in the articles: video games and demos take the front row, and an “applications” angle is missing (a piece on the Orgams assembler would be in the best possible taste!). Finally, I note the conspicuous absence of ACPC’s “side” articles, the ones that used to entertain us outside our own hobby, through presentations of music albums, of events, or of coming technology not to be missed. CONCLUSION : overall, and despite the few imperfections above, I am very satisfied with this effort. It is big,…

November 30, 2021

Raaaaahhhh - the AMAZING Longshot's comeback

A new milestone in Amstrad CPC demoscene history has been reached by Longshot / Logon System , and I wished to enlight this effort here on my personal website. 32 years after its original release, a new version of the Amazing Demo has been published ! In all honesty, this demo aged poorly by today’s standards but it’s still quite relevant from a historical’s point of view. This version includes compatibility fixes for CRTC and FDC. But the real interest is its new intro part, featuring for the first time a new CRTC technique called “RVLL” . It allows to set, for each scanlines, any location in the first 64KB of RAM. Similar techniques existed in the past, but it was limited to a much smaller amount of RAM. But wait, this demo was only a warm-up… A new PDF ebook, called the Amstrad CPC CRTC Compendium , was also released. Featuring 171 pages (!) for its French version, it aims to describe all the different behaviors of all the CRTCs integrated into the Amstrad CPC / Plus machines. Several documents on this topic existed in the past, but it never went so far into the exploration of the video-chip. That will be useful of course for demomakers willing to push further the last technical limits ; but that will be also a definitive reference for all emulator writers willing to reach the ultimate 100% CRTC emulation accuracy. Finally, Longshot released some sort of “acid” tests for…

November 13, 2021

cpcec-gtk: a native Debian-based Linux front-end for CPCEC

In order to improve my development workflow on Linux, I decided to implement a GTK3 front-end for CPCEC, an accurate Amstrad CPC / Plus / GX-4000 emulator from Cngsoft. Project details can be found here .

June 20, 2021

Sonic GX for the Amstrad GX-4000: JUNE 2021 UPDATE

Today I’m sharing with you an update on Sonic GX’s development ! What was done since the last update: The game now features 4 unique zones, with their own set of visual styles, each made of 2 levels: the Green Hill Zone , the Bridge Zone , the Climb Zone and finally the Sky Scrap Zone . This was made possible thanks to newer technical approaches and reorganizing data. All of that remains perfectly coherent with the game story. The complete game-through of the game is achieved ! Yes, you read it: the game is now fully playable from Level 1 to end of Level 8, without any blockers. Of course there are many remaining things to tweak, but this represents a major step for us that we finally reached. Because of level-design restrictions (the Climb Zone required a vertical layout, while the Sky Scrap Zone features a labyrinth in DrEggman’s bunker), we had to upgrade our tile engine to support squared-maps, vertical-maps… this means the engine is not stuck anymore to horizontal levels only . We also added a new enemy - Spike - and added few new screens (a new dedicated “Act Screen” for the Sky Scrap Zone, the Scoring Screen that appears at the end of each levels, etc). Our musician Targhan delivered all the audio required for the game: levels (including the newer additions), act screens, bonus level, end screen, game sounds and more. What I can say is that his work completely match the…

November 28, 2020

Sonic GX - Some updates on the project !

I realize I did not give major updates regarding progress on development of Sonic GX (our game for the Amstrad GX-4000 ) since the Alchimie Treize (held in November 2019 in France ). So today after months of silence (and some published articles), I would like to share with you an official update regarding the project. What was done since PREVIEW 1 ? 4-6 months following the Alchimie party, I spent most of my time rewriting some parts of the game, with better technical approaches. The tile engine got a major refactor , providing better performance and a reduced memory footprint. This summer, I had lots of fun adding the support of sprite multiplexing into the game engine. It can now manage up to 40 rings on screen ! The game engine now supports multiple ground positions for the same horizontal position in the world ; in other words, the Level 2 is featuring tunnels . :) Gameplay improvements : new sprite animations bringing more life to the game (a small “smoke” animation is now displayed when Sonic jumps onto an enemy, and a set of tiny “stars” is displayed when Sonic takes a ring) ; the sky (made of horizontal lines) in background is now always slightly animated vertically ; enemies can now fire projectiles (that Sonic must avoid); when Sonic jumps too high and gets hidden from the game’s viewport, a small arrow is now displayed to determine what will be the position of the…

November 21, 2020

BLAST ANNUAL 2020 Vol.2 (with pages featuring SonicGX in it !) finally available

I’m glad to announce you that BLAST ANNUAL 2020 Vol.2 is now available. It features numerous articles related to the Amstrad’s 8-bit machines : programming tutorials, game reviews, Batman Group interview and finally, pages related to the making of SonicGX (what motivated us to create the game, what were the challenges, how it compares to other versions of Sonic on Sega platforms, some details about development processes, etc). Finally, as a reminder to people that did not follow SonicGX’s development from the beginning ; know that BLAST ANNUAL is also an amazing sponsor to us. They gifted me the flight Montreal (Canada) <-> Paris (France) last year to attend Alchimie 2019 and that allowed us present there our game in person for the very first time. But this does not alter our judgment on this Vol.2 ; it’s great and cheap with nice content, so make sure to grab your copy right now ! Link: https://blastannual.com/product/blast-annual-2020-vol-2/

September 12, 2020

Discussion about the Amstrad GX-4000 and Sonic GX updates on Xyphoe's AMSTREAM

I had the honour and the privilege to discuss 1 hour about the Amstrad GX-4000 and bring some updates on Sonic GX (our conversion of Sonic the Hedgehog for the GX-4000) during the AMSTREAM held on Youtube by Xyphoe ! The stream, on Xyphoe’s YouTube channel — my part starts at 1:18:20. Watch it on YouTube

May 17, 2020

Some words about SonicGX in RetroGamer !

Good news ! RetroGamer (Issue 207, May 2020) contains an excellent article about the Amstrad Homebrew community, many great projects with exclusive interviews are presented inside. We felt honored to have some participation in it, providing some words regarding Sonic GX and the Amstrad GX-4000 in general. Please note that we also wrote a full-featured article for Sonic GX to be published in BLAST ANNUAL 2020 magazine (hopefully later this year). ps. Don’t try to scale up the images attached to this post ; the image resolution has been voluntary reduced to make the text unreadable. Go buy the issue ! :)

November 24, 2019

Unique souvenir from the Alchimie Treize

When I came at the Alchimie Treize , my good friend TotO made me a gift and created a poster for Sonic GX ! It was great exposing it at party place. So exactly like I did at Revision 2018 , I asked all my CPC friends to sign the poster so I could bring home a unique souvenir of the party. This will now sit next my computer desk where I develop Sonic GX . This will be a constant motivation for me while finishing the game. Have signed: - MacGyver - Targhan - OneVision - Ast - PulkoMandy - Drill - Hicks - Alice (Roudoudou’s daughter) - Lorenzo - Kris - Gotcha! - MacDeath - CeD - Krabob - Dan/BOS - Offset - Sid - Demoniak - Khomenor - Golem13 - CMP - Roudoudou - Beb - TotO - Candy (not present at party place) - Longshot (not present at party place)

October 30, 2019

Announcing Sonic GX - a new episode of Sonic the Hedgehog for Amstrad GX-4000 / Plus machines

This is the first game from CONDENSE for the Amstrad GX-4000 / Amstrad Plus machines....... The game is called Sonic GX Coding: NoRecess / Condense Graphic Enhancements: CeD / Condense Audio: Targhan / Arkos Thanks to our friends TotO , Overflow , Longshot for support & testing Details with exclusive content to be published in BLAST ANNUAL 2020 Some gameplay videos here and here Final version available end of 2020

September 28, 2019

Wohoo - BLAST ANNUAL sponsorship + me present @ Alchimie 2019 !

Some exciting news about our game currently in development: BLAST ANNUAL 2020 will feature exclusive coverage of the game. Even better, BLAST ANNUAL actually became the official sponsor of the game ! => It’s a win-win situation where BLAST ANNUAL benefit from us with new, exclusive content while we benefit from them with great coverage. I ( NoRecess / Condense ) will be traveling from Canada to France to present and discuss the game @ Alchimie 2019 . => YES!!! I just can’t wait to see some of the greatest members of the Amstrad community and get their feedbacks on our work. The game took a really great shape lately....

August 7, 2019

Our next project is a GAME for the Amstrad GX-4000 to be previewed at Alchimie demoparty 2019

As you may know it, Condense basically spent the last decade creating demos for the Amstrad CPC 6128 , releasing Pheelone ( 2009 ), Phortem ( 2013 ) and phX ( 2018 ). We started to get some interest lately for the Amstrad Plus / GX-4000 platform, thanks to productions like CRTC³ , Eerie Forest and the incredible remakes of Ghost’n’Goblins (the one from Xifos/Targhan is released, and the very promising one from Golem13/iXien is still in development). And of course, let’s not forget Gerald that has made an incredible gift to the Amstrad community by releasing the C4CPC , a fantastic device allowing the launch of custom programs running from a SDCard directly on the real machine. So today, we are announcing our next ambitious project: a GAME for the Amstrad GX-4000 . Don’t ask: we don’t provide any more details for now. But… based on the fact that amazing Amstrad Plus / GX-4000 productions were released in the past at Alchimie demoparty (France) ; and that most of our close friends will be there reunited once again this year ; my dear friend TotO will be authorized to show a preview of the game (unless someone very generous decide to pay me the flight from Montreal/Canada, hehe !). That preview will be fully playable, have fun guys!! – but it will not be possible to make a copy. So you have to be there @ Alchimie 2019 !!!!!

May 10, 2019

CeD won "Amstrad CPC pour toujours and beyond!" graphical contest

I don’t have a Facebook account so I can’t comment much on that event ( here for link); but CeD - the talented artist of Condense - just won the competition with his Harley-Queen picture shown just here. Yayy!! :) There is a little story interesting to share about this picture. Originally, it was supposed to be part of our phX demo (in place of the Fishes bitmap). While the palette use was fantastic - there were some people arguing it was a bad fit in the demo. And I think they were right. So, in the very last minute, we decided to remove it - for a later use. Here are the final rankings of the contest: 1) CeD 2) Roudoudou 3) Titan 4) Deckard 5) Bdciron 6) Set 7) Plissken 8) Steph 9) Zik Idler 10) Fred Island and 11) Khailas . Congratulations to all the participants !!!

March 25, 2019

Our demo phX is part of the Meteoriks 2019 Nominees !!!

I’m so excited to share this news - phX , our demo presented at Revision 2018 (ranked 2nd at the oldschool demo-compo) has been nominated this year in the “ BEST LOW-END PRODUCTION ” category of the great Meteoriks Awards !!! This means phX is considered as one of the best 5 oldschool demos of 2018 (all platforms). After all the hard work accomplished on this production, being present in that list is a real honor for us. Congratulations once again to Factor6 and Ced for their amazing contribution !! And to all the great people that supported us during that time (they know who they are ;-).

May 19, 2018

Participated to Mystery Demoscene Theater 9000 S03E06 !

Mystery Demoscene Theater 9000 S03E06 Watch it on YouTube I have been asked by psenough to participate to its Mystery Demoscene Theater 9000 show, where multiple participants can have a friendly discussion about demoscene in general. This episode was aimed at oldschool demos, participants were psenough ( organizer ), introspec ( speccy ) and me NoRecess ( Amstrad ) ( Pantaloon ( C64 ) was initially planned to participate but unfortunately had to cancel due to personal reasons). This was streamed live on multiple medias, but you can find the complete video here on Youtube .

April 14, 2018

Unique souvenir from the Revision 2018 !

When I came to the Revision 2018 , I asked Carlos Pardo a.k.a. “ Made ” to come with a poster (check his website for more information). I always enjoyed his work for the demoscene (but not only), if you remember well I even interviewed him . The idea was to let friends at Revision 2018 sign the poster so I could bring home a unique souvenir of the party. Have signed: Krusty Optimus Alkama Kangaroo Soundy Offset BSC Zik Mars Toms Hicks Prodatron me :) Made Octoate TotO Beb CeD Factor6 Overflow Targhan Eliot Longshot Looking at this thing is now going to give me infinite motivation for future productions in the years to come ! :) Thanks !!!

April 7, 2018

phX source-code now available

phX, released at Revision 2018. People can now have a look at phX implementation. The repository that hosted the source code is no longer online. DISCLAIMER : this is released for educational purposes only. No documentation nor support is provided. Don’t be lame, do not rip. Thanks !

April 3, 2018

phX ranked 2nd @ Revision 2018

The phX team: NoRecess (code) + Factor6 (audio) + CeD (graphics). It’s now official: phX got the 2nd place at the Revision 2018 ’s oldschool competition . The 1st place was pretty close (1st: 1045 points; phX: 1020 points) so we were a serious danger for the compo winner. Let’s roll the dice for us next time.. :) Revision 2018 ran from 30 March to 2 April in Saarbrücken, Germany. Nine demos went into the oldskool demo competition, across six different machines: We Come In Peace by Censor, Fairlight and Offence — Commodore 64 — 1045 points phX by Condense — Amstrad CPC — 1020 points Gnork! by Desire — Commodore VIC-20 — 800 points Onescreen Colonies by Vanity — Amstrad CPC — 746 points TV-One by One — Commodore 64 — 686 points Serious by Moods Plateau — KC 85 / Robotron KC 87 — 626 points In Stereo by Digital Sounds System — MSX — 607 points Silly Venture 2k18 Invitation by Lamers — Atari 8 bit — 564 points Hello C64 by Methos — Commodore 64 — 421 points Twenty-five points, out of a thousand, between a Commodore 64 and an Amstrad CPC. Two of the nine were CPC demos, and the other one — Onescreen Colonies by Vanity — is a production I have no trouble calling the S&KOH of our generation. CeD was in the oldschool graphics compo the same weekend, and came 4th with InversiO_8102 . phX was started in 2013 and finished in March 2018: five years, one coder, and the trip from Canada to…

April 2, 2018

Amazing productions from Vanity @ Revision 2018

Vanity surprised us through the oldschool demo compo with their Onescreen Colonies dentro, ranked 4th , an Arkanoid-inspired production with an incredible design ! The following statement may make smile some people, but this production is the new ” S&KOH ” of our generation ! It involves techniques that only few can understand (I don’t include myself there :). But that’s not all ! Isometrikum is another prod also released by Vanity . This time they reached the 1st position and won the oldschool intro compo ! Congratulations !

April 2, 2018

Oldschool Graphics compo @ Revision 2018

Two Amstrad -focused artists participated to the oldschool graphics competition at Revision 2018 ! Congratulations to Beb/Vanity ( 3rd place ) and CeD/Condense ( 4th place ), you both got great ranking considering the fact that the 2 first winning images are Amiga pictures with higher resolution/palette. d181 160254 Smile ! by Beb/Vanity, ranked 3th c5fb 160277 InversiO_8102 by CeD/Condense, ranked 4th

March 31, 2018

phX by Condense (Amstrad CPC demo), now available for download !

Finally, after 5 years of hard work, we are delighted to announce that our latest demo, phX , is RELEASED and available for download ! We sincerely hope you will enjoy it. Thanks to everyone that contributed to this production. Bonus: a making-of is available in the archive. Related links : Pouet.net Youtube

December 29, 2017

Confirmed: the next Condense demo is still on track for 2018 !

Quick news about our next production… As mentioned here , we remained silent while working (hard !) on our next demo for Amstrad CPC . It’s still not totally completed yet, but it’s now in pretty good shape for a release at Revision 2018 . And yes, I ( NoRecess ) will make the trip from Canada to Germany to attend the party ! :) – Attached picture: my friends Alkama and Soundy @ Revision 2017 giving me some extra-motivation for the 2018’s Condense demo.

November 12, 2017

Amstrad Plus on the spotlight @ Alchimie 2017 !

Few years ago, Gerald released the fantastic C4CPC device allowing the use of cartridge images stored on a micro-SD card. This resulted a general availability of the GX-4000 software library , plus other side effects such as original Amstrad CPC 64Kb games converted to the platform (thanks Phantomz and others), or system cartridge replacements that includes some popular Amstrad CPC ROMs at startup (that also includes the HxC Floppy Emulator Manager - thanks Dragon !). More information here . Unfortunately, the platform still lack interest from developers… till now ! During the Alchimie 2017 , not 1 but 2 demoscene productions were released ! Eerie Forest by Overflow/Logon System We all remember IO demo for MSX (released at Forever 2015 ) and the great Logon’s run - 3D meets the aging bits (released at Revision 2017 for Amstrad CPC machines). And now Overflow strikes again with Eerie Forest , a demo for the Amstrad GX-4000 ! This intro is an adaptation of the famous in-game screen of the running beast in Shadow of the Beast game on Amiga . It’s a well-rounded production, made coherent thanks to excellent TotO’s sense of design, that definitively unleashes the GX-4000 abilities. Who thought this under-appreciated console would one day rivalise with 16-bit machines !? Click here for Pouet.net link ! CRTC³ by Flower Corp + Futurs + X-men Roudoudou is an active programmer mostly…

October 15, 2017

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V3.5 released

A new version is available ! As a reminder, the HxC Floppy Emulator is a device allowing your software library to be stored on a USB/SD card (DSK + HFE disc image formats) for usage on a real Amstrad CPC machine. This news is about the Manager for Amstrad CPC (the program to select disc images on the HxC Floppy Emulator’s slots). End-user can now select .DSK files (when using latest firmware for Gotek USB ). Memory footprint has been improved (memory above &8800 is not used, which means users with tons of installed ROMs will not experience crashes anymore). As usual, a ROM version is also provided. Feel free to download latest software by clicking here !

September 3, 2017

NoRecess / Condense (me !) interviewed by Epsilon (french only)

I completed an interview for Epsilon . It’s funny how life may bring some surprises. I interviewed Epsilon few months ago ; but doing that gave him enough motivation to create a new website dedicated to the Amstrad CPC called Amstrad Paradise (french only).

April 24, 2017

"Logon's run - 3D meets the aging bits" making-of (April 2017)

Overflow/Logon System presented at Revision 2017 his demo called “ Logon’s run - 3D meets the aging bits ”. Reception has been really good and the production was ranked 2nd in the oldschool demo category. Congratulations Olivier ! As promised last December , a making-of (written by Overflow himself !) is now available on this website. It explains all the technical details that fits in 22Kb, including the introduction of a custom 3D engine + some clever use of hardware features. Click HERE to read the making-of.

January 15, 2017

Added interview of Epsilon / Power System & Arkos

Despite what I said in the previous news … To begin the year, here is a new interview of Epsilon / Power System & Arkos ! He was mostly active from 1992 to 1996 . He was a prolific author of demos , musics , tools and games . His work was underrepresented on the net, it was time to fix this ! Click here to read the interview.

December 21, 2016

Get ready for new demo releases in 2017 and 2018 !

Some news… Condense is working hard on its next demo. The plan is to release it at Revision 2018 (yes, 2018 !). Expect something new and refreshing from us :) We already spent 2 years of development on it… but only half of the demo has been completed yet. About this site, no future interviews should be published soon. Looks like it got harder to chase good old demomakers :) That said, a making-of of the next demo from Overflow/LogonSystem (to be presented at Revision 2017 ) will be published here on this site. Finally - Greetings to everyone that continues to make the CPC alive, especially the guys behind the 30YMD - what a really a good job ! You provided a solid work, congratulations to all of you. Happy XMAS all !

March 15, 2015

IO, a new demo by Logon System... on MSX !

ForEver 2015 is over ! Overflow / Logon System just released there a new demo called IO , created with the help of Ced / Condense for the graphics and Factor6 for the audio-part. From my point of view, some particularities to note for any well-informed CPC demomakers: it’s released on… MSX machines (!!) it has some visual hints with previous Logon System productions involves technical tricks ; not a Z80-CPU only programming ! Click here for Pouet.net link.

December 29, 2014

Interview of Made / Bomb

Carlos Pardo , also known as Made / Bomb in the demoscene world, is an highly-skilled graphist on modern platforms that initially started his creative path on Amstrad CPC . I was curious to know more about him, his history. He kindly accepted to answer my questions, the resulting interview is here ! That was the last interview part of the Xmas 2014 batch . Hope you enjoyed it ! :)

December 27, 2014

Interview of BSC / SymbiosiS

Oliver Mayer is a programmer / musician that is mostly famous for his work as an audio programmer for the Amstrad CPC platform. He is the author of several demos as also the Soundtrakker ( 1991 ). This program allowed him to compose some of the best tunes ever composed for our beloved computer. I asked for an interview and guess what? he kindly accepted ! How lucky we are :) Click here to read it.

December 25, 2014

Interview of Thriller / Cadjo Clan

Kalle Rechberg , also known as Thriller / Cadjo Clan , was a demomaker in the early days of the Amstrad CPC demoscene, from 1988 to 1992 . I was definitively curious to know more about him since he had good memories to share - and guess what? He accepted for an interview! :) Click here to read it. And oh, by the way - Merry Xmas to everyone reading Amstrad CPC -related news! This year it’s a special event for the community, since 2 other interviews will get released through the vacations… Stay tuned!

December 22, 2014

HxC Manager V3.1 for 464-664 machines

HxC Manager V3 is now compatible with 464 - 664 machines. Download fixed version here .

October 12, 2014

Meanwhile, for my 35th birthday...

My girlfriend caught me this year with a complete surprise for my 35th birthday. I felt the need to share… a way to congratulate, once again, the amazing work of Ced provided on Phortem ! ps. yes, the 3” disks are all made of sugar too :)

April 2, 2014

Interview of Overflow / Logon System

Olivier Gout , also know as Overflow / Logon System in the demoscene, is the programmer of the splendid S&KOH demo ( 1991 ) - one of the most technical demo ever released for the CPC. He also produced some other mentionable productions through the years, such as Backtro ( 2001 ) or, more recently, Yet Another Plasma! ( 2012 ). I asked Olivier for an interview, and see how lucky I am: he kindly accepted ! You will find the interview here (also available in the Interviews section of this website).

February 21, 2014

Phactory+Phortem source-code available for download

Phactory (a development environment targetting Amstrad CPC) and Phortem (demo released last year) complete source-codes are now available for download here and here . Those projects are not maintained anymore, please don’t ask for support. This is released today with agreements of Ced (graphist on Phortem) and Arnoldemu (trackloader toolchain). Win7+ required. To compile and launch demo: Launch Phactory\Binary\Phactory.exe File/Open Project… and select Phortem\Project\Phortem.cpcproj Click Run button EDIT 21/03/2014 : files now moved from GitHub to scene.org

December 26, 2013

Elmar Krieger interviewed

Prehistorik 2 (Amstrad Plus version) Elmar Krieger , also known as Elmsoft / EGS in the demoscene, was a famous programmer active on Amstrad CPC platform. He created some worth-watching demos (including Chain Demo ), but he is better known for the following games: Zap’t’Balls , Super Cauldron and of course Prehistorik 2 . As a teenager at the time, Prehistorik 2 had notably big impacts on me. I was definitively curious to know more about him, so I contacted him for an interview and he kindly accepted. Find corresponding interview here (also available in Interviews section of this site).

August 24, 2013

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V3 released

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V3 This third major version is a complete rewrite of the original software. It features a new user interface (thanks Ced !), better support of the HxC Floppy Emulator device (detection, release..) and some critical bug-fixes . Finally, it now allows proper exit to BASIC ( Amstrad CPC ’s default shell). The software remains available as a ROM . For infos , screenshots and download-link , please click here . Thanks to everyone having contributed to test this new version! :-)

June 26, 2013

Phortem's making-of cancelled & french interview

I decided to cancel the writing of the previously announced Phortem ’s making-of . Feel free to contact me privately if you have any questions regarding the demo. As a side news, I have been interviewed here (french only).

June 8, 2013

Phortem by Condense (Amstrad CPC demo), now available for download !

8234039 Our latest demo, Phortem , is now RELEASED and available for download ! We sincerely hope you will enjoy it. Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this production. A making of will be available later this year… Related links : Pouet.net Scene.org Youtube (Amstrad Plus) Youtube (Amstrad CPC 6128)

June 6, 2013

New Condense demo to be released very soon !

Since December 2011 , we were engaged to work on a new production… and we never stopped to be productive through all this time. Good news to announce today: we just finished our next demo . We are preparing final package.. Stay tuned!

October 20, 2012

New website orientation

While this website was supposed to be a personal website, I progressively felt that my past activities on other platforms needed to be more represented. I always have been a very versatile person regarding development and this was not correctly reflected… till now. As a consequence, the following changes have been introduced : this site is no longer uniquely dedicated to Amstrad CPC platform. all the productions I did, including the older ones, whatever the platform, are now listed. Log basically starts from the days I learnt Z80 assembly back in 1993, to nowadays. For most of those entries, I created new Pouet.net links (when missing). And now available for the first time : I put online on Youtube some of my productions created on Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameBoy Advance and mobile phone . Check them out from the Productions section. all direct downloads are now hosted on this website. This will ensure links won’t be dead with time. the previous Articles section got removed. I just kept online the interviews I did (now put in a separate section) since it represents, for me, a fantastic trace of history and creativity. Content is currently tied to Amstrad CPC but this may evolve with time. I will no longer write technical articles dedicated for the Amstrad CPC . Because cpcwiki is a… wiki , it has always been a better place for this purpose. That said, all previous…

September 19, 2012

Updated interview of Prodaton/SymbiosiS

Longshot was quoted in question 9 of the Prodatron’s interview with the sentence A CPC with SymbOS + Symbiface 2 […] is not a CPC anymore . Unfortunately, I had a little misunderstanding and Longshot himself wished to add few words to precise his thoughts (at end of article). Click here to read.

August 15, 2012

Added interview of TotO / EasterEgg - R-Type "Collector Edition" making-off (August 2012)

R-Type “Collector Edition” EasterEgg’s remake of R-Type game is probably one of the most noticeable production that has been made lately. Great reviews of the game itself are available from multiple sources . Today I would like to focus on the exceptional packaging produced for the game. It’s clearly something that worth major highlighting . Everything looks professional in it. Clearly: I’m impressed and I want to share this awesome feeling with you. Richard , also known as TotO , the graphical artist involved in the game, is also the big one behind this project . I asked him to answer my questions… and he kindly accepted ! You can read the interview here (also available in Articles section).

June 19, 2012

Added interview of Prodatron / SymbiosiS

Digital Orgasm, a demo coded by Prodatron Jörn , also known under the name of Prodatron / SymbiosiS in the demoscene, is famous for his impressive Amstrad CPC productions. During 1993-94 , at a time where demos were all about scrollers and tricky hardware effects, he definitively gave a new fresh air of creativity by pushing Amstrad CPC limits with realtime 3D and soundtrack MOD player/editor . I was curious to know more about him, for his past work but also about his more recent one, so I’m really kind of glad he accepted to answer my questions ! You can read the interview here (also available in Articles section of this website).

May 29, 2012

Still busy...

As I wrote last December, I started a new project and I’m still busy on it. Actually, I have never been so motivated for a CPC project. A tool ? A demo ? A game ?… time will answer, hopefully for Xmas since the project is only 40% finished.

February 26, 2012

SDCC2Pasmo v1.7 released

This small update fixes a problem with IX / IY register handling. Once again, thanks to Optimus for providing the patch ! SDCC2Pasmo v1.7 (binary + sources) is available in Productions section of this website.

February 5, 2012

SDCC2Pasmo v1.6 released

This update brings compatibility with ASM source-codes generated by SDCC v3.1.0 . Thanks to Optimus for providing the patch ! SDCC2Pasmo v1.6 (binary + sources) is available in Productions section of this website.

December 30, 2011

One year of norecess.net

One year ago, I resigned from Push’n’Pop website, mainly because I felt incompatible with high elitism and arrogance found there. As a result, I actually went my own way and created this website. The funny thing is that I quickly enjoyed publishing my personal work here and found a good way to express myself. I’m usually not fan of auto-congratulations, but I’m happy to see all that has been accomplished through 2011 : HxC Floppy Emulator Manager got updated several times, I had so much fun when creating QuickCMD (a project I had for years in mind), Phactory got consolidated (and internally resulted a new product : SDCC2Pasmo). Also, I wrote some technical articles (more a personal way to write things down for me than actually write tutorials for everyone :-) and had great pleasure by interviewing CPC legends . Thank you everyone. A real thank you. You know, motivation is not an infinite resource. Sometimes I felt like “who cares, after all ?”. And then I watch this site statistics. I see visitors still coming here on a daily basis, even when I did not give any news for some time. This always makes me kind of happy, since it actually shows to me that my work is, at least, respected and appreciated. So, what’s next ? I just started a new (secret !) project that should keep me busy for a large part of 2012… my private life also got changed lately (job, family) and I have even…

December 30, 2011

Phactory V2.2 Released - Gets new layout, speed-up improvements and more...

This is a new version of Phactory , a powerful development environment targeting Amstrad CPC (Windows-only). The most noticeable changes: revamped user interface, overall speed improvements thanks to new plugin system, a new source code editor featuring Z80 assembly syntax highlighting, and finally some minor bug fixings. Unfortunately, this program is still not ready for prime time, since there is still no documentation, no examples / project templates, and no support for it for the moment. One day, maybe.. Still, if you are curious enough, go get it here (Phactory is also listed in Productions section).

December 17, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo v1.5 sources available

This might not be the best code I ever done, but at least, it does the job pretty well : SDCC2Pasmo takes as input a .asm file generated while compiling C code with SDCC , and outputs an other .asm file that is compatible with Pasmo , Maxam or WinAPE assembler syntax. Command-line usage: SDCC2Pasmo sdcc_output.asm pasmo_compatible.asm . C++ sources for Windows are now available through Productions section of this website, so feel free to recompile it for your favorite development environment if you need to.

December 10, 2011

"Cloud"-based data creation explained

There are contexts where simple sinus curves might not be enough to achieve demo-effects. One great alternative is to use “cloud”-based data, allowing creation of bi-dimensional data tables where values smoothly evolve over the variation you decide to apply to. One of the most common application for such data are plasma, like the one presented in Pheelone demo. I just wrote an article describing the workflow I use to get such data ready to use for Amstrad CPC developments. You can read the article here (also available in Articles section). Feel free to contact me for improvements, I will be glad to complete it.

October 31, 2011

"The Speaker" - an impressive text-to-speech program for the Amstrad CPC !

When I was a kid, I typed lots of programs from Amstrad CPC-dedicated magazines. That was actually my introduction to the world of computing. Most of them were poorly designed, some of them were quite inspiring (especially the ones from Tom & Jerry ). But one of them was really ahead from its time : THE SPEAKER . It was a text-to-speech program, running without dedicated hardware, based on phonemes . After many searches over the net, I did not found any download link about it, excepted a reference to it through the great CPC POWER archive, that currently hosts the original listing from CPC Infos french magazine… and then I just told to myself : what a miss for the Amstrad CPC community to not be aware about this program ! So I decided to re-type it, and I was not disappointed at all by the great memory I had. This is probably one of the most impressive program ever published in an Amstrad CPC magazine. Try it, you will be amazed ! (download link is attached to this news). THE_SPEAKER.ZIP ZIP · 448 KB

October 29, 2011

Added interview of Bryce

Bryce’s MegaFlash Bryce , the author of the famous MegaFlash - allowing up to 32 ROMs simultaneously on your Amstrad CPC -, just got interviewed ! I was very curious to know more about him and his work, and he kindly agreed to spend some time answering my questions. You can read the interview here .

October 26, 2011

Phactory V2.1 released

I finally decided to release my own IDE, called Phactory . It’s basically a program that allows to create Amstrad CPC productions without using third-party tools : everything is integrated into the same user interface. The whole development chain is supported : developer can create a new C source file, that will get compiled to ASM, this ASM file can then be compiled to a BINARY file, that binary file can then be compressed then injected into a DSK file that can also be converted later to HFE… and I did not even talk about data converters (bitmap handling, packers, text to charset indices, etc). Bad news for you is the following disclaimer : this IDE has been created by me, for me. I have (profesional) experience in releasing programs used by others; I’m completely aware of the high level of support required for such a program. Due to that, and I’m pretty serious about this, I WON’T BRING ANY KIND OF SUPPORT TO THIS PROGRAM. Please don’t even ask for new features, explanations or whatever. Hope you understand my position. So.. for the others that may be interested in testing Phactory ;-) Since there is no dedicated documentation (yet), I will give you here the first steps. Basically, Phactory behaves like Visual Studio does. First, make sure you installed SDCC on your system, as also .Net framework 3.5 (or newer version). Then launch Phactory. Create a new project via File /…

October 17, 2011

Time for a change !

Lately (these three last months actually), I have been quite busy with both HxC Floppy Emulator Manager and QuickCMD . I’m actually quite happy with these two products, I consider them mature enough now so I can eventually switch on something else. Of course, I could have added new features over, again and again, but well, you know - time is not an infinite resource. Talking about time. I also decided to unregister myself from every CPC forums. No offenses at all to any of the involved communities, especially the ones from CPCWiki and CPCRulez . I had great time and it was relaxing to read you on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I was spending a critical amount of time following up threads etc. that I can not afford anymore; and it also progressively started to be a bit redundant with time. I need fresh air and better inspiration regarding my hobby these days. Of course, I’m still reading forums, even my dear friends from Push’n’Poop ;-) Finally, I still can be privately contacted here. Oh, btw - after all of that, know that my motivation is still unaltered, and other nice things will still come up here from times to times :)

September 30, 2011

QuickCMD V2.3 released

And here we go again for a new tool release ! This time it’s QuickCMD that got updated to version 2.3 . This adds support for a new command history to be used through UP and DOWN keys (was requested by many of you !). Also, a critical crash has been fixed with ROMS command when listing ROMs having corrupted names. Another critical problem (involving stability) has been fixed with direct drive parsing. And finally, the RSX got renamed to |Q for even faster switching from BASIC to QuickCMD. As usual, if you experience problems or whatever, feel free to contact me. Last version can be downloaded here (also available in Productions section).

September 24, 2011

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V2.4 released

Thanks to Gryzor , CanonMan and Terje_Norway from CPCWiki that reported the issue, there is now a new released version of the HxC Floppy Emulator Manager . Only one change : it adds auto-detection of the HxC Floppy Emulator device when configured as drive B. You can download it here (also available in the Productions section).

September 21, 2011

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V2.3 released

Version 2.3 of HxC Floppy Emulator Manager just got released here . It’s now faster to launch, spaces in directory names can now be used, and the user interface is now using the default system font with new color scheme (aligned to ParaDOS and QuickCMD ’s ones). As previous releases, ROM version is also available. If you experience issues with the software, please report them on the cpcwiki’s dedicated thread . Your feedback is important to us ! :)

September 16, 2011

QuickCMD V2.2 released

A new version of QuickCMD , a shell-like user interface for disc-based Amstrad CPC computers, is available here . These are the changes: Added support for Bryce’s MegaFlash Renamed RO and RW commands to READONLY and READWRITE Removed CRTC command Reset screen to QuickCMD’s default if external RSX changed video mode DELROM now clears a rom with &FF value (was using &00) Fixed: was overwriting first byte after HIMEM Fixed: not assuming anymore than Amsdos area is always at &A700 If you want more information about QuickCMD (a documentation is also available as a .PDF file), feel free to read its dedicated webpage .

September 3, 2011

Added interview of Odiesoft

Georg Odenthal , better known under the name of Odiesoft , was a very productive programmer back in the early nineties. He produced one major game - Megablasters - as also many innovative visual effects for the time (especially since everybody was still having fun with raster bars). I was curious to know more about him… and he kindly accepted to answer my questions ! Thank you Georg ! Read the interview here (also available in Articles section).

September 3, 2011

Updated preconfigured SDCC project for Code::Blocks IDE (written by Octoate) (V1.2)

Octoate sent me words about the updated project template he did for Code::Blocks IDE (which is a free and powerful source-code editor). Sample project allows to compile SDCC Tutorial Part 3 (“ Hello World ”). An archive is provided with step-by-step description. Update includes the following : added SDCC2Pasmo v1.5 added ManageDSK v0.20 added defines.h to show definition of multi-line assembler definitions added example BREAKPOINT (for WinApe breakpoints) and MODE definitions Many thanks to you Octoate !

September 1, 2011

Blog finally gets back !

I decided to push back the News section of the site. It was actually useful to hear about software updates and more.

July 25, 2011

QuickCMD V2.1 released

A new version of QuickCMD , a new shell-like user interface for disc-based Amstrad CPC computers, is available here . These are the changes: Correctly handles missing disc in drive for all commands PUTROM command now checks for BINARY file-type and displays information about the file to be put on RAMCARD DELROM command added to clear a ROM location DIR (and derivatives) now correctly reports file sizes for double-sided formats (Parados 80, etc) RSX command now accepts integer values (decimal and hexadecimal) RSX command now accepts quote ” ” for string-typed values (this allows to get space characters in strings by example) Internal code refactoring for smaller memory footprint If you want more information about QuickCMD , feel free to read its dedicated webpage .

July 19, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.5 released

New version available here . Changelog: Fixed CRT function duplicates in the case where 2 separate C files were merged later into a same asm file Fixed local function name prefix

July 18, 2011

QuickCMD V2.0 released

This version is a complete rewrite. It’s now a real ROM (executed from there, not copied to RAM like in previous version), does not auto-launch at startup (CTRL+TAB to launch now), features low-level file handling (allowing operations like undelete, set read-only attribute..), DIR command can now list hidden files, there is ROM management, CRTC detection, it’s faster, has a small memory footprint (I guess 6 bytes in RAM is OK for everybody !).. Click here for more information.

May 28, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.4 released

Latest version is available here. It fixes problems with IX/IY registers handling.

April 25, 2011

Added interview of Richard Wilson

Did you know both WinAPE emulator and ParaDOS were made by the same author ? Now you do ! Richard Wilson , also know as Executioner pseudonym on cpcwiki forum , kindly accepted to answer my questions regarding his past work… and future developments too. Find the interview here (also added in Articles section).

April 15, 2011

HxC Floppy Emulator Manager V2.2 released

Version 2.2 of HxC Floppy Emulator Manager just got released here . It includes a precious fix provided by Jeff to avoid slowdown issues when folder’s content is about 100 files (or more). On my side, I made few enhancements to the user interface (navigation problems are fixed, garbage displayed on screen at startup is removed, buzzer settings can now be edited, and finally more files are displayed on screen at same time). As previous version, ROM version is also available. If you experience issues with the software, please report them on the cpcwiki’s dedicated thread . Your feedback is important to us ! :)

April 7, 2011

Raaaaaahhhhhh : Longshot / Logon System interviewed !

For many of us, Longshot from Logon System is a living legend. He has been a pioneer in the Amstrad CPC demoscene, back in the 80s. He was one of the first to introduce advanced usage of CRTC Amstrad CPC ’s graphic chip, and is well known for demos like Revolog , The Demo … as also his articles published in french Amstrad Cent Pour Cent magazine. I was very curious to know more about him, not especially about his personal work (that everybody already knows about) but more about his position regarding released’s Overflow previews, its point of view regarding the Jeff ’s HxC Floppy Emulator and even more… read the full interview here (also added in Articles section). Many thanks Serge for your time… it was great being a teenager and watching your demos :)

April 6, 2011

Added sound tracker used to compose Face Hugger's Ultimate Megademo songs !

As mentioned during the Face Hugger’s interview , the author used a custom sound tracker to compose the musics of its Ultimate Megademo . The disc image of this tracker, mostly written using BASIC programming language (even the sound player !), has been added to the article. Feel free to discover it : the user interface is quite horrible but the demo song itself is actually very good ! Of course, this is released for historical purposes only and absolutely not intended for serious usage - nor Face Hugger or this site will provide any kind of support about it. Download link is located at the end of the interview (as a bonus material). Thank you Andreas, you rock! :)

April 4, 2011

Added interview of Face Hugger (author of the Ultimate Megademo in 1992)

The author of the famous Ultimate Megademo , released in 1992, answered my questions regarding his past work. As a reminder, he is the one who started everything regarding realtime 3D usage in Amstrad CPC demos. He is also one of the first guys, still in a demoscene context, considering usage of a secondary machine to enhance his productivity. Enjoy reading the interview here (also added in Articles section). Thank you Andreas for your time !

March 29, 2011

Hervé Lange (author of Fer et Flamme and B.A.T games) interview at Phenix Informatique

I interviewed Hervé Lange , the programmer behind UbiSoft ’s Fer et Flamme and B.A.T games. The article being written in French, I had it published on the Phenix Informatique website — since become Amstrad.eu. The whole interview is now here on this site as well, in all three languages.

March 23, 2011

Added interview of Rhino from Batman Group (programmer of Batman Forever demo)

Few days ago, the really impressive Batman Forever demo has been publicly released and has surprised many people, including me. I was curious to know more about the programmer behind it, Rhino from Batman Group , as also the demo itself. You can find the interview here (also added in Articles section). And once again, congratulations to the whole team having participated to this production, you really did an awesome work !

March 22, 2011

Updated preconfigured SDCC project for Code::Blocks IDE (written by Octoate)

Octoate sent me words about the updated project template he did for Code::Blocks IDE (which is a free and powerful source-code editor). Sample project allows to compile SDCC Tutorial Part 3 (“ Hello World ”). An archive is provided with step-by-step description. Update includes the following : added SDCC2Pasmo v1.3 changed project settings (filename can be set in project properties) changed post-build options to use the filename of the project properties added pre- and post-build batch files to execute own commands before and after the build process (e.g. for compressing files and adding files to a DSK file) added ManageDSK with example in post-build batch file which creates a new DSK image which contains all .BIN files from the bin/Release directory Many thanks to you Octoate !

March 1, 2011

Axelay (author of Star Sabre, Dead On Time and Sub Hunter) interviewed !

Paul Kooistra , also known as Axelay , is the author of Star Sabre (2007, 2009 for the 128Kb-version), Dead On Time (2010) and Sub Hunter (2011). He is one of the most productive game programmer for the Amstrad CPC these days. I was curious to know more about him, and he kindly accepted to answer my questions ! Have a good time reading this .

February 16, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.3 released

Many thanks to Optimus for reporting me some badly generated code when dealing with AND logic-operation.

February 13, 2011

My activities now slowed down for a while

I usually don’t give personal news related to my private life. But this one has a direct consequence on this website : my second child is born yesterday ! It does not mean the end of my CPC activities, it simply means my spare time is going to be dramatically reduced during the next coming days/weeks/months. For the best times of my life, of course ! :)

January 28, 2011

Demoniak's PC-CPC emulator integrated into Phactory

PC-CPC integrated in Phactory PC-CPC is an Amstrad CPC emulator being developed by Demoniak . While not being 100% accurate with Amstrad CPC emulation these days, it actually replays decently Pheelone and Phreaks demos. Internally, this software is made using C++ and WinAPI : both can be easily embedded inside a C# application. As a consequence, I decided to integrate the emulator as a plugin directly into Phactory . So now once the final DSK file is built, it can be immediately launched under emulator, saving some precious time in the process of adding code / quick testing / adding back other code / etc. PC-CPC usage is currently optional, there is an option in Phactory to revert back to external launch of WinAPE if required. I still don’t know where this emulator integration will end - Demoniak is currently adding new appreciated debugging features inside the emulator, so I wonder if these additional floating dialogs should be embedded as panels inside Phactory or let them untouched… more information about Phactory can be found here .

January 26, 2011

Phat demo now gets a proper Youtube video

Many thanks to Metr from CPCWiki forum that just uploaded a proper version of my 2008’s Phat demo on YouTube ! Its corresponding demo description also got updated.

January 26, 2011

Pheelone's unreleased preview also available as a Youtube video

Metr from CPCWiki forum seems to be in pretty good shape these days : he just uploaded another Youtube video , this time dealing with the Pheelone’s unreleased preview ! The corresponding description page has also been updated with new link.

January 26, 2011

Preconfigured SDCC project for the Code::Blocks IDE (written by Octoate)

Octoate sent me words about his template-project for Code::Blocks IDE (which is a free and powerful source-code editor). Sample project allows to compile SDCC Tutorial Part 3 (“ Hello World ”). An archive is provided with step-by-step description. Thank you Octoate !

January 22, 2011

Phreaks demo's anti-alias/reverse-mode explained

I just updated the article explaining the algorythm behind the Phreaks demo’s animation system. Added topics are anti-alias and reverse-mode support, both are covered at the end of the article (before the conclusion). Click here to read the article.

January 21, 2011

Introducing Phactory (as new CPC.Net replacement) - still publicly unreleased !

I went further with my own development editor lately. First, I switched the build pipeline from PhrozenC to SDCC /SDCC2Pasmo. As a consequence, I can now use a full-featured ANSI C compiler using Maxam-style syntax for inlined assembly code. Additionally to that, it’s now possible to double-click in Output Window onto a build warning / error if any to open directly the corresponding source file at right line location (like Visual Studio actually does). Next, I decided to do major user-interface updates. As I want this tool to be completely adapted to my own needs and likes, I used a dark gray theme to relax my eyes while programming (changing default Windows theme colors was not enough to me). Also, Project Explorer (allowing resources management in project) and Output Window (mostly used to view build results) panels are now located by default at the left, with auto-hide state enabled. This allows me to focus on an extended view of the currently activated plugin (while developing, it’s important to keep concentration and avoid any kind of distractions). Finally, I did major clean-ups. I removed many custom features I specifically added to generate data for Phreaks demo (entirely written using previous version of this tool). I also removed unused features in user interface, that way it’s easier for me to maintain the application. So basically, that’s it. Some screenshots are…

January 18, 2011

z88dk vs. SDCC C compilers : I was right to stick with SDCC

My personal conclusion thanks to my own experience with z88dk and SDCC was that SDCC produced much better code than z88dk. Today I got confirmation from one of the z88dk authors here : “ sdcc currently generates code which in general is smaller and faster than the one generated by z88dk […] it does support a more complete subset of standard C compared to z88dk. It is actively maintained (releases about once a year) and keeps improving. ”. Don’t get me wrong : competition is good and actually benefits to both projects. Still - basically it’s a fact that today SDCC is the best C compiler available for Z80 developments.

January 16, 2011

Phreaks demo's algorithm finally explained !

Too many of you asked for implementation details of Phreaks demo. So I wrote an article describing the different steps of creation I had to get the best data format ever done ( to this day! ) on Amstrad CPC for storing a full-screen, per-pixel based animation sequence. Enjoy reading here !

January 16, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.2 released

Once again - a new release. From here this release is a stable version and recommended for everyone. Changelog : fixed other minor issues with IX/IY registers handling, added better support for #< and #> SDCC’s operations, and finally, added only required C lib code at end of generated source file. Thanks a million to Optimus for providing such a great support ! :)

January 13, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.1 released

This version includes many important bug-fixes, thanks to your awesome feedback (hello Optimus ! :-). IX/IY registers should now be correctly handled, and utility functions such as _multiply or _abs are now automatically inserted at end of generated source.

January 11, 2011

PhrozenC's manual available as download link

I made available as a download link the PhrozenC’s manual I wrote. It’s about 36 pages to explain how to use the compiler and its dedicated small library for the Amstrad CPC. As a reminder, PhrozenC is a K&R C compiler running on Amstrad CPC platforms (64Kb/128Kb/ROM). Phreaks demo has been created using it.

January 11, 2011

SDCC2Pasmo V1.0 released

This is a custom tool to be used to convert .asm files generated by SDCC C compiler to .asm files compatible with Pasmo . Pasmo is a Z80 assembler with Maxam-style syntax. This is version 1.0, so please be indulgent with potential issues you may encounter. I used it for 2 weeks now and fixed all the problems I was able to find on my side.

January 9, 2011

SDCC Tutorial Part 1 of 4 : Introducing SDCC C compiler

Today I decided to start writing a series of 4 tutorials dealing with C programming for the Amstrad CPC using SDCC compiler. These articles are : introducing C usage for the Amstrad CPC, compiling a C program with SDCC, using Maxam syntax for inlined asm code in your C programs, and finally a tip & tricks article. Enjoy today’s Part 1. Contact me privately if you need more information that could be eventually added later in tutorials.

January 8, 2011

RSS feed available

There is now a small RSS feed icon for this blog, located at the right side. Feel free to subscribe it !

January 8, 2011

The Amstrad CPC community is bigger than I actually thought !

The day of new www.norecess.net announcement, this site has been advertised to 20 personal contacts (related to CPC) and few websites : CPCRulez (french), PhenixInformatique (french) and CPCWiki (english). For the fun, I just checked the stats of the website and found out that 548 unique visitors went to this site on January, 5th ! In the context of “dead” machine that Amstrad CPC is, I consider this as an awesome hit count.

January 8, 2011

Unreleased graphics planned for Phreaks demo

While making Phreaks demo, I received some graphics from Ced that unfortunately did not fit well with the production.

January 7, 2011

Added descriptions in Productions section

I just finished adding more informations for each productions .

January 4, 2011

Ced got ripped !

Looks like people enjoyed Pheelone logo after all ! :) Demo can be watched here (YouTube link).

January 4, 2011

Unreleased Pheelone preview (Plasma effect)

Before making the Pheelone demo, just after the release of Phat 2, I created a small framework all written in assembly and wrote a plasma effect for it. It was my first collaboration ever with Ced for the graphics !

January 2, 2011

Site launched !

I created today this new website to describe my past, current, and future work dedicated to the Amstrad CPC . Hope you will enjoy it ! Do not hesitate to regularly visit this site to gather new updates ! In its current state, I completed the “Productions” page but the “More Info” section for each items are still not yet completed. “Articles” page is currently left empty, but I have big plans for it. Finally, “Contact” page works so feel free to write me ! :)