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.

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).

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.

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 / New Project. In the Project Explorer, you folders have been created for you. By right-clicking on folders, you can have actions to create new resources. Choose "Assembly source file". Then still in Project Explorer, double-click on the freshly created file and create a small ASM program. Make sure to start it with org &4000 (of course you can set any org value here, later). Ctrl+S to save the program. Now right-click on a folder in Project Explorer, create a new Disk file resource (cpcdsk). Double-click on new created resource, click Add.. and then select the output of your ASM file (expected extension is .bin). Save it (Ctrl+S). Now go in Tools/Options and make sure to uncheck "Hide unused resources". Unused resources (output files are also resources !) now appears in Project Explorer. Locate the resource having ".dsk" extension. Right-click on it and select "Set as startup resource". From now, every times you will press the F5 key, it will resolve all dependencies starting for the startup resource, build the resource that changed and will finally run the startup resource ! The "run" feature on "dsk" is binded to WinAPE emulator.  

Basically, that's it. Hate it or love it ! ;-) Phreaks, QuickCMD... could not exist without this program. I really fell myself so productive using it. Be curious ! And keep in mind : no support from me at all....

Download link can be found on official Phactory page, also available in Productions section.

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 :)

One other minor release regarding the HxC Floppy Emulator Manager. This time, it improves overall stability by reducing memory footprint, and also introduces simpler key bindings (read integrated HELP). You can download this version here (also available in Productions section of this website).

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).

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).

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 ! :)

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.