Amstrad CPC and Atari ST emulation

[Antiriad]

Am suprised there isnt a Amstrad CPC emulator out there yet, would very much like to see one.
Plenty of em out there...

A Atari ST emulator should be possible also surely? It was more 12bit than 16bit after all!

 

[Retroid]

Personally I'd love to see an Amstrad CPC emu on the GP32; after all, it was basically a slightly slower Spectrum with a little extra hardware (sadly no hardware sprites, scrolling etc).

There are several 8bit games which the CPC has the definitive versions of, too, mostly isometric 3D adventures which were enhanced by the CPC's 4-colour highres mode, which didn't suffer from attribute blocks like the Spectrum & C64 did in similar resolutions. "Head over Heels" being my favourite of those

Plus, even though I was an Amiga owner, I reckon I could learn to slum it if an Atari ST emu was released

 

[RTj]

I would just like an ST emulator to play Oids on...
(or a GP32 version of Oids would be even better )

 

[Malys]

OH yeah! an Atari emulator, STE for preference because of the blitter, but also a Lynx emulator would be excellent
Ooooh, Gauntlet, Slimeworld, Xenon 2............
What is sad is that I still have a ST, a STE and a Lynx, over three thousand disks for the big machines and about twenty or so games for the Lynx. (And I still play them. Oids and Invaders on a 28" telly with surround sound up loud rocks!)

 

[Retroid]

IF we get an ST emulator, it'll probably end up being just a plain vanilla ST emu, since so far as I know (I had an Amiga, and just watched the STE fuss from the sidelines) few games used any of the extra capabilities, like the larger palette (you're more than welcome to prove me wrong on this). It would be nice to have STE as an option, but if it had to be left out to get it full speed, it would be bearable.

Me, I'd love to see both these machines emulated ^_^ CPC & ST are under-appreciated machines, in my opinion.

 

[Antiriad]

I think No$CPC would be a perfect emulator to convert to the GP32. Sure its not a pretty lookin thing as its Dos based, but its stable enough and although doesnt do the CPC Plus features, it would be a start. Caprice (Dos and now Windows) and WinAPE are the best emulators out there, but these are still being developed by their authors and i guess would need
permission to be ported.

I think moron has been abandoned by its authors now hasnt it? Methinks that would be therefore ripe for porting, although i suspect it doesnt have STE support. Still, as Retroid said - these machines are under-appreciated and deserve
emulation as much as the more wider know ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

 

[A600]

I think No$CPC would be a perfect emulator to convert to the GP32. Sure its not a pretty lookin thing as its Dos based, but its stable enough and although doesnt do the CPC Plus features, it would be a start. Caprice (Dos and now Windows) and WinAPE are the best emulators out there, but these are still being developed by their authors and i guess would need
permission to be ported.

Latest No$CPC version supports CPC plus features but is a program written entirely in assembler and the source code isn't available so a port is impossible. WinAPE also is written in assembly. Caprice is written in C and could be ported because Ulrich Doewich (the author) will surely release the source code. Right now the best bet is Arnold; a very good emulator written in C (sources are available) and with Linux and Windows ports. Sources can be downloaded here: http://arnold.emuunlim.com/

I would kill for an Amstrad CPC emu Spectrum and C64 emus don't interest me because the CPC kicks the ass of that inferior computers

Nebulus, La Abadía del Crimen, Navy Moves, Dragon's Lair 1&2, Gryzor, Target Renegade, Marauder, Army Moves, Abu Simbel Profanation, Phantomas 2, Batman the Movie, Wec Le Mans and so many fantastic CPC games...

@Antiriad: Are you the English Amiga Board Antiriad?

 

[Antiriad]

Thas me! You on EAB too then?
Thx for the CPC emu info. Ol Kevin Thacker is a top bloke, im sure he wouldnt mind.

Does anyone know what the ST emulators out there are written in then?

 

[A600]

Thas me! You on EAB too then?

I'm Uukrul

Ol Kevin Thacker is a top bloke, im sure he wouldnt mind.

Could you ask him the GP32 port?

 

[Antiriad]

Will do! He sent me the second version of his Amstrad Emulator for the Amiga (A-CPC) many moons ago so (although its since been made available to the public), so if i asked it cant do any harm.

 

[Antiriad]

Kevin got back to me and said:

"I don't object, so please feel free to do a port.
If you need any help, please ask.

The major slowdown in the code is the rendering code. I bet you could get something
working, but it may run slow. However, I was thinking of writing alternative rendering
engines so that the emulation could run on other systems.

So please try the port, and if you find any problems (compiling problems, incompatible headers) etc, please let me know so that I can incorporate them into the main source base.

I look forward to seeing screenshots from it running on a GP32 "

So....anyone interested....

 

[Belgarath]

well we've got an st emulator and a brilliant one by all acounts, has anyone got ANY news on work on a possible amstrad emulator?

 

[Antiriad]

I noticed that Castaway (the Atari ST emulator) was a port of a CastCE for the Pocket PC, so i searched for Amstrad Emulators for similiar machines and found CoPaCabana

I have contacted one of the authors whose initial response has been positive, as hes planning to port it to PalmOS eventually. However, as its a relatively new emulator its still undergoing big changes at this stage and so it wont happen any time yet.