1

CONTENTS
6 JEWEL WAREHOUSE — REVIEW 26 THE FREY ARCHIVE
Fusion goes hunting for jewels in this puzzle, Amtix Issue 9 — The Fifth Axis. Roger and Oli talk
platform game. through the insspiration for this cover.

8 ROLAND — BEST GAMES ON THE CPC 28 THE STORY BEHIND

Colin Bell takes a trip down memory lane of mascot Philip and Andrew give an insight into their use of the
Roland — these are the best games he appeared in. Amstrad CPC in deleloping their 8-bit games.

14 CPC PERIPHERALS 32 TOP 10 HOMEBREW HEROES

Here is a guide of the best peripherals to buy for your Al ‘Xyphoe’ White reviews his top 10 homebrew titles for
beloved Amstrad CPC. Mr Sugar’s 8-bit machine.

19 DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER 42 AMSTRAD ACTION

Colin Bell takes a look back at Lemmings and reminds David Crookes catches up with Adam Peters, staff writer
us why it is so good. on the beloved Amstrad Action magazine.

24 FUSION FAIL 46 AMSTRAD HARDWARE GUIDE

Every system has its gaming fails — a great example Fusion’s Al ‘Xyphoe’ White talks us through each itera-
on the CPC is Pit Fighter. tion of the Amstrad 8-bit family.

48 MY NAME IS SID
The FUSION team say a little about their favourite
SID tunes

2 FUSION
 I’ve always loved an underdog and Sir Alan
Sugar’s Amstrad CPC is a prime example.

Editor’s Note Despite being touted as an all-in-one system

and offering some fantastic games, it
struggled to gain the same success as rivals
like the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.
Friends at school teased me for owning one
(I only knew of three other kids at school
with Amstrads) it lacked the many great C64
exclusive shooters I loved playing when I
visited my friend’s house, and even developers
seemed to care little for the machine, as
they would often churn out quick and easy
Spectrum ports that failed to take advantage of
the Amstrad’s capabilities.

I didn’t care though because I genuinely loved

my CPC along with the incredibly diverse
library of games it boasted. I discovered
both Codemasters and the Dizzy series
through Amstrad’s machine, was blown away
by the work of Raffaele Cecco and fiercely
championed games like Gryzor, Renegade
and Chase HQ, which felt miles better than
their 8-bit counterparts. Granted there were
travesties on the system (I’ll never get over
that atrocious Out Run conversion) but that
was true of all home computers of the time
and great magazines like Amtix and Amstrad
Action became essential bibles and ensured I
always knew what to spend my pocket money
on.

I’m delighted then to be associated with this

brand-new magazine that’s dedicated to all
things Amstrad and I truly hope that it leads
to similar projects in the future. The Amstrad
home brew community has really come into
its own in the last few years and it’s been
producing some sensational games, many of
which are featured inside. My 14-year-old jaw
would have dropped if I had seen some of the
titles you’ll be reading about in this issue and
Sub-Editor : Alan Hammerton
their quality is a testament to the talented
Layout: Chris Wilkins / Alan Hammerton coders who have been able to coax so much
Proof Reader : Alan Hammerton magic out of Amstrad’s 8-bit micro. So sit down,
Cover : Trevor Storey put your feet up and enjoy what you read and
Art : Steven Day in doing so, you’ll hopefully realise what I’ve
Contributions from : Chris Wilkins, known for years: the Amstrad CPC is absolutely
Roger Kean, Al ‘Xyphoe’ White, David Crookes, brilliant.
Philip & Andrew Oliver, Colin Bell. Retro Gamer Editor
Darran Jones

FUSION 3
Fusion
Game : Chase HQ
Year : 1989
Publisher: Ocean Software

‘Let’s go Mr Driver!’ Jump into your turbo charged

Porchse 928, catch the criminals and ram them
off the road in this coin-op conversion! I’d easily put
Chase HQ in my top 3 arcade games, so imagine my joy
when the Amstrad version turned out to be this good!
If pushed for a quick answer, without hesitation I’d say
this is my favourite ever CPC game! Incorporating all
the features of the arcade original including sampled
speech is an incredible feat of programming on its
own! But to have it running at a decent pace with all
the complex maths involved to get road movement and
physics right, coder Jon O’Brien is a certified genius and
it’s mind blowing to see in action. Jon had great success
previously with WEC Le Mans, and the game engine
code was re-used here, but WEC was criticised for dull
graphics. This time however, Bill Harbinson stepped in
and produced some absolutely gorgeous 8-bit pixel art.
Chase HQ on the Speccy blew everyone away, but the
CPC port topped even that thanks to Bill!

5
REVIEW JEWEL WAREHOUSE

WHAT DOES FUSION

MAKE OF THIS LITTLE
GEM OF A GAME?

Jewel Warehouse
was coded by the
talented Egochip and
sees you take Amy on
a journey through 42
charming levels with
the aim of collecting
all the jewels that the
Cyborg Queen has
mischievously stashed
and scattered throughout
her warehouse. In all, limit. Sounds straight forward on the conveyer belts and even
there are a whopping doesn’t it? Things are never blocks which when placed
four hundred and sixty- that easy — there are conveyer in the right place, will allow
two jewels to collect. belts that pull you in the you to safely cross spikes or
direction you do not want to provide a bridge across gaps.
go; platforms that break up There is no lives system
The game is presented in (thinking Manic Miner here!); in Jewel Warehouse — when
beautiful MODE 1 graphics, spikes that burst through you’re scorched by the flames
each level represented by a the platforms that kill you on or impaled by the spikes or
single screen — the aim of impact and flames that block run out time, you’re given the
each one is to simply claim your way. And we still cannot chance to restart the level
all the jewels and get to the work out what those spiky or quit the game. If you do
exit within a very tight time blobs are that prevent you complete the level with ten
taking certain seconds or more left on the
routes! clock, then the game does
As always in reward you with a bonus jewel.
these types of When the game first
game, there are loads you can pick from any
ways to solve of the 42 levels provided by
every problem the game, this is quite a nice
— you can pick touch as it means you can
up water to ex- resume your progress on the
tinguish flames;
find a special Above & Right: The early levels
boot that will of Jewel Warehouse going from
allow you to go the simple first level to the rather
in any direction more challenging seventh level.

6 FUSION
level you finished at or even
jump ahead and see all the
levels the game has to cover
— remember the aim is to
collect all the jewels so it does
not matter what order the
levels are completed.
A mention has to go to the
music that plays throughout
when playing — it is catchy
and not too annoying.
Jewel Warehouse has that
really addictive one-more go
quality as you try to figure out
how to complete level.
This is one of the best
games to play if you are an
Amstrad fan.

FUSION 7
Article by Colin Bell

Roland is one of computer gaming’s oldest mascots and yet most people, including a lot of
you CPC fan boys and girls out there, will never have heard of him? He should be up there with
the other 8-bit greats, Mario, Alex Kidd, Dizzy, and yet he’s never quite managed to achieve the
same level of success and fame. So why is this? Join Colin Bell now as he sets out to find out
what happened to Amstrad’s unsung hero.

It all began back in 1984 where to coincide with the launch of the new Amstrad CPC home
computer range, Alan Sugar, the CEO of Amstrad and Luis Dominguez, a game designer and
latterly the president of Amstrad’s Spanish division, set about developing a recognisable
mascot who would feature in, and help promote, their in-house software titles. It was also
believed that a mascot would give Amstrad that crucial edge over main rivals Sinclair and
Commodore who by this point were already established on the market.

The result was a character named Roland, who is often credited as being named after
Amstrad’s system designer Roland Perry. Now Roland led a rather varied, and some might say,
intriguing life with a CV that rivals any of the iconic 8-bit era mascots.

He starred in a total of eight official releases, the first two being Roland on the Ropes and
Roland in the Caves which were included as part of an Amsoft twelve pack that was initially
bundled with the CPC 464 upon release. Most Roland games were actually just ports of other
previously released games that had already made an appearance on the ZX Spectrum and
Commodore 64 a year or two prior. The Roland range of games tended to be of good quality
with most making good use of the Amstrad’s delightful colour palette.

So where did it all go wrong for Roland? Well a clue may lie in the above paragraph where we
highlight the fact that most of the games, especially the earlier titles, were all just ports of
other previously released games. Or perhaps it may down to the inconsistencies within each
of the game’s storylines. Whatever the reason, let us take a look back at Roland’s adventures
and see if we can shed any further light on the matter...

8 8 FUSION
Roland on the Ropes — Indescomp

This game marked the start of Roland’s illustrious career and saw him take up the guise of an
‘Indiana Jones’ like adventurer who finds himself lost in a dark vast tomb full of 8-bit nasties
such as ghosts, mummies, skeletons,
rats, acid drops and vampires!
The aim of the game? To ascend the
many ropes, collecting treasures along
the way, and work your way to the top
of the map and find the exit in order to
progress to the next level. Now to be fair
for 1984 the graphics were decent and
helped even more so by the good use of
the Amstrad’s gorgeous colour palette.
The later levels of the game however are
extremely difficult and almost feel like
they are nigh on impossible to complete
but overall the challenge of the game is
well balanced. Sadly however the game
does suffer from a constant flickering and jerky scrolling which detracts from the gameplay
and becomes rather annoying after a while.
The game is also a port of an earlier ZX Spectrum and C64 game by Indescomp called ‘Fred’
and is near identical. All that said however, Roland on the Ropes will always be seen as a CPC
classic that introduced many a child of the 80s to computer games, this big child included!

Roland in the Caves – Indescomp

Roland’s second outing — this time our intrepid adventurer is back, although now he
resembles an insect and has taken up the
role of a time and space traveller whose
machine has sadly broken down leaving
him stranded on an alien planet in the
year 2464 AD. Confused? Stay with me, it
gets better!
You have, according to the games
instructions, also been gifted a ‘special
kind of power that aides you when
exploring alien planets’ and to make
matters even worse you’ve fallen into a
large dark cave with flesh eating plants
and a hungry pterodactyl!
The aim? You guessed it, use your
special powers, which by the way is the
ability to leap like a super human flea, and make you way back to the surface, avoiding the
deadly plants and pterodactyl along the way. Again the game is yet another Indescomp ZX
Spectrum port this time of a game called Bugaboo the Flea.
Still, the games looks colourful and bright making good use of the Amstrad’s palette but
to be honest actually getting anywhere in the cave feels like a matter of sheer luck, and the
reward for getting out the cave? Well, you rather clumsily fall into another and start the whole
process all over again, Oh! the Joy!

FUSION 99
 Roland goes Digging — GEM Software

Back to Earth this time and Roland’s taken

off the adventurers hat, ditched the time
and space traveling (for now at least) and
has taken on an honest labourers job.
Oh! and he looks human again, this time
sporting a rather nice tan.
The plot? Aliens have invaded and taken
over the building site and Roland’s boss,
with the promise of a hefty bonus, has
entrusted him with the task of clearing
the site of these pesky space squatters.
Armed with only his trusty spade, Roland
must climb up and down the platforms,
digging holes to trap the aliens, then
digging them out again so that they fall to
their death. If all that wasn’t enough it turns out that the aliens are a form of plant life and
are consuming all the oxygen on the site which is represented by the slowly depleting oxygen
bar at the side of the screen which when reaches empty causes our poor hero to suffocate.
The game is yet another clone, but this time of an early arcade game from 1980 called
Space Panic. Overall, slow paced tedious action with simple graphics that will leave you
bored after ten minutes or so. One of Roland’s poorer career choices.

Roland Ahoy! – Computersmith

Yarr me Hearties! Roland,

clearly fed up with man-
eating aliens, has jacked in
the builders job, gone back
to his adventuring roots
and become a pirate. Along
with your trusty pirate ship
the ‘Falcon’, you must sail
the seas, avoiding various
sea monsters, load up on
cannon balls at ‘Powder
Quay’, destroy the boom to
gain access to the ‘Golden
Harbour’ to steal the precious
treasure and then take it to
‘Treasure Cove’ where you
must hide it. Each location
is just one screen, and all
contain an obstacle or trap,
the spider in the cave at treasure cove being one of the most particularly devious.
A simple, yet colourful game with nice graphics and basic sound effects. Even though the
game only has four screens in total it is actually a really fun and fast paced game to play and
by far one of the strongest in the series. Good career move Roland!

10 FUSION
Roland on the Run — Epicsoft

The fifth game in our series, not unlike the new Terminator movie, simply dismisses all of
Roland’s previous outings and takes us
back to his Amsoft roots. Because you see,
after all this time it transpires that Roland
and his colleagues have in fact been held
hostage at Amsoft HQ for months but
have now hatched an ingenious escape
plan to catch the 16:45pm freight train
to Brentwood where they’ll escape to a
small village just outside of Guildford. No,
seriously, this is the plot!
The only thing standing in their way
includes jumping from a moving train and
an extremely busy road full of cars and
lorries which they must cross in order to
reach salvation. Yep you’ve guessed it, the game is a rip off of the arcade classic Frogger.
The game only has one screen, but it’s a nicely drawn and colourful screen. Sound effects
however are woeful, some of the worst I’ve ever come across on the Amstrad and sadly that’s
about it! Roland on the Run is viewed as the worst game in the series, although I would have
to argue that award goes to Roland in the Caves because, I actually really enjoyed it (Just
don’t tell anyone!)

Roland goes Square Bashing — Durell Software

Now don’t panic! Roland

hasn’t taken a turn for the
worse and become a bully,
running around beating up
nerds and squares! Oh no,
believe it or not he’s now
morphed into a sugar cube
with gangly arms and legs.
How does he keep getting
into these predicaments?
Another arcade inspired
clone, this time of the 1982
classic Q*bert. In the game
you must traverse across
twenty increasingly difficult
levels of floating square
platforms which disappear
as you step on them. The aim
is to find the correct path
across each of the squares and clear the screen.
A simplistic and yet rather addictive puzzle game which doesn’t win any awards for
graphics but none the less is great fun to play.

FUSION 11
 Roland in Time — GEM Software

Having escaped Amsoft in Roland on the Run, our intrepid hero is free once more to put
on his time traveling hat. And this
time his preferred time travelling
mode of transport is a red phone
box. Wait, this all sounds a little
familiar? In fact the intro screen
music which is a blatant rip off of the
Doctor Who theme confirms what you
were thinking. Thank goodness for
lackadaisical 1980s copyright.
This time Roland has been
stranded on Earth by his evil arch
nemesis Maestro and the crystals
needed to power his time machine
have been scattered across different
time periods in history. Your task is
to visit these periods in time, collect
the crystals, fix your time machine and get back to the present to confront Maestro. The
game is essentially a platformer with a Manic Miner feel to it. There are fifty three screens
in total each with their own enemies and puzzles to solve. Decent graphics with rather
annoying repetitive music that will drive you crazy after a very short while. One of the more
challenging in the series.

Roland in Space — GEM Software

The first and only sequel to a

Roland game, and the last release
of the series. The evil Maestro is
back and it’s time to deal with
him once and for all. So this time,
instead of travelling through time,
you must travel across space
visiting seven different alien
worlds in order to locate all 158
components of a super weapon
which can be used to destroy your
arch nemesis once and for all.
Each of the seven alien worlds
has a theme which range from a
futuristic city, a pirate ship, a tree
house and an Egyptian pyramid.
There’s even an interesting
underwater section which adds a new element to the game.
Overall, Roland in Space is essentially a remake of Roland in Time and as before is full
of nasty enemies and puzzles to deal with as you attempt to collect all the pieces of the
super weapon. Same graphics, same annoying music and just as challenging, if not that
little bit more than its predecessor.

12 FUSION
Conclusion

So there you have it, a real mixed bag of games starring our chameleonic hero Roland. It’s
a real shame that a company like Amstrad with its marketing power didn’t give Roland the
treatment he truly deserved and provided him with a universal look and feel. No, instead
what we got was eight rather mediocre games that just had the original back story re-written
to fit around the Roland character, and it’s clear to see why he never reached the dizzying
heights of some of his other mascot rivals.

As for these days, no one has seen Roland in a long time. I like to think he’s out there
somewhere, still traveling the cosmos, raiding tombs or sailing the Seven Seas in search
of treasure. Or perhaps he lives happily retired now in that small village just outside of
Guildford free from the clutches of Amsoft. Either way Roland, gaming’s most inconsistent
mascot, we salute you!

FUSION 13
Article by Colin Bell

Amstrad SSA-1 Speech Synthesizer

A talking Amstrad? Well, yes! that’s just what the SSA-1 Speech Synthesizer provided, it allowed the
power of synthesized speech on the humble home micro, something that just a few years previous
was unthinkable even on
some the most powerful
micros of the day. But how?
A little micro chip known as
the SP0256 that’s how. Simply
combine this chip with an
interface to connect to your
micro of choice, amplify the
output, connect it up to a
twin set of speakers, bundle
it all together with some
software and hey presto! The
SSA-1 was born!
The interface was very
similar to that of the DDI-1
floppy drive interface with
the internal stereo sound
being fed into the CPC via a jack plug into the sound jack. A master volume control was located
on the right hand side. The twin speakers, which were basic in design, plug in to either side of the
interface and output sound at a decent quality.
The manual that accompanied the hardware was excellent, with page after page telling you
everything you ever wanted to know about speech synthesis. The software provided on cassette was
also very good and contained lots of useful demonstration programs and tips on how to incorporate
commands and a rather smart talking clock that tells the time every 5 seconds.
Now before you all get too excited, remember this was still only 1985 and despite the reasonably
accurate text to speech conversion, ultimately the speech that came out of the speakers was no
better than that of a Dalek from the Doctor Who universe. But with a little tinkering and minor
adjustments made via commands you can make sentences sound very understandable.
Sadly with regards to speech found within games, most software houses didn’t adopt the technology
and very few games actually made use of the SSA-1. Those that did however included: 3D Boxing, 3D
Stunt Rider, Alex Higgins World Pool, Alex Higgins World Snooker, Darkwurlde, Glen Hoddle Soccer,
Tubaruba and Roland in Space which was one of the more notable titles.

14 FUSION
Amstrad MP-3 Television Tuner

The Amstrad MP-3

Television Tuner
was a little gem
of a peripheral
that sat neatly
tucked away under
your Amstrad monitor. It acted as a TV tuner for your CPC and let you tune in and output terrestrial
television on your colour CTM644 monitor. The unit worked by plugging the RGB connector from
the monitor into the MP-3 TV tuner and was powered via a connector from the MP-3 TV tuner into
the monitors 12V output port. Once connected up, all you had to do was plug in your RF cable at the
rear of the unit and with a bit of tuning, hey presto! You now had a fully functioning television set.
Tuning a channel was a straight forward affair thanks to the rotary channel selector knob
located on the far right of the unit. Other smaller rotary knobs included adjustments for colour,
brightness and contrast. Picture quality was excellent, as good as any other stand-alone CRT
television set. The only minor criticism however would be that there is no switch to select between
CPC and Television mode, meaning you have to disconnect and then reconnect the RGB and power
connector each time when switching between computer and television tuner.

Amstrad DMP-2000 Printer

Dubbed as yet another ‘milestone’ in the Amstrad range of low cost peripherals, the DMP-2000
was a dot matrix printer that was capable of printing over one hundred characters per second,
which was no mean feat for 1985.
Looks wise the printer resembles an old style lawnmower minus the rear
handle giving it an odd shape
compared to other dot matrix
printers of the time. The reason
for this unusual design was due
to the print head being tucked
away behind the paper feed
mechanism meaning that
paper was fed in through
the front and printed out
to the rear which was
completely opposite to any
other printer of the time.
This made no difference
to the quality or speed of
the print but did leave you
rather short of desk space.
The DMP-2000 also featured the implementation of dot addressable graphics and a standard
set of Epson command codes along with a complete set of ASCII and international characters.
This meant the printer was compatible with almost all word processing and graphic software
applications.
Overall a no-frills, no nonsense dot matrix printer that featured all the basic printing facili-
ties you’d expect to find back in the day at an attractive cost.

FUSION 15
Amstrad CT-1 Radio/Alarm Clock

Similar in size
and shape to
that of the MP-3
TV Tuner, the
Amstrad CT-1
radio alarm clock
was yet another great little add-on that fits nicely under the CTM640 / 644 colour monitor.
The unit featured three different wave bands, Long wave, Medium Wave and FM. A small tuning
display indicated what frequency the tuner was currently at. A three way selector switch to swap
between each band and a volume slider was also present. In the center of a unit a classic 80s style
red LED display acted as the clock alongside several adjacent buttons for setting the time / alarm.
The alarm could either be set to on / off or auto.
Power was obtained directly from your standard 220/240V wall socket while a small white wire
that hung out the back of the unit acted as the antennae for the radio. Once again, like the MP-3 TV
Tuner the CT-1 doesn’t actually interface with the CPC itself and there is no way of controlling the
unit via the computer. Sound quality was perfectly decent although one minor issue was that the
monitor did cause slight interference to the signal, especially when set on the Medium Wave band.
Overall a perfectly dent decent radio alarm clock and a nice addition to your CPC.

Amstrad RS232C Serial Interface

Like most early home micros, the Amstrad CPC range didn’t come with an in built RS232
communications port so hence the need for
an external Interface.
The size of a small brick with an
external transformer power supply to boot,
the interface attached to the expansion
socket located to the rear of the computer
and essentially gave you the means to
communicate with other computers and
/ or other external peripherals such as
modems, printers and disk drives. Using a
modem meant that data could be transferred via
standard telephone lines all over the world, no
mean feat when you consider that we are talking
many years before the birth of the World Wide Web.
All nothing short of wizardry I hear you all cry!
and Amstrad clearly thought so too as the user
manual was presented in the form of a ‘Book of Spells’ with each interface command labelled as
Spell 1, Spell 2 and so on. Spells helped to facilitate the transfer of data between other systems
using a proprietary protocol located in the interface’s own ROM and gave access to terminal
software for connecting to the then popular British Telecom Prestel Service. Rather somewhat
childishly, the UK version of the interface included spell commands for file transfer entitled |SUCK
and |BLOW which had to altered for the US market as they were considered unacceptable there.
This was one of the first ever peripherals released for the Amstrad CPC but due to the external
power supply and software limitations it was ultimately replaced with an Amstrad-branded version
of a vastly superior alternative by PACE modems.

16 FUSION
Amstrad JY1, JY2 & JY3
A total of three official Amstrad joysticks were released, the JY-1, JY-2 & JY-3. The JY-1 was the first
and was your standard black plastic affair with a contoured grip and thumb
operated fire button. The quality wasn’t great so
the JY-1 was soon replaced by the slightly smaller
yet more robust JY-2 model. The JY-2 featured a
second trigger fire button and had a smaller base
which made it easier for holding in your hand.
Movement was also sharp and responsive.
Both the JY-1 & JY-2 models featured a unique
built in 9-pin socket on the base which allowed
you to connect a second joystick for gaming with a
friend although you were hard pushed to actually
find a game that supported this feature.
Another reason for this unique built in socket
was to help boost sales of Amstrad’s own joysticks.
Rather cleverly, or sneakily, Amstrad only fitted the CPC range with one joystick port which had two
different ground signals. Connecting one joystick to the CPC would forward a second ground signal
to the in-built socket on the joystick which in turn allowed you to connect up your second joystick.
Not a bad idea in terms of cost cutting and innovation, however sales of the Amstrad joysticks
were poor due to the quality with most users opting for a more reliable third party joystick that
were becoming more increasingly available.
The JY-3 was the last of the official Amstrad joysticks released and was essentially a Cheetah
Annihilator with a slightly modified grip. Again the quality and robustness were poor and I actually
recall breaking the shaft of this joystick myself whilst waggling away furiously locked in a grapple
as Hulk Hogan against Sergeant Slaughter in Ocean’s WWF game. Ah, fond memories.

Amstrad LP-1 Light Pen

The LP-1 was the official light pen of the Amstrad
CPC range and in 1985 it was one of the new
must have peripherals, or so the magazines
and advertising would have you believe. The set
came with the pen itself, which plugged into
the joystick port, and a graphics program on
cassette. Once the cassette was loaded you were
presented with a short tutorial which you could
use the pen with to turn the pages. The tutorial
also goes on to explain how you can use the pen
in your own BASIC programs.
With the tutorial out of the way you could
either play a game, called Nim, which involved you moving blocks using the pen or go straight onto
drawing. There were two modes for drawing in, mode 0 which allowed 16 colours and mode 1 which
only gave 4 colours. Functions were fairly basic with point to point line drawing, shapes, filling,
spraying, text entry and magnification to name but a few. You were also able to save, load and
print your work, although you were restricted to Amstrads own printer.
On-screen results were average at best and the plotting system wasn’t the easiest to master.
Programming your own sub routines required a good degree of programming knowledge and the
pen only worked with the more expensive colour monitors.
Not a bad introduction in to what the newly emerging light pens were capable of but not as
sophisticated as other light pens that were available.

FUSION 17
Amstrad DDI-1 / FD-1 - 3” Floppy Disk Drive
The Amstrad DDI-1 / FD-1 was an external floppy disk
drive that was released for the original CPC 464, 664
& 6128 micro range. The drive came in two parts, the
interface (DDI-1) and the drive (FD-1). The drive unit
was a rather large and bulky affair with a built in power
supply and took CF2 Compact Floppy 3” disks. It was
fast when loading software and nice and quiet when
in operation. The interface connected the drive to the
expansion socket located to the rear of the computer
via a ribbon cable which had a parallel connector for
attaching a second drive. Two drives was the maximum
the Amstrad could handle.
The drive could be operated in two modes, either
under AMSDOS, the Amstrad disc operating system
which was already loaded onto the ROM located within
the interface or under CP/M, an operating system that
came on a separate disk. The disks themselves were
very well protected with the magnetic media protected by a metal shutter and encased within a
hard rectangular plastic casing. The disks could be inserted into the drive on either side making it
possible to use the both sides with a single sided disk drive. A total of 180 Kilobytes could be stored
on either side of the disk giving the user a total of 360 Kilobytes of storage capacity.
An external disk drive was never released for the latter CPC 464 and 6128 Plus model range
and sadly due to the different socket types used on the new models the older DDI-1 / FD-1 was not
compatible.

Amstrad MP1 & MP2 Television Modulator

In the 1980s most home micro’s such as the Sinclair
ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64 could be
simply connected to the television in your home via
a standard RF cable giving you a colour output. The
Amstrad however didn’t come with an RF output and
when buying one you had to opt for either the GT64/
GT65 Green screen monitor or the more expensive
CTM644 Colour monitor. Most, including my folks opted
for the cheaper green screen option, but what if you
wanted to a colour display at a fraction of the cost of
colour monitor? Well, fear not as Amstrad came up with
a solution — the MP1 television modulator.
What the MP-1 essentially did was modulate the
monitor signal in such a way that it could be output
to a regular home television set. It also provided the
power required to operate the CPC which was normally
supplied via the monitor and it’s in built PSU making
the whole system just that little bit more portable as you did not need to cart a heavy monitor
around with you. I should clarify that when I say ‘portable’ I mean in the 1980s sense.
The one problem however with the MP-1 Modulator was that it did not provide for the 12V
power supply required to power the CPC 664 & CPC 6128’s internal disk drive so in enter the revised
MP-2 modulator which featured the additional 12V connector required. Later versions of the MP-1 &
MP-2 released in Europe also featured a SCART connector.

18 FUSION
 Let me set the is all excited about some excitement when I found out
Article by Colin Bell

scene — it’s a rainy new game that came with that Lemmings was due to be
Saturday afternoon the A3000, a game called ported to all the 8-bit systems
back in 1991 and I’m Lemmings. Needless to say, including the Amstrad.
up in my friends attic the rest of that afternoon But, as fate would have it,
surrounded by several was spent making these it would be a long time before
networked BBC Micros, green haired cute little I would ever play Lemmings
Masters and a shiny characters, climb, float, on the CPC — some 26 years
new computer called an bomb, bash, block, build, later in fact, as in the end
Acorn Archimedes A3000. mine and dig. Oh, and my Amstrad was sold for a
Now I should explain, my blow up! I was hooked! new Sega Megadrive in early
friend’s father worked 1992 just a few months shy of
in the Computer Science Now at this time I didn’t have Lemmings being released. And
department at Glasgow a fancy next gen computer, I the rest as they say is history.
University so hence all the still had my beloved Amstrad Below: The colourful artwork of
Acorn machines. My friend CPC 464. So imagine my the Amstrad CPC Disk inlay.

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FUSION 1919
 sound playing throughout each
level and looked to have stayed
true to the 16-bit original.
Now there are a few
differences, the first one is as
you might expect the size of
the game. The 16-bit versions
feature over 160 levels
whereas the Amstrad only
features 60 which are divided
into four sub categories — Fun,
Tricky, Taxing and the most
challenging, Mayhem.
Some of the more complex
levels and puzzles have also
been trimmed down but
overall there is still more than
enough challenging action to
Above / Below: Yippeee! as
they say in Lemming land!
that I’d never actually seen this keep you occupied. The second
game in action on the Amstrad difference is the number of
I had to wait until 2016 and to be honest I was half lemmings, as the most you’ll
until we finally met when expecting a ZX Spectrum port, ever see on the screen at one
Lemmings made it into my but my oh my, I could not have time is 20 whereas the 16-bit
ever growing Amstrad CPC been more wrong! Lemmings versions can handle 50 plus.
collection, and it was even the on the CPC was a game that The third difference is the
disk version. Bonus! made full use of the Amstrad’s control method — the CPC
It suddenly dawned on me colour palette, had music and version does not support a

20 FUSION
 Above and below: Is that a
bird? Is that a Boeing 747? No!
It’s Iron Man Tal on a quest!

Above: Colourful, faithful music and

mouse so all actions have to the sound and music are not sound effects and 60 great levels.
be performed using either the quite so polished, it’s nice What is not to love about this game?
keyboard or joystick. Scrolling that it does feature in every
the screen with the joystick or level and having played the CPC game of all time? Well that
keys is in itself very smooth — 16-bit versions, you can easily one that will always be up for
selecting the desired action recognise and hum along to debate. Amstrad Action ranked
for your lemming via the the tunes. it as the second best game of
numeric keys though can be The digitised speech is all time for the CPC and as for
slightly sluggish as you locate sadly missing but you can me, it certainly ranks in my
the lemming you would like clearly pick out the iconic top 5.
the action to be applied to and ‘oh no!’ sound effect when A fun and timeless classic
click on him. This does take a it all goes wrong and there’s that’s a must for any Amstrad
bit of getting used to. nothing left to do but obliterate fan.
That all being said, you the whole screen.
really can’t fault this port and The disk version I have
it is clear that Psygnosis really features very fast loading
went to town on this one and times and as with original
what a fantastic job they did. version, a code is supplied
Lemmings on the Amstrad each time you complete a level
CPC is quite simply stunningly so that can come back to your
gorgeous and a true showcase game at any time and start
of what the humble CPC was playing on the level you had
truly capable of. The addictive got to.
gameplay, atmosphere, and Overall, in terms of a CPC
cute little animations have port, Lemmings really is all
all been maintained and you could ever have asked for
captured brilliantly. And while in a conversion. Is it the best

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21
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Game : Gryzor
Year : 1987
Publisher: Ocean Software

Bill & Lance have arrived on your Amstrad to take

out the alien scum that have invaded Earth!
Run and gun your way through jungles and alien
bases to reach a giant pulsating heart surrounded
by creatures that looks suspiciously similar to the
Facehugger from Alien!
Win this final battle and you are greeted with one
of the funniest and most down beat endings in gaming
history! This is arguably the most impressive looking
port of the Contra coin-op (renamed here due to an
unfortunately timed skirmish of the same name being
in the news).
If you wanted a game to show off the wonderful
graphics that the CPC’s vibrant colour palette can
produce, then thanks to Mark Jones’ stunning sprite
and background work Gryzor is the one! It’s a shame
they opted to keep the action to single screens rather
than scroll, so Contra purists may turn their noses
up here, but coder John Brandwood has produced
fast paced blasting action with tight responsive
controls. Along with the smooth sprite movement and
animation, it’s an absolute joy to play. Despite that
ending...

23
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Game : Pit Fighter
Year : 1991
Publisher: Domark

Pit Fighter from Atari was unleashed upon the arcades in

1990 and was the second game ever to use digitised sprites
whereby all the various actions and movements were performed
by real actors in front of a blue screen and camera. The game
was a big success and it wasn’t too long before software house
Domark secured the rights to release ports onto pretty much
every home computer and console of that era which included the
Amstrad CPC.
Sadly what we got was perhaps one of the worst games to
ever to grace the system. Now hold on just a minute I hear you
cry! The animated intro graphics and music are pretty good, and
yes indeed they are but all they do is lure you into a false sense of
security — when you get past that intro section and into the game
it is a complete and utter shambolic mess!
Graphics are quite simply awful featuring only four colours
and even though the programmers have tried to capture the
digitised look of the characters they are just downright ugly. The
gameplay as well lumbers along at less than a snail’s pace and
affects the responsiveness of the controls massively leaving you
quite literally feeling like you have no idea what’s going on as
any movement you make with the joystick or keyboard doesn’t
translate on to screen.
The in-game music is the only saving grace and I guess some
Kudos must be given to the Domark programmers for keeping the
scaling of the characters in the game, whereby they get smaller
the further into the background they go and bigger again when
moving into the foreground — something not even the Megadrive
port had! Sadly though this is not enough to save what is a
completely unplayable and appalling game.
I genuinely feel sorry for anyone that wasted their hard
earned pocket money on this title. It’s a definite top five worst
Amstrad CPC game of all time making Pit Fighter, rather ironically,
the complete and utter pits!

FUSION 25
 To be fair, most 8-bit With a score of 91%, it was a offset the action-figure in
Article by Roger Kean

games promised sure cert for the cover, which the foreground,’ Oli recalls.
rather more visual gave Oli a headache in coming And he has his back to the
excitement in the blurb up with a marvellous graphic. would-be magazine purchaser,
than they were capable of ‘I took comfort from the notion not usually recommended
delivering on the screen. that Professor Chronos had by distributors. ‘But I thought
The Amstrad version of created a time machine, upset turning the tables on usual
Fifth Axis from French the time continuum — very design concepts would work.
software house Loricels Star Trek, thank you! — and his Once you have taken in the
was produced by Activision. creation having done the dirty glowing globe and its alien
The Amtix! reviewers on him has scattered artefacts inhabitant, it makes the threat
enjoyed the game’s all over the shop, which of all the stronger and then you
‘striking’ animation, sound course he must collect. And of see the man about to deliver
and ‘marvellous graphics’. course, just about everything a blow to it. It makes him an
in displaced time is out to understated hero’, Oli argues.
get him.’ ‘In my time I’ve done
The result might be illustrations for disco
labelled a ‘Disco Dance advertisements and had a
of Death’, laboratory wealth of sketches of dancers
background delivered in motion I could adopt.
in broad dark strokes The real trick, though, is to
of indigo set against make the picture busy, cram
the harsh under in the detail and by careful
lighting from squares positioning of elements within
in the floor which the frame disguise the fact
illuminate our ‘hero’ that gravity doesn’t have a lot
and the varied to do with what’s going on!’
robotic creatures The printed result shows
arrayed against Oli’s skill with the dynamics of
him. figures in action and lighting
‘I wanted a effects which both separate
striking contrast the characters as well as
and took the enfolding them in the same
risk of using space — or is that a space-time
a very bright continuum?
pink globe as Left & Right : The eye is drawn
the object to the rather pink, and I suspect
that draws pulsating, robot brain with amazing
the eye to lighting effects from below.

26 FUSION
Amtix Issue 9 – The Fifth Axis

FUSION 27
27
 The story behind...the...
I’m joined by Philip
& Andrew Oliver,
AKA The Oliver Twins.
They are extremely well
known to the Amstrad
retro community having
developed so many of
their best selling games
for these computers. So
who or what made them
adopt the Amstrad CPCs
and make so many games
for them and when and
why did they move on?

Chris Wilkins: Well it’s just

possible you guys are the most
prolific developers on the CPC,
just how many games did you CW: Wow! That’s a lot of disk drives and copied all the
write for the machine? Amstrad games, quite possibly games they wanted. It was
Philip Oliver: We actually more than anyone else. So mid 1984 and we felt we were
designed and wrote 25, but what made you adopt the too late to learn and compete
there were also another Amstrad and when was it? on the Commodore 64 and
nine games written by other PO: We were in the lower the Spectrum. The Amstrad
people using our designs and sixth at school, and we’d CPC 464, with a tape deck and
characters. started getting our games monitor had been released,
Andrew Oliver: It was a published on the BBC micro. and whilst better than both in
fantastic computer not just We produced a number of our opinion, it was expensive
to develop games on, but also games that we just couldn’t and sales were slow, meaning
to develop them for. There find publishers for. We were a smaller market to sell games
is a difference. We used the coming to the conclusion to.
Amstrad to develop games that no one wanted to publish AO: Firebird (British
for the Amstrad CPC and games on the BBC and Telecom Soft) recommended
Spectrum, then in late 1987 thought that we needed to we write Easy Art and Panda
we switched to using PCs change platform, on reflection Sprites for the Amstrad and
to host all the development it was probably due to most they would publish them.
code, whilst still targeting the having been sold into schools, They arranged getting us
Amstrad CPC. or to people who bought three CPC 664s from the first

28 FUSION
Above: The Twins, both of them!,
looking very smug with their
No redesign was required, it a new publisher, Interceptor
brand new Amstrad CPC 664s. was very clear what we were Software. This started a short
expected to do. School work relationship with them as
got in the way a little! they were setting up a budget
batch in May 1985. These had AO: We’d have been lost label, called Players, and they
a disk drive and were brilliant without MAXAM ROM compiler published Magic Maths, Magic
computers. Sadly we couldn’t that fitted on the back of the Clock and Killapede. Sadly
afford to have all three and Amstrad allowing us to write the money was terrible, so
immediately sold two of them Z80 code. Maxam combined we needed to find another
to friends Ivan and Jon Paul. with the build-in disk drive publisher that would pay
Jon Paul would use his to learn and a great keyboard made better.
to code and produce music for this a fantastic development
many of our games whilst Ivan computer. We had to learn CW: I’m guessing that’s
helped in producing the SPAM Z80 assembler, having where your relationship with
(SPectrum-AMstrad [Also Monty only just mastered 6502 Codemasters started?
Python reference]) Link cable assembler on the BBC B. We AO: Yes, we met them at
allowing us to develop games were lucky enough to find a ECTS (Electronics & Computers
on the Amstrad and send them small flipbook which showed Trade Show) in London in
to a Spectrum. each of the instructions. I September 1986. We showed
say lucky, because coding them our previous games,
CW: Was it hard to change was so specialist and without just the boxes, and pitched
from BBC game development the internet finding such a Super Robin Hood from a
to the Amstrad? specialist book was hard. single sheet of handwritten A4
PO: It was made easier PO: Sadly by the time we’d paper. They liked the idea and
by having Firebird wanting completed Easy Art and Panda convinced us to write this for
to publish both Easy Art and Sprites, Firebird pulled out of them.
Panda Sprites, so we knew publishing both of them :-(. PO: This took about a
exactly what was required. Thankfully we were able to find month and was a massive

FUSION 29
 Left: Tht Bubble Dizzy loading
screen with an in-game
screen of Jon’s graphics.

Above: Look at ALL the games

The Twins developed for the PO: Well we’d started a Amstrad, but Codemasters
CPC range of computers! game called Excalibur, a top decided not to release it as
down adventure game inspired sales were predicted to be too
success, becoming our first by Gauntlet. It would have been low. Frustrating at the time,
UK #1 best seller. We’d go on similar to Zelda, developed but the right decision.
to write many more games around the same time. Sadly
for Codemasters. With the Firebird never came through CW: So when and why did
first proceeds we were able with the contract and money you stop producing games for
to buy a second Amstrad, this so it was abandoned. the Amstrad?
time the CPC 6128. Now we AO: We had started a game PO: Our last game, that
could both develop games called Safari Madness just we fully developed, on the
simultaneously rather than before meeting Codemasters, Amstrad was Fantasy World
sharing our original 664. but this morphed into Grand Dizzy in September 1989. The
Prix Simulator.
Below: The bedroom, and
CW: You wrote games very PO: We did complete development domain, of The Twins.
quickly compared to others — the CD Games Pack for the As one coded, the other slept!
how come?
AO: Well having first
developed Easy Art & Panda
Sprites they were great game
development tools and made
things a lot quicker. Then there
were the stupid hours we
worked and setting ourselves
the harsh goal to ship a game
a month. We were also very
efficient with code re-use.
Each new game used a lot of
code from previous ones.

CW: Were there any games

you developed that weren’t
released for the Amstrad?

30 FUSION
sales of games for the Amstrad
had started to decline and we
felt that after Christmas many
shops would seriously reduce
their support for the computer.
Sadly all good things come
to an end, it was sad and we
wished it didn’t have to end as
we’d got really good at making
games for it!
AO: We moved onto the
NES console, back to 6502, and
Philip took to designing further
games for the Amstrad and
worked with other developers
to create them. Our last Above: Robin Hood: Legend
game under our design for you feel about it now? Quest — check out the tights!
the Amstrad was Robin Hood: PO: Those computers
Legend Quest, coded by helped us go mainstream and Amstrads!
Lyndon Sharp, at the end of launch our careers. We feel PO: We certainly couldn’t
1992. A great game, but sales lucky to have chosen to move have made more effort
were poor, and the Amstrad to the Amstrad when we did. to make the most of the
CPC faded away after a good They were brilliant computers opportunity the Amstrad CPC
run of 8 years. for the time and are fondly computers gave us and we’re
remembered by all those that very proud of all the games
CW: So did you play many had them. we created for them. We’re
Amstrad CPC games, and if so AO: I recently judged the also delighted that people
what were your favourites? Amstrad Eterno awards and remember them fondly over
PO: We were too busy I was amazed by what the 30 years after they were
to play many games but we Batman group achieved with released!
did have a great selection of Pinball Dreams. It’s staggering
games on our BBC, which also what the Amstrad was capable CW: Thanks again gents
had a disk drive. of, it was certainly far more for taking the time to speak
AO: However, we than we thought possible. to me.
often played Bomb Jack, Imagine if that had been
Commando, Ikari Warriors, released back in the mid 80s. Below: The Amstrad CPC would
Chase HQ, Spin Dizzy & Green It would have sold a lot of have been nothing without Dizzy!
Beret.

CW: Recently the Royal

Mail produced some Retro
video game stamps. How did
it feel to have Dizzy chosen
for one of those to represent
the first era of British video
games?
PO: Chuffed to bits and
very proud that Dizzy was
selected.

CW: Looking back on your

time with the Amstrad, how do

FUSION 31
Article by Al ‘Xyphoe’ White

HOMEBREW
HEROES
10 — Relentless (Psytronik Software 2013)

If you like horizontally scrolling

shooters then this game lives
up to its name! Wave after
wave of enemies attack whilst
you navigate through tight
areas avoiding gun fire from
turrets. All at what looks like an
astonishing (for the Amstrad)
50fps fast scroll! The graphics
whilst simple, are detailed and
colourful with it all backed up by
some wonderful tunes. The game
itself is very tough but short too,
and is more of a score attack
utilising a novel bonus meter
that you need to fill and keep
topped up by destroying entire
waves of enemies. Frenetic stuff! Also check out Super Edge Grinder from the same author.

32 FUSION
9 — Vector Vaults (Albertoven 2016)

If you have a love for vector

graphics that were popular
in the early to mid-80s, then
this ‘Thrust’ meets ‘Scramble’
game is the one for you! It
just oozes retro cool! Gravity
and inertia pull you around,
but this isn’t about shooting
and destroying things, it’s
more of a race to the end
against an ever depleting
energy supply. Tough choices
to be made — do you take
the more dangerous route
which may have a life saving
battery? Really smooth and
fast gameplay makes this
utterly addictive, despite the strange presentation between levels. And there’s much replay
value with trying to beat your (or your friend’s) times on levels!

8 — Operation Alexandra (4Mhz 2018)

This was the eventual winner of

one of the annual CPCRetroDev
game making competitions,
and thoroughly deserved it
is too! As a Russian soldier,
you descend into a previously
undiscovered Nazi base from
World War II in the Arctic
that conceals some very
strange monsters indeed! The
presentation throughout is
fanstastic, and whilst initial
appearances may lead you to
believe this is another standard
single screen platformer,
there’s much more to it with
some puzzles to solve and
strange mutant creatures to shoot!

FUSION 33
 7 — Galactic Tomb (ESP Soft 2018)

Set over 3 stages, the 1st level is

a run ‘n’ gun ‘Turrican’ inspired
romp; blasting enemies, making
difficult platforming jumps,
disabling energy gates and
discovering secrets. All to the
backing of one of the best tunes
I’ve ever heard on the CPC! Things
change on level 2 with a jetpack
now strapped to your back, but
it’s more of a maze and a puzzle
with you figuring out which
energy gates to shut off in what
order. Lastly, the final level finds
you underwater in a mini-sub
exploring caves and blasting alien
sea creatures. Galactic Tomb is packed full of variety, wonderful graphics and music, and a
tough challenge. It would have placed higher if the frame rate could have been improved.

34 34 FUSION
6 — The Adventures Of Timothy Gunn (CNGSoft 2018)

If you loved Joffa Smith’s ‘Cobra’

on the Spectrum, then you’re
going to be blown away by
this souped-up version on the
CPC! Timothy Gunn is another
CPCRetroDev game that
unbelievably only finished in 4th
place in the compo that year,
and I guess its simplicity may
divide opinion. If you want pure
fast frenetic blasting action to a
brilliant sound track (including
that famous Peter Gunn Theme)
with gorgeous graphics — you’ll
find no better. I find myself
coming back to this game time
and time again, more so than
any other entry. Addictive,
enduring and that elusive ‘just one more go’ factor!

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35
 5 — Baba’s Palace (Rafa Castillo & John McKlain 2017)

Inspired by Catrap on the

Gameboy (and Pitman on the
Sharp MZ-700 before that)
is another well deserved
CPCRetroDev winner and the
only puzzle game on our list.
Over 100 levels and rooms in
the palace, you have to destroy
all the monsters and at the
end Baba the witch will hand
you the elixir of life! This isn’t
going to be easy though, you’re
going to have some very taxing
puzzles with rearranging blocks
so you can reach all these
monsters. One bad move and
you can find yourself completely stuck! Complicating things later in the game, you’ll have to
switch between two characters and get them working together. A simple but fiendish concept,
executed with beautiful graphics and animation, all backed up by one of the catchiest tunes.

4 — R-Type 128k (Easter Egg 2012)

For many people, this remake

reignited their interest in the
Amstrad scene and it caused
a big stir at the time. C64 and
Spectrum owners were already
very proud of their R-Type
versions, less so CPC fans who
received a rushed ZX port. The
Easter Egg team undertook
a huge project to rewrite the
vast majority of the code,
and completely overhaul the
graphics and sounds. Not only
that, new features were made
available including an intro and
ending sequences not found in
the arcade original. Now Amstrad owners had something to crow about, and certainly heated
debate occurred across the internet! What can’t be denied though, is that the CPC now has a
fantastic port of the classic horizontally scrolling shmup!

36 36 FUSION
3 — Megablasters (Odiesoft / Radical Software 1994)

Arriving at the very end of the

CPC’s commercial life was
this impressively massive
Bomberman clone. In fact,
to write it off as a mere
quick clone would be doing it
disservice. Set over 10 worlds
(not including an entire ‘secret
world’) with 90 different levels,
this took up a whopping four
sides of two disks! It’s also
the highest scoring game on
the Amstrad when averaging
review scores from magazines
and websites, with a huge
96% rating. However the most
fun to be had though is in
the simultaneous 4-player battle mode against friends! Lovely graphics and delightful music
compliment a simple, enjoyable but taxing game that’s going to stay with you a long long time.

2 — Orion Prime (Cargosoft 2009)

This point and click adventure set

on an atmospheric, deserted and
creepy space station was a huge
undertaking and passion project
for several dedicated members of
the CPC scene. The game slowly
builds suspense and eases you in
initially with some light exploration
and simple puzzles, but the true
horrors of Orion Prime soon reveal
themselves! The game builds to a
crescendo with horrific creatures
stalking you, the reactor about to
explode as you desperately try to
reach the escape craft you have
repaired. Along the way several mini games nicely break things up with some arcade action.
Absolutely enthralling stuff, stunningly presented and objectives that will really test you but
not so obscure as to put you off. Just like a great novel or movie — you won’t want to stop and
will want to see this through to the end!

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37
1 — Pinball Dreams (Batman Group 2019)

Some may question the point of pinball games on home computers and consoles. What
can beat the real and physical sensation of whacking those pinballs, with all the vibrations,
noises and naughty tilts of the table? Pinball Dreams on the Amiga went a long way to change
those attitudes, and it’s rightfully regarded as a classic. It was also regarded as impossible to
convert to humble 8-bit computers. The Batman Group doesn’t listen to such opinions! You
have to see and play this to believe. Not only have they managed to fit in everything found
in the original, but to do so with it running at a liquid smooth 50fps with stunning graphics,
music, physics and highly responsive controls is absolutely sensational. They truly have
achieved the impossible and I don’t think we’ve seen something so ambitious running better
on any other 8-bit home computer.

38 FUSION
Amtix Issue 2 – Marsport
40 FUSION
 FUSION
Game : Head Over Heels
Year : 1987
Publisher: Ocean Software

By the time Head Over Heels arrived, the

isometric puzzle adventure genre was
already oversaturated. Ultimate Play The Game had
dominated this genre starting with 1984’s Knight
Lore, and many clones followed such as Highway
Encounter, Nosferatu and even Batman from the
same team behind this game — Jon Ritman and
Bernie Drummond. The way they differentiated
Head Over Heels from the rest was by having two
different characters to control, each with their
own unique abilities and strengths. At points in the
game you can even combine them together to solve
many of the fiendish puzzles found on the dreaded
Blacktooth Empire! Head Over Heels is a classic on
any system it appeared on, but it’s arguable that
the Amstrad had the best version — even the 16-bit
versions on the Amiga and Atari ST seemed to have
the same minor control issues the C64 port had.
The ZX Spectrum was the original, but the Amstrad
version added in extra colour. It’s only small
differences, but this is a game Amstrad owners
could be proud of.

FUSION 41
 popping the tuneful result
Adam Peters was on the covertape of the next
Article by David Crookes
a staff writer on issue.
Amstrad Action between There were jaunts to
October 1991 and France, pieces about desktop
January 1993 — working publishing which encouraged
on the magazine in the a host of fanzines, and a ton
midst of what has been of quirks including facts about
considered its golden age real Lemmings in a game
under editor Rod Lawton. review. Adam even included
random guides to European
countries (things to do in
Introducing himself as ‘the Spain: ‘grow a big bulbous
good looking one with a nose like a potato (then paint
spiky haircut’ and reminding it red)’).
readers that he had written ‘a Today, Adam is a television
load of tosh’ as a freelancer a producer and script writer,
few years before, he claimed having worked on animated
his gaming knowledge was preschool series such as
second to none. ‘Or second Pip Ahoy! for Cosgrove Hall
to nuns at any rate, cos nuns Fitzpatrick.
don’t get to play any games at
all, do they?’ Fusion: What attracted
He then proceeded to you to Amstrad Action?
bring a lighter, jokier, more Adam Peters: Like writers
eccentric vibe to the magazine on a lot of niche publications,
and he engaged greatly with I started out as an avid
readers, especially within the reader of the magazine. I
letters pages which, at times, acquired a CPC 6128 (my first
brought a new meaning to its computer/gaming device)
name, Reaction. One reader, in 1987, using it for a mix of
Peter Worley, had strong gaming and putting together
opinions and was given his fanzines. I quickly realised
own slot. AA was the best CPC mag out
It was during Adam’s there and began devouring
time that Amstrad Action had it religiously — i.e. served on
its own Christmas panto, a wafer washed down with
Cinderella, held in Bath’s communion wine.
council offices on a budget of
£50 (Adam playing Gemima Fusion: When did you get
Ugly and drawing on his offered a full-time staff writing
A-level in Drama). Adam also job?
appeared on the cover of AP: Steve Carey (AA’s editor
issue 85 with an Amstrad 6128 when I started contributing)
Plus in the form of a guitar tried to get me to put myself
for a music-making guide, forward for several full-time

42 FUSION
 so I had some grip on both
markets. Then again I’ve
always been pretty rubbish
at games, which gave me
a cynical take towards the
gaming side. I also didn’t like
the Disgusted of Tunbridge
Wells persona of a lot of the
business/hobbyist market, so
I could be cynical about that
too.

Fusion: AA had a real

can-do attitude, with guides
to making fanzines, music
and getting over to France
because there was not enough
jobs at Future Publishing, amount of freedom, letting software on UK shelves. Was
including games editor of me take on things that are this important?
weekly New Computer Express traditionally part of the Editor’s AP: I’ve always been of
and technical editor of AA. I role. Since I’d come into the the mindset that if you want
turned down these advances, magazine as a reader turned something to exist you should
partly as I didn’t want to quit contributor, I had a different create it. I was annoyed there
Uni and partly as I’d have been sort of connection with other was no residents’ newsletter
rubbish at those particular AA readers. on the estate I lived on at Uni,
jobs (my techie advice would for example, so I got a grant
have been limited to ‘try Fusion: How did you from the housing co-op and
kicking the plug’ or ‘turn it balance games coverage with started one. With Amstrad
upside down and shake it’). the technical side? Action, I was just trying to
The conclusion of my three AP: I had the advantage of turn it into the magazine
years at University tied in my own Amstrad usage being that I myself wanted to read.
with AA advertising for a Staff 50% playing games and 50% And I did read it, from cover
Writer, so I did apply for that running a fanzine business, to cover, when it came back
one. Seemingly they
couldn’t find anyone
better so there I was.

Fusion: What was

it like working with Rod
Lawton?
AP: Who? In all
seriousness, I don’t
think I could have
asked for a better
boss for my first
day job. Rod had a
certain world-weary
cynicism that helped
reign in and channel
a lot of my pie-eyed
enthusiasm. He also
gave me an incredible

FUSION 43
 that
experience
ended up
being reflected in
the magazine?
AP: All of it.
Don’t discount the
influence of Your
Sinclair either. AA
shared a sliver of
covertape office with them and
as well as they rubbed off on us. Their
your photo on surreal sense of humour, that
the cover? A case of is.
lead by example?
AP: Definitely, although Fusion: What did you love
from the being photographed on the most about working on AA and
printers. Even cover was more a case of what did you hate?
though I’d already lead by lack of budget to hire AP: I loved the freebies
read every word 20 times a model. We tried as much and I hated the fact we didn’t
while proofreading, I was still as possible to avoid using an
a committed consumer, rather illustration
than just a creator, of the on the cover,
magazine. since the
older hobbyist
Fusion: Did that extend readership
to encouraging reader would moan
interaction? that it looked
AP: I do believe strong like a comic.
reader engagement was vital This left
at that point in time. The CPC having a
always had more of a niche/ member of
underground feel to it than staff gurning
the Spectrum or C64. It sold in front of
fewer units than either and some hastily
many people who had one assembled
didn’t even play games on it, backdrop
so publishers would just do as the only
a half-arsed Spectrum port if real option,
they even bothered with an unfortunately.
Amstrad version. We’d foster
this ‘you and us against the Fusion:
world’ attitude. You produced
fanzines
Fusion: You also indulged before
your passion for music working on AA.
and had your work on the How much of

44 FUSION
get any. I tell a lie. A couple new launches
of days after I started I was and multimedia
among the journos Mirrorsoft things
took out for a slap-up Mexican happening
meal. The product they were too. This also
promoting (Robozone) would provided
be my first AA game review. I opportunities
loved the game and reviewed to freelance
it accordingly, but also ended for some of
with ‘it’s cooler than a well those other
chilled Sol and hotter than a magazines
chilli bean tostada’. That was — a financial
me tipping the wink to the necessity
games company that I was up since my AA
for being schmoozed more in salary was less
exchange for good reviews. than I made
Unfortunately Mirrorsoft doing football
closed down a few weeks later fanzines On
(perhaps they’d blown too the other hand,
much on burritos) and no one the 8-bit mags
else was aggressively courting were very much
the 8-bit journalists any more. the runts of
the litter by my
Fusion: Was there a lively time there, left
office environment? in the dustiest
AP: We were in a building corners of
with 20 other computer and Future’s offices to gaze (like a
videogame magazines and Victorian pauper pressed up Fusion: Why did you leave?
this made for a very lively against a mansion window) at AP: Because they would
environment. It was great the page counts, marketing have called security if I didn’t.
seeing how the different and resources being thrown at I had swiftly taken a dislike to
magazines were evolving, with the 16-bit and console mags. Bath, where AA was based. Yes,
Bath wins loads of ‘best
place in the UK to live’
polls, but having lived
in and around London
all my life I found it
far too provincial and
isolated. Consequently,
I went back to London
every weekend to
play gigs with my
band, attend all-night
raves and get almost
no sleep on people’s
floors. This weekend
hedonism wasn’t
really compatible
with my workday
life so I returned to
freelancing.

FUSION 45
 Article By Al ‘Xyphoe’ White

System: AMSTRAD CPC 464

Year : June 1984
The ‘Colour Personal Computer’ 464 was Amstrad’s first foray into the home
computer business, and one actually built in house rather than imported.
It follows the success of them being first to market with their all-in-one hi-fi
tower solutions, and this philosophy carried over to their first computer too. An
integrated cassette deck and included monitor that resulted in only one plug out
to the mains with no need to fight over the family TV! It also looked the business,
professionally built and with coloured keys making it stand out. The 464 has 64k
of memory, a Zilog Z80A CPU clocked at 4Mhz, a three channel AY sound chip and
also a CRTC chip and custom gate array for three different graphics modes — the
most famous being ‘Mode 0’ which allowed 16 colours on screen from a wonderful
vibrant palette, but at the cost of big fat chunky pixels!
Expansion ports were available to connect external
disk drives, printers, joysticks, mice, and many more
peripherals.
The 464 was announced to the press on the
12th April 1984 at Westminster School receiving high
praise in the magazines and papers. The machine
then first went on sale on the 21st June 1984 at a
lone Rumbelows store on Edgeware Road in London,
selling out immediately with the green
screen monitor version at £239 and colour
monitor one at £349. The 464 was a big
success for Amstrad, going on to sell
around 3 million units all around Europe!

46 FUSION
System: AMSTRAD CPC 664
Year : May 1985
Introduced nearly a year later the 664 was basically a 464 with a redesigned look, an integrated
disk drive, and an extra £100 on the price
tag! However it was still
the cheapest CP/M disk
system on the market.
With a redesigned look
featuring pale blue and
grey keys, prominently
featuring the overly
large MSX-style cursor
keys, the 664 is not
the prettiest looking computer! However this was more closely targetted at business users, which
sadly it failed to attract by not increasing the memory to 128K, and that also meant it wouldn’t
be taken seriously if launched to the US market. Amstrad were soon to correct this in the 6128
launched three months later when RAM prices suddenly dropped. However ultimately this would
hurt them in the long run. Consumer confidence was dented with the 70,000 who bought the 664
annoyed by the 6218 superseding it so soon, and retailers were annoyed they were stuck with a
lame duck. Added to Amstrad’s decision to cost cut by going with 3” drives from Orion rather than
the 3.5” format, that would later become dominant, meant that Amstrad had to stick with them in
all their later home computers for backwards compatibility. Put simply, bad calls were made and it
was rushed to market. It’s sadly ironic then that the 664’s internal codename at Amstrad was IDIOT
(Insert Disk Instead Of Tape)!

System: AMSTRAD CPC 6128

Year : August 1985
Amstrad’s technical director Bob Watkins hated the 664! Secretly before it was even launched he,
along with an artist, designed the 6128 with the intention to make it more compact
and smaller, and definitely not look so garish! Opinion is still divided today
whether it looks nicer than the 464, but it certainly looked a far more
serious machine. Alan Sugar was quick to see the opportunity
and used it to enter the US market when the price of RAM
unexpectedly and drastically fell after the 664’s
launch. It could also be made at the same cost,
but rubbing salt further into the wounds
of 664 owners was a reduced price
tag of £299! It was easy to plug
in an external tape player to
enjoy all the 464 games, which
was necessary given the slow
uptake of companies to
produce disk games taking
advantage of the now 128K
of memory. Sadly it didn’t
catch on in America but it would go on to be extremely popular in Europe, especially in France,
becoming the leading 8-bit home computer. Many great disk based games emerged from the
French game publishers, and eventually even Ocean in the UK would catch up on releasing games
that would load in all the levels at once with additional content like sampled speech found in
Robocop, Chase HQ, Dragon Ninja and more!

FUSION
FUSION 47
47
 System: AMSTRAD CPC 472
Year : September 1985
This is a rare Spanish only variant of the 464 introduced to get around a strange
new law heavily taxing the import of computers with 64K or less of memory into
Spain. Exact details about the
circumstances around this
law are hard to come by, but
it appears several Spanish
manufacturers lobbied the
government, and a rough
calculation now means that
it might have been costing
Amstrad around an extra £75
per computer! However Lord Sugar is no fool, and a quick solution of adding in
a daughter board containing the cheapest possible 8K memory chip was added
(which was basically unusable, not that Spanish authorities had to know that!)
along with re-badging the computer from ‘464’ to ‘472’ — because 64+8=72! The law
was dropped in January 1986 after Spain joined the EEC, so these are now very rare
computers indeed.

System: AMSTRAD GX4000

Year : September 1990
Nearly 6 years on from the press launch of the CPC 464, Amstrad at great expense
unveiled it’s new line of 8-bit machines in Paris, France to a swanky gathering for
journalists from across Europe. Amongst this launch was the much rumoured
Amstrad console — the GX4000! Looking a bit like a Snow Speeder from The Empire
Strikes Back, the GX was based on a similar architecture to the 464 maintaining
the Z80 processor, AY sound chip and 64K of RAM. However it was bolstered by the
introduction of hardware sprites and scrolling, an increased palette of 4096 colours
of which 32 could be displayed, a new ASIC chip to handle lots of clever stuff and a
DMA chip that unburdened the main CPU and was primarily used for extra sound
capabilities like samples. The spec on paper was actually quite impressive.
When it arrived, priced at £99 at launch, it was up
against the Sega Master System at £80 which was still
struggling to make an impact in the UK market.
There was also the Nintendo Entertainment
System at £100 which had made next to zero
impact. However the 16-bit Sega Megadrive
(£190) was about to go on sale and perhaps
Amstrad underestimated gamers desire
and understanding of ‘bits’. 16-bit was in, 8-bit
was on its way out! However Amstrad’s reasoning
behind sticking with old (but proven) technology did seem to
make sense. This was a budget console that wouldn’t cost a lot to make,
aimed primarily at children with the idea they’d later want to upgrade to a 464 or
6128 Plus machine. Amstrad also saw a large business opportunity in the European
market, specifically France and Spain which they had dominated with their CPC
range, that so far Nintendo, Sega, Atari and NEC had failed to capitalise on. They
weren’t attempting to become the dominant console, rather they were exploiting

48 FUSION
the entry level budget gap in the European market. Even the press at the time seemed relatively
impressed and positive.
The problem was they were just simply too late. If the GX4000 was released maybe a year or
two earlier it could have had a chance of decent success at least in Europe. When it was eventually
released there were severe delays getting games into shops, and that quickly extinguished any
hype consumers felt and eroded the good will and faith from software publishers and stores had
in Amstrad. By March 1991 the GX4000 had been reduced to £79.95 with a paltry handful of games
available, June saw redundancies at Amstrad, and by the end of the year you could find the console
being sold for as little as £10. Eventually 25 games were officially released, with the near mythical
‘Special Criminal Investigations’ having an extremely limited release with only two known copies in
existence as of today, and ‘Gazza II’ seemingly not making it past the magazine review copy stage
into production.

System: AMSTRAD 464 PLUS

Year : September 1990
Many had thought that Amstrad had abandoned
and given up on its home computers, instead it
seemed like they had permanently moved onto
their lucrative word processor and PCW business
computers. So it was a surprise when the 464
was resurrected with extra bells and whistles,
dropping the ‘CPC’ name and becoming the Plus!
Essentially, think of it as a GX4000 console but
with a keyboard and integrated cassette deck.
They share the same specifications in terms of hardware features including the cartridge port, but
you could buy this with a monitor that now included stereo sound and retailed for £229 in mono
or £329 for the more desirable colour one. In terms of look and design someone at Amstrad clearly
had been paying close attention to the Amiga and Atari ST! It should be noted that there’s a very
small amount of CPC software that will have issues due to how keyboard scanning is handled on
the Plus machines, however many of them have been patched to work now.

System: AMSTRAD 6128 PLUS

Year : September 1990
So if you wanted 128K of memory and a disk
drive, then ignore the 464 Plus and go for this
beauty! Again it was bundled with a stereo sound
monitor retailing at £329 for mono or £429 in
full glorious colour. However Amstrad decided
not to include internal hardware and ports
to attach an external cassette deck, and not
having the ability to load tapes was a big bone
of contention at the time with many annoyed
letters written into Amstrad Action and other
magazines. It wasn’t an easy process to do this, but companies like WAVE at the time offered
upgrades at £20 plus postage to do the job. Otherwise, I’d argue this is the Amstrad computer
to own and it’s the most sought after by collectors looking to make use of the machine, unlike
the rarer CPC 664 or 472 which are more curiosities to sit on a shelf gathering dust. The 6128
Plus with associated monitor however is the one to load up your disk games on, especially
the ones that take advantage of the new Plus features like Fluff, Prehistorik 2 and the recently
released Ghosts ‘N Goblins remake!

FUSION
FUSION 49
49
 System: System: C4CPC
Year : May 2015
In simple terms this is a custom home-made cartridge designed for the GX4000,
464 Plus or 6128 Plus that boots straight into a menu where with a joystick you can
select to play from hundreds of Amstrad games! All you need to do
on your modern computer is download the ‘.cpr’ files of games
onto an SD card, and the C4CPC has a slot which you can slide that
into. Then simply plug the cartridge into the GX4000, turn on and
you’re away and gaming! There’s an ongoing project to convert
existing CPC software to cartridge format, which
includes bug fixes, plus compatibility issues
resolved, remapped controls to work purely
from joystick and pads with 2 buttons, and
even remastered graphics and sounds
in some cases! In fact, get yourself
a GX4000 with a C4CPC, and a cable
to upscale to HDMI and you have an
‘Amstrad Mini’!

System: M4 WIFI
Year : May 2016
Getting files to and from your old 8-bit computer can be a cumbersome and
laborious process, even with new specialised hardware to do it via SD cards or
similar. But what if you could instantly transfer or load files over the internet on your
Amstrad without the need for faff? Well say hello to Wi-Fi on your Amstrad with the
M4!
This is an expansion card that will slot into any Amstrad CPC or Plus machine,
allowing you to connect it to your home Wi-Fi network! It’s fast becoming an
essential bit of kit for anyone coding, wanting
to archive their old disks or just wanting fast
loading over the internet of any dumped
Amstrad game! It uses an SD card to store
the firmware and data you’ve transferred,
and you access the device from your PC,
Mac or whatever via a built in web browser
over HTTP. Then it’s just a case of simply
dragging and dropping in files such as disk
games in the ‘.dsk’ format. Back over on your
Amstrad, using some simple RSX commands
(that look very much like like DOS and Linux)
you can load games up instantly! It works
vice versa too, so for example a BASIC
program you wrote as a kid on an old disk,
with one command you can send that to the
SD card which can then be accessed over Wi-Fi
from your PC! There’s lots more you can do with
it too like changing and adding ROMs, and even upgrading the firmware with just a
single command.

50 FUSION
 My name is Al ‘Xyphoe’ Amstrad emulators and new Helping push all this along
White and I along with games started to appear. It is are websites such as the now
many others over the last 10 no coincidence the growth of sadly defunct ‘CPC Zone’, then
years, have been working very the channel and resurgence the ‘CPCWiki’ which has since
hard in our own unique ways to of the CPC coincided, and became the hub and main
keep the Amstrad alive! none of this would have been Amstrad forum.
possible without new games, Alongside are the
It has been 12 years since I demos and software being gamebase sites like ‘CPC
regularly created Amstrad released. It was the prolific Power’ who specialise in
video longplays, game reviews Paul Kooistra (aka ‘Axelay’) accurately dumping and fully
as well as making little with his games starting with testing every possible Amstrad
documentaries. I eventually 2008s ‘Star Sabre’ that really game, a valuable resource
started live streaming and kickstarted the homebrew archive featuring box art scans
the channel has grown to over scene off. Then games like the and much more. Without
4000 subscribers with the epic ‘Orion Prime’ soon started all this, I simply wouldn’t be
videos having amassed over arriving, and now there is a around on YouTube and Twitch
2.5million views. The weekly thriving scene supplemented doing my thing.
Friday evening live streams by game making competitions All I can say is thank you to
(the ‘AMSTREAM’) has become like the annual ‘CPCRetroDev’, everyone helping me keep the
a home for hundreds of CPC culminating last year in the Amstrad alive!
fans to congregate, chat and stunning ‘Pinball Dreams’ Check me out on www.
reminisce. conversion. youtube.com/xyphoe
The main reason I started
this channel was as a kind
of ‘preservation project’ for
Amstrad stuff. YouTube at the
time was a barren place for
CPC love, and the vast majority
of UK channels only seemed
to talk about the Spectrum
and Commodore 64. I wanted
to change that. It was 2008,
and after many quiet years
people started to discover

FUSION 51
 Publishing retro-gaming books and magazines since 2006

ThanksThis
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purchasing

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Purchase current and back issues at:
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52 FUSION