Got a couple of homebrew releases recently.
First up is the fantastic R-Type remake for the Amstrad CPC (128k version)
Sent as a thankyou for reversing the Amstrad 6128 PAL chip.
Ive played this on the emulator before and it craps all over the official release.
Next up is a C64 cartridge game called C64anabalt. Ive also played this before on emulation and loved it so thought it was time to get the real thing.
Ive been dabbling with Rainbow Islands for quite a while now and there are a couple of things that just didn’t feel right to me. They both involve the self check routines invoked at startup.
The first is the C-Chip check. In the original ROMs if the C-Chip fails its test you will be met with nothing but a blank screen as the palette has not yet been initialised. The second issue is with the ROM checks. The two MASKROMs are checked properly, in that they do a bitsum and compare to a value. The four EPROMs however do no such thing, the code simply checks for a WORD value of #$1987. This is poor IMO.
Today, as a Christmas present to myself (and maybe others) I have addressed both of these issues.
There is a catch however. The patch I did for the C-Chip is no problem but to do the patch for the ROM check I had to use free space in the ROM area, this free space is found at the end of the address space for the ROMs meaning that it would be contained in the 23C1000 MASKROMs. So if you want to use these you need to make an adapter of some sort.
Because of this I have included both sets of patches, one for just the C-Chip fix and the second for the whole lot.
I have not yet tested these on the real hardware but I think they should work.
C-Chip only
C-Chip & ROM check (requires pinout mod)
Merry Christmas!
So recently I have acquired the following.
An Amstrad CPC 464. After being impressed with the 6128 I thought I would try out the 464. It was only a tenner so why not, it works too.
Next up is Rainbow Islands/Bubble Bobble on the PC. Ive not seen the big box version before and its nice to have in my collection of RI games. I also think this version is different.
Last up is a rather nice little thing. Its a RAM replacement module for the ZX Spectrum so when those hard to find RAM chips go bad this modern day solution can fill the gap.
caius sent me these partial schematics he made a while back but I forgot to post them.
They are very clear and hopefully will be of use to someone.
click the image for full size
Meet my new addition to my retro collection, the Amstrad 6128.
Ive never owned an Amstrad computer before and I absolutely love it.
I had to change the drive belt but other than that it works great and came with a few discs too.
