Sean's Amstrad CPC 464 and CPC 6128 games and BASIC programming book

This Amstrad Basic programming tutorial was commercially published as 'The Basic Idea' by Campursoft and was awarded 85% in Amstrad Action's review (May 1994), which concluded "it's difficult to see how Campursoft managed to come up with a tutorial that will not only hold your attention long enough to shove information down your throat, but will be friendly and straightforward enough that you'll want to swallow." I've put the whole tutorial online now, and you can get most of the programs on my Amstrad software collection disc.

• B is for Basic: Discovering the joy of Amstrad CPC Basic. This article introducing Amstrad Basic appeared in Wacci as part of its 'A-Z' of the Amstrad, and introduces Amstrad Basic and the programming culture that surrounded the machine.
• A comedy of errols: Debugging common errors in Amstrad Basic programs. How to debug Amstrad Basic programs, including a quick lookup table for each error message.
• Downgrading: How to convert Amstrad CPC6128 programs to the CPC464. How to make programs for the Amstrad CPC6128 or CPC664 work on the 464. Includes a table of commands that don't work on the 464, and a routine to add FILL to the CPC.
• The protection racket: Protecting Amstrad basic programs. How to protect your Basic programs, and circumvent some of the common protection methods.
• A character building experience: How to define your own characters in Amstrad Basic. Exploring user defined graphics, used for creating customised typefaces and special effects. This section includes a lookup table of control codes, together with demonstrations of how they can be used for screen layout.
• The colour of magic: How to use colour swapping in Amstrad CPC Basic programs. By using colour swapping, whole screens can be quickly animated. This includes several demonstrations of the technique and full instructions to use it in your own programs.
• This is a journey into sound: Creating music and sound on the Amstrad CPC. How to write sound effects and music for your games, including a sound effects editing program.
• The road to code: Adding machine code to Amstrad CPC programs. How to integrate machine code with Basic programs. This includes a program for making DATA statements from code and some tips on using CALL and relocating machine code programs.
• The sprite idea: How to make sprites for Amstrad CPC Basic programs. A full toolkit for putting machine code sprites into your Basic games is included on the disc. This extends the version which appeared on an Amstrad Action covertape with a more precise and more compact sprite driver.
• Misfit: Sliding puzzle game for the Amstrad CPC computer. Bringing a lot of these techniques together is our final game, the sliding puzzle game Misfit. This game is now playable online!

Here are some more articles I've written over the years about the Amstrad CPC computer range.

• Hacking and updating The Further Adventures of Fred - In 2020, I revisited my machine code game The Further Adventures of Fred to see if I could improve it. There were things that always niggled me about the game. The question was: could I fix them, 30 years later?
• Amtix is back - Find out more about the revived Amtix in my blog post, which includes my "Doctor, Doctor!" listing for speech synthesisers.
• Top of the CPC Pops - Counting down the biggest pop hits to feature in Amstrad games.
• Amtix! CPC Annual 2023 here - Discover the hardback celebration of the Amstrad. Hurry and you might still be able to get a copy.
• Book review: The Apprentice by Alan Sugar - Read my review of Alan Sugar's book accompanying the TV series.

Using an emulator, you can run Amstrad games on a newer computer. Amstrad has given permission for the Amstrad ROMs to be used in emulators, and there are a number of emulators available for different platforms, including Windows and Raspberry Pi. Emulators are fast, convenient and enable you to avoid the 15-minute wait to load a game. Download my games disc to use in an emulator.

• How to use a CPC emulator on your PC - Play popular Amstrad games using a free Amstrad emulator on your PC. Read my instructions for using Winape here.
• Picade review - A review of the desktop arcade cabinet, based on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer, including a few notes on how I configured it.
• How to embed an Amstrad emulator in your website - Instructions for using Andre Weissflog's emulator which powers the games on my site.
• How to use a CPC emulator on your Nintendo DS - Get retro on the Nintendo DS with my blog post about using the CrocoDS emulator to play Roland on the Ropes, Chuckie Egg and more.
• How to copy and paste BASIC programs between the Winape Amstrad emulator and your Windows host machine - Have you found a listing online you want to paste into your emulator? Have you written a program in the emulator that you want to post as code online or contribute to a magazine? This tutorial shows you how to move BASIC code between the emulator and the machine running the emulator.

Play my Javascript and Scratch games in your browser
I have also written games you can play in your browser using Javascript and Scratch.