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Over the years of writing these pages, I've noticed quite a few Ultimate Play the Game conversions, mostly to the Atari XE/XL and usually using the BBC Micro source where one is available. And why not? The Atari is a capable 8-bit machine with more colours than most other comparable personal computers (certainly more than the old Beeb), plus the Ultimate games are usually good productions in the first place.

This time, the Amstrad CPC is getting in the action with a port of the 16K classic from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum: Jet Pac.

As described on the New and Upcoming 8 Bit Games page at hit8b.it/un8bg6.html, the developer of the CPC version of Jet Pac, known as 40Crisis, is emulating some of the hardware features of the old Speccy in his code so that the final product runs as close to the original as possible.

While softly emulating the ZX, the CPC version has better colour handling capabilities, and this is not lost in the translation, meaning there's a lack of attribute clash in the game. With much of Chris and Tim Stamper's original machine code sorcery running, this has got to be a winner.

Jet Pac is a simple mix of spaceship building and shoot-'em-up action. Taking control of the chief tester for the Acme Interstellar Transport Company, you must build and test various rocket kits. Once built, each must be fuelled, and then it's a simple case of getting in the shuttle to blast off to the next level.

There are various indigenous creatures to avoid, as your jet-pack-powered suit allows quick navigation of each level, or you may wish to zap them with your laser-powered gun.

There are four different rocket kits to build and test and four levels of each, making sixteen levels in total.

All of the information, including a link to the download, is available at the aforementioned link.

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Sandy White's superb 3D Ant Attack has also been given the Amstrad CPC treatment. This version is by 40Crisis, who handled the Jet Pac conversion mentioned above, and again the code base softly emulates some of the Sinclair Spectrum hardware to make the translation a little easier - quite handy that the two machines are powered by the Z80 processor.

Ant Attack was one of the few games from the early 1980s that allowed you to play as the hero or the heroine, giving you the opportunity to rescue a young damsel or squire from a once great city now populated by giant flesh-eating ants. Yikes!

This game is played in a three-dimensional isometric environment and allows the foreboding cityscape to be viewed from one of four angles, with the task being to locate your significant other within each level and lead him or her to safety. To see this version in action, head over to youtu.be/nXFOwyikrgk

The Commodore 65 is a bit of a mythical device for Commodore 64 fans - it was supposed to be the follow-up to the hugely successful C64, retaining a good level of compatibility but with a more powerful processor, a built-in 3.5" disk drive and a higher resolution with more colours to display. Had it been launched, it would likely have been somewhere between the 128 and Amiga A500 in terms of price or perhaps an intended replacement for the C128 altogether.

For whatever reason, Commodore stuck with the Amiga brand, and this project was dropped, although somewhere around 1,000 C65 machines are thought to have been produced; in fact, I've managed to use one, and it would have been a great personal computer.

Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen is working on an FPGA implementation of the C65 hardware (or at least the C65 variant that he has access to). FPGA, or Field-Programmable Gate Array is basically an integrated circuit that can be custom configured to emulate or mimic micro chips or circuits, so they're ideal for replicating old computers (in fact, there are many examples if you look for them).

To find out more about Dr. Gardner-Stephen's work, head over to c65gs.blogspot.com.au