Running Mimo's Quest on the emulator is one thing, but it is important to check that it works on actual hardware. Thankfully I still have my Amstrad CPC 464 and Amstrad 464 Plus. My CTM 644 monitor blew up a few seconds after turning it on for the first time in 30 years. Fortunately I was able to obtain SCART leads from the Retro Computer Shack and plug them into my flat screen TV.

Tapes

WinApe is able to emulate tapes on the CPC 464 emulation. Creating a recording for tape is acheived by inserting a blank tape image in the emulator and pressing record. Then issuing the BASIC command to SAVE the area of compiled code in memory to tape. This produces a WAV file that can be played through Audacity or some similar sound program, and the sound recorded to tape through the computer's LINE OUT port. That's if you still have a cassette recorder! This process needs to be done in order for the loader code, then the main game code, and then any extra pieces of data that are loaded in sequentially in the 128k version of the game. I found the game took 8 blocks, a total of three and a half minutes, to SAVE to casette. The game loaded successfully on my CPC 464.

Cartridges

It is also possible to produce a physical cartridge for the Amstrad Plus range. I purchased a flashable Plus cartridge from IvorLot on Ebay, with the idea of trying to get Mimo working on my actual Amstrad 464+ hardware. He was kind enough to supply me with a re-flashable cartridge which he had just developed so I could program it myself, along with an adapter to slot it into an EPROM programmer, as well as a 3D printed cartridge cover, and all for only £20.99.

I bought a T48 (TL866 II - 3G) TL866II Upgrade Replacement Programmer for £65.99 from zeb-office on Amazon. This plugs into the USB has a socket for inserting EPROMS. I downloaded the Xegu XG-Pro software and installed it on my Windows XP Virtual Box, and then watched a few YouTube videos on how to flash the ROMs. The ROM type for this Plus cartridge is M29F040B, so it was a case of selecting it from the list and loading the binary file that is created by the RomInject command in my bash compile script. Flashing the ROM takes 15 seconds.

I got my 464+ hooked up to the TV. Unfortunately my TV does not recognize the RGB signal coming from the computer, so the colours were mostly black. The 3d printed cartridge is solidly made. It took a bit of force to get it into the cartridge slot. This may be because I have never used any other cartridges in my 464 Plus other than Burnin' Rubber. When I booted up the machine, Mimo's Quest appeared! Success.

Unfortunately the menu was a bit scrambled, and sometimes when I turned it off and on again, the game started inside Mimo's house and sometimes it didn't. I found this bug also occured in the emulator when I did a soft reset of the game without loading the cartridge again. So it was a case of manually wiping the data area each time the game loads to make sure there are no spurious bytes in there.