Did Amstrad create the dream machine they hoped for? And was it really a step up from the Speccy?
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2024
- The Amstrad CPC-464 - My childhood computer in it's first appearance in the Shack. Let's look at the machine in some detail and then see if it works. This episode has been sponsored by our good friends at PCBWay.com - Check out their website for all your PCB fabrication needs. pcbway.com - PCBs for as little as $5!
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:44 History
05:41 Machine Externals
07:00 What makes it tick?
10:45 Testing and next steps
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References
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad...
web.archive.org/web/201903250...
www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Gate...
www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/8255
www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Main...
www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CPC_...
Toshiba PASOPIA 7 Image Courtesy By Wolfgang Stief from Tittmoning, Germany - VCFe 8.0, CC0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... - Наука та технологія
I worked with Alan at Amstrad for 25 years and was project designer / manager for things like NC100/150, PDA600, PCW16 and many other things and I think you're wrong about the number of CPC we sold. First remember that 464 was followed by 664 and then swiftly after that (some might argue too swiftly!) the CPC6128 so I think if you are counting CPC sales you have to count all 3 together (the latter two were really just 464+disk then 464+disk+2xRAM). Oh and even 464+/6128+ which were just ASICd models with better graphics (sprites even). So the combined number is far more than 2m. The second thing is you have to consider exactly what market you are talking about. Is it just UK or across Europe (even a small number via Sears in the US). We either sold direct (or with partners like Schneider in Germany) in Germany, Spain, Italy but most especially France where I believe we sold almost double that sold in UK). So I think the total is more like 5m-6m. Personally I don't remember Alan ever claiming we'd reach 20m but he was full of bullshit and I could well believe that if some journo cornered him and asked "how many ya gonna sell?" a typical, off the cuff reply could well have been "oh, I don't know, 20 million?". Do remember that Amstrad was a listed plc and while Alan did have a touch of the Elon Musk's about him you had to be wary of share price and shareholder backlash and you couldn't make wild, unsubstantiated claims. (though Alan did sometimes anyway! ;-)
Thanks for commenting and wow!… what an amazing history! The 2m sales came from that fountain of truth - Wikipedia and referred to the 464 only if memory serves. If you don’t mind, drop us an email as I’d love to talk further!
We still love the CPC in Australia Cliff! I've got two Plus machines that I've adjusted the links on so I can pretend they were "Awa" (sic ... should be AWA) machines ;) /Brett
The 2m figure comes from Amstrads old website as archived by the way back machine.
6128 was a great micro.
All-in-one with a proper keyboard, Basic for humans, no colour limitations, 80 columns, CP/M and a low price with great quality.
No competition.
6128? Very posh - I could only dream :) :)
@@TheRetroShack Grandma got mine with a green screen in mid 88. She was paying over two years every month 🙂
The 6128 was the best selling CPC in France
I got one eventually... just absolutely loved it. I did a lot of hacking with the Disk drive. Made Alien Encounter turbo load in 3-4 seconds by entering the |CPM command. I formatted the disk with one sector per track.
@@TheRetroShack I got my 6128 after several broken Spectrum 128s had gone back to the shop, and my dad decided to splash out a bit more to get (and I quote) a "proper computer" :D I loved that machine, first time I ever had a monitor too!
ah the good old cpc .. my first own computer. used it till early 90's. extended ram to 512k, dual 5 1/4 floppy (never owned a 3" one). cp/m with all the software that came with it. i learned pascal, modula-2 and C with this little computer. even my first resume i wrote with "wordstar" with it. i really can say my life wouldnt be the same without my cpc464.
I feel the same - it was the first machine that really showed me the power of programming. I’d written a ton of stuff on the Speccy, but Locomotive BASIC is on another level :)
Amen hermano, mi profesion y en definitiva mi forma de ver la vida, quedo marcada por esta pequeña maquina ;). Y ademas, es una gozada ver el resurgimiento de software y de pasion que hay por el CPC.
I bought one so my dad could watch "Pot Black" without interruption. I remember being impressed by the tape buttons looking like all the other keys, even if they were clearly just traditional mechanical tape buttons.
That never occurred to me, but you're right!
@@TheRetroShack It's odd what you notice when you're ten. 😂
I did wonder if having to watch Wendy Craig sitcoms was a form of child abuse....
@@paulscottrobson Liverpool never recovered from "Bread"
@Ralph Reilly Butterflies. 🤮
No matter any other opinions, the colour range is so nice to any eye
Can't disagree with that :)
Being American, we never saw the CPC-464, but over the years I've grown to love this machine and it's 16 color med res mode. It's a little bit like an 8-bit Atari ST. I'm and ST fan, so this is a good thing, Your mileage may vary =)
Having a whole computer all to yourself as a kid was AMAZING, wasn't it?
Music wise, with the AY, on both the CPC and ST, people whole knew how to modulate the square wave in software started to create marvelous tunes with the chip.
Check out the 6128 Plus, as well.
It rules!
See CRTC³ demo 😍
Just watched that - put's a lot of ST and Amiga demos to shame!
Absolutely! I went from the Amstrad to the ST and out of the box on day one I was very disappointed - It didn't boot straight to anything useful like BASIC (you couldn't do ANYTHING in the basic GEM desktop) and the Atari BASIC that did ship with the machine was atrocious. I got GFA basic as soon as it came out and eventually ended up with STOS, and then AMOS on the Amiga :)
@@TheRetroShack ua-cam.com/video/00w1HGqyxTM/v-deo.html
@@TheRetroShack In the right hands, both STOS and AMOS are amazing tools. ...my hands we not the right ones back then though =)
14 minutes passed really quick,
I can't wait to know more about this machine and see what it is capable of,
Thanks
Won't be long - and glad you enjoyed it :)
i always want episode 2 straight away lol
We had one in the house when I was growing up. Dad bought it with the monochrome monitor, but we could hook it up to the family tv to use in colour. My Dad also soldered up a long 3.5mm to Din cable to feed the amstrad’s audio output into his hi-fi amp - this transformed the sound experience. The first game I remember was Amsoft’s Harrier Jump Jet. Codename Matt was tricky - but we finished it. Gauntlet was great for multiplayer. And Way of the exploding fist and Ye Ar Kung Fu were the best beat ‘em up’s. Green beret was hard but fun. Wec Le Mans was the best optio for a racing driving game. Loved the soundtrack and graphics from Sorcery. Ahh good memories. It’s still all in my Dad’s loft. The caps probably need replacing and the tape drive would need a new belt. If only I had the time and space to get it all out again…. The biggest downside for me was the lack of good hobbyist I/o. You could use the printer port and joystick ports for basic things… but the expansion port was too hard for me at say 12 years old to tinker with. The bbc micro (which we had at school) was easier to connect simple electronic projects to. Happy memories!
Glad the video brought back good memories :) Thanks for watching!
I loved my 464 when I was a kid, all my mates had Spectrum and C64 but I preferred Amstrad as I thought it had better graphics.
I loved the fact the games were only £1.99 and £2.99 each and was able to get a new game each week, some of the games had amstrad versions on one side and spectrum on the other so was able to lend and borrow games with my mates
Loved Roland on the ropes, rocky horror show, wriggler and head over heels
Would love it if someone made a CPC464 mini version
Roland On The Ropes! Now there’s a game :)
It didn't have better graphics, even the guy here said so. On screenshot maybe but when they moved they were not good at all.
I still have mine from 1984. Haven’t turned it on for years, but would never get rid of it. A fine little machine indeed.
Surely got to be worth getting that out for a play session :). Just make sure you set a good amount of time aside, those cassettes take a long time to load! :)
Locomotive were geniuses; out of all the 80s micros, the CPC-464 & 6128 had the only BASICs with re-writable vector addresses for many low-level BASIC commands. If you were handy with Z-80 assembler, and had the BASIC Technical Manuals and a copy of Arnor's Protext word processor ROM expansion (which allowed you to compile & test machine code direct from your document, a bit like a BBC Micro), then you could intercept calls to, say, the DRAW command to implement your own quick-n-dirty version loaded in RAM that ignored a lot of the niceties in order to draw lines at many times normal speed. I once wrote a butchered version of PRINT that was approximately 10 times faster by ignoring the current WINDOW restrictions (among other things). With several such hacks loaded in RAM, say from a floppy, you could speed up standard, uncompiled BASIC programs by several hundred percent. God, I loved that machine.
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing !
@@TheRetroShack Them were the days!
Seeing the bare edge-connector "ports" instantly brought lots of nostalgia. On my side of the pond, our first family computer was the venerable TRS-80. It was lots of fun, especially after my dad and I built a "system expansion" kit that allowed more peripherals. The somewhat dodgy plating on the edge connectors required frequent cleaning to keep them reliable, especially the parallel printer port. Wow, parallel ports, who would've thought back then that serial ports would far outpace parallel interfaces!
A very underrated computer IMHO. I had a green screen CPC664 which was very good with its built in 3” drive. Amstrad BASIC was probably the best dialect on any 8 bit micro including the BBC. The CPC6128 was great although the Plus models were too late to market. I also used the PCW range extensively which were outstanding workhorses although looking back, it is a shame they did not base them on the CPC so you could use its software library. Yes, the screen resolution would have been lower but it would have been fun. Imagine a CPC512+! 😉
I'd put Locomotive BASIC a close second behind BBC BASIC, not least because of the built-in assembler, but it was indeed a really good BASIC.
@@talideon Hi Keith, Indeed this was a good feature of the BBC BASIC environment (used both extensively back in the day) but in pure BaSIC terms, the Amstrad dialect was ahead of BBC BASIC although both were excellent. I admit we are splitting hairs and it comes down to personal preference in most cases. However, value for money, the CPC was streets ahead.
I'm imagining.... :)
Parents saved the CPC for after all the other presents Christmas '84. Brought it out unwrapped in a, "just one more thing" moment. I almost fainted when I saw it.
I bet your parents didn't see you for the rest of the holidays! :)
The triangle of capabilities between the Amstrad, Spectrum, and C64 with its various pros and cons, is fascinating.
I've still got the older "Tall Key" version, manufactured December 1984, which I got for my 11th birthday from my local Dixons back in June of 1985. Originally, it was complete with a colour monitor and a joystick, along with it's Amsoft Software Pack.
It was pretty easy to convert type-in games meant for other computers like the BBC Micro and Sinclair Spectrum with such books that I could get from the library, thanks to it's decent User Manual featuring loads of information on it's Locomotive BASIC and how it's sound and graphics worked, while similar books for the Amstrad specifically came along a little later.
It was, and still is, my very first computer! :-)
I never owned 1 of these back in the day, but was always intrigued by it. So 1 day a few years back I bought a CPC with the colour monitor & a bunch of games from eBay, just to try it out. The CPC is a nice spec. & well-built computer. It's game library, imo, is probably weaker overall compared to the C64 & Spectrum though, due to a lot of poor Spectrum ports and many games running slower than on the C64 or Spectrum. But when developers took full advantage of the hardware, it really did shine.
I love the 80-column mode too, it's great for CP/M software.
It's the 80 column mode for me too - made me feel all grown up! Would write/edit all my programs in mode 2 :)
Nice historical pictures, great story. Can’t wait for the next episode.
Glad you enjoyed it :) :)
Yes, Matt Berry playing Alan Sugar is something I need to see.
Me too! :)
El CPC en España marco a toda una generacion... y por supuesto sera mi maquina favorita el resto de mi vida. Gran video, queremos mas! 😁
¡El próximo video estará muy pronto! Gracias por ver :)
The big plus point about the CPC464 as far as we were concerned is that it would run CP/M and therefore real software like Word Star, dBase and SuperCalc. It wasn't just for games.
A very good point and certainly put the 464 above the Spectrum and C64 for business use.
@@TheRetroShack ZX Spectrum can also run CP/M, and there were also advanced clones of Spectrum like Profi for more serious use.
@@timoheinonen9570 Thanks Tim - I think the point being made is that the CPC was built with that in mind - especially the later models, whereas I think you’d struggle to find anyone saying the Spectrum was ever considered a business machine :) :) But hey, looking at some of the stuff that people have gotten out of the Spectrum over the years I’m pretty convinced there’s nothing it can’t do given the right programmer :)
I worked on a CPC-464 many moons ago.
Faulty cassette deck which simply required a few replacement bits and pieces.
Just using it for a day made me realise I wanted one.
I never did get one though.
I love all the hidden features that the machine had and it's strange use of hardware.
They did so much to make it a good machine.
Absolutely - it was a really nicely thought out machine and if it had just got out a year earlier, it would have dominated I think.
@@TheRetroShack I 100% agree. For the home user it was perfectly suited for learning, messing around and creating "stuff!"
It was also VERY easy to learn to use.
The CPC464 my parents bought for Christmas started me on an IT tech journey that continues today. 30yrs plus as a high end software dev or more realistically as an old school nerd.
Back in the 1980s and on the German counterpart of this computer, the Schneider CPC464, I learned programming BASIC, Z80 assembler, Forth, Logo and other languages.
Of course, I also played Sorcery, Tau Ceti, Ghostbusters, Terraqueous and so many other fun games.
Great times.
Cheers!
Glad this brought back happy memories for you :)
As a kid I LOVED the look of the CPC464 and lusted after one...... until I saw/heard one and then experienced the C64 - whilst the CPC keyboard and monitor combination looked great, its fairly primitive hardware paled in comparison to the C64 in the only area that I cared about - games. Shortly afterward I acquired a C64 and my close friend who at the same time received a CPC6128 for Chrimbo was so jealous, especially as the years went on and games like Last Ninja, Wizball etc were released.
Still, the CPC had a few gems - we used to play a lot of Ikari Warriors on the ole' CPC as it was a fantastic conversion.
Back then I shared your fascination for the C64, but today, that is all gone. Can't care about the C64 any longer. The CPC on the other hand is marvelous. That PCB, such a beauty in its simplicity. Back then we never had SCART TV's, but now they are easy to get, and o boy a C64 is putting garbage on the CRT tube...
The C64 may have had the best playing games of home computers, but now I have a NES and PC Engine from the same era, and to be honest, I won't spend more than 1 minute on a C64 game now. Strange enough I do enjoy a run of Chuckie Egg II on a Speccy, or Ghosthunt on a P2000T (in 78x72 "pixels"! in 8 colours). So long 64.... May them nerds be happy in continuing to make demo's and such, but I'll stick to the good memories of Commando in 1985. If I turn on Commando today, I think "was this making me jealous back then?" I can't get it. The machine we had, the Philips P2000T, and at times I thought my dad made a really bad buy, is in my current perspective a piece of art and one of the greatest machines ever made. And so is the CPC.
5:59 my neighbor had a *_Schneider CPC464_* when it came out, and it had the colorful keys.
The grey keys might have been a later revision.
Would love to own a cpc-464 again. It was my first homecomputer back in the day. We had the Schneider version with the green screen. My parents gave it away to my nephew. But they don’t have it anymore.
Oh no! I hope you manage to get another one again :)
@@TheRetroShack i managed to find the next best thing. Years ago i found a amstrad gx-4000 boxed for only 10 euro. Together with c4cpc it is a nice combo.
09:23 C64: everything will be muddy. CPC: brown does not exist.
How very true :) :)
I guess there is no denying that it was good value for money and had it arrived a bit earlier in the game things may have been a lot different but both Sinclair and Commodore had got a good head start.
Absolutely agree - I loved my CPC and it still has one of the best BASIC's out there :)
The 'trit' colour system is explained by looking at the schematics for the CPC. The RGB outputs are cleverly arranged as one pin each for R,G and B that can be high, low or tri-state. This saves hardware cost.
Using an external potential divider coupled with the correct resistor in the monitor, each level could be made and the colours mixed for the pallette of 27.
This means that the colours are voltages but you can't get the right ones just by outputting a voltage but by matching the impedance.
They can be converted, which is what I hope the SCART cable does rather than just connect and hope.
I don't know what the termination resistance of the RGB in SCART is (maybe 75 ohms), but it's 100 ohms in the Amstrad monitor, so care must be taken to get the driving right.
I had a CPC6128 (colour). I must say I was disappointed with many aspects of it. No hardware sprites was a big disadvantage when it came to gaming, as was the fact that 16 colours were only available at a very low resolution (160x200 or Mode 0), whereas competitors had a smaller palette, but could mostly use 320x200, which looked a lot better. The supposedly huge CP/M library was really hampered by the 3" drive, which also made for very expensive floppy disks. Advantages were the fact that you did not have to use a TV to use your home computer, and that you did have an 80 character mode, which could be useful for programming, word processing or spreadsheets, and also the decent keyboard of course.
With all the benefit of hindsight if I had to relive this episode, I would have probably played my games console (Colecovision) a bit longer, bought more stuff for it, then maybe a C64, to go to an Amiga, and hop on the PC once the SVGA cards arrived.
If the CPC6128 would have had a 3.5" drive, hardware sprites, and 16 colours at 320x200, the situation would have been totally different.
This was a time when a CPU or auxiliary chips still had a comforting simplicity that one person could grasp and understand quite easily. Fast forward to today and CPUs or say, GPUs, are so complex that one has to rely on a huge databook just to keep pace with one subfunction at a time.
I wouldn't have a clue where to start with anything Playstation One onwards :) :)
Loved my 464 (sold them in Adelaide South Australia in the late 80's) I created a AD&D 2nd edition PC Dice roll program with all my inhouse rules!... ahh I miss it.
I still have my Cpc464 with colour monitor.... It was my first PC and holds a fond space in my collection
I could almost guarantee it was going to power up fine when you flipped the switch. Every CPC in every restoration video I've ever seen is the same. Mine is still working nicely. I've never known one to die. They are extremely robust and at nearly 40 years old will still run happily all day long. Full credit to Alan Sugar - the CPC might just be the most reliable home computer of the 1980s, or possibly ever.
Good to hear. I just bought one on Ebay that looks mint, but it was sold as "untested". Hope it will just work, or at least after cleaning switch contacts.
08:55 27 colours but no brown so dirt and wood was either bright orange or dark red. Ikari Warriors is a nice example of red mud that looks pretty good.
I also got a CPC464 as an upgrade to a 48k spectrum - loved that Amstrad until the Amiga 500 came knocking.
Did you also consider it a legitimate and honorary Sinclair? :)
I loved my Amstrad CPC 464 I had the colour monitor...... Had so many memories loved playing Gauntlet, Rampage, Bubble Bobble, Friday the 13th and Thanatos to name a few lol
Oddly, the game I remember playing most on the CPC was Technician Ted! It had absolutely no Amstrad bells and whistles and was a straight Spectrum port :) Also loved Sorcery :)
@@TheRetroShack two games I didn't have lol. Wizard Willy and Hobgoblin were two others but we're rock hard
Awwww, such fond memories. I didn't know it then, but that thing got me started in what would eventually become my professional career!
I owe my career to my Amstrad and Spectrum - no doubt :)
I have two 6128's and one colour monitor (CTM644). Apart from changing the floppy drive belts they never fail.
I adored the Amstrad even though I never had one. I also loved my C64 more than anything. My dad brought back the Amstrad from work complete with the glorious green screen and I was able to spend time poorly programming it. The defining thing is with the integrated machine and tape style along with the the green screen right there in front of you was that it felt like you had been sucked into another world altogether and I just adored those memories. A physically gorgeous machine certainly when compared to the admittedly ugly C64 aesthetics and while it took a while initially to get used to the vividly garish colour scheme which, I just love the feel from the atmosphere you get both using the machine and it's games
But then I can also say that I loved all the machines back then because they all had their own character. The C64 was a very dull almost soulless or just very muted and realistic feel which was amazing, the Speccy had an almost hell like feel which was eerily thrilling, the Atari with it's pinnacle of physical design in all their computers but also a beautiful colour palette in games, and then the Amstrad which just felt very vibrant to the extent your eyes might bleed. Back when machines had character and I look very fondly back at being part of it all
Excellent vid cheers and look forward to more to come
Glad you enjoyed it - I'm very much enjoying the prospect of re-living all my Amstrad memories :) :)
Mine had a custom paint job and I lined the cassette deck inside with yellow fur. The monitor had iridescent vinyl wrap all over and bezel painted silver. Looked wicked.
That sounds even more controversial than our Lemon Amiga! :) :)
We finally persuaded my dad to get us a computer, I remember playing Roland in the caves at the sellers house on the green screen monitor. A year later he bought us the colour monitor-glorious! It was really great playing the old games in colour and gave them a second wind. Thanks for the video!
You’re very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!
Ronald in the Caves loved that game with Oh Mummy lol. Sultans Maze was another one I sometimes played. But it was Gauntlet, Rampage and Bubble Bobble were some of my big favs lol.
You could not have asked for a better home computer for a kid to learn programming in the mid-1980s. I have a career in the game industry today because my parents bought a CPC464 in 1985, no doubt.
Never heard of this machine back in the day (in Canada). Really nice machine! I’m still impressed at how many 8 bit machines there were in the early to mid 80s that I’ve never seen.
Good video. Enjoyed seeing the insides. Looking forward to the follow up.
I had this one with a tapedeck, colour monitor and the colourfull keys which was exceptional in Belgium since normally the German ones with the grey keys where distributed over here. It was a fabulous machine and i tossed in my zx spectrum in a blank. I had afterwards the same machine with a built in floppy disk and the last one was a pc clone, the 1512 with if i remember well 2 floppy disks. All of these machines performed flawlessly and i had a lot of fun with them
I used to sell these and the software when working in a computer shop around 1985/1986
I myself owned a C64, but I was very impressed with the vibrance and sharpness of the CPC's colour monitor, and the bright colours which looked much nicer than the drab C64 PAL palette.
Some of the games looked seriously impressive compared to the C64 and Spectrum equivalents, though as mentioned in the video were not as smooth. Ikari Warriors I remember particually being a fantastic conversion.
Overall it was a really nice machine and great value, but the Spectrum and C64 had so much market dominance so it struggled by comparison. (Though obviously did far better than other early contenders like the Dragon 32 and Oric.).
The biggest let down was Amstrad using 3" instead of 3.5" discs for the 664, as these were harder to get hold of and more expensive because only Amstrad used them.
Bergerac was not only popular in the U.K. 🙂
this looks pretty cool. i live in the USA, and never saw anything like this growing up. i did have a C64, but would have been amazed by this one also.
I was quite envious of my friend when he got one of these.
Great introduction to the Amstrad. I look forward to the next episode.
I thought that the green screen CPC464 was stunning when I got it as an upgrade from the ZX81! I recall typing in lists of hex code from magazines.
Amstrad hoped to sell 200 000 CPC 464s, so they were surprised and very happy with 2 million CPC 464s. In total they sold over 20 million computers, 12 million PCs, 8 million PCWs, 3 million CPCs and even some Spectrums.
I am unsure how many of the 5 million Spectrums sold were by Amstrad and Sinclair. To those of you living in a country were people were buying Spectrums, what were your impression?
Good question - I'll see what I can find out :)
Macrocosmica was my jam! Ahh Lords of Midnight, loved it, even bought the pc versions of that awhile ago.
0:21 I'd forgotten underground public toilets existed. ;)
Marmite keyboard? Oh, of course, you either love it or hate it! Yep. :)
Now I'm starting to see the appeal of the Enterprise's keys. The 464's are not styled beyond simply being colorful, and the fairly traditional key shape is actually kind-of loud on its own. Schneider's color scheme does look better with these keys.
It's good to see a CPC running after all these years. I kind-of wanted a CPC6128 for the monitor and built-in disk drive, but I was mostly happy with my Atari despite the impossible price of Atari disk drives.
It's been interesting comparing the experience of the CPC-464 and the Enterprise 64. Very different machines but both with their own charm :)
It is a pity that its real possibilities were not discovered many years earlier. I don't agree much with the title about firing, but the fact is that this computer spoke a lot into the Spectrum, C64 and potentially Atari XE rivalry. The 4MHz clock is just a paper twig, the graphics is slower than on the Spectrum due to more colours and larger resolutions and the CPU is slowed down. Lack of hardware sprites makes almost all games movement jerky and unplayable. There are exceptions, of course, like Chase H.Q. which is excellent but I personally prefer the Spectrum version just for its cuteness. The Amstrad acts against the Spectrum as a heavy army vehicle. But all in all, nice review of a machine that deserves it!
Thanks very much - glad you enjoyed it! :) :)
My first computer at 9 years old was a hand me down CPC464 from my brother who had got a C128 for Christmas. It was a real effort getting games to load on that crappy tape deck but i did love it. I recently bought a CPC6128 and after adding a gotek its brilliant, i never played most of the good games on it and im impressed at its graphical capabilities.
I used too have a Amstrad cpc 464. i loved it.
The CPC was a success. For 1984, it couldn't really be much more for that price. The Spectrum was already embedded in the UK market, and the Amiga was out next year, but nobody knew what it was capable of, nor could they afford it until the 500 came years later.
That the CPC sold so many units, despite the Atari ST coming the next year as well - it was a success. Amstrad carried on and made the PCWs, then low cost PCs.
If the CPC was significantly more powerful, then I expect it would price itself out as an 8-bit, versus the competition. If it was 16-bit, then - again - they'd have to compete against the Atari ST on price. It only lacked hardware sprites and scrolling for games.
It could still punch way above its weight if programmed correctly, so I really can't complain. The Spectrum was it's biggest weakness, because of the installed base. Too much software was directly ported from the Spectrum, and that affected the quality. The Spectrum ports generally didn't run well or look impressive.
I always found the Amstrad CPC very attractive and did lust after one back in the day, especially with the color monitor option, even though I already had a C64. Just a shame so many of the games released for the CPC were lazy ZX Spectrum ports.
I can see myself getting an original colour monitor for it - I just won’t be able to help myself :) :)
Not all the games were that bad they had some outstanding games
I am a Commodore grown up, but I always love to see other brands aswell, those were the golden days :-) Excited for the next part :-)
I think it is really nice to see this machine from a 2024 perspective. I had a bunch of machines on my table lately, and the CPC is coming soon, and I am really excited about what it seems to be. I think for a good retro experience of an 8-bit home computer, you need to hookup to a TV with SCART, no lousy Amstrad monitor, nor a Made-in-Taiwan half junk Commodore 1084 at scalper prices, but a decent mid-nineties Trinitron. Which rules out a lot of models. You can keep the BBC Micro, Spectrum 2+, CPC series and Philips MSX/P2000T. The C64 delivers the worst IQ out of its connector of all machines, even worse than a speccy on RF. Then we want to use the machine. Which one has decent BASIC and good readable text. Not many surprisingly. P2000T and CPC are 2 with decent BASIC implementations and great readability, both with on the fly 80-column mode for surfing a BBS, writing code or just typing some text. Especially hooking up to some Viewdata system in 2024 is really cool, which brings the BBC Micro in the picture again, if it just wasn't such an ugly piece of kit.
So right now my top 3 is P2000T, because it looks awesome, is highly reliable, tweakable and has the coolest built in tape mechanism, it even had some great Teletext graphics games, and comes from my city, the CPC 464 (+1 point surpassing the 6128 for having such a cool colour scheme), and third the Spectrum +, whose tiled colour is so unique, it is art of its own. I will sell my C64, it is a dull box, delivering dull looking games, and I had a SID bubble overdose. I'll keep the C128 for now, as it is near mint in box, but it is a real pain to use, and even worse than a breadbin when it comes to TV output.
Delighted to see this video - the CPC was my first computer so really looking forward to the refurb. Also remember Ghostbusters as a game, hope you get it working!
My Cousin had this, I had the C64. I wouldn't have swapped for the world. His cassette deck started eating tapes and you couldn't just replace the cassette player like with a C64 because it was built in, so he had to bin it and buy a whole new computer. Someone else in the family dallied with the Acorn Electron. It went back twice to Dixons before he gave up and bought a radio controlled car instead :)
The Electrons did have their fair share of issues :). I'm sure he had fun with the car though!
No need to have binned it. Could of hooked up a 3.5 inch disc drive to play copied games on. Multiple games on disc and no loading. Just needed a multi face device from Romantik Robot
@@TheRetroShack Tamiya Grasshopper. It was going great guns till he lent it to a kid down the street who crashed it pretty hard and broke the front left suspension. Few years later I had the Tamiya Hornet. Not learning my lesson from the previous Grasshopper story, I leant it to my uncle in exchange for a lend of his Zenith Data Systems 286 PC. I had lots of fun with his 286, but he brought my Hornet back with damaged servos and a bulged overcharged battery pack. I think he tried to charge it with a car battery charger (so my dad said) instead of the trickle charger I gave him...
@@robsmall6466 this was probably circa '86 or '87...
@@caeserromero3013 Can't remember what year the multi face and 3.5 inch drive were purchased but they could be bought in period. The multi face was from a company called Romantik Robot and ordered via mail order from an advert probably in Amstrad Action magazine. You could copy games to disc which meant multiple games in one place and no loading. You could take screen shots and add pokes ( cheats ) like the Game Genie cartridge on the Megadrive. Cool little device
Nice! I didn't know all that much about the CPC, overshadowed by the speccy etc, but it seems like an interesting machine! Thanks :)
About the whole "decline of civilization" thing, one of the biggest voices of that (Mary Whitehouse) recently had a godawful "puff piece" about her done by the BBC and guardian. They praised basically everything she did :(
Mary Whitehouse! Even as a kid I though she was questionable at best!
Looks like the original owner used one of those UV pens to write their postcode on the machine!
Yep, oddly only noticed that when I was watching the final cut - didn't see it all through editing! :)
Well, didn't expect it to switch on and perform well so that was a bonus. Looking forward to more on this. The explanation of the motherboard was really interesting, and it does look like a really clean layout.
Glad you liked it - love this machine :) :)
@@TheRetroShack I have never owned one myself, had limited time playing it in the 1980s and 1990s. But been enjoying the recent homebrew and the CPCRetroDev2021 competition.
The CPC is incredibly robust and I think there's only one electrolytic capacitor on the board. Usually if it doesn't work it's the power switch itself oxidised, or bad memory.
@@DaveVelociraptor yeah, Chinnyvision said something similar in a recent video.
Nice video! Though I'd like to add that the CPC has indeed hardware scrolling, even though it wasn't used much back in the day because companies rushed to publish games. Please take a look at the astonishing Pinball Dreams on the CPC by Batman Group! :D
Thanks for the info! I thought it was only the plus models that introduced hardware scrolling and hardware sprites - I wonder why more games didn't utilise this feature?
@@TheRetroShack The MC6845 has some scrolling capabilities, but it's up to the programmer to take advantage of them. Only the Plus range has also hardware sprites. If you check Orion Prime's intro, you'll see another fine example of multidirectional hardware scrolling.
My old maths teacher was pleased with his green-screen 464. I remember lusting after a 6128 to replace my 48K Spectrum, too. Batman (the isometric one, like Knight Lore) looked fantastic (four colours and sharp!). I even bought several copies of Amtix (the Crash! and Zzap 64 sister mag.). But I ended up getting a C64 and 1541 instead - the sheer quantity of games tipped the balance.
I just remember feeling a bit more ‘grown up’ when we got the CPC - it felt like it was a real step-up from the Spectrum (especially programming in BASIC) and I loved it :)
Sorcery! I had forgotten all about that! Profanity was my other favorite game...kept me busy for ages...ooh...and obsidian...can't forget that one...and alien...aargh, so many good memories...rebel planet...interdictor pilot...it's all coming back to me
Can not believe I gave mine away, with a box full of games
It's horrible when you think back at what you've thrown/given away over the years isn't it? :(
According to Google maps that Amstrad came from Hollywood near Belfast. The postcode is on the volume knob side!
Gotta love minute 5:10 . thanks great video, awesome english sens of humor.
This was my first computer, I got one in about 1990. An amazing machine....I have regret getting rid of it.
I've still got the CPC464 green screen I nagged my parents for when I was 11 years old and the 6128 and colour screen computer I bought when I was nearer 16 years old.
Looking forward to seeing what can be added to these machines to make them more usable in modern times.
Me too :)
CPC-64 was my second computer, after my ZX-81s. That little floppy drive was quirky.
Well put together video, I enjoyed it. Former CPC 464 with Colour monitor owner here, and I loved it as a kid. Think about getting one again now and again, but the issue is, I have no real interest in playing it any more as the games run too slow. My retro desires are sated by playing Mega Drive games.
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for watching :). I might actually do a bit of a diversion into some retro consoles at some point :). How far back is considered Retro considering the first XBOX is now over twenty years old! :) :)
@@TheRetroShack Yeah, even though XBox doesn't feel old or reteo to me, many adults had that as their first gaming device and it means a lot to them, like an Amstrad or Mega Drive means to me.
This will be handy series, I’ve recently picked up one of these, with colour monitor, but don’t know a great deal about them.
I've always been a spectrum fan but the 464 is certainly a computer i would like to try out. Nice to know that it can be run from scart quite easily though. Having a Spectrum 128+2 i appreciated the Amstrad design element.
I like your videos very informative and clearly explained. 👍
I never gave the CPC-464 the time of day had I known it used the same Z80 chip as the Spectrum, I may of give it some thought in regards to programming.🤔
Was a great machine, I loved it
When taking the player section out to change the belts, be aware that you can break the counter reset easily when trying to get the player to slot back in. There are 3d models out there in the event you manage to mangle it.
Thanks for the heads-up!
Usually the triangular shaped piece under the push button that snaps off. The plastic is generally brittle with age and just goes looking at it. I repaired mine by reforming the plastic triangle by using a staple shaped to fit and then held in place by a pair of 1mm drill holes and superglue to tack.
If I'd have had one of those scart cables 10 years ago, I might still have mine. I had the green screen monitor version, and the CRT was very dim, It had obvisously had a lot of use before I got it.
That Dixon's advert is interesting.... the fact that they dared to sell the DAY for £139 when the C64 was just £199 seems utterly barmy!
The Commodore range got a bit ragged for a while back then :)
A tape drive in 1984? That was a complete non-starter in the US. We were all using floppy disks by then.
In my area (Germany) it was often: C64 with tape for Christmas, then 1541 the next birthday or so.
But you were paying more
My second computer. I bought the green version when I was 9 with all my "savings".
I've typed tens of thousands lines of code on it. It's probably still in my parent's attic.
I've never dared to power it on again because of the CRT. With a cable for a modern screen, I might.
CPC: The 8bit machine that was built without hardware scrolling in mind. Result: 3 fps in every game that needs the screen to move.
10:41 ...? Is that it? You missed out the blank space below 40010. What's that for?
That does look good on screen. Classic blue and gold.
06:12 Ah the tape counter, with its ever so fragile reset button... If you plan to buy a 464, check all the pictures of it and make sure the counter reset button is standing proud of the case and is straight. The belt drives for the datacorder are easily sourced, the reset button is not. There is a friction wheel in them too which ages and fails which will lead to 'lumpy' playing of the tapes if they run at all, making the 'corder pretty much unuseable. There is a mod you can make to the machine though so you can plug in an external sound source such as an MP3 player that you can play TZX tape images (its basicly a recording of the tape) into the 464, bypassing the tape mechanism.
11:00 Another way to get video output, and powe,r into the 464 is the MP1 (Modulator/Powersupply-1). It only produces an RF output, but when this machine was new thats what we had in the UK.
Correction - the CPC DOES have hardware scrolling. You can see it in action every time you type LIST. What it doesn't have is per-pixel hardware scrolling, at least not without using some tricky hacks. But those tricky hacks are well-known today, which is leading to something of a renaissance in CPC games (check out some of the shmups that have come out recently).
Incidentally, worth noting it can do all kinds of arbitrary screen resolutions, too - including portrait format or even full overscan (another thing you're seeing more and more in recent games). I'm guessing the highest resolution you could physically fit on the screen in full overscan (without interlacing) would be PAL 768x288 with 2 colours. I guess it could do a full interlaced picture too if you have enough memory.
A German workplace standard came into effect in the late 70s that required light-value colours, ( beige, pearl, light grey, etc ), for all office equipment. Hence boring German CPC colour.
Thanks - that makes perfect sense!
I used to have a cpc 464 in the 90's, if I remember correctly, it had a "Mirage Imager" to save data etc.
Ha ha, brought back memories of playing Sorcery+, when you had to drop down to the door at the bottom of the screen just above the water. A bunch of us would play alternately and everyone would should "SPLASH!" to put the player off. Yeah, we were dicks. Simpler times.
Still got my 6128 somewhere (mono, not colour) and my DMP printer, which got me through uni. Also got my "Amstrad Whole Memory Guide" book which takes pride of place next to my "VIC Revealed". :)
Cheers for the trip back in time!
/edit - although I love it to bits, it still doesn't hold a candle to my beloved Enterprise. ;)
I belonged to another camp and any sympathy for the Amstrad was not done. We called it "Armstad" instead of "Amstrad", "arm" means poor and "stad" means city. Now after so many years past I can look at it as it is, and the Amstrad was not that bad. It was not superfantastic but it could get along. If only back then the manufacturers used a modular system, so that parts of the computer could easily be exchanged for faster or better parts that could be bought later on.
The design of the Amstrad was heavily borrowed from others, only one of the video-chips was of their own making. The 6845 was in the Apple II (on a card), the PC and in numerous others. The Z80 is well known too. With CP/M there could have been ten thousands of programmes available.
If only they borrowed the bus-system of Apple or MSX then they could have lived a few years longer. The manufacturer of Amstrad did not have a vision for the future, only selling as much boxes as possible. "No Future!" wasn't that a popular song in the eighties?
The 464+ was a nice machine, but too little too late. The original was also a nice machine, but really could've done with some additional oomph for push all that screen memory about.
I'd moved on by the time the 464+ came out - going to have to grab one now though aren't I? :)
@@TheRetroShack Yes! 😁
I have the triad in front of me now, and while the Spectrum 48+ wins the beauty contest, the CPC is the best machines. No matter how hard I try, I cannot stand the garbage signal in garbage colours my C64 and C128 put out on the screen. The Spectrum is doing pretty bad as well with its coax-to-composite mod, but the poppy colour-clash aesthetics have more charm then C64 diahrea. But if I pop the Amstrad into my Trinitron, it simply is amazing. I even like the soundchip. Rick Dangerous II looks marvelous on the machine. DO NOT try to hook up a CPC to a flat panel as done in this video. You will greatly benefit from a true CRT.
Stupid decision to place the cursor keys abo e the numeric pad though. As a Spectrum fan I don't have a problem with admitting that the 464 was a better machine, it came later and it's developers learned from machines that came before, and it appeared a good two years after the Speccy, so it damn well should have been. Also, I believe that like most of Amstrad's stuff it was made in the far East, so was produced more economically, and therefore could have a good price/performance ratio. I think we all know now that offshoring manufacturing is not a good thing long-term. It might be a fine machine but it never broke the ground that the Speccy did and it never opened up computing to the masses the way the Speccy did.
Best 8 Bit micro ever.
The screenshots always looked nice and colourful. The problem was when things started moving. Too jerky
That's only because programmers didn't know how to make proper use of its motorola 6842 video controller...
Look at more modern games.
I think it was smoother for vector games like Elite.
Search for Pinball Dreams CPC here on UA-cam 😉
@@renaudg ...or Edge Grinder, Sub Hunter, Star Sabre, Red Sunset, Corsair, The Abduction of Oscar Z, Alcon 2020, Wonderboy remake, the upcoming Vespertino and Toki....
And even older games like Zap 't' Balls, Savage, Megablasters, Super Cauldron...too many games to list here.
@@GenMaster Any high perf games been done in four colour mode?
its a neat machine, and I understand the cassette being built in but it would look so much nicer without it, it kinda gives it a VTech look.
Lol - it’s ‘of its time’ for sure :) :)