Amstrad CPC
Encyclopedia
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit
home computer
s produced by Amstrad
between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64
and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom
, France
, Spain
, and the German-speaking parts of Europe.
The series spawned a total of six distinct models: The CPC464, CPC664, and CPC6128 were highly successful competitors in the European home computer market. The later plus models, 464plus and 6128plus, efforts to prolong the system's lifecycle with hardware updates, were considerably less successful, as was the attempt to repackage the plus hardware into a game console as the GX4000.
The CPC models' hardware is based on the Zilog Z80A CPU, complemented with either 64 or 128 kB of memory. Their computer-in-a-keyboard design prominently features an integrated storage device, either a compact cassette deck or 3" floppy disk drive. The main units were only sold bundled with a colour or monochrome monitor that doubles as the main unit's power supply. Additionally, a wide range of first and third party hardware extensions such as disk drives (for the CPC464), printers, and memory extensions, was available.
The CPC series was pitched against other home computers primarily used to play video games and enjoyed a strong supply of game software. The comparatively low price for a complete computer system with dedicated monitor, its high resolution monochrome text and graphic capabilities and the possibility to run CP/M
software also rendered the system attractive for business users, which is reflected by a wide selection of application software.
During its lifetime, the CPC series sold approximately three million units.
and the BBC Micro
relied on the use of the domestic television
set and a separately connected tape recorder
or disk drive. In itself, the all-in-one concept was not new, having been seen before on business-oriented machines and the Commodore PET
, but in the home computer space, it predated the Apple Macintosh by almost a year.
Secondly, Amstrad founder Alan Sugar
wanted the machine to resemble a “real computer, similar to what someone would see being used to check them in at the airport for their holidays”, and for the machine to not look like "a pregnant calculator" – in reference presumably to the Sinclair ZX81
and ZX Spectrum with their low cost, membrane-type keyboards.
In 1990, the 464plus replaced the CPC464 in the model line-up, and production of the CPC464 was discontinued.
After the successful release of the CPC464, consumers were constantly asking for two improvements: more memory and an internal disk drive. For Amstrad, the latter was easier to realize first, with a deliberately low-key introduction of the CPC664. It was positioned not only as the lowest cost disc system, but also the lowest cost CP/M 2.2 machine at the time. However, it was not supposed to replace but complement the CPC464 which, upon launch of the CPC664, was neither discontinued nor reduced in price.
Compared to the CPC464, the CPC664's main unit has been significantly redesigned, not only to accommodate the floppy disk drive but also with a redesigned keyboard area. Touted "ergonomic" by Amstrad's promotional material, the keyboard is noticeably tilted to the front with MSX
-style cursor keys above the numeric keypad that now carries "function key" labeling. The CPC464's multicoloured keyboard has been quietened to a grey and pale blue colour scheme on the CPC664.
The back of the CPC664 main unit features the same connectors as the CPC464, with the exception of an additional 12V power lead. Unlike the CPC464's cassette tape drive that could be powered off the main unit's 5V voltage, the CPC664's integrated floppy disk drive requires an additional 12V voltage. This voltage had to be separately supplied by an updated version of the bundled green screen/colour monitor (GT-65 and CTM-644 respectively).
The CPC664 was only produced for approximately six months. In late 1985, when the CPC6128 was introduced in Europe, Amstrad decided not to keep three models in the line-up, and production of the CPC664 was discontinued.
The CPC6128 was released in August 1985 and initially only sold in the USA. Imported and distributed by Indescomp, Inc. of Chicago, it was the first Amstrad product to be sold in the United States, a market that at the time was traditionally hostile towards European computer manufacturers. By the end of 1985, it arrived in Europe and replaced the CPC664 in the CPC model line-up. Initial suggested retail prices for the CPC6128 were USD699.00/GBP299.00/DM1598.00 with a green screen and USD799.00/GBP399.00/DM2098.00 with a colour monitor.
In 1990, the 6128plus replaced the CPC6128 in the model line-up, and production of the CPC6128 was discontinued.
The redesign significantly enhanced the CPC hardware, mainly to rectify its previous shortcomings as a gaming platform. The redesigned video hardware allows for hardware sprites and soft scrolling, with a colour palette extended from 17 out of 27 to 32 out of 4096 colours. The enhanced sound hardware offers automatic DMA transfer, allowing more complex sound effects with a significantly reduced processor overhead. Other hardware enhancements include the support of analogue joysticks, 8-bit printers, and ROM cartridges up to 4 Mbit
s.
The new range of models was intended to be completely backward compatible with the original CPC models. Its enhanced features are only available after a deliberately obscure unlocking mechanism has been triggered, thus preventing existing CPC software from accidentally invoking them.
Despite the significant hardware enhancements, the hardware platform was already outdated at launch and failed to attract both customers and software producers who had already been moving towards 16-bit systems. The plus range was a commercial failure, and production was discontinued shortly after its introduction in 1990.
The 464plus and 6128plus models were intended as "more sophisticated and stylish" replacements of the CPC464 and CPC6128. Based on the redesigned plus hardware platform, they share the same base characteristics as their predecessors: The 464plus is equipped with 64 kB RAM and a cassette tape drive, the 6128plus features 128 kB RAM and a 3" floppy disk drive. Both models share a common case layout with a keyboard taken over from the CPC6128 model, and the respective mass storage drive inserted in a case breakout.
In order to simplify the EMC screening process, the edge connectors of the previous models have been replaced with micro-ribbon connectors as previously used on the German Schneider CPC6128. As a result, a wide range of extensions for the original CPC range is connector-incompatible with the 464plus and 6128plus. In addition, the 6128plus does not have a tape socket for an external tape drive.
The plus range is not equipped with an on-board ROM, and thus the 464plus and the 6128plus do not contain a firmware. Instead, Amstrad provided the firmware for both models via the ROM extension facility, contained on the included Burnin' Rubber and Locomotive BASIC cartridge. This resulted in reduced hardware localization cost (only some select key caps and case labels had to be localized) with the added benefit of a rudimentary copy protection mechanism (without a firmware present, the machine itself could not copy a game cartridge's content). As the enhanced V4 firmware's structural differences causes problems with some CPC software directly calling firmware functions by their memory addresses, Amstrad separately sold a cartridge containing the original CPC6128's V3 firmware.
Both the 464plus and the 6128plus were introduced to the public in September 1990. Initial suggested retail prices were FRF1990 with a green screen and FRF2990 with a colour monitor for the 464plus, and FRF2990 with a green screen and FRF3990 with a colour monitor for the 6128plus.
Developed as part of the plus range, the GX4000 is Amstrad's short-lived attempt to enter the video game consoles market. Sharing the plus range's hardware characteristics, it represents the bare minimum variant of the range without a keyboard or support for mass storage devices.
A processor, clocked at 4 MHz.
In order to avoid conflicts resulting from the CPU and the video circuits both accessing the shared main memory ("snowing"), CPU memory access is constrained to occur on microsecond boundaries, effectively padding every CPU instruction to a multiple of four CPU cycles. As typical Z80 instructions require only three or four CPU cycles, the resulting loss of processing power is minor, reducing the effective clock rate to approximately 3.3 MHz.
.
or compatible) with a custom-designed gate array
to generate a pixel display output. CPC6128s later in production as well as the models from the plus range integrate both the CRTC and the gate array's functions with the system's ASIC.
Three built-in display resolutions are available: 160×200 pixels with 16 colours ("Mode 0", 20 text columns), 320×200 pixels with 4 colours ("Mode 1", 40 text columns), and 640×200 pixels with 2 colours ("Mode 2", 80 text columns). Increased screen size can be achieved by reprogramming the CRTC.
The original CPC video hardware supports a colour palette
of 27 colours, generated from RGB colour space with each colour component assigned as either off, half on, or on. The plus range extended the palette to 4096 colours, also generated from RGB with 4 bits each for red, green and blue.
With the exception of the GX4000, all CPC models lack an RF television
or composite video
output and instead shipped with a proprietary 6-pin DIN connector
intended for use solely with the supplied Amstrad monitor. It delivers a PAL
frequency 1v p-p analogue RGB with composite sync signal that, if wired correctly, can drive a SCART
television. External adapters for RF television were available as a first-party hardware accessory.
sound chip
, providing three channels, each configurable to generate square waves, white noise or both. A small array of hardware volume envelopes are available.
Output is provided in mono by a small (4 cm) built-in loudspeaker with volume control, driven by an internal amplifier
. Stereo
output is provided through a headphones
jack.
It is possible to playback digital sound samples
at a resolution of approximately 5-bit by sending a stream of values to the sound chip. This technique is very processor-intensive and hard to combine with any other processing. Examples are the title screens or other non-playable scenes of games like Chase H.Q.
, Meltdown
, and RoboCop
.
3" floppy disc drive, when the rest of the PC industry was moving to Sony
's 3.5" format, is often wrongly claimed to be due to Amstrad bulk-buying a large consignment of 3" drive units in Asia
; the units were custom-made by Panasonic. The chosen drive (built-in for later models) is a single-sided 40-track unit that requires the user to physically remove and flip the disc to access the other side. Each side has its own independent write-protect switch. The sides are termed "A" and "B", with each one commonly formatted to 180 kB (in AMSDOS
format, comprising 2 kB directory and 178 kB storage) for a total of 360 kB per disc.
The interface with the drives is a NEC 765 FDC, used for the same purpose in the IBM PC/XT
, PC/AT and PS/2
machines. Its features are not fully used in order to cut costs, namely DMA
transfers and support for single density
discs; they were formatted as double density
using modified frequency modulation
.
Discs were shipped in a paper sleeve or a hard plastic case resembling a compact disc
"jewel" case. The casing is thicker and more rigid than that of 3.5" discettes, and designed to be mailed without any additional packaging. A sliding metal cover to protect the media surface is internal to the casing and latched, unlike the simple external sliding cover of Sony's version. They were significantly more expensive than both 5.25" and 3.5" alternatives. This, combined with their low nominal capacities and their essentially proprietary nature, led to the format being discontinued shortly after the CPC itself was discontinued.
Apart from Amstrad's other 3" machines (the PCW
and the ZX Spectrum +3), the few other computer systems to use them included the Sega SF-7000 and CP/M systems such as the Tatung Einstein
and Osborne
machines. They also found use on embedded systems.
The Shugart
-standard interface means that Amstrad CPC machines are able to use standard 3", 3½" or 5¼" drives as their second drive. Programs such as ROMDOS and ParaDOS extend the standard AMSDOS system to provide support for double-sided, 80-track formats, enabling up to 800k to be stored on a single disc.
The 3" discs themselves are usually known as "discs" on the CPC, following the spelling on the machine's plastic casing and conventional non-American spelling.
Such extra ROM chips do not plug directly into the CPC itself, but into extra plug-in "rom boxes" which contain sockets for the ROM chips and a minimal amount of decoding circuitry for the main machine to be able to switch between them. These boxes were either marketed commercially or could be built by competent hobbyists and they attached to the main expansion port at the back of the machine. Software on ROM loads much faster than from disc or tape and the machine's boot-up sequence was designed to evaluate ROMs it found and optionally hand over control of the machine to them. This allowes significant customization of the functionality of the machine, something that enthusiasts exploited for various purposes. However, the typical user would probably not be aware of this added ROM functionality unless they read the CPC press, as it is not described in the user manual and was hardly ever mentioned in marketing literature. It is, however, documented in the official Amstrad firmware manual.
The machines also feature a 9-pin Atari
-style joystick
socket that will either directly take one joystick, or two joysticks by use of a splitter cable.
D25
serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector on the rear of the machine, with a through-connector for the CPC464 disk drive or other peripherals.
The original interface came with a Book of Spells for facilitating data transfer between other systems using a proprietary protocol in the device's own ROM, as well as terminal
software to connect to British Telecom's Prestel
service. A separate version of the ROM was created for the U.S. market due to the use of the commands "|SUCK" and "|BLOW", which were considered unacceptable there.
Software and hardware limitations in this interface led to its replacement with an Amstrad-branded version of a compatible alternative by Pace. Serial interfaces were also available from third-party vendors such as KDS Electronics and Cirkit.
Like most home computers at the time, the CPC has its OS
and a BASIC interpreter built in as ROM
. It uses Locomotive BASIC
- an improved version of Locomotive Software's Z80 BASIC for the BBC Microcomputer co-processor board. It is particularly notable for providing easy access to the machine's video and audio resources in contrast to the arcane POKE
commands required on generic Microsoft implementations. Other unusual features include timed event handling with the AFTER and EVERY commands, and text-based windowing.
's CP/M
operating system was supplied with the 664 and 6128 disk-based systems, and the DDI-1 disk expansion unit for the 464. 64k machines shipped with CP/M 2.2 alone, while the 128k machines also include CP/M 3.1. The compact CP/M 2.2 implementation is largely stored on the boot sectors of a 3" disk in what was called "System format"; typing |CPM from Locomotive BASIC would load code from these sectors, making it a popular choice for custom game loading routines. The CP/M 3.1 implementation is largely in a separate file which is in turn loaded from the boot sector.
Much public domain
CP/M software was made available for the CPC, from word-processors such as VDE to complete bulletin board systems such as ROS.
and Pascal
, the majority of the CPC's software was written in native Z80 assembly language. Popular assemblers were Hisoft's Devpac, Arnor's Maxam, and (in France) DAMS. Disk-based CPC (not Plus) systems shipped with an interpreter for the educational language LOGO, booted from CP/M 2.2 but largely CPC-specific with much code resident in the AMSDOS ROM; 6128 machines also include a CP/M 3.1, non-ROM version. A C compiler was also written and made available for the European market through Tandy Europe, by Micro Business products.
have been tagged with the Roland name. However, as the games had not been designed around the Roland character and only had the branding added later, the character design varies immensely, from a spiky-haired blonde teenager (Roland Goes Digging) to a white cube with legs (Roland Goes Square Bashing) or a mutant flea (Roland In The Caves). The only two games with similar gameplay and main character design are Roland in Time and its sequel Roland in Space. The Roland character was named after Roland Perry, one of the lead designers of the original CPC range.
, a German company that - very much like Amstrad itself - was previously only known for value-priced audio products. In 1984, Schneider's Schneider Computer Division daughter company was created specifically for the task, and the complete Amstrad CPC line-up was branded and sold as Schneider CPC.
Although they are based on the same hardware, the Schneider CPC models differ from the Amstrad CPC models in several details. Most prominently, the Schneider CPC464 and CPC664 keyboards featured gray instead of coloured keys, but still in the original British keyboard layout. To achieve a German "QWERTZ" keyboard layout, Schneider marketed a small software to reassign the keys as well as sticker labels for the keys. In order to conform with stricter German EMC
regulations, the complete Schneider CPC line-up is equipped with an internal metal shielding. For the same reason, the Schneider CPC6128 features micro ribbon
type connectors instead of edge connector
s. Both the greyscale keyboard and the micro ribbon connectors found their way up into the design of later Amstrad CPC models.
In 1988, after Schneider refused to market Amstrad's AT-compatible computer line, the cooperation ended. Schneider went on to sell the remaining stock of Schneider CPC models and used their now well-established market position to introduce its own PC designs. With the formation of its German daughter company Amstrad GmbH to distribute its product lines including the CPC464 and CPC6128, Amstrad attempted but ultimately failed to establish their own brand in the German-speaking parts of Europe.
(GUI) operating systems such as SymbOS
. Internet sites devoted to the CPC have appeared from around the world featuring forums, news, hardware, software, programming and games. CPC Magazines appeared during the 1980s including publications in countries such as Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark
, Australia
, and Greece
. Titles included the official Amstrad Computer User
publication, as well as independent titles like Amstrad Action
, Amtix!
, Computing with the Amstrad CPC, CPC Attack
, Australia's The Amstrad User, France's Amstrad Cent Pour Cent and Amstar. Following the CPCs end of production, Amstrad gave permission for the CPC ROMs to be distributed freely as long as the copyright message is not changed and that it is acknowledged that Amstrad still holds copyright, giving emulator
authors the possibility to ship the CPC firmware with their programs.
word-processor range, another Z80-based machine with a 3" disk drive and software by Locomotive Software
. The PCW was originally developed to be partly compatible with an improved version of the CPC (ANT, or Arnold Number Two - the CPC's development codename was Arnold). However, Amstrad decided to focus on the PCW, and the ANT project never came to market.
On 7 April 1986 Amstrad announced it had bought from Sinclair Research "...the worldwide rights to sell and manufacture all existing and future Sinclair computers and computer products, together with the Sinclair brand name and those intellectual property rights where they relate to computers and computer related products." which included the ZX Spectrum
, for £5 million. This included Sinclair's unsold stock of Sinclair QL
s and Spectrums. Amstrad made more than £5 million on selling these surplus machines alone. Amstrad launched two new variants of the Spectrum: the ZX Spectrum +2, based on the ZX Spectrum 128, with a built-in tape drive (like the CPC 464) and, the following year, the ZX Spectrum +3, with a built-in floppy disk
drive (similar to the CPC 664 and 6128), taking the 3" disks that Amstrad CPC machines used.
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s produced by Amstrad
Amstrad
Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....
between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and the German-speaking parts of Europe.
The series spawned a total of six distinct models: The CPC464, CPC664, and CPC6128 were highly successful competitors in the European home computer market. The later plus models, 464plus and 6128plus, efforts to prolong the system's lifecycle with hardware updates, were considerably less successful, as was the attempt to repackage the plus hardware into a game console as the GX4000.
The CPC models' hardware is based on the Zilog Z80A CPU, complemented with either 64 or 128 kB of memory. Their computer-in-a-keyboard design prominently features an integrated storage device, either a compact cassette deck or 3" floppy disk drive. The main units were only sold bundled with a colour or monochrome monitor that doubles as the main unit's power supply. Additionally, a wide range of first and third party hardware extensions such as disk drives (for the CPC464), printers, and memory extensions, was available.
The CPC series was pitched against other home computers primarily used to play video games and enjoyed a strong supply of game software. The comparatively low price for a complete computer system with dedicated monitor, its high resolution monochrome text and graphic capabilities and the possibility to run CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
software also rendered the system attractive for business users, which is reflected by a wide selection of application software.
During its lifetime, the CPC series sold approximately three million units.
The original range
The philosophy behind the CPC series was twofold, firstly the concept was of an “all-in-one” where the computer, keyboard and its data storage device were combined in a single unit, and optionally sold with its own dedicated display monitor. Most home computers at that time such as Sinclair’s ZX- series, the Commodore 64Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
and the BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
relied on the use of the domestic television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
set and a separately connected tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
or disk drive. In itself, the all-in-one concept was not new, having been seen before on business-oriented machines and the Commodore PET
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International...
, but in the home computer space, it predated the Apple Macintosh by almost a year.
Secondly, Amstrad founder Alan Sugar
Alan Sugar
Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar is a British entrepreneur, media personality and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m , and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011...
wanted the machine to resemble a “real computer, similar to what someone would see being used to check them in at the airport for their holidays”, and for the machine to not look like "a pregnant calculator" – in reference presumably to the Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX81
The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...
and ZX Spectrum with their low cost, membrane-type keyboards.
CPC464
The CPC464 featured 64 kB RAM and an internal cassette tape deck. It was introduced in June 1984 in the UK. Initial suggested retail prices for the CPC464 were GBP249.00/DM899.00 with a green screen and GBP359.00/DM1398.00 with a colour monitor. Following the introduction of the CPC6128 in late 1985, suggested retail prices for the CPC464 were cut by GBP50.00/DM100.00.In 1990, the 464plus replaced the CPC464 in the model line-up, and production of the CPC464 was discontinued.
CPC664
The CPC664 features 64 kB RAM and an internal 3-inch floppy disk drive. It was introduced in May 1985 in the UK. Initial suggested retail prices for the CPC664 were GBP339.00/DM1198.00 with a green screen and GBP449.00/DM1998.00 with a colour monitor.After the successful release of the CPC464, consumers were constantly asking for two improvements: more memory and an internal disk drive. For Amstrad, the latter was easier to realize first, with a deliberately low-key introduction of the CPC664. It was positioned not only as the lowest cost disc system, but also the lowest cost CP/M 2.2 machine at the time. However, it was not supposed to replace but complement the CPC464 which, upon launch of the CPC664, was neither discontinued nor reduced in price.
Compared to the CPC464, the CPC664's main unit has been significantly redesigned, not only to accommodate the floppy disk drive but also with a redesigned keyboard area. Touted "ergonomic" by Amstrad's promotional material, the keyboard is noticeably tilted to the front with MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
-style cursor keys above the numeric keypad that now carries "function key" labeling. The CPC464's multicoloured keyboard has been quietened to a grey and pale blue colour scheme on the CPC664.
The back of the CPC664 main unit features the same connectors as the CPC464, with the exception of an additional 12V power lead. Unlike the CPC464's cassette tape drive that could be powered off the main unit's 5V voltage, the CPC664's integrated floppy disk drive requires an additional 12V voltage. This voltage had to be separately supplied by an updated version of the bundled green screen/colour monitor (GT-65 and CTM-644 respectively).
The CPC664 was only produced for approximately six months. In late 1985, when the CPC6128 was introduced in Europe, Amstrad decided not to keep three models in the line-up, and production of the CPC664 was discontinued.
CPC6128
The CPC6128 features 128 kB RAM and an internal 3-inch floppy disc drive. Aside from various hardware and firmware improvements, one of the CPC6128's most prominent features is the compatibility with the CP/M+ operating system that rendered it attractive for business uses.The CPC6128 was released in August 1985 and initially only sold in the USA. Imported and distributed by Indescomp, Inc. of Chicago, it was the first Amstrad product to be sold in the United States, a market that at the time was traditionally hostile towards European computer manufacturers. By the end of 1985, it arrived in Europe and replaced the CPC664 in the CPC model line-up. Initial suggested retail prices for the CPC6128 were USD699.00/GBP299.00/DM1598.00 with a green screen and USD799.00/GBP399.00/DM2098.00 with a colour monitor.
In 1990, the 6128plus replaced the CPC6128 in the model line-up, and production of the CPC6128 was discontinued.
The plus range
In 1990, confronted with a changing home computer market, Amstrad decided to refresh the CPC model range by introducing a new range variantly labeled plus or PLUS, 1990, or CPC+ range. The main goals were numerous enhancements to the existing CPC hardware platform, to restyle the casework to provide a contemporary appearance, and to enhance support of cartridge media. The new model palette includes three variants, the 464plus and 6128plus computers and the GX4000 video game console. The "CPC" abbreviation has been dropped from the model names.The redesign significantly enhanced the CPC hardware, mainly to rectify its previous shortcomings as a gaming platform. The redesigned video hardware allows for hardware sprites and soft scrolling, with a colour palette extended from 17 out of 27 to 32 out of 4096 colours. The enhanced sound hardware offers automatic DMA transfer, allowing more complex sound effects with a significantly reduced processor overhead. Other hardware enhancements include the support of analogue joysticks, 8-bit printers, and ROM cartridges up to 4 Mbit
Megabit
The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
s.
The new range of models was intended to be completely backward compatible with the original CPC models. Its enhanced features are only available after a deliberately obscure unlocking mechanism has been triggered, thus preventing existing CPC software from accidentally invoking them.
Despite the significant hardware enhancements, the hardware platform was already outdated at launch and failed to attract both customers and software producers who had already been moving towards 16-bit systems. The plus range was a commercial failure, and production was discontinued shortly after its introduction in 1990.
464plus, 6128plus
In order to simplify the EMC screening process, the edge connectors of the previous models have been replaced with micro-ribbon connectors as previously used on the German Schneider CPC6128. As a result, a wide range of extensions for the original CPC range is connector-incompatible with the 464plus and 6128plus. In addition, the 6128plus does not have a tape socket for an external tape drive.
The plus range is not equipped with an on-board ROM, and thus the 464plus and the 6128plus do not contain a firmware. Instead, Amstrad provided the firmware for both models via the ROM extension facility, contained on the included Burnin' Rubber and Locomotive BASIC cartridge. This resulted in reduced hardware localization cost (only some select key caps and case labels had to be localized) with the added benefit of a rudimentary copy protection mechanism (without a firmware present, the machine itself could not copy a game cartridge's content). As the enhanced V4 firmware's structural differences causes problems with some CPC software directly calling firmware functions by their memory addresses, Amstrad separately sold a cartridge containing the original CPC6128's V3 firmware.
Both the 464plus and the 6128plus were introduced to the public in September 1990. Initial suggested retail prices were FRF1990 with a green screen and FRF2990 with a colour monitor for the 464plus, and FRF2990 with a green screen and FRF3990 with a colour monitor for the 6128plus.
GX4000
Developed as part of the plus range, the GX4000 is Amstrad's short-lived attempt to enter the video game consoles market. Sharing the plus range's hardware characteristics, it represents the bare minimum variant of the range without a keyboard or support for mass storage devices.
CPC472
The CPC472 is a modified CPC464 model, created and distributed in Spain by Amstrad's Spanish distributor Indescomp (later to become Amstrad Spain) during a short time in 1985. Its main difference to the CPC464 is a small additional daughter board containing an 8 kb memory chip which is not electrically connected to the machine and consequently not available to the CPU. Its sole purpose was to increase the machine's total memory specs to 72 kB in order to circumvent a steep Spanish import tax on computers containing 64 kB memory or less. Only a month after the CPC472 was released, this tariff was not applied to 64k computers anymore, and production of the CPC472 has been discontinued.KC Compact
The Kleincomputer KC Compact ("Kleincomputer" being a rather literal German translation of the English "microcomputer") is a clone of the Amstrad CPC built by East Germany's VEB Mikroelektronik Mühlhausen in 1989. Although the machine included various substitutes and emulations of an Amstrad CPC's hardware, the machine is largely compatible with Amstrad CPC software. It is equipped with 64 kB memory and a CPC6128's firmware customized to the modified hardware, including an unmodified copy of Locomotive BASIC 1.1. The KC Compact is the last 8-bit computer produced in East Germany.Processor
The entire CPC series is based on the Zilog Z80Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
A processor, clocked at 4 MHz.
In order to avoid conflicts resulting from the CPU and the video circuits both accessing the shared main memory ("snowing"), CPU memory access is constrained to occur on microsecond boundaries, effectively padding every CPU instruction to a multiple of four CPU cycles. As typical Z80 instructions require only three or four CPU cycles, the resulting loss of processing power is minor, reducing the effective clock rate to approximately 3.3 MHz.
Memory
Amstrad CPCs are equipped with either 64 (CPC464, CPC664, 464plus, GX4000) or 128 (CPC6128, 6128plus) kB of RAM. This base memory can be extended by up to 512 kB using memory expansions sold by third-party manufacturers, and by up to 4096 kB using experimental methods developed by hardware enthusiasts. Because the Z80 processor is only able to directly address 64 kB of memory, additional memory from the 128 kB models and memory expansions is made available using bank switchingBank switching
Bank switching is a technique to increase the amount of usable memory beyond the amount directly addressable by the processor. It can be used to configure a system differently at different times; for example, a ROM required to start a system from diskette could be switched out when no longer...
.
Video
Underlying a CPC's video output is the unusual pairing of a CRTC (Motorola 6845Motorola 6845
The Motorola 6845 is a video address generator first introduced by Motorola and used among others in the Videx VideoTerm display cards for the Apple II computers, the MDA and CGA video adapters for the IBM PC, in the Amstrad CPC and the BBC Micro. Its functionality was duplicated and extended by...
or compatible) with a custom-designed gate array
Gate array
A gate array or uncommitted logic array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits...
to generate a pixel display output. CPC6128s later in production as well as the models from the plus range integrate both the CRTC and the gate array's functions with the system's ASIC.
Three built-in display resolutions are available: 160×200 pixels with 16 colours ("Mode 0", 20 text columns), 320×200 pixels with 4 colours ("Mode 1", 40 text columns), and 640×200 pixels with 2 colours ("Mode 2", 80 text columns). Increased screen size can be achieved by reprogramming the CRTC.
The original CPC video hardware supports a colour palette
Palette (computing)
In computer graphics, a palette is either a given, finite set of colors for the management of digital images , or a small on-screen graphical element for choosing from a limited set of choices, not necessarily colors .Depending on the context In computer graphics, a palette is either a given,...
of 27 colours, generated from RGB colour space with each colour component assigned as either off, half on, or on. The plus range extended the palette to 4096 colours, also generated from RGB with 4 bits each for red, green and blue.
With the exception of the GX4000, all CPC models lack an RF television
RF modulator
An RF modulator is a device that takes a baseband input signal and outputs a radio frequency-modulated signal....
or composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
output and instead shipped with a proprietary 6-pin DIN connector
DIN connector
A DIN connector is a connector that was originally standardized by the , the German national standards organization. There are DIN standards for a large number of different connectors, therefore the term "DIN connector" alone does not unambiguously identify any particular type of connector unless...
intended for use solely with the supplied Amstrad monitor. It delivers a PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
frequency 1v p-p analogue RGB with composite sync signal that, if wired correctly, can drive a SCART
SCART
SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...
television. External adapters for RF television were available as a first-party hardware accessory.
Audio
The CPC uses the General Instrument AY-3-8912General Instrument AY-3-8910
The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice Programmable Sound Generator designed by General Instrument, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers...
sound chip
Sound chip
A sound chip is an integrated circuit designed to produce sound . It might be doing this through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics...
, providing three channels, each configurable to generate square waves, white noise or both. A small array of hardware volume envelopes are available.
Output is provided in mono by a small (4 cm) built-in loudspeaker with volume control, driven by an internal amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
. Stereo
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
output is provided through a headphones
Headphones
Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, held close to a user's ears and connected to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, CD player or portable Media Player. They are also known as stereophones, headsets or, colloquially, cans. The in-ear...
jack.
It is possible to playback digital sound samples
Sampling (signal processing)
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous signal to a discrete signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of samples ....
at a resolution of approximately 5-bit by sending a stream of values to the sound chip. This technique is very processor-intensive and hard to combine with any other processing. Examples are the title screens or other non-playable scenes of games like Chase H.Q.
Chase H.Q.
is an arcade racing game, released in 1988 by Taito. The player assumes the role of a police officer named Tony Gibson, member of the "Chase Special Investigation Department." Along with his partner, Raymond Broady, he must stop fleeing criminals in high-speed pursuits.The game was well received in...
, Meltdown
Meltdown (8-bit video game)
Meltdown is a 1986 isometric computer game developed by Alligata Software for the Amstrad CPC. There are two English language versions, a 64k version with a little basic speech synthesis and a 128k version featuring much more speech synthesis...
, and RoboCop
RoboCop (video game)
RoboCop is a 1987 action movie set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future. RoboCop centres a police officer that is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg, otherwise known as a "RoboCop"...
.
Floppy disc drive
Amstrad's choice of Hitachi'sHitachi, Ltd.
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...
3" floppy disc drive, when the rest of the PC industry was moving to Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's 3.5" format, is often wrongly claimed to be due to Amstrad bulk-buying a large consignment of 3" drive units in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
; the units were custom-made by Panasonic. The chosen drive (built-in for later models) is a single-sided 40-track unit that requires the user to physically remove and flip the disc to access the other side. Each side has its own independent write-protect switch. The sides are termed "A" and "B", with each one commonly formatted to 180 kB (in AMSDOS
AMSDOS
AMSDOS is a disk operating system for the 8-bit Amstrad CPC Computer . The name is a contraction of Amstrad Disc Operating System....
format, comprising 2 kB directory and 178 kB storage) for a total of 360 kB per disc.
The interface with the drives is a NEC 765 FDC, used for the same purpose in the IBM PC/XT
PC/XT
PC/XT has multiple possible meanings:* "PC/XT" may simply be shorthand for the IBM Personal Computer XT.* "PC/XT" may also be intended to mean "the IBM Personal Computer and/or the IBM Personal Computer XT"....
, PC/AT and PS/2
IBM Personal System/2
The Personal System/2 or PS/2 was IBM's third generation of personal computers. The PS/2 line, released to the public in 1987, was created by IBM in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing an advanced proprietary architecture...
machines. Its features are not fully used in order to cut costs, namely DMA
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
transfers and support for single density
Single density
Single density, often shortened SD, is a capacity designation on magnetic storage, usually floppy disks. It describes the use of an encoding of information using Frequency modulation, also known as biphase mark code....
discs; they were formatted as double density
Double density
Double density, often shortened DD, is a capacity designation on magnetic storage, usually floppy disks. It describes the use of an encoding of information, which can encode on average twice as many bits per time unit compared to single density...
using modified frequency modulation
Modified Frequency Modulation
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early hard disk drives also used this coding.MFM is a modification to the original...
.
Discs were shipped in a paper sleeve or a hard plastic case resembling a compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
"jewel" case. The casing is thicker and more rigid than that of 3.5" discettes, and designed to be mailed without any additional packaging. A sliding metal cover to protect the media surface is internal to the casing and latched, unlike the simple external sliding cover of Sony's version. They were significantly more expensive than both 5.25" and 3.5" alternatives. This, combined with their low nominal capacities and their essentially proprietary nature, led to the format being discontinued shortly after the CPC itself was discontinued.
Apart from Amstrad's other 3" machines (the PCW
Amstrad PCW
The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was...
and the ZX Spectrum +3), the few other computer systems to use them included the Sega SF-7000 and CP/M systems such as the Tatung Einstein
Tatung Einstein
The Tatung Einstein was an eight-bit home/personal computer produced by Taiwanese corporation Tatung, designed in Bradford, England at Tatung's research laboratories and assembled in Bridgnorth and Telford, England. It was aimed primarily at small businesses....
and Osborne
Osborne Computer Corporation
The Osborne Computer Corporation was a pioneering maker of portable computers.-The Osborne 1:After Adam Osborne sold his computer book-publishing company to McGraw-Hill in 1979, he decided to sell an inexpensive portable computer with bundled software and hired Lee Felsenstein to design it...
machines. They also found use on embedded systems.
The Shugart
Shugart
Shugart is the de facto standard for floppy disk drive interfaces created by Shugart Associates.* 50 pin: 8"* 34 pin: 5¼", 3½", 3""Shugart" may also refer to the company Shugart Associates, the founder of Shugart Associates, Alan Shugart, or political scientist Matthew Søberg Shugart....
-standard interface means that Amstrad CPC machines are able to use standard 3", 3½" or 5¼" drives as their second drive. Programs such as ROMDOS and ParaDOS extend the standard AMSDOS system to provide support for double-sided, 80-track formats, enabling up to 800k to be stored on a single disc.
The 3" discs themselves are usually known as "discs" on the CPC, following the spelling on the machine's plastic casing and conventional non-American spelling.
Expansion
The hardware and firmware was designed to be able to access software provided on external ROMs. Each ROM has to be a 16k block and was switched in and out of the memory space shared with the video RAM. The Amstrad firmware is deliberately designed so that new software could be easily accessed from these ROMs with minimum of fuss. Popular applications were marketed on ROM, particularly word processing and programming utility software (examples are Protext and Brunword of the former, and the MAXAM assembler of the latter type).Such extra ROM chips do not plug directly into the CPC itself, but into extra plug-in "rom boxes" which contain sockets for the ROM chips and a minimal amount of decoding circuitry for the main machine to be able to switch between them. These boxes were either marketed commercially or could be built by competent hobbyists and they attached to the main expansion port at the back of the machine. Software on ROM loads much faster than from disc or tape and the machine's boot-up sequence was designed to evaluate ROMs it found and optionally hand over control of the machine to them. This allowes significant customization of the functionality of the machine, something that enthusiasts exploited for various purposes. However, the typical user would probably not be aware of this added ROM functionality unless they read the CPC press, as it is not described in the user manual and was hardly ever mentioned in marketing literature. It is, however, documented in the official Amstrad firmware manual.
The machines also feature a 9-pin Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
-style joystick
Joystick
A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...
socket that will either directly take one joystick, or two joysticks by use of a splitter cable.
RS232 Serial Adapters
Amstrad issued two RS-232-CRS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...
D25
D-subminiature
The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smaller connectors used on computer systems....
serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector on the rear of the machine, with a through-connector for the CPC464 disk drive or other peripherals.
The original interface came with a Book of Spells for facilitating data transfer between other systems using a proprietary protocol in the device's own ROM, as well as terminal
Computer terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...
software to connect to British Telecom's Prestel
Prestel
Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979...
service. A separate version of the ROM was created for the U.S. market due to the use of the commands "|SUCK" and "|BLOW", which were considered unacceptable there.
Software and hardware limitations in this interface led to its replacement with an Amstrad-branded version of a compatible alternative by Pace. Serial interfaces were also available from third-party vendors such as KDS Electronics and Cirkit.
BASIC and operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
and a BASIC interpreter built in as ROM
Read-only memory
Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...
. It uses Locomotive BASIC
Locomotive BASIC
Locomotive Basic is a proprietary dialect of the BASIC programming language written by Locomotive Software used only on the Amstrad CPC...
- an improved version of Locomotive Software's Z80 BASIC for the BBC Microcomputer co-processor board. It is particularly notable for providing easy access to the machine's video and audio resources in contrast to the arcane POKE
PEEK and POKE
In computing, PEEK is a BASIC programming language extension used for reading the contents of a memory cell at a specified address. The corresponding command to set the contents of a memory cell is POKE.-Statement syntax:...
commands required on generic Microsoft implementations. Other unusual features include timed event handling with the AFTER and EVERY commands, and text-based windowing.
CP/M
Digital ResearchDigital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
's CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system was supplied with the 664 and 6128 disk-based systems, and the DDI-1 disk expansion unit for the 464. 64k machines shipped with CP/M 2.2 alone, while the 128k machines also include CP/M 3.1. The compact CP/M 2.2 implementation is largely stored on the boot sectors of a 3" disk in what was called "System format"; typing |CPM from Locomotive BASIC would load code from these sectors, making it a popular choice for custom game loading routines. The CP/M 3.1 implementation is largely in a separate file which is in turn loaded from the boot sector.
Much public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
CP/M software was made available for the CPC, from word-processors such as VDE to complete bulletin board systems such as ROS.
Other languages
Although it was possible to obtain compilers for Locomotive BASIC, CC (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
and Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
, the majority of the CPC's software was written in native Z80 assembly language. Popular assemblers were Hisoft's Devpac, Arnor's Maxam, and (in France) DAMS. Disk-based CPC (not Plus) systems shipped with an interpreter for the educational language LOGO, booted from CP/M 2.2 but largely CPC-specific with much code resident in the AMSDOS ROM; 6128 machines also include a CP/M 3.1, non-ROM version. A C compiler was also written and made available for the European market through Tandy Europe, by Micro Business products.
Roland
In an attempt to give the CPC a recognisable mascot, a number of games by Amstrad's in-house software publisher AmsoftAmsoft
Amsoft was a wholly owned subsidiary of Amstrad, PLC, founded in 1984 and re-integrated with its parent company in 1989. Its purpose was to provide an initial infrastructure of software and services for users of Amstrad's range of home computers, the Amstrad CPC and, from 1986, the Sinclair ZX...
have been tagged with the Roland name. However, as the games had not been designed around the Roland character and only had the branding added later, the character design varies immensely, from a spiky-haired blonde teenager (Roland Goes Digging) to a white cube with legs (Roland Goes Square Bashing) or a mutant flea (Roland In The Caves). The only two games with similar gameplay and main character design are Roland in Time and its sequel Roland in Space. The Roland character was named after Roland Perry, one of the lead designers of the original CPC range.
Schneider Computer Division
In order to market its computers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland where Amstrad did not have any distribution structures, Amstrad entered a partnership with Schneider Rundfunkwerke AGSchneider Rundfunkwerke AG
-History:The origins of the company trace to 1889 in Türkheim, Swabia, Germany when Felix Schneider founded a company manufacturing industrial woodworking tools...
, a German company that - very much like Amstrad itself - was previously only known for value-priced audio products. In 1984, Schneider's Schneider Computer Division daughter company was created specifically for the task, and the complete Amstrad CPC line-up was branded and sold as Schneider CPC.
Although they are based on the same hardware, the Schneider CPC models differ from the Amstrad CPC models in several details. Most prominently, the Schneider CPC464 and CPC664 keyboards featured gray instead of coloured keys, but still in the original British keyboard layout. To achieve a German "QWERTZ" keyboard layout, Schneider marketed a small software to reassign the keys as well as sticker labels for the keys. In order to conform with stricter German EMC
Electromagnetic compatibility
Electromagnetic compatibility is the branch of electrical sciences which studies the unintentional generation, propagation and reception of electromagnetic energy with reference to the unwanted effects that such energy may induce...
regulations, the complete Schneider CPC line-up is equipped with an internal metal shielding. For the same reason, the Schneider CPC6128 features micro ribbon
Micro ribbon
The micro ribbon or miniature ribbon connector is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computer and telecommunications applications. Popularly referred to as a Centronics connector due to the widely used Centronics parallel interface, it is also known as a Telco, Amphenol,...
type connectors instead of edge connector
Edge connector
An edge connector is the portion of a printed circuit board consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching socket. The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a single discrete female connector , and they also tend to be...
s. Both the greyscale keyboard and the micro ribbon connectors found their way up into the design of later Amstrad CPC models.
In 1988, after Schneider refused to market Amstrad's AT-compatible computer line, the cooperation ended. Schneider went on to sell the remaining stock of Schneider CPC models and used their now well-established market position to introduce its own PC designs. With the formation of its German daughter company Amstrad GmbH to distribute its product lines including the CPC464 and CPC6128, Amstrad attempted but ultimately failed to establish their own brand in the German-speaking parts of Europe.
Community
The Amstrad CPC enjoyed a strong and long lifetime, mainly due to the machines use for businesses as well as gaming. Dedicated programmers continued working on the CPC range, even producing Graphical User InterfaceGraphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
(GUI) operating systems such as SymbOS
SymbOS
SymbOS is a free multitasking operating system for Z80-based 8-bit computer systems. At present it is available for the Amstrad CPC series of computers, as well as for all MSX models starting from the MSX2 standard and for most Amstrad PCW models...
. Internet sites devoted to the CPC have appeared from around the world featuring forums, news, hardware, software, programming and games. CPC Magazines appeared during the 1980s including publications in countries such as Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Titles included the official Amstrad Computer User
Amstrad Computer User
Amstrad Computer User was the official magazine for the Amstrad CPC series of 8-bit home computers. This monthly publication, usually referred to as ACU by its readers, concentrated more on the hardware and technical side of the Amstrad range, although it had a small dedicated games section as...
publication, as well as independent titles like Amstrad Action
Amstrad Action
Amstrad Action was a monthly magazine, published in the United Kingdom, which catered to owners of home computers from the Amstrad CPC range and later the GX4000 console....
, Amtix!
Amtix!
Amtix! magazine was, as its subtitle stated, a "monthly software review for the Amstrad computers". Published by Newsfield Publications Ltd in the mid eighties.-Lifetime:...
, Computing with the Amstrad CPC, CPC Attack
CPC Attack
CPC Attack! was a short-lived magazine dedicated to Amstrad CPC gaming. The magazine was a successor to Amstrad Computer User magazine. It was characterised by a strong comic-like graphical style featuring a recurring mascot - a Tank Girl-like character called Amy Strad. Funnily enough this same...
, Australia's The Amstrad User, France's Amstrad Cent Pour Cent and Amstar. Following the CPCs end of production, Amstrad gave permission for the CPC ROMs to be distributed freely as long as the copyright message is not changed and that it is acknowledged that Amstrad still holds copyright, giving emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
authors the possibility to ship the CPC firmware with their programs.
Influence on other Amstrad machines
Amstrad followed their success with the CPC 464 by launching the Amstrad PCWAmstrad PCW
The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was...
word-processor range, another Z80-based machine with a 3" disk drive and software by Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software was a small British software house which did most of its development for Amstrad's home and small business computers of the 1980s....
. The PCW was originally developed to be partly compatible with an improved version of the CPC (ANT, or Arnold Number Two - the CPC's development codename was Arnold). However, Amstrad decided to focus on the PCW, and the ANT project never came to market.
On 7 April 1986 Amstrad announced it had bought from Sinclair Research "...the worldwide rights to sell and manufacture all existing and future Sinclair computers and computer products, together with the Sinclair brand name and those intellectual property rights where they relate to computers and computer related products." which included the ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
, for £5 million. This included Sinclair's unsold stock of Sinclair QL
Sinclair QL
The Sinclair QL , was a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as the successor to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum...
s and Spectrums. Amstrad made more than £5 million on selling these surplus machines alone. Amstrad launched two new variants of the Spectrum: the ZX Spectrum +2, based on the ZX Spectrum 128, with a built-in tape drive (like the CPC 464) and, the following year, the ZX Spectrum +3, with a built-in floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drive (similar to the CPC 664 and 6128), taking the 3" disks that Amstrad CPC machines used.
See also
- List of Amstrad CPC emulators
- List of Amstrad CPC games
- GX4000
- SymbOSSymbOSSymbOS is a free multitasking operating system for Z80-based 8-bit computer systems. At present it is available for the Amstrad CPC series of computers, as well as for all MSX models starting from the MSX2 standard and for most Amstrad PCW models...
(multitasking operating system)
External links
- CPC-Wiki (CPC specific Wiki containing further information)
- Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource