[typing sounds]
The UK: Early 1980's
Holy crap, things are happening and it's awesome!
Computers like the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64
are leading the way in the home computer revolution
and even the BBC is pushing things forward with the BBC Micro by Acorn.
Enter businessman Alan Sugar, out of London's east end.
Well before he was known for firing apprentices on TV,
he had a company called Amstrad, which stood for Alan Michael Sugar Trading, which was founded in 1968.
They had achieved success in selling efficiently manufactured hi-fi audio equipment,
but after seeing all the success of the home computers in the UK,
he decided to launch his own 8-bit machine.
This was the Amstrad CPC 464, launched in 1984 at £249 with a green screen monochrome monitor, or £359 with color.
The idea was to differentiate the system from the rest by using as few separate components as possible,
at as low a price as possible.
Their target market was people unfamiliar with computers
so a simpler integrated design was key.
Although it didn't dominate the market held by the Spectrum or the C64 in the UK,
the CPC still struck a chord with lots of consumers all throughout Europe,
eventually selling at least 3 million units by the end of the 80's.
While the 464 model gets a lot of nostalgic recognition and will be the focus of much of this video,
there are many other models beyond this base 64K machine.
1985 brought about the CPC 664, which featured a built-in 3 inch floppy drive instead of a tape deck and a redesigned keyboard.
Only about 6 months later, the CPC 6128 was introduced, which was an improvement on the 664,
with 128K of RAM and built-in compatibility with the CP/M operating system.
And by the time the 90's were set to roll around,
Amstrad was trying to breathe new life into the aging lineup,
with the 464 Plus and 6128 Plus machines featuring entirely new case designs
and micro-ribbon connectors on the back instead of edge connectors.
There are also a few oddities, the most notable being the GX4000 video game console,
which was, more or less, a CPC 464 Plus with a cartridge slot and no keyboard.
There's also the KC Compact, which is a clone of the 64K CPC from 1989,
and finally there are the machines by Schneider, which Amstrad entered a partnership with,
in order to distribute to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
They are pretty much the same as Amstrad machines but with a different colour scheme and some slight hardware changes,
in order to conform with German electromagnetic compatibility regulations.
I got my Amstrad CPC 464 for the low, low cost of nothing,
due to a generous viewer of mine sending me one from France.
At the time of this recording, you can find one for anywhere from $35 to $100,
depending on what it comes with.
It's not very hard to find online if you're in the UK and the rest of Europe,
but if you're in the US, keep the hefty shipping fees in mind.
The aesthetics of the CPC appeal to me in an odd way; these computers are not exactly what I would call beautiful
but they're not exactly ugly either. They're mostly just long.
Really long.
The addition of the number pad area and storage drive on these things really gives them a stretched out look.
I'm pretty sure you could play a game of cricket by just swapping the bat with one of these
and it would do just fine.
The 464 is one of the most interesting to look at though,
as some of the later designs seem somewhat utilitarian.
At least on this model you get some colorful decals and keys to look at
and not just a bunch of grey and black plastic.
It's a shame that this particular 464's keys aren't that enjoyable to use, however colorful they may be.
They're not quite tall enough and have a weak feel to them when typing,
and seeing as the very next model of the CPC improved this, it seems I'm not crazy for thinking so.
And, yes, this is a French machine so it has an AZERTY keyboard instead of the usual QWERTY.
I haven't gone and screwed with the layout just to ruin your day or anything.
Of course, you do get a number pad, some arrow keys and a copy key,
which makes use of the Amstrad's copy cursor.
This is an additional on-screen cursor which pops up when you hold down Shift and press a cursor key.
It then detaches itself from the main cursor and can then be moved around the screen independently,
allowing you to correct mistakes and copy text by using the copy key.
And, of course, you also have the floppy disk or tape drive built-in, the latter of which in this case.
It's pretty sweet to have this thing inside the system itself, as most computers of its day
had you buy an external drive to work with any kind of external data.
Of course, the disadvantage to this is when it inevitably dies, you have no easy way of replacing it with a new one.
Around the right side of the 464, you get a volume wheel for the tape deck
and a power switch for the, uh... I forget what, the power?
Nah, it couldn't be.
On the other side, you get an Atari compatible joystick port, and a stereo audio output jack,
at least on this revision as some have these around the back.
Speaking of the back, it exists, featuring an edge connector expansion port
for things like floppy drives, a 6 pin DIM monitor output, 5 volt DC input and a printer port.
Now, this all looks pretty straight forward,
what with all the expected ports being right there,
but the thing is, due to the all-in-one mandate from Alan Sugar,
this actually requires an Amstrad monitor to work.
There is no separate external power supply or video cable to hook it up to a TV or the wall.
The monitor has the cable and power supply built right into it.
Like the built-in storage drive, this not only made the CPC a little more expensive,
but if one of the integrated parts went wrong, the whole system was pretty much useless.
Man, screw forward thinking.
This is an Amstrad, we'll have none of that!
Thankfully, nowadays you can get a third party PSU and video cable set,
like this one I got from the Online Retro Computer Shack store.
This is a SCART video cable which provides the best signal available for it,
but I have to convert it to HDMI since this isn't a standard used in the US.
Also, these don't use the NTSC video standards, so you'll need a display or a capture card
capable of handling it's European ways.
Chances are, you'll never have to open the thing up,
but because I'm a bit of a perv when it comes to computers, let's strip her down and take a good look!
This is a later revision motherboard which is about half the size of the original but pretty much everything is the same technically.
It features a 4Mhz Zilog Z80 8-bit CPU,
64 kilobytes of RAM and a 32K ROM,
with 16K of that dedicated to firmware and another 16K for the Locomotive BASIC language.
There's also a variant of the CRTC 6845 graphics chip,
providing an 80 column text display and a palette of 27 colors with three official resolutions,
ranging from 160 by 200 with 16 colours, all the way up to 640 by 200 with 2 colours.
And you also have the widely used AY-3-8912 sound chip, running at 1Mhz,
which provided three channels and seven octaves of mono or stereo sound.
You've also got the cassette tape datacorder in here and while it was cheaper than a floppy drive,
it's painfully slow and often unreliable, and even though it can be a hassle,
it does provide a low cost way to try games you don't have by using a tape adapter,
along with something that plays wave or MP3 files, same as with other cassette based systems.
And it didn't end there if you were serious about getting the most out of your machine,
as you could choose from a huge variety of add-ons and peripherals
from RAM modules to modems, to ROM and OS upgrades to disk drives, synthesizers, real-time clocks,
you name it, it probably exists,
and, yes, this includes things like modern IDE hard drives and flash memory.
Using the CPC is about as easy as any other 8-bit micro of its day.
You start it up and you're greeted with a statement stating the computer version and BASIC version,
as well as a prompt letting you know it's ready to take whatever you throw at it.
As long as it's in BASIC!
Having a manual would be helpful in order to learn the various commands to start up programs and such,
but just look around online and you'll find them without much trouble.
Now, what can you actually do with the thing?
Well, most of the applications were actually for CP/M, rather than AMS-DOS.
But for the bog standard 464, you had a whole slew of great games to choose from.
Although don't confuse these with the Amstrad PC titles,
as these are completely different and are compatible with IBM systems; that's another thing entirely.
These are the CPC games.
A large number of titles that were available on the competing Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum computers
were available for the CPC. Granted, it was kind of the odd one out among those computers,
and you didn't always hear of the CPC having the superior version of a game.
But that certainly didn't stop developers from porting their games over, and here are just a few of my favourites.
Of course, nowadays, you don't need to rely on sourcing old hardware just to experience these games.
While it may not recreate the entire experience of owning a CPC,
there are some fantastic emulators for the machines such as WinAPE and Caprice32.
These will emulate the entire range of CPC computers without much trouble,
so feel free to check everything out before plopping down the cash on any original hardware
if you're not already familiar with it.
Especially if you're in the US, and you have to get a power transformer,
and some way to display a PAL format video and all that stuff, it could be a real pain.
So, is it worth tracking down an Amstrad CPC 464 or not?
Well for me, there are two big reasons to do so and they are pure nostalgia, if you grew up with one,
and the other is just straight up vintage computer morbid curiosity.
Now, if you had one of these things as a kid, well I cannot argue with that. That's great,
it's nice to connect with something from your childhood again, but me, as a vintage computer collector,
as well as just a gamer,
I must admit that I've had more fulfilment, success, maybe even enjoyment overall with computers
like the Commodore 64 or the Sinclair Spectrum.
It's just the fact that the hardware and the software and pretty much everything is cheaper
and easier to come across than for the Amstrad, at least here in America,
especially because this thing requires that monitor.
I do like it though, I kind of wish I had a 6128, one of the more capable machines,
and really, I think a lot of collectors and hardcore enthusiasts of the CPC would agree
that that's probably the machine to go for, but I do like the look of this thing, I like playing with it,
and I'm glad to have it.
So if you do run across one for a decent price, or are just insanely curious and want to order one from overseas,
I would say to absolutely go for it. It's a fun, little machine for what it is.
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