Do you remember the time when PCs were rapidly becoming easy to use all-in-one affairs, only
for people to realise that this thoroughly restricted their upgrade options and it was
best to go back to separate components.
Because I do, and although these machines often looked beautiful, they were indeed restrictive,
and although compact, also somewhat bulky, if that makes sense.
The Apple iMac G3 is probably the best known all in one machine, with its brightly coloured
translucent plastic casing.
These machines were released in August 1998, and competitors such as eMachines swifty introduced
their own range of low cost clones.
But of course, this was nothing new, even before the Macintosh, Apple had been making
this type of machine, with their Lisa models.
Later machines such as the Colour Classic and Performa would also follow, offering an
sleek, if slightly expensive computing device that looked reasonable in any corner of the
home.
Of course, PC manufacturers eventually caught onto this idea with machines such as the 486
based Compaq Presario 425, released in 1993, squashing together the monitor and base unit,
into a more affordable, streamlined device.
But this was Amstrad's core area.
Creating products designed to appeal to the wider audience.
Products which borrow from the ideas of competitors, but in a lower cost, easier to use format.
Not long after Apple released their handheld Newton, Amstrad were on the scene with the
lower cost Penpad; So it's hardly surprising that in 1996, Amstrad would hop onto this
bandwagon with the Amstrad Integra series.
This wasn't the first IBM Compatible PC Amstrad had built, with machines stretching back to
the low cost PC1512 in 1986 through to the Amstrad Mega PC in 1993.
But 1996 was a different time, and Alan Sugar's business was no longer at the top of its game,
with its focus shifting to the are of communications and broadcasting.
This marks the Integra as the last Amstrad branded PC, with its computing division merging
with Viglen just one year later, in 1997.
It also means that this particular model is quite hard to come by, but its limited production
run isn't the only reason.
So let's look around this compendious machine, because in reality, it's not that small.
Although its vertical dimensions are respectable at, its depth is somewhat at odds with its
premise.
At xxCM deep, you need a really large desk to place this on.
These Ikea tables are 70cm deep, but I still need to span two to get room for the keyboard
and mouse, and back in the 90s I was lucky to get just an average sized PC to fit on
my desk at all.
On the front we have the built in 15" SVGA monitor, offering resolutions up to 1024x768.
Underneath we have the Integra badge, and actually this isn't the first piece of Amstrad
kit to bear the name.
Back in the 70s, the Amstrad Integra 4000 Mk II amplifier was the carrier, paving Amstrad's
signature move of putting lots of - often separate pieces of - kit, into one unit.
It would then be reused, shortly after the release of the Integra as it happens, in the
Integra Face Care System, proving the versatility of this word, which as you'd expect means
integral, whole, entire or intact.
I also wouldn't be surprised if Alan Sugar's kids aren't all called Integra either.
Anyway, we then have your typical monitor controls housed between the built in speakers,
a 3.5" floppy drive, an IR receiver for the built in TV card, hard drive and power LEDs,
a hole, where I presumed the reset button once resided, but actually, if you click the
switch inside, nothing happens.
I've heard this was a dummy button, so maybe it was supposed to do something, but then
deactivated before release.
Next we have headphone and microphone jacks, another hole where the volume knob used to
reside and a handy mute button.
To the right is the quad speed CD-ROM drive, which seems to have a light on constantly,
but still operates just fine.
It's a rather flush and functional frontage, but what exactly lurks behind.
Well, directly on the back of the monitor is the power switch.
Obviously this means only one power cord is required, although machines of this era often
had a pass through power socket for the monitor anyway.
Under that we have your standard line out and in, along with a joystick connector.
To the right is that TV card I mentioned earlier, which is actually part of the standard specification
and allowed the machine to be used as a kind of media centre.
We've even got a xxxx baud modem underneath, making this a pretty functional beast.
We then get the usual PS/2 ports, 2 DB9 serial connectors, a parallel port and what I assume
to be a VGA ouput terminated with a dongle (which is an amazing word).
As the display is routed internally, I presume this is here due to Amstrad's cost saving
approach of recycling hardware from other sources.
Now, a neat feature of the Apple and Compaq all-in-one machines, is the ability to slide
out the guts of the system in one fell swoop.
Thankfully Integra owners aren't disappointed on this front.
Now inside, we get a mix of pleasing componentry and propitiatory disdain.
Over here we have a 2GB Fujitsu hard drive, dated 1998.
Now I'm fairly certain this wasn't the standard drive.
Usually this came with a paltry 545MB Seagate drive, although larger sizes were available.
We've also got the CD-ROM and floppy here, along with this little connector for the sound
card connections.
Underneath that is a fully functional PCI slot.
Now this half is completely separated by this riser card, offering ISA slots on the other
side.
In these ISA slots we find the TV tuner card, allowing this little Amstrad to somewhat compete
with other video multimedia systems out at the time, including the Olivetti Envision,
however the small hard drive wouldn't have allowed for much recording space.
Under that is the modem, truly making this an all-in-one machine, if a somewhat limited
one.
Now the processor here is a Pentium 100MHz with a socket 7 motherboard.
Components like the S3 64 video card and Soundblaster 16 are strewn about in an integrated fashion,
meaning there's limited scope for expansion here, especially if you're hoping to get a
faster video card.
All of this plugs into the base unit through a front edge connector, and when you slide
the motherboard back it, it unites with the connector at the front of the case.
It's all quite nice, but it must have been cripplingly limiting for users at the time,
watching the world advance around them, but being stuck with Amstrad's 1996 vision of
multimedia.
Still, nowdays it's pretty darn nice for people like me, as I get a machine which has been
fairly untouched for the past 21 years.
Let's get this bad boy up and running.
Now originally I was using this Microsoft keyboard and mouse, but then I realised that
the components which shipped with this, were exactly the same as the Mega PC.
So if I grab them, it unveils the full Integra kit, in all its unleashed glory.
Although the mouse needs some good old fashioned cleaning...
Yep, this is what we did before those fangled LASER mice.
You'll have to excuse me swapping between the different keyboards in this video however,
as I only realised this halfway through filming, because... dense.
Now being from 1996, this PC also came in 486 flavours and with varying amounts of RAM.
This little beauty is definitely at the higher end of specifications with the Pentium processor
and 32MB of plentiful Random Acccess Memory.
It also originally came with Windows '95, but this has been upgraded to '98 at some
point.
Which is nice.
We're currently running at 800x600 in 16 bit colour, but the video card can push 1024x768,
at the sacrifice of only 256 colours, in any case, the shutter speed on my camera isn't
set for that, so let's go back.
Actually, I'm interested about that rear VGA port.
So with a bit of unscrewing, I can confirm it is indeed a VGA port.
It's held in by a piece of rubber, I guess so you don't lose it.
Also, when you take it out, the monitor display disappears, which makes me think that you
can plug another monitor into here and use an external display, for whatever reason...
and as I demonstrate with this flat screen, you indeed can.
Plug the dongle back in, and everything reverts back to normal.
So at least there's an escape route if the monitor goes screwy.
You could even install a different video card through this route if it really took your
fancy.
Ok, what shall we do first?
How about a few little tests?
CPU-Z will do nicely.
Confirming the Pentium CPU, 8KB of Level 1 cache, the SiS chipset, and indeed a CPU score
of....
3!
A quick comparision to the Intel i7-6700K released way back in 2015, tells us this little
Pentium is a little behind the times.
But y'know, 3, is still fairly respectable.
IT'S ENOUGH TO PLAY QUAKE.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
It's also enough to play the Maze and Flying Windows screensavers with ease.
What it can't do, is handle Mpeg videos... well, not really.
This is a low resolution MPEG-1 file, which consumes a hefty 670KB of disk space, but
the poor little Amstrad is struggling like crazy.
This program is actually part of the bundled IntegraVision applications, for the TV card,
but I couldn't get it to function.
Not in the limited time I spent anyway.
Firstly, I didn't have an aerial compatible with its connection, secondly, it didn't seem
to like a composite input either and thirdly, there seemed to be some underlying setup issues
as well.
Hopefully I'll come back to this in the future, for a dedicated TV card video.
*files under never to be seen again*
Let's have a look at some more programs.
Rather fittingly I have the 1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.
This is how we used to handle homework back in the 90s... lets just say it was hard.
I spent most of my time watching absolutely crap videos like this one...
Anyway, look, I know what you're here for.
You're here for the same as me.
You want to know how this thing handles the mainshow, the climax, the nucleus of this
video.
GAMING.
Well, pretty well actually.
Even though I'm acting like an absolute heathen here, by running Quake through Windows 95,
it works perfectly.
Smoother than a Cyrix processor for sure.
The built in speakers aren't too shabby either.
Doom II, obviously runs fine, although it does highlight that the Soundblaster 16, isn't
in fact, a Soundblaster 16.
You can hear some bum sounds from its FM Synthesis making it apparent this is some kind of cheapo
clone.
Still, bum or not, I love the crap out of those Midi sounds.
If I wanted to push the system to its limits, I could install Tomb Raider III, which I've
done.
I could then show you how sluggish it is, even at 320x240.
If I change the screen resolution to 640x480, then it's utterly, and completely unplayable.
But then this is all running through software rendering.
I'm sure if I put the time in to update the drivers and get the most from the S3 Trio
card, then I could get something a little better.
This really is just a test of the machine as it comes.
If we put the lights back on a second for the serious business that is Flight Simulator
98, you'll see it runs pretty well through Direct X 5.0.
I mean pretty well for the 90s anyway.
Gamers now would be utterly disgusted at these frame rates of course.
Anyway, I'll round up with a demonstration of Team 17's classic, Worms.
Because it's that kind of an evening.
Every evening is a Worms evening.
That's the Amstrad Integra.
Beautiful.
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In any case, have a great evening.