Computers COMPUTERS

Amstrad CPC 6128

The Amstrad CPC 6128 was a classy and powerful 8 bit computer from the second half of the 80s. Retailing at ?400 in 1985 made the 6128 more expensive than any other home computers, but you got lots of hardware for your money because it came with a colour monitor and inbuilt floppy disk drive as standard.

The 6128 was powered by a Z80A CPU running at 4MHz and was fitted with 32k of ROM and 128k of RAM which was quite a lot of memory at the time. The ROM contained the AMSDOS operating system and the Locomotive BASIC interpreter. The disk drives took a very strange looking 3 inch floppy disk that could only store 360k of data and sold for around ?3 each. This was the Achilles heel of the 6128 but it was possible to connect a second disk drive that took either 3.5 or 5.25 inch disks.

The 6128 was unique in that it could be used for games, programming, or serious use such as word processing. Other computers were designed either as business machines or games machines. Most 6128s were sold as home computers but some were bought by small businesses. There was also a range of educational software but the 6128 was never successful in schools because Acorn had conquered that market.

In 1990, the 6128 was replaced by the 6128+ with a white case with a slot for game cartridges. Sadly this computer was a commercial failure and sounded the death knell of the CPC a year or so later.


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Do You Remember Amstrad CPC 6128?

Do You Remember Amstrad CPC 6128?