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Amstrad CPC

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Amstrad is a UK-based electronics company which was founded in 1968 by Sir Alan Sugar, the company name is an abbreviation of Alan Michael Sugar Trading.

To capture the market from Sinclair and Commodore, the company began production of its own range of personal computers, the Amstrad CPC (Colour Personal Computer) in 1984. The CPC 464 was launched in the UK, France, Australia and Germany and came with either a green screen (aimed more at business) or a slightly more expensive colour screen (aimed at the home / gaming market). The CPC 464 was followed by the 664 which disposed of the built-in cassette recorder for storage and moved to the much more reliable floppy disk drive, later the 6128, 6128 plus and 464 plus which had all been updated both cosmetically and technically. The unit used Locomotive BASIC 1.0 for its Operating System.

The Amstrad had some very good games for the 8 bit market and some impressive arcade coin-op conversions. Some excellent games included Get Dexter, Jet Set Willy 2, Ikari Warriors, Into The Eagles Nest, Gryzor,Sky Shark, Predator, Golden Axe, Wizball and Gauntlet 2 to name but a few. There was a ready selection of good and reasonable priced software. The Amstrad boasted 64kb of RAM and had a General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip, providing three channels.

As a late entrant to the European 8-bit market, the CPC range never achieved the sales volume of either the ZX Spectrum or the C64, but the advantages of a proper typewriter-style keyboard and integrated tape or floppy drive saw it obtain considerable market share in the late 80s. Production ceased in 1990.

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Do You Remember Amstrad CPC?

Do You Remember Amstrad CPC?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    I never owned a computer as I preferred the consoles but I always loved playing my mate's 464. Given the choice I would have taken the 464 over the Speckie and the C64. An awesome package for £150: computer, green or blue monitor and a wad of great games and some software that was never used. The colour pack was a little more expensive. I think the should have added an RF out socket so you could hook it up to a TV.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    The amstrad cpc 464 with colour monitor was my first foray in to home computing and gaming. A christmas present in the mid 80s i remember fondly wrecking the joystick playing oh-mummy and harrier attack..(i hated roland in the caves/ropes) it was the amstrad that introduced me to football management games (soccer boss being my favourite..) my cousin was my over constantly to play it... i even did basic programming ..heheh those were the days
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember feeling quite swish when I got my CPC 464 in 1985. After all it had a "built in" tape deck and it's own colour monitor ! There used to be quite heated debates at school about which was the best Sinclair spectrum, commodore 64 or Amstrad.

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