Hi All

[tjohnson]

Hi All,


I've just registered I but have been using CPC since 1984 when my dad picked one up for the family computer, unfortunately no longer and owner of a physical machine and have had to resort to emulation like many people.  We owned a CPC464, a CPC6128 and finally a GX4000, that was a sad purchase, I was most distressed at the time for it to fail.  It eventually went in the loft and my mother gave it away after I left home.  Both the 464 and 6128 were sold sometime in the early 1990s when I moved onto PCs and they lost their shine in comparison.  Of course like many people you don't forget your childhood memories and the good times back then.  I have always had a fondness for my first computer and have played around with emulation for years but have just found this great site which I didn't know existed, and I'm now considering getting back into programming after all these years and writing something for the CPC.


Cheers Trevor

[keith56]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Like you I was on the CPC in my childhood, though we only had the 464 ... moved on to the nintendo console and a PC 1512 and like you, the CPC got handed on to someone else.

Kind of wish I still had my old CPC. but they're relatively cheap if you want to go back into 'physical' hardware (Cheaper than keeping the old one in storage for 20 years anyway!)  I have a 464,6128,6128+ and GX4000 now.

That said, Emulation of the CPC is really excellent! I've done a lot of ASM development in Winape, and it's superb! the CPC's really well emulated, and development on an emulator is far easier than real hardware!

[tjohnson]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Like you I was on the CPC in my childhood, though we only had the 464 ... moved on to the nintendo console and a PC 1512 and like you, the CPC got handed on to someone else.

Kind of wish I still had my old CPC. but they're relatively cheap if you want to go back into 'physical' hardware (Cheaper than keeping the old one in storage for 20 years anyway!)  I have a 464,6128,6128+ and GX4000 now.

That said, Emulation of the CPC is really excellent! I've done a lot of ASM development in Winape, and it's superb! the CPC's really well emulated, and development on an emulator is far easier than real hardware!

Thanks, I've been looking on ebay for a machine but prices seem relatively high these days, would imagine the machines are still quite available as so many were sold, probably mostly tucked in lofts and in cupboards though.  Will probably stick with emulation for now, would be nice to see the efforts on the real machine in the end though.

[mr_lou]

Welcome! 

[VincentGR]

Welcome

[Dagger]

Hi. Get yourself some real hardware    Not to expensive in the UK. Be patient and keep looking and you can get one with a monitor for between £60 & £80 normally with a few games, some Ebay prices can get a bit silly at times.  Search your local adds etc

[keith56]

I don't know if you already know of it, but I would recommend Amibay if you're looking for real hardware
I got almost all my CPCs there, never had any problems, and always felt the prices I paid were fair - link below

http://www.amibay.com/forumdisplay.php?44-Amstrad

you can set it up to alert you by email if a new post appears on this thread to keep an eye out for bargains <.< - that's what I did!

[Gryzor]

Welcome back to the world of real computing, then


Hope you find a real machine sooner rather than later - nothing beats that! - and that you start indeed doing some programming you may even share with us!

[Bytebreaker]

The best price for value imho is a cpc464 in combination with a ddi-3. I use one with integrated hxc floppy emulator and USB support.


This way, you get a disk drive for your cpc 464, spend in combination less money than for a cpc 6128 and don't have problems with seldom and error prone 3 inch disks and original drive.


Since you want to start coding again, that's a good entry point. On PC you have emulators, cross assemblers and tools. You can even code c and pascal for cpc via cross development environment if I remember correctly.

[keith56]

The best price for value imho is a cpc464 in combination with a ddi-3. I use one with integrated hxc floppy emulator and USB support.
This way, you get a disk drive for your cpc 464, spend in combination less money than for a cpc 6128 and don't have problems with seldom and error prone 3 inch disks and original drive.

SD cards are certainly a big plus over the real floppy, just bear in mind that a lot of modern releases need 128k - While I don't think you'll miss out on much from the 80s with only 64k, the newer stuff tends to require extra ram.

[||C|-|E||]

Welcome and happy coding! 

[tjohnson]

Hi all, well some good news, I picked up a 6128 a few days ago, came with a handful of disks a colour monitor, couple of joysticks.  All seems to work, the monitor seems good, the exception is the floppy disk drive, it makes a noise but doesn't read the disk.  A new belt has been ordered and I hope that and a bit of cleaning and lube it will fix it.  Now to try and work out how to code in C, I only every really coded in Turbo Pascal on MSDOS using a few short ASM routines for stuff that Turbo Pascal couldn't do.  Never really got my head around ASM.

[AMSDOS]

Hi all, well some good news, I picked up a 6128 a few days ago, came with a handful of disks a colour monitor, couple of joysticks.  All seems to work, the monitor seems good, the exception is the floppy disk drive, it makes a noise but doesn't read the disk.  A new belt has been ordered and I hope that and a bit of cleaning and lube it will fix it.  Now to try and work out how to code in C, I only every really coded in Turbo Pascal on MSDOS using a few short ASM routines for stuff that Turbo Pascal couldn't do.  Never really got my head around ASM.

C is "supposed" to be easier than ASM and lots of people are using CPCTelera.

[AxelStone]

Wellcome back to CPC world 

[tjohnson]

Cheers AxelStone, first hurdle is fixing broken floppy drive was hoping a simple belt would have it working again .  I always prefer to fix than replace these days and not much option when replacement drives aren't readily available.   I try to give things a go and learn something new.  Trouble is i can spend alot of time working on relatively small things like this when really i should be doing something else!


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