Kimble Justice: The story of Amstrad!

[chinnyhill10]

caps lock and shift key not working so excuse the lower case.

does anyone have info on the 6128 launch in the states.

It's mentioned in The Amstrad Story by David Thomas.

[TMR]

i wonder if this move to 128kb was in order to fill the gap that the commodore 128 couldn't.

i'd reckon it was purely down to RAM costs at time of launch, if a 128K version of the 464 were doable at the price bracket Sugar and company were aiming for they'd have gone for it i'm sure; a lot of people priced themselves out of their own markets around that time (i'd say including Commodore with the C128 personally, although my opinions on said machine might be a little... erm, biased?) and we all knew the 16-bitters were on the horizon, so pitching an 8-bit system with too high a price tag close to their arrival was risky at best.

Haven't watched the video yet (it's been open in another tab for a few days but i have the attention span... what was i saying?) but i saw her Ocean video at the weekend; was an interesting watch, but does skip lightly over their original content like Wizball, Wizkid or Parallax to focus on the licensed titles.

[chinnyhill10]

i know it's been said before, but i wish he had made the 464 128kb. would of been expensive unless he soldered on a bunch of 8kb chips  .
i wonder if this move to 128kb was in order to fill the gap that the commodore 128 couldn't.

The 6128 came about because Sears in the USA wanted to bulk order the CPC for their catalogue but only if it had 128k. So the 6128 was born. Most of those machines which were paid for by Sears never got near the USA and ended up being modified and sold in Europe. Hence North American 6128's are rare. Amstrad did very well out of it.

[MaV]

I liked her GTA reviews (2 to 4 that is), and don't mind her voice at all.

It's quite easy to not like Alan Sugar, so if she doesn't constantly remark about her dislike of him which will become a bit tedious after awhile, this could be good. I'll be watching it soon (tomorrow or so.)

[arnoldemu]

I wonder if the 6128 had 128k so that it could run CP/M and more programs under CP/M. Maybe it was also to push the CPC as a business machine rather than a games machine.

Is there any official sources for the story of the American 6128's? Perhaps an interview with somebody who was involved?

[sigh]

i'd reckon it was purely down to RAM costs at time of launch, if a 128K version of the 464 were doable at the price bracket Sugar and company were aiming for they'd have gone for it i'm sure; a lot of people priced themselves out of their own markets around that time (i'd say including Commodore with the C128 personally, although my opinions on said machine might be a little... erm, biased?) and we all knew the 16-bitters were on the horizon, so pitching an 8-bit system with too high a price tag close to their arrival was risky at best.

Haven't watched the video yet (it's been open in another tab for a few days but i have the attention span... what was i saying?) but i saw her Ocean video at the weekend; was an interesting watch, but does skip lightly over their original content like Wizball, Wizkid or Parallax to focus on the licensed titles.

I think your right about RAM costs, but I do wonder if it would of been cheaper to solder 16 8kb chips instead of buying 2 64kb chips or 1 128kb chip? How were the chips done on the CBM 128? It came out a little before the CPC 6128.

The 6128 came about because Sears in the USA wanted to bulk order the CPC for their catalogue but only if it had 128k. So the 6128 was born. Most of those machines which were paid for by Sears never got near the USA and ended up being modified and sold in Europe. Hence North American 6128's are rare. Amstrad did very well out of it.

Wow!! That is an incredibly cheeky move by Sugar! So if it wasn't for Sears, the 128kb might not had existed and the CPC 664 would of still been alive.

[dcdrac]

This seems less about Amstrad and more about bashing Alan Sugar.

[Zoe Robinson]

This seems less about Amstrad and more about bashing Alan Sugar.

Pretty much, yeah.

[chinnyhill10]

Wow!! That is an incredibly cheeky move by Sugar! So if it wasn't for Sears, the 128kb might not had existed and the CPC 664 would of still been alive.

What's cheeky about it? The 664 was planned from a very early stage. They were thinking about it before the 464 came out when RAM prices were still higher.


We would have got the 6128 anyway eventually but Sears just hurried things along with their request.


Nothing cheeky about it. We got the 6128 due to Sears basically being idiots and ordering a machine that nobody wanted and paying for it up front! Sugar never even tried to push it on them, it was them pushing him. He says he always thought trying to sell the CPC into the USA would be doomed because the market was so different.

[ivarf]

Where do Indescomp fit in this story or is that another one?

[TMR]

I think your right about RAM costs, but I do wonder if it would of been cheaper to solder 16 8kb chips instead of buying 2 64kb chips or 1 128kb chip? How were the chips done on the CBM 128? It came out a little before the CPC 6128.

If memory serves, the main RAM is sixteen 8K chips, along with 2K of colour RAM and either 16K or 64K for the VDC elsewhere on the board. So you start with a minimum of 146K of RAM even before the cost of an MMU, two processors, two graphics controllers, you get the idea...

Slight edit; did a little double checking and the above is true for the C128 and C128D, but the later C128DCR is 4 x 32K for the main RAM.

[Gryzor]

Sugar had already talked about the 6128 as the 664 was being developed, from what I had read in some AA issue...