Hi there!

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Hi! My name is Alberto, I am from Spain but I have been living in London since 2010. I have just registered today, but I am a long time lurker

I am 35 now and I got my first Amstrad in 1987, when I was 7.  The machine was a CPC6128 and I still have it in Spain. The Amstrad was my main computer until 1995, when I bought a PC, but I have been constantly using it after that and constantly keeping an eye on the CPC scene. Moreover, over the time I increased my Amstrad collection with another 14 computers (the only one I do not have if the 664) and several hundreds of games. I also have a blog where I review some of my favorite Amstrad games from time to time, although it has been inactive for the last five years or so because I do not have time to update it:

Mundo CPC | Análisis de juegos del Amstrad CPC

Everything is written in Spanish so I guess that it will be difficult to read for many of you (sorry!).

My contribution to the scene has been very modest, although I have helped beta testing some games and rescuing some others that only happened to be in my collection.

Sadly, I left all my Amstrad material in my parents house when I moved so, although I still have all of it in Spain, I cannot use it. However the next month I am going to visit them for a few days and I have decided to take one of the CPCs with me and bring it here. I plan to upgrade this computer with a SD floppy drive emulator, increase the amount of RAM, modify it to accept several types of ROMs and connect it to a VGA monitor. Lots of work to do, but great fun as well. I am still not very sure about the CPC I will take with me. Sometimes I consider to bring here my old 6128, because all the upgrades are readily available for it. Sometimes I think about bringing a CPC 6128+ because is more powerful, but I am a bit scared regarding the upgrades, some of them might not be compatible.

And that is basically all! Thank you for this great forum!

[CraigsBar]

I'd vote bring the plus every time. If you get a c4cpc the plus is awesome. Xmem, Xmass etc all work on the plus and the c4 CPC let's you use whatever ROMs you want in lower, basic and slot 7.

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I have to think about it, but I think that is probably the best option. I was checking and I have three brand new CPC 6128 plus at home (I received them for free from a closing store). Maybe it is time to put one of them to use .

[McKlain]

Man, you have a gold mine in there! 

[Zoe Robinson]

Hello and welcome to the group! 


14 CPCs?!! I'm guessing you don't have them all laid out in a room somewhere and that most are packaged away instead? If not, damn you've got a big house! 

[CraigsBar]

 Well I have 3 cpc's permanently set up. Although I might box one of them up when my just CPC 128k arrives

[Singaja]

When the network capabilities kick in you can have an Amstrad cluster data center

[Carnivius]

Hello.

[||C|-|E||]

Sadly, almost everything is stored in a Tetris-like style and I just can have a few systems outside every time . The CPCs share space with many other systems and, although everything seems chaotic, I have taken a lot of care putting the things in the right place to keep them out of light and damage. Below you can have a look at a little bit of the collection. I took these pictures a year ago for a friend with the phone and the quality is horrible, sorry.

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[seanb]

Incredible collection.

I loved thunder blade on the megadrive.
From what I hear I'm the only one

[||C|-|E||]

It was not bad, not my favorite in Megadrive, but it was not bad

[TFM]

Well I have 3 cpc's permanently set up. Although I might box one of them up when my just CPC 128k arrives

This is a nice setup! In this case you can use the CPC-Booster+ with its RS485 network interface to connect all the CPCs. 

[Dizrythmia]

Here I am wishing I had ONE Plus machine & you have 4 of them?

I don't care, 464 or 6128, I'd be happy with just one

[pelrun]

You and me both, Dizrythmia! Stupid price-gouging australian Ebay sellers... 

[Dizrythmia]

I've only seen one Plus for sale on Ebay in Australia, but it was modified to have a hard wired Amiga AC adapter on it which I wasn't exactly happy about, hence I passed on it. I think that was former user Zhulien, who I think many people on this forum have dealt with in the past. I've bought a few things from him before & he seems like a great guy & a passionate collector.

There's a couple of 464Plus machines & a 6128Plus, but for the 6128Plus you're looking at well over $600AU!!! The 464Plus machines are normally over $400AU.

It's rather sad really...

[Gryzor]

Welcome mate!


Sadly most of my computers are stuffed away precisely like yours (though each of them wrapped individually). The only reason I'd want a bigger house


Your blog looks lovely, pity my Spanish is so severely lacking...

[||C|-|E||]

 Thank you very much for your warm welcome guys!

The reason I have quite a lot of new old stock is that I spent many years here and there, digging in shops that were about to retire stocks of machines that were never sold. The owners were very happy to find somebody ready to pay them a small amount of money and take the "crap" away from them. In fact, I was able to find quite a lot of incredible bargains even in places like Toys R Us. At home I have not only the Amstrads, but some boxed consoles, like a NES, a SNES... and many games for them, some quite difficult to find. Nothing was expensive back in time because I bought it when nobody wanted the stuff. All in all, I think that there are around 40 machines and more than 1000 games, if you consider all the systems together, consoles and computers. Way too much for a flat .
The main problem, as you know, is that some of the machines tend to turn yellow over the time, even if they have never been exposed to UV light. I never treated them in Spain, but in UK I have restored some vintage calculators with Retrobite and they really look great. However, I am not very happy to try it with the computers because I am afraid of the blooming.



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[TFM]

Remember ist was about around 2000 when everyone could by anything CPC (Plus included) for few Euros. That was the time to fill up the stock. Now things get a bis scarce, well, so is life.