Amstrad CPCnext: Would you buy one?

[andycadley]

Yeah 128K is a massive boost in terms of making usable software on the CPC. The screen memory (and other graphics data) is just such a memory hog. Given a bit more storage and room for things like a double buffer can be the world of difference.

[cwpab]

I've been investigating about the PCW "palette". The official specs are just green over black, and Mallard Basic games are like that. But with text characters. This only seems to apply to the "hi-res" text mode.

But I've seen quite a few games that appear to have different "green shades". So I can only assume this was possible when programming assembly games, but since it was not offered as a selling "spec", nowadays websites pretty much omit the option to have these shades.

Can someone shed some light into this and clarify how many green shades there are (if any)?

[andycadley]

I've been investigating about the PCW "palette". The official specs are just green over black, and Mallard Basic games are like that. But with text characters. This only seems to apply to the "hi-res" text mode.

But I've seen quite a few games that appear to have different "green shades". So I can only assume this was possible when programming assembly games, but since it was not offered as a selling "spec", nowadays websites pretty much omit the option to have these shades.

Can someone shed some light into this and clarify how many green shades there are (if any)?

I was under the impression it was a fixed monochrome green/black display. But, like the CPC Mode 2 it tends to bleed colour between pixels a bit, so if you use various dithering patterns it does a reasonable job of representing other "shades" of green.

[cwpab]

Thanks again! If that is correct, the additional RAM offered by the PCW (and sorry again as this has nothing to do with a potential CPCnext) would allow for even more complex games, as games don't have to store the color information on the RAM (and perhaps more gains are obtained from the use of simple sound, but I can't tell).

EDIT: I just tried an emulator and I can confirm the dithering makes the trick due to the high res. In Matchday 2, the "darker green" field is achieved by a series of "clear green" lines. This was not visible on Youtube at all! Oh and by the way, is it me or is the game faster on PCW Vs. CPC?

[GUNHED]

Coming back the the talk about 'What makes a CPC a CPC?'

After thinking quite some time, I got to this conclusion: The brain of the CPC is Z80/ROM/RAM. But the CPC's heart is... of course the Gate Array!

Why? Well, the CPC consists of standard parts and one thing that's specific for the CPC itself! Yes, the Gate Array. The GA is the one that makes a CPC a CPC!

So using f.e. another Graphic card would rip out the heart of the computer and make it a non-CPC. Just in my opinion, you may disagree. That's fine.

BUT, what's bad about a computer, which is not a CPC any longer? As long as 97% of the software runs on it. It would be the natural evolution, it would be great! So I hope that one day we do have a CPCnext. Or what I would prefer a FuturePlus 

[ZorrO]

I agree. Therefore, for me, CPC with a graphics card from MSX2 is not a better CPC, it's a defective MSX.

[cwpab]

Controversial: One of the things that makes the CPC a CPC is the first "C" for Color. And Green monitor versions don't have that... Maybe they should have been called "GPC"?

Ironic: While we debate and analyze current and future versions of the Amstrad CPC, the man behind the machine himself, Mr. Alan Michael Sugar (a. k. a. "the AMS before the TRAD), could care less about his creation. In an interview I read recently, he said he tried to get the AMSTRAD brand back from Sky because one of his sons wanted to use it in "some business", but in the end he didn't do it because it was way too expensive (perhaps for the better?).

Cinematographic: Perhaps a movie could be made based on the previous situation. A richman attends a geek convention to celebrate the launch of a vintage computer he never used or cared much about. The geeks kindly ask for funding to preserve and create new games and peripherials. He refuses but he gets stuck with one or more geeks for a day during a storm or some other random disaster. He then discovers the magic of the games created for his machine.

[Prodatron]

While CPC people endlessly debate whether a CPCnext makes sense, the Spectrum guys don't give a shit and just produce one "ZXnext" after another 

- Pentagon
- Scorpion
- ZX Evolution
- ZX Uno
- TBBlue
- Spectrum Next
- eLeMenT ZX

(maybe I even forgot some more)
All based on the original but with (huge) enhancements.

[Fessor]

Coming back the the talk about 'What makes a CPC a CPC?'

After thinking quite some time, I got to this conclusion: The brain of the CPC is Z80/ROM/RAM. But the CPC's heart is... of course the Gate Array!

I think it's more the combination of the Gatearray and the 6845 that makes a CPC a CPC. The way the 6845 is integrated into the system and the associated ability and freedom to design the screen dimensions (overscan, simulation of the ZX spectrum resolution, etc.). 

What could a CPCnext look like? I think, a CPC-Next would probably be like an eZ80-based Atari STe in a certain way with DMA sound and pixel-fine HW scrolling, 32k screen RAM but additional freely dimensionable resolutions through the 6845 and sprites. Only without GEM/TOS as OS but maybe Symbos as OS and UI . In addition to the ST(e) resolutions, also a resolution of 160x200 with 256 colors. 

IMHO the CPCNext should at least have the hardware capabilities of the plus range.

[ZorrO]

CWPAB - I think green is also a color. And CPC stands for Cute Perfect Computer.

This proposal of ST-like modes sounds more Amstrad-like than MSX resolutions.
As a youngster, watching demos, I dreamed that I could use Overscan as easily as the MODE command. In practice, the screen bends and the cursor moves diagonally when pressed down. It would be nice if it were easier.

And for me, the windows are too modern, I would prefer it to greet me with something like Norton Commander and be able to show texts, fonts, pictures and play music in the background. Easily add fonts and keyboard maps for other languages. As always at CPC. I wish there was a configuration file to greet me after startup. If someone wants windows, they have windows, if they prefer Ready, they have Ready. etc.

Amstrad style is to have commands for all possibilities. Not like C64.

The MSX card does not allow you to run MSX software, and if it could...
You know MSX2 is a nice computer, but tigers like us don't like it the most. Honey is not for tigers.

[Anthony Flack]

If that is correct, the additional RAM offered by the PCW (and sorry again as this has nothing to do with a potential CPCnext) would allow for even more complex games, as games don't have to store the color information on the RAM

The memory allocation is the same either way - it is like CPC mode 2; you trade colours for higher resolution.

I absolutely agree that a CPC really wants 128k to get the best out of it. It's like a whole different machine in terms of performance. A hardware double buffer is a great feature to have, and there are other things you can do for extra speed if you have the memory. Many 64k games could have performed much better if they weren't forced to use space-saving techniques. Of course you can still achieve this with a 64k machine, but you'd have to limit yourself to a small game.

In my current project the memory use breaks down (approximately) like so:

Three banks of screen buffers, a front buffer, a back buffer and a restore buffer - 48k. Unexpanded 464 users can go and cry already.
Three banks of compiled sprites and other sprite data - another 48k - we've already used up 96k without any game code, and sprites are maybe twice as fast because of it.
Two banks of game code, music, level data and everything else - 25k-ish
One bank of title screen and front-end menu data that loads in over top of the restore buffer - a bit less than 16k, half of that is the title graphic itself.
Backgrounds that load individually as needed, 4-5k each.

So maybe around 166k for everything, and approximately 130k of that is either screen buffers or graphics data.

[Anthony Flack]

Over-simplifying a bit, but if you imagine that a 16 bit machine needs twice as much memory to deal with the equivalent amount of graphics and so on, an CPC with 64k is like an ST or Amiga with only 128k, and 256k is comparable to a stock Amiga 500. In reality, without audio samples to deal with or whatever else, 128k feels about right for the CPC, 64k is uncomfortably tight and 256k is luxury. 

[cwpab]

I think it was Trip Hawkins who said that for him, the machine was not important, only a tool to achieve the goal of creating the best game. I guess this doesn't apply for us here in CPCwiki, right? 

[Anthony Flack]

I believe very strongly that you can create a great game to run on ANYTHING if it's designed to suit it. You can make a great game that runs on a deck of cards, a pencil and pad, a pair of dice, or nothing at all. You can absolutely make a great game for a 4Mhz computer with 64k of RAM. You could make the best game of 2024 on the CPC if you had the right idea.

The consideration is how your idea is going to be restricted by the hardware. There are games on the CPC that would be improved by running on a faster computer; there are games where it would make no real difference.

[andycadley]

This proposal of ST-like modes sounds more Amstrad-like than MSX resolutions.
As a youngster, watching demos, I dreamed that I could use Overscan as easily as the MODE command. In practice, the screen bends and the cursor moves diagonally when pressed down. It would be nice if it were easier.

Sprites Alive! as well as adding RSX's for sprites, included some commands for changing the screen dimensions so that BASIC could be used with alternative screen sizes. It wasn't quite free choice from what I remember, but it was pretty cool at the time (and a great example of how BASIC could be extended)

[GUNHED]

CWPAB - I think green is also a color. And CPC stands for Cute Perfect Computer.

This proposal of ST-like modes sounds more Amstrad-like than MSX resolutions.
As a youngster, watching demos, I dreamed that I could use Overscan as easily as the MODE command. In practice, the screen bends and the cursor moves diagonally when pressed down. It would be nice if it were easier.

And for me, the windows are too modern, I would prefer it to greet me with something like Norton Commander and be able to show texts, fonts, pictures and play music in the background. Easily add fonts and keyboard maps for other languages. As always at CPC. I wish there was a configuration file to greet me after startup. If someone wants windows, they have windows, if they prefer Ready, they have Ready. etc.

Amstrad style is to have commands for all possibilities. Not like C64.

The MSX card does not allow you to run MSX software, and if it could...
You know MSX2 is a nice computer, but tigers like us don't like it the most. Honey is not for tigers.

Well told! And in addition windows bring chaos, better so be able to switch between screens 

[ZorrO]

I don't think windowed GUI is a part of Amstrad experience. Drop-down menus thats OK, programs such as Art Studio, Discology, etc. were very popular, at least for those who had FDD and 128K, but multitasking is a freak of Amiga users, not Amstrad users. Start button in CPC? - Have a mercy. Deep in our hearts we are not PC people, even if we have them now.

[cwpab]

Hey guys. Apparently some Commodore (and we can safely assume some Sinclair too) fans believe retro computer companies should be divided in "the good ones, who operated with love" (Commodore, Sinclair and Atari) and "the bad ones, who relied on marketing to sell overpriced shitty products to dominate the market, products with no personality" (Apple, Microsoft, not sure if Amstrad).

What do you think? Aren't all companies just looking for money? Are Clive Sinclair and Jack Tramiel really that "full of love" compared to Amstrad, Apple and even IBM or Microsoft CEOs at the time?

[Shaun M. Neary]

The irony of Commodore and Speccy fans crying out about other companies crying about divisiveness. Amiga and Speccy forums are probably some of the most toxic and divisive I've ever had the misfortune to trawl across.

I didn't see Commodore and Sinclair coming up with the idea of bundling a monitor in with their system so that you wouldn't have to use the television. In fact, portable televisions weren't that cost effective back in the 80s, so you were lumbered with a black and white portable if you were even lucky enough to have a TV for one of their computers. 

The consumer electronics industry is a business...
... and once again... repeat after me... people go into business... to make money!

[cwpab]

A quick read of the Commodore Wikipedia page shows that Jack Tramiel had to be convinced by one of the employees to design computers. Also, those days (late 70s) they moved their HQ to... Bahamas. Probably because of the love? 

[ZorrO]

The story of Commodore has been described so many times in so many places that it can compete with The Bible and The Jungle Book, it's strange that they haven't made a movie about it yet.

At that time, Tramiel was a manufacturer of calculators based on chips produced by Texas Instruments, but he wanted to have his own chip factory so that no one would impose prices on parts. And then MOS was going bankrupt, so he bought it. One of the company's employees constructed a simple KIM computer, but his boss was not interested in this project. After owner changed, he showed project to Tramiel, who did not understand what it was supposed to be for. But Tramiel's son said - dad, computers have a better future than calculators. Then they added a few things to KIM to make it more useful, and that's how was created PET.

Wikipedia is not a good source of information about old computers. Old Magazines are much better.

[Prodatron]

And for me, the windows are too modern [...] CPC with a graphics card from MSX2 is not a better CPC, it's a defective MSX. [...] I don't think windowed GUI is a part of Amstrad experience. Drop-down menus thats OK [...] but multitasking is a freak of Amiga users, not Amstrad users. Start button in CPC? - Have a mercy.

Thanks a lot for the compliments 

[GUNHED]

Different people have different likes. Why not?  In the binary world there is space for everyone. Nice!  And it's great to have different opinions, else the world would be very boring. 

[Anthony Flack]

There are many heroes of the CPC story, like Roland Perry, who took on so many responsibilities and did so unreasonably well. Or the tremendous effort by Locomotive Software. Same with Apple - what more needs to be said about the Woz? He designed a whole computer by himself, hardware and software. I guess every company has an interesting back story with a cast of eccentric characters.

I haven't started using a GUI on the CPC yet but having all the drive space on an M4 makes it more tempting. To me seeing a GUI OS on the CPC is not so out of place; it speaks for the expandability of the platform. As for windows, Amstrad BASIC supports windows... ok, not overlapping windows. Heck, Amstrad BASIC even does multitasking.

[Anthony Flack]

I do get a kick out of typing CAT and seeing 30 million kb free.