Another newbie joining in. This time from Finland, where CPC never was very popular. I had a 6128 in the mid nineties for a while, and got myself one last year again, coupled with an HxC floppy emulator. Mostly interested in the Amstrad demoscene (and other retro scenes, too).
Welcome, Marq, to our community!
I hope you enjoy it ;)
Welcome Marq!
Welcome Marq! Have lots of fun. 2012 is a good year to be interested in the CPC demoscene *cough*Batman*cough*
I've checked most of the top prods already and learned a thing or two. First of all, I had no idea that the CRTC version is such an important factor. Another observation is how Amstrad ("Ammu" in colloquial Finnish) wanted to create a closed ecosystem where you'd need to buy everything from them. Luckily these days there are all sorts of alternatives for power supplies etc. and there's enough documentation online. Let's see if I ever get into CPC programming - Z80 is a familiar processor from the MSX and the CRTC reminds me of my oldskool PC days and VGA register banging.
Not sure what you mean with the "closed ecosystem". This wasn't an era of compatible systems, and every single manufactured developed and sold their own stuff... or am I misunderstanding something?
Sure, most companies tried to do something similar. The CPC has, however, seemed a bit trickier to me than the average 8-bit. Most of the time you could at least use the family TV and get composite video out. The joystick port is a similar example, and the 6128 manual is full of "to do this and that get something from AMSOFT". Not a complaint but just an observation on the Amstrad company strategy, which they carried on to their early PCs as well :)
But... the CPC was a computer that came *with* a monitor, thus negating (to some extend) the need to output to a TV. Computers with n dedicated monitor, or one that came as an extra, *had* to have that option.
With regards to the joystick, they could have done something really different if they wanted to... half-arsed attempt at doing something differently, but in the end it didn't matter.
As for the manuals - every (I mean *every*) manual out there that I've read mentions you should buy the manufacturer's own-label stuff. They still do it today.
These are interesting details and reflect how colorful - and often plain crazy - the early home computer market was. Integrating the power supply to the display was something pretty unique (and convenient if at the same time risky) and they seemed to be so happy with that that they did the same with their popular PCs. The PCs, too, had some other weird features, such as the digital joystick ports and the Amstrad-style mouse. After taking over the Spectrums they seemed to deploy somewhat similar strategy - at least the +2 joystick port which is by all accounts Atari compatible, even has the same plug but the pin order is scrambled. Integrating the cassette/disc drive made external alternatives useless, which IMO goes on to highlight their way of thinking: get all your gear conveniently from us :)
The "all in one" package that amstrad offered was an important selling point that no-one else offered at the time, the rf output to a TV that most other systems used meant a lower screen resolution, typically 24 x 40 characters because the display on the TV was unreadable at higher resolutions, so including a monitor made the CPC's higher resolutions possible, the built in cassette deck meant that the user did not have to fiddle with the volume control trying to get a reliable signal level.
The TV was not always available, so the monitor allowed the system to be used for as long as was required, and putting all the high voltage components into one box using one mains voltage plug seemed an excellent idea.
The "all in one" package was the reason, besides being CP/M compatible, why I bought the CPC instead of any of the alternatives.
Something I've been wondering is how on earth could they keep the prices competitive? Including a display and a tape drive must have increased the production costs a lot. An average consumer probably looked a lot at the price tag.
Well, off-the-shelf components along with some decent engineering. The price *was* higher than, say, the Spectrum, but the perceived value was higher.
Sugar had this philosophy - sell to the man coming off his shift in the factory, out of the back of a truck. So the all-in-one design smacked of practicality and made sense in a world where people didn't know about computers. A nice example is this: when the computer was all but ready they presented it to Sugar. He pressed an arrow key and nothing happened. So he said, the average man will expect this key to do something: fix it! And thus the full-screen editor was born.
In the end, the appeal was higher; not that many people could afford it, but those who did have the money parted with it easy enough.
In Finland the CPC wasn't ever too popular - this was chiefly a Commodore 64 territory, even if surprisingly many different machines were sold through the local representatives of big companies. Here's a Finnish Amstrad ad from the 80s:
http://www.pelikonepeijoonit.net/images/tm/tm_sorryvaanamstrad.jpg (http://www.pelikonepeijoonit.net/images/tm/tm_sorryvaanamstrad.jpg)
Roughly translated: "Sorry, competitors! Amstrad turns a new page in the history and drops the prices by thousands of marks. And that's not all of it. We give you a three-month price guarantee. Now it's time for you, too, to buy an Amstrad."
And a couple more, unfortunately old bad quality scans:
http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_ammainos.jpg (http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_ammainos.jpg)
http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_amstrad2.jpg (http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_amstrad2.jpg)
http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_amstrad3.jpg (http://www.kameli.net/~marq/printti/prt_amstrad3.jpg)
Excellent.
Ahhh thanks so much for sharing :)