Your Earliest Memory of the CPC?

[endangermice]

My first memory of the CPC was back in 1985 (December) when I was lucky enough to get a CPC 6128 with CTM 644 Colour monitor. My friend next door got a 48k spectrum a couple of years before and I remember being totally amazed by it and hassling my parents for a computer. I was amazed when my Dad (who knew absolutely noting about computers at the time) got me the CPC. Compared to the Spectrum I thought it was at least 100 times better until I met a friend who had a C64 and realised that a lot of the games just looked that little bit better due to the hardware sprites and scrolling and of course tha bloody SID chip.


However the CPC did demonstrate many times with some fab games that it could come very close or even beat the C64. As someone who enjoyed programming, I quickly realised how much better the keyboard was on the CPC -  plus I had a disc drives while friends only had tapes.


Ironically it seems my Dad somehow made an excellent choice of computer and it was completely responsible for getting me into the software engineering world - damn machine! .

[TFM]

... until I met a friend who had a C64 and realised that a lot of the games just looked that little bit better due to the hardware sprites and scrolling and of course tha bloody SID chip.

No, not due to that! It is/was due to sloppy programming of most CPC games, which have been too often bad speccy ports.

CPC scrolls perfectly, the AY is cool! And who needs hardware-sprites, when software sprites are more flexible ;-)

My life for the CPC!

[endangermice]

Hehe some of that is very true, but with the pressures with development periods back in the 80s with some games only having a few weeks worth of development time, many programmers as you say never bothered to go the full mile on the CPC. On the C64 scrolling was dead easy, it was just as easy to use the hardware sprites so games developed in the same amount of time were generally better.


Having said that, the CPC's palette was awesome in comparison and when the machine was programmed correctly it could blow the other 8bits away. Imagine what wold have happened if the Batman demo had come out in the 80s....?

[TFM]

Or Trantor, or TLL ;-)

[Badstarr]

I have never been a big fan of the c64 I admit, but I think the majority of CPC games had more visual appeal. Take SMASH TV for instance, the c64 version looks horrible, even speccy ports usually have better drawn sprites than the 64. If we are talking about the coloration on the c64 then it's clearly a winner.


As for the hardware scrolling etc then there is a little more visual appeal there but again I don't think the CPC is hampered particularly badly here as any good programmer worked around this. Super Cauldron is massively superior to any c64 game I can think of and it goes to show that the CPC can compare extremely well to 16bit machines of the time.


If the CPC had had more games like Super Cauldron earlier on I think more people would have compared it with the SEGA Master System, the only other machine in my opinion that really can produce visuals on a par with some of the Atari ST or Amiga offerings. My best friend had an Atari ST back in the day and used to comment on how good the Master System was in comparison. He also used to say how much better he thought my CPC was when compared to his cousins c64 and that he thought of the cpc as an 8bit ST. Just recently I showed him the Batman For Ever demo an he was blown away, commenting that it was hard to believe it was being produced by an 8 bit machine!

[endangermice]

I have to agree with you that, I was also astonished by the Batman Forever demo considering the hardware it's running on, it's an amazing technical feat! I think that one thing t has really helped the CPC is the availability of quality Emulators. Sure the C64 has some (CCS 64 is pretty good but i still feel its rather buggy and frequenctly crashes or behaved strangely) but nothing to touch the quality of something i.e WinAPE as a development platform which really allows you to concentrate on writing the code and not worrying about how ore going to debug it etc.


Also the fact that the CPC has that fantastic floppy interface that allows you to simply connect any 3.5" is a massive help. I'm still trying to figure out the best was to transfer game images onto the C64, there are options but all of them either expensive or limited in some way.


I love the fact that were really seeing a resurgence of the CPC and that there are loads of people getting involved with the machines again. They're great fun to program for - you can learn a lot that is still relevant today from dong so and if you're talented you can create some fantastic results!

[khisanth]

Think got my Amstrad 464 in 84 or 85 for Christmas, so would have been about 9 or 10. Had been reading about it in Amstrad User magazine and seeing it WHSmiths and Boots.

Walked into my bedroom Christmas morning to see it all setup and Roland in the Caves all loaded up. A very magical moment in my life. My very own COMPUTER !!! From that moment onwards in my life I knew I had to be involved with computers at any chance and here I am in the IT world. My 464 was given to a friend of the family and I got a 6128 which is still functioning and sat next to me. 

[TFM]

... and I got a 6128 which is still functioning and sat next to me. 

That's what I like to read 

[woody.cool]

My earliest memories of the CPC was when we got the CPC6128
It was bought from Dixons and came with the Dixons/Ocean Top 10 compilation, which to this day, I still reckon had the best CPC games ever on it. We didn't buy any new games for ages.

I think the first game I actually got really into was Head Over Heels, oh, and Batman as well (it explains why I still love 3D Isometric games now)

Not long after, I got a C16, but once I got Football Manager for it, my brother was on that all the time so I got lots of time in on the CPC 6128. We had a colour monitor with the CPC and a tape deck for those games that I just couldn't find disc versions of (not to mention, in the town I lived in, 3" discs were hard to come by)

A few years later and the CPC got confined to the loft when it got replaced with my Amiga 500+, but then, a year or so later, the TV knackered, and I found a CPC monitor to Amiga adaptor in an ad from an Amstrad Action magazine, so the CPC got dug out and had a permanent place in my bedroom.

EDIT: Thought I'd just add that the CPC6128 I have now is the exact same one I had in 1986 .... yup, it's lasted all that time. The only fault I've ever had with it is a drive belt .... easily replaceable. Now if only my Amiga was as reliable.

[Gryzor]

@khisanth: tried to visualize the moment - entering your bedroom on Christmas morning, in the 80s... priceless. Unfortunately 40 degrees outside combines with a hot, hot wind tend to limit my imagination.


@woody.cool: so - you mean to say you got a c16 to replace the CPC or something? How does that happen?

[khisanth]

Get yourself a nice ice cold beer, that might help cool you down 

[Gryzor]

Mmmmyeahhhhh, kind of frowned upon at the office.

[khisanth]

ice cold can of coke or pepsi then 

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Ice cold empty can of coke, filled with beer.

[Optimus]

Ah, my earliest memories? A bit faded away. But I like to unlock long forgotten memories.


I do remember though my father bought us a CPC 6128 with green monitor. I didn't know about computers them, I never asked "Buy my this!" but it was good choice. Don't remember when it was, maybe 1988? But I still remember it cost 60.000 drachmas which I don't know what it translates to today.


I remember our first games. Galaxia, Oh Mummy, Fruity Frank, Ghost and Goblins. The sounds are on the psyche.
I remember we had pirated disks named Games 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8


I remember before that, my first computer encounter was a Spectrum, don't even know what model but probably 48k. I could be 5 or 6 years old then. But I have memory of moon patrol, my father playing and I was pressing fire.


I also remember much later I bought pixel and me and my brother selected one computer in the advertisements that we'd wish to have. Just for fun, not asking for it. I didn't know anything about computers and specs then, but somehow I selected the C64 I think because it looked great in the picture. And my father said "No, this has a cassette, it's worse than the CPC" or something. I didn't know better then.


And then I remember when we were trying to make char sprites with SYMBOL command. And also changing some ENV/ENT in basic loader of Fruity Frank and getting different sounds. And also typing all those Basic listings in magazines. Another memory is when one disk was corrupt (or had virus? On CPC?) and Fruity Frank had a bug where the monsters where walking on the score board (I would say in the border, but myabe it's incorrect, quite unlikely a bug/virus triggering CRTC for overscan correctly). I remember that and it scared me, because I thought enemies can't go outside play area, maybe they come out of screen, haahaha! I even remember when I screwed some stuff with CTRL+keys and print the symbols or a bug appeared in corrupted disk, anyway unpredictable flashing colors, sound, corrupted screen, once I wanted to run away from the room, it was night and closed lights, because it felt unnatural, like paranormal experience on the CPC, hahahaha!!!


These and more.

[Gryzor]

For the uninitiated (or non-Greeks, actually): Pixel was a legendary Greek magazine that was in its prime when the 8-bitters were Kings. Every Greek guy who had a computer back then has a very soft spot on their hearts for it...

[robcfg]

I had an Atari 800XL that my Grandmother in Germany bought me for my first communion, and later, at the school, we had CPC6128's and I use to play Camelot Warriors with my teacher XD

[AMSDOS]

I remember when I got into typing in Type-ins from some of the Magazines my father collected from the Mid-80s & when I got through those we started collecting Amstrad Action and by then it was Issue 43/44, I remember typing in the Life Game (in issue 44), which I didn't realise was a game, I merely thought of it as a Graphical Demo and you could play with the Demo to see how it evolved. Because the program was in M/C, I'd made some mistakes in that M/C and the Data Error Message came up and the program would stop. My Solution: Remove the Stop from the end of that line, problem solved and the program still seemed to work. 

[dcdrac]

1984 Dad bought a 464 colour monitor, printer and DD1 to use as a word processor, when he was not using it I was type ins, disc games, first game was Elite it came with the CPC as part of the package slog with the games bundled with it from Amsoft and that small joystick.

1985 we get the 6128, dad had ordered a 664 but the shop could not get one so he got a 6128 instead same set up as before, after that he got a PCW.

[mr_lou]

I saw the CPC464 at a classmate, and he showed me "Soul of a Robot". It was around 1985 and I was about 10 years old.
But my CPC days began some months later when my grandmother bought a CPC464 too.

[Zoe Robinson]

I was 5. I came home from school one day to find my parents has decided my sister and I needed a computer. I don't know why and I won't complain. That old green-screen beauty changed my life.

It was 1985 and the computer was a big-key CPC 464. It lasted about 18 months before my sister spilled orange juice all over the keyboard. We were without the computer for 6 weeks because the local computer shop was "repairing" it. Turns out they had actually lost it and eventually they agreed to replace it with a new one. This one had a colour monitor and thin keys, but I loved it all the same.

The first game I played on my first CPC was "Space Hawks". My sister, due to getting home from school earlier than me, had been playing "Simon" because my Mum thought it was somewhat "educational" due to being a "memory trainer". I wasn't having any of that. I'd seen the cover of "Space Hawks" in the big box of games that came bundled with the computer and that cover had ignited something in my five-year-old brain, so "Space Hawks" it was. I've still never beaten that bastard of a game, it's too bloody difficult.

[AMSDOS]

I was 5. I came home from school one day to find my parents has decided my sister and I needed a computer. I don't know why and I won't complain. That old green-screen beauty changed my life.

It was 1985 and the computer was a big-key CPC 464. It lasted about 18 months before my sister spilled orange juice all over the keyboard. We were without the computer for 6 weeks because the local computer shop was "repairing" it. Turns out they had actually lost it and eventually they agreed to replace it with a new one. This one had a colour monitor and thin keys, but I loved it all the same.

The first game I played on my first CPC was "Space Hawks". My sister, due to getting home from school earlier than me, had been playing "Simon" because my Mum thought it was somewhat "educational" due to being a "memory trainer". I wasn't having any of that. I'd seen the cover of "Space Hawks" in the big box of games that came bundled with the computer and that cover had ignited something in my five-year-old brain, so "Space Hawks" it was. I've still never beaten that bastard of a game, it's too bloody difficult.

I never had Space Hawks growing up, but I enjoyed playing it on the emulators, though I agree the game is hard, one of the other crack-shots here posted a video of them playing it all the way through to the end. 

[Morri]

We had a suite of 6128s at my intermediate school when I was 11 and we had to learn typing (got up to 30 wpm) and also business skills by playing Lemonade stand.
An aunty also brought a 6128 and I found myself visiting them alot to play their games. (1943 / jet set willy / slot machine come to mind)
My parents must have noticed because they asked to buy it from her for my brother and I which I helped pay off by mowing my aunty's lawns.
I remember it being used for gaming only until about a year later when I decided to open the manual and learn BASIC and it just blew me away that I could make my own games.
My brother lost interest and moved onto the Master System while I would slave away with type ins and more CPC games. I even had a penpal from the UK who would send me games in the post as my town in end of the world New Zealand sold next to nothing by then.

[mr_lou]

An aunty also brought a 6128 and I found myself visiting them alot to play their games. (1943 / jet set willy / slot machine come to mind)
My parents must have noticed because they asked to buy it from her for my brother and I which I helped pay off by mowing my aunty's lawns.
I remember it being used for gaming only until about a year later when I decided to open the manual and learn BASIC and it just blew me away that I could make my own games.
My brother lost interest and moved onto the Master System while I would slave away with type ins and more CPC games.

Amazing how similar your story is to mine.
My grandmother bought the CPC464, and I'm pretty sure it was mostly with the purpose of having her grandchildren come visit her more.  I also remember certain games being played at my grandmother's place. (Zorro, Supersleuth, Video Poker comes to mind).
The CPC eventually ended up in our home though, in my kidbrother's room, while I got a new CPC464. So we had a CPC464 each.
My brother lost interest after a year or two and moved onto the Nintendo NES and Amiga, while I would be hooked on making my own BASIC stuff.
I stayed loyal to the CPC for a loooong time, before my urge to create music made me move onto Amiga and use ProTracker.

So I bet the games 1943 and Jet Set Willy and Slot Machine just throws you right back to your aunt's place, right? 

[mahlemiut]

We had a suite of 6128s at my intermediate school when I was 11 and we had to learn typing (got up to 30 wpm) and also business skills by playing Lemonade stand.
An aunty also brought a 6128 and I found myself visiting them alot to play their games. (1943 / jet set willy / slot machine come to mind)
My parents must have noticed because they asked to buy it from her for my brother and I which I helped pay off by mowing my aunty's lawns.
I remember it being used for gaming only until about a year later when I decided to open the manual and learn BASIC and it just blew me away that I could make my own games.
My brother lost interest and moved onto the Master System while I would slave away with type ins and more CPC games. I even had a penpal from the UK who would send me games in the post as my town in end of the world New Zealand sold next to nothing by then.

I wish I went to your intermediate school now...  all I had at intermediate was a room of C64s (and a C128).  At primary level, it was also a C64 (and a Franklin).