CPC Mainboard Versions

[dragon]

Changing attachments settings.

Thanks .

[nocash]

Hmmm, the psp go camera really doesn't seem to have best quality :-/
The pic showing the spanish system cartridge pcb is nice.
Didn't knew that there were carts without text layer!
And it's the first picture showing the spanish part number on the sticker.

[dragon]

Do not worry.I taketh new photos with a very good  digital camera.

Right now the PSP is all I have on hand.   

[nocash]

Yipieh. Don't forget to check the board size, X x Y mm! Of your collection, medium sized 464, and cost-down 6128 sizes are still missing on the mainboard page.

[nocash]

Flat keys again. They are still mystifying me. On grimware.org, all cpc464 mainboards (except the original version with PCB keyboard) are listed to have flat keys - that would mean all membrane keyboards were flat.
That'd also include the 664, which was membrane only, and thus should have those flat keys, too.
Unless later versions had flatter than flat keys?
Or, maybe it's all nonsense, and all keyboards looked exactly the same :-)

[Devilmarkus]

That's easy to see:
Old 464 boards have 1 longer keyboard connector.
They have large keys.
Later this connector has been replaced by the connectors we know from CPC 6128 with membraned cables (Don't know the right expression for that)
These use the flat keys.

[Grim]

Would be nice to see some photos that show difference between "flat" and "tall" keys!

Here is one, from left to right:
- CPC 464 "big ESC key" (old mechanical keyboard with wire cable)
- CPC 464 "flat ESC key" (new keyboard with a ribbon cable)
- CPC 6128 "ESC key"

Note that the flat keys of the CPC 464 can also be put on a CPC 6128 keyboard. They are also "flatter" than the CPC 6128 keys too (not by much, 1mm I would say).

[nocash]

Hi Grim! Nice picture, many thanks! Now even I can see the difference. Added the pic on the keyboard page, a bit modified, with the text included in the image.

Something else. I have just discovered a hidden option that makes your CPC becoming a wireless microcomputer, and it's very simple to do that: Just shorten LK2 and LK1.

[nocash]

Okay, okay, that was silly. I was just amazed by the Wireless "W" in the AWA brand name. Some info on awa is collected here, http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Awa though the funniest LK setting is Triumph - http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Triumph - I'd doubt that Amstrad seriously planned to do that partnership :-)

Searched and found a few more mainboard and keyboard pictures. Whatever I tried, I couldn't find photos of english 6128 and 6128+, only german, spanish, french, australian, and danish ones. Could it be possible that the 128K models have never been sold in england?

[arnoldemu]

Okay, okay, that was silly. I was just amazed by the Wireless "W" in the AWA brand name. Some info on awa is collected here, http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Awa though the funniest LK setting is Triumph - http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Triumph - I'd doubt that Amstrad seriously planned to do that partnership :-)

Searched and found a few more mainboard and keyboard pictures. Whatever I tried, I couldn't find photos of english 6128 and 6128+, only german, spanish, french, australian, and danish ones. Could it be possible that the 128K models have never been sold in england?

you are funny. my first cpc was a cpc6128.
I bought it here in the uk.

I also have an english 6128+.

[arnoldemu]

Okay, okay, that was silly. I was just amazed by the Wireless "W" in the AWA brand name. Some info on awa is collected here, http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Awa though the funniest LK setting is Triumph - http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Triumph - I'd doubt that Amstrad seriously planned to do that partnership :-)

Searched and found a few more mainboard and keyboard pictures. Whatever I tried, I couldn't find photos of english 6128 and 6128+, only german, spanish, french, australian, and danish ones. Could it be possible that the 128K models have never been sold in england?

I am sure that partnership would have been good.. but I looked for "Triumph electronics" and found a company in the US...
so ......

[Bryce]

Hi Nocash,
          it's not all that important, but the picture of the Keyboard Membrane seems to have been  taken upside-down, the spacebar is at the top of the picture.

Bryce.

[arnoldemu]

Hi Nocash,
          it's not all that important, but the picture of the Keyboard Membrane seems to have been  taken upside-down, the spacebar is at the top of the picture.

Bryce.

ok, ok you got me. Yeah it's a keyboard membrane from one of my old broken keyboards which I don't have anymore.

[nocash]

Nay, the US company is more unlikely than underwear. It seems to be of newer date, from their about us page: "Triumph Electronics incorporated in 2007"... the page also says "We stand out from the crowd by our professionalism" though they don't yet seem to have figured out how to make html pages. I tried three browsers, but none could display the "about us" properly :-)

[nocash]

Okay, great to know that there are english 128K models. Would have been a surprise if they didn't exist. But it's funny that they never made it into internet. Maybe... people don't have digital cameras in england? :-)

[gerald]

French  CPC464 qwerty

[Gryzor]

French with a QWERTY keyboard? Wtf???

[nocash]

Pretty picture. Thanks, Gerald!

> French with a QWERTY keyboard? Wtf???
Yes, aside from the qwerty-464, there's also a qwerty-664 on the keyboard page. They have french text "Amstrad Ordinateur Personnel Couleur" and more french text on the tape/disc drive.

Looks as if amstrad began early to make "custom" french models. The AZERTY keyboards were invented later, probably around 1986 (?) juding from the french ROM part number, AZERTY came a while after spain got the N key due to spanish laws in late 1985.

Based on that dates, french QWERTY-6128 could have been available for a short time, too. If it did exist, then it'd be the only french photo that is still missing... Did somebody ever see a french 6128 with QWERTY keyboard?

[Grim]

Can't remember about the french CPC 6128 QWERTY, it's becoming very confusing with all these variants. I will have a look around if I can spot one.

Also, I stumbled upon this picture a while ago on some collector or auctions website, I can't remember either (hmm... getting old, damn!). There was something odd with the CPC keyboard... Probably a very limited and rare edition :)

[nocash]

> it's becoming very confusing with all these variants.
Yipieh, confusion. I just figured out that there three different 464 keyboards (mechanically).

  1st with etched PCB
  2nd with single Foil (similar as used in 664, but maybe slightly rearranged cable)
  3rd with two Foils (similar as used in 6128, but rearranged cursor keys)

As far as I understand, only the 3rd version is a real "membrane" keyboard, and only that version has "flat" keys.

1st and 2nd are probably almost the same concerning functionality, only made of different materials (PCB+Wires vs Foil+Metalplate), and both having "tall" keys. That also explain why 664 had tall keys despite of being using a foil :-)

PS. Hard to see what makes the CPC special on that photo... something written on the FDD drive?

[Grim]

I always thought the 664 keyboard was some sort of lousy membrane prototype (few 664 keyboard are still working properly, dunno if it's also the case with this type of keyboard on the 464 too) before they got it right for the 6128 :)

PS. Hard to see what makes the CPC special on that photo... something written on the FDD drive?

It shows an AWERTY keyboard :)

[nocash]

> I always thought the 664 keyboard was some sort of lousy
> membrane prototype (few 664 keyboard are still working
Yup, they needed repair after a few years. And though of them as "membrane" too. But since there is only one foil (which doesn't move)... now I'd say that it isn't a "membrane" (where the upper foil gets pushed down).

>  before they got it right for the 6128
Did they? My 6128 has plenty dead keys. So I said fuck-the-membrane and built a new keyboard, using a rewired PC keyboard with real metal switches. But maybe the 6128 were just dirty, not broken :-)

> It shows an AWERTY keyboard
Oops. Strange. The other details are strange, too. Looks like french on FDD, but english keys with non-shifted numbers and without accented letters. I wonder if amstrad ever made an AWERTY bios rom :-) can that be real? Maybe somebody just swapped the Q and A keys.

[Devilmarkus]

I think the keyboard is a home-brewed one.
I don't think, Amstrad produced French keyboards with only difference were A and Q keys.

[nocash]

Yeah, probably it's homebrew. Surprisingly there are around 2000 google hits when searching for "awerty"+keyboard. But I guess most are unwanted typos. The only page where it seemed to be intentional was one saying that "République Démocratique du Congo" used "défaut (awerty)" in 2007, and switched to "(azerty)" in 2009. Dunno if that webpage means that all typewriters and computers in congo used awerty until that date. Anyways, probably that isn't CPC related - unless the photo showed a homebrew congo mod :-)

[nocash]

Just noticed, the french keyboard and french charset ROM don't have a "|" symbol? Though the french CPC Plus user manual says to press shift+@ to enter RSX commands like "|CPM" but judging from the charset, one would have to type "ùCPM" ()
Hmmmm, seems to be so. There are a couple of webpages mentioning "ùCPM", pretty strange idea to remove "|" from the charset :-)