Retro Asylum 122: The Amstrad CPC

[Swainy]

Steve Erickson jumps into the hot seat for this episode of Retro Asylum, the team are also joined by Chris O’Regan of “The Sausage Factory” fame as they look at the Amstrad CPC range of computers and a few CPC games along the way too.

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To hear more from Chris O’Regan, listen to his show: The Sausage Factory

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[ZbyniuR]

Link with mp3 doesn't work.

[Swainy]

We've just changed from podomatic, so the new one should work: http://traffic.libsyn.com/retroasylum/RA_Podcast_Episode_122.mp3

[iddod]

i listened this afternoon while recapping a gamegear, with my 464+ next to me and my cpc464 on the shelf in front of me... which made a nice change cos i normally listen to RA while i'm driving at work... i may have missed a bit cos i had to go pee, but in your recommended games rundown did anyone mention donkey kong? cos that version is criminally overlooked, def the best 8 bit version apart from the japanese arcade...
anyway, another good episode, cheers chaps
 

[Swainy]

That is a good point, yeah we did miss that. I'll give it a shout on a future episode!

[Swainy]

So has anyone else listened to this episode yet?

It's pretty ironic that this episode has got to number 1 in the video games category of the iTunes podcast charts. So much for the so called third place 8bit machine eh?

[Gryzor]

Ah! thanks for the heads up mate, one for the car

[arnoldemu]

I look forward to each episode and I listen to it while I work. I did listen to #122 and I enjoyed it however I felt the game list was almost a repeat of the 8-bit wars episode.

I really enjoyed the 8-bit wars episode too. It was funny to hear each persons response on their chosen platform. It's refreshing to hear there are games that stink on the c64 and that yes there are good games on the cpc.

I would be interested to hear part of an episode doing a review of the gx4000 games. Get that c4cpc cart device plugged in Unfortunately there are only 4 good gx4000 games.

[Swainy]

I look forward to each episode and I listen to it while I work. I did listen to #122 and I enjoyed it however I felt the game list was almost a repeat of the 8-bit wars episode.

I really enjoyed the 8-bit wars episode too. It was funny to hear each persons response on their chosen platform. It's refreshing to hear there are games that stink on the c64 and that yes there are good games on the cpc.

I would be interested to hear part of an episode doing a review of the gx4000 games. Get that c4cpc cart device plugged in Unfortunately there are only 4 good gx4000 games.

I've got to admit, I thought the same thing. Chris chose the games and sadly a few of them were ones that we had covered in the 8bit wars show.

Don't worry though, I'll be giving my CPC a lot more attention over the coming weeks & months along with the GX4000 (my C4CPC should arrive this week) so expect plenty of coverage soon.

[arnoldemu]

Don't worry though, I'll be giving my CPC a lot more attention over the coming weeks & months along with the GX4000 (my C4CPC should arrive this week) so expect plenty of coverage soon.

Nice. Look forward to hearing about it in a future show. I know the strengths and weakneses of the system and I will probably be nodding my head as I listen, agreeing with you all the way through.

Have you done anything on the bbc micro? If you have let me know which episode it was in.

[Swainy]

I think that we did touch on the BBC in an early episode, however a lot of our back catalogue is off line at the moment due to us leaving Podomatic and moving over to Lybsyn.

I do want to try and cover more stuff like the BBC & Oric, so if you are knowledgeable on those kind of computers and you would be up for coming on the show, let me know.

[arnoldorroland]

I thought the criticism of Amstrad Action was a little unfair. It had a great balance of articles covering a lot of the uses of the CPC, and good humour as well!

[seanb]

They clearly didn't read the later issues or they would've known it wasn't all business and boring.


It was slightly mental. Wasn't there a script for a Christmas play once?

[arnoldorroland]

They clearly didn't read the later issues or they would've known it wasn't all business and boring.


It was slightly mental. Wasn't there a script for a Christmas play once?

Yes. And a board game!

[chinnyhill10]

I thought the criticism of Amstrad Action was a little unfair. It had a great balance of articles covering a lot of the uses of the CPC, and good humour as well!

A little unfair? It was hugely unfair.


Sadly the whole problem was one of having an "expert" who only owned a CPC for about 18 months in the mid 80's. Therefore what you end up with is a load of factual errors and half remembered recollections passed off as fact.


I turned it off after it was claimed later issues of AA were devoted to EPROM burning and that Amtix was sold to Future who killed it off (it wasn't, it was sold to Database Publications who made a reasonable attempt to integrate it into Computing With The Amstrad). When you get to that stage you may as well be making it all up as you go along.


And the PC200 didn't have a 286 in it either but its inclusion wasn't relevent anyway.

[CraigsBar]

A little unfair? It was hugely unfair.


Sadly the whole problem was one of having an "expert" who only owned a CPC for about 18 months in the mid 80's. Therefore what you end up with is a load of factual errors and half remembered recollections passed off as fact.


I turned it off after it was claimed later issues of AA were devoted to EPROM burning and that Amtix was sold to Future who killed it off (it wasn't, it was sold to Database Publications who made a reasonable attempt to integrate it into Computing With The Amstrad). When you get to that stage you may as well be making it all up as you go along.


And the PC200 didn't have a 286 in it either but its inclusion wasn't relevent anyway.

Agree 100% AA was must read for me from issue 3 to 118 I still have nearly all of them (some minus covers) but they have been well read. I think that AA had 1 or 2 eprom articles towards the end when they were wanting to fill the ever shrinking magazine. but even then they were many months apart... not exactly dedicated to it.


Not sure what is meant by "Upgraded to compete with the 16 bit.. I think a little ram and a rombo (ForProtext etc) was the limit of most peoples upgrades

[seanb]

Maybe they thought the pluses were 16 bit machines based on their expert knowledge of looking at one and seeing it looks like and amiga and st.

[chinnyhill10]

Agree 100% AA was must read for me from issue 3 to 118 I still have nearly all of them (some minus covers) but they have been well read. I think that AA had 1 or 2 eprom articles towards the end when they were wanting to fill the ever shrinking magazine. but even then they were many months apart... not exactly dedicated to it.


Not sure what is meant by "Upgraded to compete with the 16 bit.. I think a little ram and a rombo (ForProtext etc) was the limit of most peoples upgrades

Yeah that wound me up as well. Made out CPC owners were like Amiga owners by spending huge amounts of cash on their machines to fight off the inevitable. The truth was the owners that were left were mainly the serious owners who used productivity software and had added stuff like a 2nd drive.

Problem is that to outsiders its all about "games games games". The CPC is a proper computer with expansion capabilities that C64 and Speccy owners can only dream of, a decent display and had an 80 column mode.

Throw in Protext on ROM (with Prospell), a printer and an external 3.5 inch disk drive and you have a decent little system for writing letters and doing the household accounts.

That is not pimping up your system to compete with the 16 bits. It's called using your computer for more than just games. You know, just like we do with modern computers.

But as I've said so often, we as a community can't expect favours or good press from "outsiders". We've had 31 years of mis-information from people who know little about our machines. As ever, CPC owners will press on and do our own thing. We've been managing it for 31 years after all.

[chinnyhill10]

Maybe they thought the pluses were 16 bit machines based on their expert knowledge of looking at one and seeing it looks like and amiga and st.

Probably thought they had 286's inside as well.......

[Bryce]

I think that we did touch on the BBC in an early episode, however a lot of our back catalogue is off line at the moment due to us leaving Podomatic and moving over to Lybsyn.

I do want to try and cover more stuff like the BBC & Oric, so if you are knowledgeable on those kind of computers and you would be up for coming on the show, let me know.

For BBC and Oric hardware you need to talk to Bas (TheCorfiot), either here or over on Amibay. He's the expert when it comes to these systems.

Bryce.

[Swainy]

I tell you what guys, next time we discuss the Amstrad I'll invite a couple of you on.

[reidrac]

I tell you what guys, next time we discuss the Amstrad I'll invite a couple of you on.

I liked the episode, despite some inaccuracies (those things happen, and not only with the Amstrad btw   ). IMHO Chris was very enthusiastic and he did a good job introducing the CPC to the listeners that didn't know anything about it.

[TFM]

Thanks for the nice podcast! By accident I found this here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlIHzya6b-o[/youtube]

I post it here, because the topic just fits. Why to watch? They show a nice selection of really well done CPC games! 

[steve]

Heh, I just listened to a few seconds near the start of that video and I am already learning a few words of spanish, I learnt "alan sugar" "sinclair" "electronic" and "amstrad". 
At this rate in a few months time maybe I will be able to read the spanish forums.

[TFM]

It tells also "commodore suxx"