The Year of the Amstrad

[dcdrac]

Interesting article from today's Guardian

The year of the Amstrad: how writers learned to love the computer | Books | The

[GeoffB17]

Hmm, strange point of view.   Almost totally about the WP.

Think I've seen a very similar article before - maybe from the 20th Anniv?

I bought my PCW on the 28th Sept 1985, basically within a day or so of our local Dixon's getting their first batch.  Struggled to get the box home on the bus, I wasn't driving then!

I'd seen the review in Personal Computer World, and started pestering Dixons right away, hence I knew the day they were due in.

OK, I did make a LOT of use of the WP, mostly for letters etc.   No book!!   But right from the off, I was doing far more within CP/M, programming, data, general playing/exploring, even some games.  By 1988 I changed jobs from Local Govt to being a programmer/analyst, whereupon I had regular access to PCs (of gradually increasing power) but it was some time before the PC any PC was sufficiently better that I could abandon the PCW.   At the time the PCW first appeared, it wasn't very far behind the PC in performance, but a fraction of the price.

At the very least, the PCW demonstrated that there WAS a MASS market for PCs, and helped get the dramatic spirals of performance going up and price coming down fired up.

And yes, some aspects of the PCW design were pretty 'cheap', cutting some corners as tight as could be, but I always understood that the central LSI chip that contained lots (most ?) of the 'works' was really 'state of the art' and technically pretty influential.

Thanks, AMS.

Geoff

[FloppySoftware]

Hmm, strange point of view.   Almost totally about the WP.

...
But right from the off, I was doing far more within CP/M, programming, data, general playing/exploring, even some games.

Oh, yeah!

CP/M is a wonderful OS, and the Amstrad PCW seems to be the perfect computer for it. They do a very good couple! 

I learned programming with them, and I'm a programmer thanks to them.