Talk:Amstrad CPC

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Suggestion - Can we add a bit on the addition of added Firmware. My 6128 was always using PROTEXT? from Arnor? and a bank of other ROM based software Victuallers 11:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Comparison section moved from article 2 RS232 printer connector 3 3 1/2" drives 4 Exceptional games 5 Criticism of CPC software (games) 6 7-bit printer port 7 Comparison 8 Aleste 520EX 9 Is the Aleste 520EX just an Atari ST clone (or hoax)? 10 Games quality

[edit] Comparison section moved from article

The following text was submitted to the article by an anonymous contributor, but was subsequently moved over here due to its rather "unencyclopedic" form---as it stands now, it smacks somewhat like a newsgroup posting (nothing wrong with that per se; it just doesn't fit in a wkp article, looking like that).

CPC and other small Computers of this time

trying a subjective ;-) & short run on that item you got the following: it was simple said better then most of Sinclair's computers, lacking even the microdrives, having a good keyboard and you haven't so much hardware bugs. Well, they are earlier in the market. it compares well with the Commodore C64, better BASIC on the CPC, but there're no sprites it was quite cheaper than the early IBM PC, but lacking it's modularity and future. it was cheaper than the early Apple Macintosh, which have a GUI, but to less memory it was worse than the later Atari ST and Amiga, in speed and 3.5" drives In those days you've to wait for hours calculating a single mandelbrot, hoping to have a Gray some day ... :-) As the Commodore, the CPC was a well done homecomputer, made for working and writing programs, for playing, sometimes. It was brave one, surviving nowadays in emulators and old, but working electronical history.

Regarding the first of the items above, I observe that the "better than"-argument, as far as it's relevant, follows partly from the difference in release dates* of the machines (as the contributor indeed indicates), and that the keyboard should be given more attention in the article than is now present.

(* due to the time interval's progress of electronics, falling prices of components, and Amstrad's advantage of not having to do very pioneering work in home computers)

As for the second point above, which is generally correct, the main features of Locomotive BASIC on the CPC, compared to the Spectrum's Sinclair BASIC and the C64's Commodore BASIC should perhaps be more clearly noted in the article.

The three remaining items is not particularly relevant, I think, since the 16-bit machines listed were not direct competitors to the CPC (or the Spectrum or the C64, for that matter, although some CBM adverts of the early 80s actually listed the original IBM PC as an expensive alternative to the C64).

All in all, however, I think the section offered a reminder of several points to be improved in the present article. --Wernher 21:25, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Gosh. What is it about the Amster that attracts people who can't write grammatical English? 8¬)

How good's your German? There's something about the style of the bulleted list and the paragraph after it that suggests a native German-speaker, to me. PeteVerdon 01:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

You raise some good points. I also see that since I went thru' that article a week or so back, several other [badly-written] additions have been made. I shall earmark it for another rewrite as soon as I have the spare time! -- Liam Proven 17:14, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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OK guys...I added tons of stuff and corrected some of the older ones..."Amstrad floppy disks were "hard" on the inside" like Zip Drives ??? Who wrote that ? :-) Try and slide a 3" disk open: it has a normal "soft" magnetic disk, unfortunately...

Also, no mention was made on the possibility of using 5&frac14 disks and (external) drives, which many power users did, for the sheer cost of 3" disks... EpiVictor 11:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Someone should add how and why the CPC supports some C64 games, I experienced several C64 games that loaded normally. Most likely due to the cassettes just stroing BASIC commands not actually assembly.. but thats pure speculation. Info from someone who knows would be good. Also it would be good if this document could be changed to British english as well.... color -> Colour etc (If you need justification, its a British company that sold its product mainly to Europeans and Australians (who also use British Spelling)). UnlimitedAccess 06:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

It is just possible that the CPC may read DATA out of some C64 tapes, but this depends on how the data was encoded to an audio signal. E.g. the frequency for "1"'s and "0"'s might be different, or even by the whole encoding scheme, which would make "speedload" or "turbotapes" essentially incompatible with different computers' datacorders.

Even if the C64 and CPC (and ZX Spectrum, for that matter...) tapes or disks were or could be made compatible under certain circumstances, "normal" binary programs wouldn't load at all, and BASIC programs would only load if they were saved in ASCII (and not in the usual space-saving format), unless it was common between the machines.

Even then, they would only be parsed and able to run only if they were very "clean" basic programs, e.g. with only simple commands and structures common to all BASIC dialects like 'PRINT', 'IF'..'THEN'...'ELSE' etc. while they would miserably fail to run at the first 'POKE' instruction (which made 'BASIC' programs, de-facto, machine dependant) and at any specialized 'C64' BASIC instruction or expression (just remember how screen colors were mapped to keyboard keys in the C64, or how the C64 lacked 'BASIC' instructions for sound and graphics). EpiVictor 17:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Well it happened, Garfield the game, Dynamic Duo and Kentilla for C64 all worked on my CPC, no other game I found worked though.. :), but I didnt have that big a collection of C64 games to try. UnlimitedAccess 21:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure those games weren't actually stored in "dual format" tapes?

Some developers/publishers had, in fact, marketed "multi-format" games with the same game for e.g. C64 and Amstrad CPC on one tape, but on different sides, with little success. I mean, even the BASIC dialects of the two machines aren't compatible, let alone the hardware... EpiVictor 23:35, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Possitive, Kentilla was a text adventure game and I have it for both the C64 and the CPC464 version and both work on my CPC... If they were duel format, they are unlabeled as such.UnlimitedAccess 02:13, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Garfield very well could of been duel format because it appeared tempremental and only worked some of the time.. perhaps it was luck when i picked the CPC side or not.UnlimitedAccess 02:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, the cases can only be two: since Kentilla was a text adventure game, as long at didn't use any sound or ghraphics, it could probably have been written entirely in BASIC and rely on ASCII saving for loading and running on both machines (like some sort of "portable software", if you prefer). The other option would be of course making a small BASIC loader (written so its compatible with both machines) and then the loader discerns what machine its running on and executes the proper machine code located in an external file or in the DATA portion of the BASIC file (with POKE's, PEEK's, etc. ). This has of course the disadvantage of taking up double space for each game, so it can only wotk with simple programs.

Most probably, your games were either twin format or, in the case of the text adventure, written in very clean basic. This can be verified with an emultor, at any time...EpiVictor 17:14, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RS232 printer connector

Was it? RS232 is an 8-pin connection: I remember the printer port to be an edge-connector style of thing, much like the expansion connector, but I may be wrong.

It looks to me as though it wasn't. The French variant of Wikipedia states for the 646 that "On regrettera notamment l'absence d'interface RS232" and the comp.sys.amstrad.8bit FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/amstrad8bit-faq/) states in answer 3.4 "Neither the CPC nor the PCW have a RS 232"

RS232 is a serial standard. The CPC's printer port was a Centronics-ish parallel port, an edge connector on the mainboard. As I recall looking at the manual, it actually only provided 7-bit support (for some reason the MSB was connected to ground). This caused me great bother when I tried to get it to provide graphical print-out on an old EPSON 9-pin printer because it couldn't send a complete ESC/P command set.

[edit] 3 1/2" drives

There seems to be an argument as to whether these were more or less popular than the standard 3" drives. To my mind, the 3" drives were certainly more prevalent among Amstrad owners and a fair amount of commercial software was released on this format. Of course major hobbyists would have used 3 1/2" drives but these are in the minority. Cpc464 11:56, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Commercial software (especially games) were always released in 3" format. However, the so-called "power users" as well as people needing to keep a lot of data quickly turned to the cheaper 5 1/4" disks for storing their games, and (partly) for exchanging data with a PC, which was sort of possible in the 5 1/4" format. There were even "certified" 5 1/4" drives issued for the CPC series. The 3 1/2" format was POSSIBLE to use with a sort of hardware hack, but I think that "official" 3 1/2" drives were never made for the CPC, so that's something only power users could do. Besides, not many other machines used 360KB double-sided in 3 1/2" format. EpiVictor 22:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exceptional games

As well as Gryzor and Turrican, there's a game I remember which was only available on the CPC and from a programming point of view it blew everything away. I think it was called Helter Skelter and the guy who developed it also wrote for CPC User as "The Hairy Hacker". The game was so complex that when run from tape, it actually had to overwrite some of the base O/S to give it enough space to run.

I'm not adding it as I'm not 100% sure this is the correct name, but if someone can confirm then this definitely deserves to go in as an example.

IainP (talk) 20:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[1] Here is a review and screenshot of the game, but seriously neither the screenshot nor the review look very promising :-( It looks like it's yelling "I'M A SPECTRUM PORT!", "quite a contrast to the gorgeous loading screen and the cute and catchy music" as the review says. This other review is in german, but the CPC screenshots from the game look spectrumesque :-( EpiVictor 22:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Just played the game...well it's nothing exceptional, and nothing seems to indicate a "complex programming". The graphics are basic, the music is catchy and the frame rate suffers a lot...now I don't have the "sk1llz" to check if it does indeed overwrite the tape OS while loading (BTW, the basic program modules are within the 64K limit) but else it's NOT an "exceptional game", under any point of view EpiVictor 22:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of CPC software (games)

The second and third paragraphs in this section contradict one another. Either the CPC had hardware scrolling, or it didn't... but on reading the rest of the section, I suspect it only had horizontal scrolling. Is it saying that the display memory has a complicated, non-linear arrangement? Or that to scroll quickly, you'd have to selectively copy memory around?

Also, it does a bit of a disservice to the ZX Spectrum and C64 display attributes, which allow 16-colour, 'high-resolution' graphics by limiting the number of colours in each 8x8 pixel square to 2. (The C64 had hardware sprites, and afaics many C64 users were not even aware of this limitation.) Other systems e.g. the NES and MSX1 used similar schemes. --StuartBrady 15:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 7-bit printer port

I remember as a big deal the choice of supporting only 7 bits in the parallel Centronics printer port, i.e. the most significant bit was simply not wired. This meant that special characters such as umlauts were inaccesible, and numerous work-arounds were published then. Even CPC enthusiasts admitted that this was even more idiotic than the 3 inch floppy drive. I'm surprised not to find this fact mentioned here. Or did it apply only to the German Schneider models? Simon A. 13:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It happened to absolutely all Amstrad computers, even for the first IBM PC compatibles (the later ones included 8 bit)

Improve the article correcting that fault :p

—Claunia 21:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison

From the article: "CPC titles rarely featured smooth scrolling or sprite handling due to programming complexities". Now, I suppose the smooth scrolling is a fair enough point, but sprite handling? Sprites are everywhere in CPC games. It may not be hardware sprite handling, but I don't think that makes a difference.Cpc464 13:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The "smooth" adjective refers to both "scrolling" and "sprite handling", it doesn't mean that the Amstrad CPC titles didn't have ANY scrolling or sprites. If you find the phrase confusing as it is...well...rephrase it :-) EpiVictor 16:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The c64 could have attribute clash too as it had a limited number of colours per pixel block, obviously not as servere as a speccy, thats why 64 games had chunky graphics to avoid it.

• More colours (27 vs 16)
• Faster disc drive
• Much better BASIC and OS/firmware support
• Better picture (CPC monitor vs TV) (Monitor included as standard)
• Standard support for CP/M
• Graphics modes are not attribute/colour map based (i.e. Any pixel can be any colour)
• Better expansion ROM support
• Easier to program CPU (Z80 vs 6502)
• More reliable machines ( the return rate for CPC's was about 2% compared to about 10% for the C64 and 40% for the Amiga)
• Faster processor (clock rate)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.112.35.82 (talk • contribs) 2006-07-02 17:57:49.

I really don't think these sorts of comparisons are helpful. It's difficult to know whether they are biased... and sometimes bigger numbers aren't everything. (Consider, for example, the quality of a machine's BASIC implementation... how do you measure that fairly?) --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:34, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As for the claim the CPC had a faster CPU, the clock rate isn't everything (we see that even today). A 1 MHz 6502 was very fast, a Z80 at the same speed would have been much slower. Anyways, I agree with StuartBrady about the comparsion stuff not being very helpful. 85.19.140.9 17:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aleste 520EX

I've cleaned up the text as much as I can, but I can't find anything out about this machine. If nobody can find any sources for this, I think it will have to go. --StuartBrady (Talk) 12:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

From its description it seems more like a "general purpose 8-bit computer" like the Sprinter, whose main purpose is ZX-Spectrum hardware emulation but is (should be?) flexible enough to emulate other Z80 based systems. EpiVictor 15:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

However, following and translating the provided link, it seems that this "Patisonic" firm has produced only a ZX Spectrum clone, and an unspecified 64-K machine with 4-channel digital sound output...but no mentions to an "Aleste 520 EX" machine or anything suggesting they designed and built a "Super CPC". EpiVictor 15:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the Aleste 520EX just an Atari ST clone (or hoax)?

The link provided] seems more of a hoax or original research, both against wikipedia's policy, and does not contain any useful info, yet.

In any case, the alledged "Aleste 520 EX" specifications look a lot like those of the Atari ST and closer to the MSX2 than to the Amstrad CPC (512 KB Ram, nearly identical video modes with the MSX and Atari ST, same sound chip, same 3.5" floppy drive) and the CPU speed (8 MHz) is highly atypical for a Z80 (not impossible) but again, closer the the Atari ST's 8 Mhz (with a 68000).

Even the name...Aleste 520EX ...Compare to "Atari 520ST"...very suspicious, and "Aleste" was also a successful series of games on the MSX, if I'm not wrong. On the other hand the Patisonic firm, on their website, only claim to have made a Spectrum ZX clone called Patisonic 48ST, with no references to either Amstrad, CPC or MSX compatibles.

In any case, from the description alone the "Aleste 520EX" classifies more as an MSX clone than a CPC clone, perhaps as a counterpart to the Sprinter computer, which instead focuses on the ZX Spectrum. EpiVictor 23:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

No idea! There is an article on the Russian Wikipedia, ru:Алеста (компьютер) (English translation) but the article is rather new. It's an Article for Deletion, apparently because it was felt that the information belonged in the CPC article instead. It was created from 62.84.15.215, which also was used to edit the Aleste 520EX section in this article. --StuartBrady (Talk) 19:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this in more detail:

• Memory: I wouldn't take too much stock in the fact that this had 512 kB of RAM — it was quite common for these clones to add more memory.

• Video modes: These don't match the modes of the MSX2 at all... so either the MSX and CPC software was modified, or the machine had more than just those two modes.

• Sound chip: the MSX and CPC used the AY-3-891x, and the Atari ST used the YM2149 (which was basically the same). From the description given here, the Aleste had something quite different.

• Disk drive: this is hardly a distinctive feature.

• CPU speed: for the mid 90's, an 8 MHz Z80 doesn't sound at all suprising. The SAM Coupé had a 6 MHz Z80... but if it runs MSX-DOS and CPC software, it must surely have a Z80.

Quite believable actually: "Sinclair User" mentions the Z80H running at 7 MHz[2], and this was in 1986 — 8 years earlier! --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree, it does sound more like an MSX clone... but perhaps with some CPC compatability? As for the name, they could have just wanted to pretend it was an ST. Some of the NES clones have Playstation and N64-like cases! OTOH, it could be a hoax, I've no real evidence one way or the other. --StuartBrady (Talk) 20:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

After some more digging: http://aleste520.narod.ru/index.html says (translated):

The computer Of "alesta" these are clone "Amstrad S.PS" but is working on by control MSXDOS. [...] Some technical special features were borrowed from MSX 2, "Atari ST" and "Amiga". "alesta" was popular among amateurs MSX since it had the analogous organization of memory, the size of disks, the operating system MSXDOS There was complete compatability with MSX not, but "alesta" computer was accessible, whereas To "yamashku" it was not purchase

It goes on to suggest that MSX compatability was done through emulation. I'm finding the whole thing rather confusing. --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like a hybrid of various parts of 80s and 90s home computers. I meants the video modes match more those of the ATARI ST, not the MSX or MSX2:

• Low resolution - 320×200 (16 color), palette of 512 colors
• Medium resolution - 640×200 (4 color), palette of 512 colors
• High resolution - 640×400 (mono), monochrome

So at least the first two video modes seem to match, as does the palette.

About the sound, it seems implied that this machine, if it's real, used the AY-3-891x chip (presumably built-in) as a means for MSX and CPC sound compatibility, and some kind of external "soundcard" for playing back MODs/ST3s. This would narrow it down to a DMA-fed 4 channel DAC or something equivalent, maybe even ripped Paula chips from Amigas, as it would be hard for a Z80 to play MODs by software mixing alone (well, there was a MODplayer called Galaxy that could play MODs at 22 KHz on an 8 Mhz XT, but that's another story).

No problems about the CPU...there's no reason why it shouldn't use a faster Z80 at the time. All in all however, the machine seems a lot like an MSX and CPC oriented Sprinter, which combines "advanced" hardware and software to act as a relatively expandable and versatile emulator. BTW, even the Sprinter, through heavy reprogramming, is capable of running CPC software but its primary architecture is optimized for ZX Spectrum emulation. If this Aleste 520EX thing is real, then most of its features suggest that its designed with MSX compatibility as its primary purpose (not least, because of the great numbers of MSX software available on 3.5" disks), and secondarily for Amstrad CPC emulation and acting as a low-end STM/ST3 player (if so, there could be a small demoscene for this machine). EpiVictor 10:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

In 1993, I really doubt it was using FPGAs. BTW, the S3M claim seems especially dubious, as S3M can use 32 channels. --StuartBrady (Talk) 13:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither this section nor the Russian article mention the 640×400 mode for some reason. It's probably not a coincidence that both have been added at roughly the same time. --StuartBrady (Talk) 13:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the "russian page" seems to have been created recently, perhaps specifically for (misdirecting?) this article, and IMO there's a large chance that this "Aleste 520EX" machine is entirely imaginary and is a sort of "collage" between features of 8-bit and 16-bit home computers of the 80s and 90s: the video modes of the ATARI ST (and the name, too), the sound chip of the Amiga, the CPU of most 8-bit machines etc. etc. Also, on the few collectors pages there's nothing similar to this phantomatic Aleste 520EX. My proposal? Remove it from the article and at most make it have an article of its own, perhaps in the catetogory of "Rare hardware" or even "Imaginary hardware", if there is one ;-). Even if this "Aleste 520EX" was real, it is heavily implied by its description that CPC compatibility was secondary, and if so then the Sprinter should be mentioned as a potentially CPC compatible machine, too. In either case, there's little to keep it in this article. EpiVictor 15:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

It's best to assume good faith, but I would have to agree — it should go, so I'll remove it. --StuartBrady (Talk) 16:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Games quality

The games quality on the CPC could be quite variable but when it was good it was exceptional. Also, for certain styles of games the CPC was by far and away the best 8-bit mainstream platform, ie 3D isometric and vector orientated titles. The CPC even had a filled polygon game in the shape of Starstrike 2 and looked like an early ST or Amiga title. The disc version of Starglider also pushed the early 16-bit titles in frame rate and smoothness and was probably the most sophisticated wireframe game of the day.

The CPC versions of Knightlore, Alien 8, Head Over Heels & Batman ran at higher resolution and with more colour and no colour clash than compared to the Spectrum versions which are ususally used as the example platform for these particular titles. In particular the CPC version of Fairlight was significantly better graphically than the Spectrum version.

There was always a question mark on the scrolling ability of the CPC but when programmed intelligently it could be superb as shown in the port of Uridium which was arguably better than the C64 version. As previously mentioned the quality of the French software in perticular was very high with the likes of Get Dexter and Doomsday Blues. The audio side of these games as well also pushed the AY soundchip very hard into passable even for a C64 comparison. Though the SID chip in the C64 was a much better sound chip when coded for well the CPC sound chip could give a good account of itself and some excellent pieces of music were written for it.

Games that should not be forgotten as excellent (quality conversions from other formats or arcade conversions) and sometimes groundbreaking titles on the CPC included: Starglider, Rescue On Fractalus, The Eidolon, Yie Ar King Fu, Little Computer People, Starstrike 2, Mercenary, Elite, Kong Strikes Back, Bruce Lee, The Sentinel, Starquake, Dun Darach, Marpsort, Tir Na Nog, Sweevo's World, Knightlore, Alien 8, Head Over Heels, Batman, Bobsleigh, Combat Lynx, Project Future, Dan Dare, Uridium, Bounder, Trailblazer, Sorcery, Exolon, Frost Byte, Barry McGuigan's Boxing, Fairlight, Xeno, Revolution, Spindizzy, Tempest, Wizball, Cauldron, Cauldron 2, Barbarian, Get Dexter, Doomsday Blues, Starion, Highway Encounter, Alien Highway, Turbo Esprit, Deep Strike, Tau Ceti, The Academy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.8.248.2 (talk) 11:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Sure, none said the CPC didn't have good games (and the screenshots used are mostly from what would be considered "the good ones" for the CPC). On the other hand, as an ex-Amstrad user, I had my fair amount of Amsoft titles shoved into my face, and for each title I was proud (or at least not ashame) of showing to a C64 or Spectrum user, there were 3 or 4 that had no reason to exist, if not as a bad joke. EpiVictor 23:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)