Distributor: Amstrad

Manufacturer: Amstrad

Released:UK, 1984

Units Sold:Approx 3 Million

RS: 2/2

Expect to pay: 20 GBP

List of games available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amstrad_CPC_games

Best Fan Site:

http://www.cpczone.net/

Distributor Homepage:

http://www.amstrad.com/default.shtml

General Info:

The Amstrad CPC was a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad during the 1980s and early 1990s. CPC stood for 'Colour Personal Computer', although it was possible to purchase a CPC with a green screen (GT65/66) as well as with the standard colour screen (CTM640).

The first machine, the CPC 464 was introduced in 1984. It was designed to be a direct competitor to the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum systems. The CPC range was very successful, and over 3 million were sold during the machine's lifespan.

It had a good array of games and still has a lively retro following.

Top 10 Must have games:

Alien, Chuckie Egg, Roland Series, The Hobbit, Enduro Racer, Dizzy Series, Impossamole, Street Fighter, Sabre Wulf, Kung Fu Master.

Technical Specs:

All CPC models were based on a Zilog Z80 processor clocked at 4 MHz. Because a common pool of RAM is shared with the video circuits, the Z80 may only make a memory accesses every four cycles - which has the effect of rounding all instruction cycle lengths up to the next multiple of four. The speed is therefore roughly equivalent to a 3.3 MHz machine.

The system came with 64 KB or 128 KB of RAM depending on the model (capable of being expanded to 512k within the Amstrad-standard address space). The machines also featured an (almost) standard 9-pin Atari-style joystick socket which was able to take two joysticks via a splitter.

Technical Advice: