Amstrad CPC464 - The 'Biggest' Retro Computer of the 1980s
The Amstrad CPC464 was a great computer, if a little late to the party.
Even though it probably didn't reach attention across the ocean, in Europe it was a relatively big deal, especially in France.
It was also massive compared to microcomputers of the time or even close after.
Compare the size to other hefty guys:
Just like the Speccy and the MSX computers, plus the Sega Mastersystem, it featured a Z80 microprocessor as the brains of the operation.
While there was a version with an internal floppy drive, most folks in the UK were more than comfortable with tape at this stage, plus the disks were a non-standard type.
Now people with the disk drive tend to swap them out for a Gotek that emulates disks via removable USB storage.
Given that I had the tape driven version I went with an M4 card which adds wifi and SD card reader, plus the ability to switch out ROMs from 32 slots.
That last feature is essential to give you the basic commands to fully benefit from disk access.
Much like the Fujinet on the Atari, and recently many more computers, the internet access goes beyond just file transfer to the ability to do things the original Amstrad geeks never dreamed of.
I mostly use the web UI to drag and drop files to the SD card, though!
While it only sold around 2 million units (around the same number as the Commodore 128, which some consider a failure), it did well in terms of game library getting plenty of conversions from the Speccy and C64.
As far as I know, this machine wasn't even available in North America. The Commodore 128 was successful for Commodore in the sense that it made them money. There was quite a lot of business/productivity software made for the Commodore 128 but almost no games (though of course it could also run in 64 mode and run any Commodore 64 software). If you used your Commodore 64 for word processing, spreadsheets, database stuff, etc., or needed to run CP/M stuff for some reason, then the 128 was a really nice upgrade. If not, there was no real advantage over the cheaper Commodore 64.
I love my 128 just for great aesthetics plus the fact it can drive two screens :)
I'm envying your collection. I'm impressed that people are still creating add-ons. Of course most of the old computers have been emulated, but the real hardware has that certain something. I expect any sort of internet library would be too big to run on these things.
Most 8 bits use serial connections with the heavy lifting done on the “modem” side, but the 16 bits like ST, Amiga, etc did have web browsers and such :)
I used a browser on my Amiga 1200. It probably helped that it was upgraded. Was using a modem, so downloads were slow anyway.