★ HARDWARE ★ LE CPC 464 ★ AWA's THORN IN COMMODORE'S SIDE?|Your Computer) ★ |
| CPC 464 (Your Computer) | Hardware Le Cpc 464 |
The computer industry says 16-bit is the way to go, yet at the same time it keeps proving to us the eight-bit processor is far from dead. Evan McHugh finds AWA's new Z80 machine ample proof of the ongoing value of eight-bit technology. AMERICA may be the place most people expect mass-market computers to come from, but the British have also produced a number of notable successes. Such machines as the BBC and the Sinclair range have presented an alternative that is often more competitive in price or performance than the gee-whiz technology from the US. Joining this illustrious field is the Amstrad CPC-464. The Amstrad CPC-464 is a pretty bombproof piece of computer. It offers a Z-80 microprocessor, colour graphics, 64K of memory, room for expansion and no nasty surprises. The impression you get from it is of a straightforward, no-nonsense home computer with a good level of performance using proven technology. A lot of people have been made to eat crow over processors like the Z-80 and the 6502. “Sixteen-bit will kill eight-bit!” they cried, as newer technology offered more power and greater speed. But it's been at a higher cost, and consequently few home computers have been able to get a foothold using 16-bit processors. People have found they don't need the extra power and can get complete satisfaction from a technology that is well supported by software aimed at people with needs similar to theirs. Consequently, machines with 8-bit processors such as the Microbee, Apple, Commodore and BBC continue a prosperous existence. The Amstrad, definitely a latecomer, will have an uphill battle to get a foothold in the market, but the various extras it offers may tip the balance in a lot of people's minds. The Guts of the Machine Built around the processor is 64K of RAM, of which around 42K is available for user programs. The rest is devoted to operating system memory requirements. One nice feature is that the screen RAM, which gives a maximum resolution of 640 by 200 pixels, is fully relocatable anywhere in memory. A number of other hardware niceties come as standard with the Amstrad. The power supply is built in, unlike in many machines that expect you to tolerate ugly black boxes all over your work space. You also get a monitor as part of the package. Depending on your requirement you can opt for a green screen or a colour screen. In choosing your screen there are a number of approaches you can take. The first, which many people will probably go for, is the price approach: get the cheapie and make do. The green screen is certainly the choice for text-oriented activity. It gives a clear, crisp display of 80-column text which, by the way, is standard on the Amstrad. Where the colour monitor comes into its own is in colour graphics, especially in games. The colour is a little frazzled, but the low cost of the monitor perhaps excuses the fairly noticeable running-together of colour. Another feature of the Amstrad is the built-in computer-operated tape recorder. Someone in the Amstrad marketing department took time from a cocktail party to give it the tres amusant title of ‘datacorder.' This gives much more reliable loading of programs than normal cassette recorders, a definite plus for many users. Peripherals It is possible to attach a pair of floppy disks to the CPC-464. These are the new 9 cm rigid floppies, and you have the option of either one or two. Naturally, because you are using floppies with a Z-80 you get the CP/M 2.2 operating system when you buy the drives. This gives you access to the wide range of software available under CP/M including WordStar, communications packages and dBase. You probably wouldn't want to run a database on a machine like the Amstrad and I wasn't able to test one on our review machine, but word processing is a function many home buyers are looking for which would work well. The slot for the floppy disk drives appears from some of the documentation to be also usable as a general-purpose expansion port. The quote from the manual is a bit obscure, but for the record here's what it says: “Many hardware interfaces are available via jump blocks or indirection to provide software expansion facilities.” The guy from the marketing department should have stayed at the cocktail party. There is also expansion for a parallel printer and joysticks. The keyboard on the Amstrad is quite good in some respects and a little disappointing in others. One of the trade-offs you get when putting the electronics under the keyboard is that, of necessity, the keys end up a long way above the desk. The only examples to have overcome this are the Microbee and the Sinclair range. On the Amstrad you may find you need a higher chair to reach the keys; they are a trifle higher even than the keys on the Commodore 64. This is a pity, because on a machine that will probably be used for word processing, that extra height could prove a strain on the typist. When you do reach the keys, however, you find they are quite pleasant to use. The key travel is not long but the amount of pressure required to operate them is light and positive. They make a slightly tinny sound when pressed. Documentation Just one manual is supplied with the Amstrad, but it adequately introduces the machine and its BASIC. Special sections cover sound and graphics. Two others are sold separately and would be a requirement for the more sophisticated user. The supplied manual, which is about 260 pages long, gives a lot of help to beginners and explains the way many of the machine's features can be used. This is done in a helpful, instructive style. Some of the instructions are not required in Australia, particularly those relating to putting power plugs on the cables from the equipment. In Britain they do not enjoy the same standardisation of wall plugs that exists in Australia, so the plug is fitted by the purchaser. What the manual does not do is give instruction on the inner workings of the machine and how to get to them, which is why the other two manuals would be required by a serious hacker in order to do his or her own development on the machine. These extra manuals apparently offer a lot of information not readily supplied by other manufacturers, such as the routines involved in some of the BASIC commands. See no evil, hear no evil Amstrad has obviously learned the lesson that any machine released for the home market must have good capabilities in the sound and graphics departments if it is going to succeed. The best evidence of the success of this philosophy in the Amstrad is its games. The best of the ones we looked at is ‘Codeword Mat', which involved three-dimensional star battles as your craft flies through a star cloud. The spaceships grow large as they approach, the perspective rapidly changes from front to rear view and the stars converge or disperse evenly across the screen as you fly the ship. While all this is going on, a number of voices from the sound chip make noises of the ship flying at various pitches, depending on speed, and imitate the sounds of firing your photon torpedoes and the crashes as your ship sustains a hit. The graphics come in a number of modes. The first of these is 640 by 200 and lets you display two colours. Then there is a 160 by 200 screen that allows you to program every point in any one of 16 colours, the 16 colours being selected from a total palette of 27 colours. A number of commands lets you create your own graphics, including a draw command for plotting and a window command for opening up to eight text windows and a graphics window on the screen. Sound programming is well supported with a sound command, ENV (for envelope) command, and commands to control ‘sound rendezvous' when using three voices. Software Limited software is available for the Amstrad both on cassettes and floppy disks. More will probably become available depending on the amount of success the machines enjoys and the efforts made by the manufacturer to make available Amstrad-compatible CP/M software. From the software that accompanied our review machine it seems the two main areas currently supported are games, which you would expect, and education software, which is a pleasant surprise. All of the software was of good quality, making efficient use of sound, graphics and the computational abilities of the machine. There was a limited amount of ‘business' software aimed at the home, but there is no reason why some serious applications material could not be brought out for people who want to do a few ‘real' jobs with a good low-cost computer. The Amstrad is distributed and supported in Australia by AWA Thorn, whose marketing department should be able to tell you where your nearest dealer is if you contact them on (02) 638-8***. The basic machine with a green-screen monitor will cost $550, and the system with colour monitor goes for $800. Add-on disk drives will set you back another $400, and joysticks, games and educational software will cost about $20 each. Given the price and performance of the machine it will certainly make a lot of sense to many people. The only reason it might not do well is its relative novelty on the Australian scene. However, for someone who wants to mix games playing with serious applications, the Amstrad CPC-464 could be an ideal computer.
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