| ★ HARDWARE ★ LES PC D'AMSTRAD ★ AMSTRAD PCW 8256 ★ |
| AMSTRAD PCW 8256: PLOP ! UN NOUVEL AMSTRAD (Hebdogiciel) | AMSTRAD PCW 8256 (Popular Computing Weekly) | NEWAMSTRAD 8256 EXPOSED | AMSTRAD PCW 8256 (CPC Magazin) | AMSTRAD PCW 8256 (Byte) | Amstrad PCW8256 |
A complete word processor and computer that costs less than many electric typewriters Progress in the computing business is a more subtle phenomenon than is commonly appreciated. At first glance, it appears to be a steep upward curve: more bits on the data bus, more MIPS (million instructions per second) in the central processor, more memory, more pixels on the screen, more bugs in a bigger operating system—in fact, more of everything. But in the real world, an apparent step backward can represent progress. Amstrad (Amsoft, Brentwood House, 169 Kings Road, Brentwood, Essex CM 14 4EF, England) recently loaned me its new PCW 82 56 (see photo 1), a Z80-based personal computer and word processor that runs the "old” CP/M Plus operating system. So where is the progress in that? In the price. The PCW 82 56 retails for £399 in the U.K. This price buys a complete system including a 90- by 32-character green-screen monitor, a near-letter-quality printer, and software. Moreover, the PCW emulates a dedicated word processor with a keyboard full of special keys. For the first time you can buy a completely functional, ready-to-go word-processing system for less than the price of a modest electric typewriter. The effect on the market here appears to be quite galvanizing. Suddenly, writer friends of mine who have resisted buying a computer for years are asking, "How good is that new Amstrad?" or even, "I'm getting one of those new Amstrads!" It seems as if £500 represents the magic psychological pricing barrier for self-employed professionals, just as £200 has become the barrier for home games players, at least in this country. I wrote about Amstrads debut machine, the CPC 464, in fairly positive terms in the January 1985 BYTE U.K. (page 401). Since then, Amstrad boss Alan Sugar has led the company to become the only U.K. personal computer manufacturer to increase profits and stock price amidst the general financial gloom. His formula looks very much like a hardware version of Borland International's road to success—decent products at prices people can afford. The Hardware The PCW 8256 is a 4-MHz (megahertz) Z80-based computer with 256K bytes of RAM (random-access read/write memory). Since the Z80 can only directly address 64K bytes, the RAM is bank-switched under the CP/M Plus (sometimes called CP/M 3.0) operating system. This provides for a 61K-byte TPA (transient program area), and all the spare memory (normally more than 100K bytes) is automatically configured as a RAM disk called drive M. The video buffer occupies its own memory bank and can only be accessed by CP/M calls. Physically, the PCW consists of three units. The monitor unit, which looks very much like a portable television set, sits on a small pedestal and contains the power supply and all the computer components (there is no separate system unit). The detached keyboard plugs into the side of the monitor. A dot-matrix printer takes its power from a 24-volt socket on the back of the monitor, so the whole system can be fed by a single power cord. In the top right corner of the monitor there is a 3-inch disk drive with a space below it (covered by the maker's name plate) for an optional second drive. Amstrad made the controversial decision some time ago to run with Hitachi's 3-inch microfloppies rather than Sony's 3/2-inch standard that Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Apricot have adopted. When pressed on this point, Amstrad cheerfully claims to have sold enough computers (450,000) to establish its own standard. Right now, though, the decision creates headaches in transporting old CP/M software to the new format. The 3-inch disk looks quite similar to the now well-known 3/2-inch disk, although it is rectangular rather than square. It is fully enclosed in a plastic case with an automatically retracting metal shutter to protect the recording surface. Amstrad uses the disks in single-headed drives with 180K bytes on each side of the disk. Each unit is therefore treated as two separate disks—it must be flipped over to access the other side—and each side needs to be formatted independently. Photo 1: The new Amstrad PCW 82 56 personal computer and word processor. The green-screen monitor is unorthodox in that it can display 90 columns by 32 rows rather than the CP/M (and MS-DOS) standard of 80 columns by 24 rows. This enables you to see a lot more text on screen than usual. A utility program that comes with the system switches it to 80 columns by 24 rows for use with standard CP/M software, while another utility switches from green-on-black to black-on-green display for those (like myself) who prefer it. The monitor emulates a Zenith Z-19 terminal when installing standard CP/M software. The display's definition is respectable, if not outstanding. It's similar to that of a decent serial terminal. The display character set is also quite good with true descenders and serifs. It uses a full 8-bit character representation allowing 2 56 symbols; the extras are used as on the IBM Personal Computer to support math symbols and European language characters. The screen is capable of dot graphics at a resolution of 720 by 248 pixels, and Digital Research's GSX (Graphics System Extension) software is bundled with the machine. In fact, as on previous Amstrad machines, video handling is completely "soft," with no distinction between text and graphics modes; all characters are bitmapped and could be redefined by a competent system programmer. Despite this, the CP/M applications programmer sees conventional character-based output, as CP/M Plus handles all the underlying trickery. The keyboard unit has proper keys with sculpted tops and full travel. The feel is not as good as an IBM PC's, but it is much better than the typical home computer. The keys make a hollow “boxy" sound rather like the Macintosh's. I found the spacing cramped, with no gap between the main keyboard and the special-keys pad. The keyboard has no less than six special keys level with the space bar (i.e., below the shift keys), which also takes some getting used to. The whole keyboard is software-redefin-able using a CP/M utility SETKEYS and a file of new key assignments. The dot-matrix printer has a normal-size 80-column carriage but is very small in the fore-and-aft dimension (around half the depth of an Epson FX-80). The printer comes with a detachable tractor feed and can accept either single sheets or continuous paper. For me the most heartbreaking feature of this printer is that its high-quality-mode output is as good as anything I can get from my Epson FX-80, which cost me almost as much as a whole PCW system. While not quite daisy-wheel quality, the text is as good as that from a portable electric typewriter, with no dots discernible. High-quality mode gives 960- by 1368-dot resolution at 20 characters per second—faster than cheap daisywheel units—while draft mode runs at 90 cps. The printer supports underlining (word or continuous), bold, italic, true subscripts and superscripts, and five font sizes (10, 12, 15, and 17 pitch, and proportionally spaced). Amstrad has chosen to fully integrate the printer into the hardware and software. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to fit alternative printers. The advantage is that software control of the printer is superb. You can press a dedicated Ptr key at any time to bring up a menu from which you can control all of the printer's functions, including linefeeds, form feeds, and switching from single sheet to continuous paper. The software can even detect when the paper-bail bar is retracted and prompt you to close it. In direct print (i.e., typewriter) mode, you can control the print-head position using the cursor keys; this provides sufficient accuracy so that you are able to fill in complicated forms. Given the outstanding price, I think that Amstrads decision to integrate the printer was the right one. The PCW is being sold as a complete writing tool, and if you wish to use alternative printers, you probably should buy something else (of course, then you'll end up spending a lot more money). There are no standard I/O (input/ output) ports provided on the basic Amstrad PCW 82 56. Amstrad supplies an extension unit that adds both RS-232C serial and Centronics parallel ports. The Word Processor As with the original Amstrad CPC 464, software development for the PCW was done by Locomotive Software. In particular, Locomotive put up an extended version of its BASIC (called Mallard BASIC) and the dedicated word-processing program Locoscript. Locoscript does not run under CP/M Plus, but it is a turnkey program that runs straight on the machine, all disk-management activities being performed from within its own menu system. One drawback is that although Locoscript uses the CP/M physical disk format (and can read CP/M directories), it does not use standard CP/M files, so it cannot be used as the system editor. The initial disk-manager screen displays the directories not only of the floppy and RAM drives but of the separate "groups" on each device. Groups are really CP/M-user partitions, but Locomotive has doctored the software to manage them in a more transparent and intuitive way (more like Macintosh folders). Each device can have up to eight groups on it, and each group contains the same kind of document. The group contains a file defining a template for that group (e.g., letters, memos, reports) and also a file of keyboard macros called “phrases." These utility files are automatically copied to the RAM disk when the system is booted up, although you must deliberately copy your document files to the RAM disk. The directories of all the groups, are displayed in vertical columns, and the screen smooth-scrolls sideways to view them all. There is no command line. All file activities are selected by moving a reverse-video cursor block to the filename. One useful feature is that deleted files are put into limbo; on request you may see a menu of limbo files and call them back if desired. Limbo files are eventually written over as the disk fills up, but this feature provides good insurance against disaster for the neophyte. The large number of dedicated editing keys on the keyboard simplifies the use of Locoscript. There are keys to move through text by character, word, paragraph, page, or user-defined "unit," and to move to either end of a line. Find and Replace functions have a special key. Cut, Paste, and Copy keys let you rearrange the text, and there are two delete keys, Del > and < Del. These make word processing seem rather blissful after years of struggling with nonstandard backspace and delete key actions. This excellent keyboard is not without its drawbacks for experienced computer users. The escape key is called Exit, the control key is called Alt, and Return and Enter are separate keys. The large Return key performs a typewriter-style carriage return, but you must use the Enter key to execute commands: I'll guarantee that it will take weeks for an experienced computer user's reflexes to adapt. For a first-time user, though, the arrangement is far less mysterious than the curious hodgepodge we have come to accept as the "standard" keyboard. The Exit key is used consistently to terminate operations, while a different key. Can (for cancel), will countermand a mistaken selection. Commands in Locoscript are selected from pull-down menus activated by function keys F1 through F8. A master menu of the current func-tion-key assignments always appears at the top of the screen. You make menu selections either by entering the initial letter of an item or by moving the cursor, Macintosh-style. When you have gained some familiarity with the commands, you can bypass the menus by hitting the special Select and Deselect keys on either side of the space bar, followed by any recognizable abbreviation for the command. If your abbreviation is too short to be unique (e.g., R could stand for reverse or right-justify), then a shortened menu containing only those options that could fit will be displayed—very smart indeed. Locoscript has great formatting capabilities. You can introduce new formats, called layouts, at any point in the text, and they take effect on all the text below them until they are overidden by another new layout. A layout includes the margin and tab settings, type pitch and style, and line spacing and justification parameters. You can create a new layout by editing on screen from a pull-down menu; this layout is then assigned a number and stored in memory. Henceforth, you can insert that layout like any other attribute by entering a single code into the text. If you modify an existing layout, the changes you make automatically take effect everywhere you have used that format; the layouts used are automatically saved with the document. As the cursor enters the zone of a new layout, the layout number is displayed along with other status information at the top of the screen. I found this feature more powerful and easier to use than Microsoft Word's style sheets. The Show menu controls whether attribute codes, layout ruler lines, and other nontext items are visible. You can have spaces visible as dots, Wang-writer-style, and carriage returns shown as bent arrows. The attribute codes are words rather than cryptic control codes. For example, boldface is indicated by + Bold to select and -Bold to deselect, and a layout might appear as +Layout3. Only underlining is shown as such on the screen. Locoscript is an inserting editor with wordwrap and it features semiautomatic reformatting. The text is reformatted from the cursor position onward whenever you issue a movement command, so the screen always reflects the current state of the document. The down side of the story lies in the speed of some of its functions. 1 ran the BYTE word-processing benchmarks on Locoscript using a standard 23K-byte document with the results shown in table 1. The times for Document Save and Search are excruciatingly slow, while the times for Document Load and Scroll compare well with WordStar and other programs. Slow saving is particularly dangerous, as it discourages frequent safety backups. The small difference between RAM drive and floppy timings indicates that the problem lies in the program itself and is not significantly I/O-bound. The PCW's disk system can physically copy a 23K-byte file in 9 seconds. The root cause of the speed problem is the internal representation used to hold text, which involves traversing a linked list, and it is the price you pay for great flexibility of layout and formatting. In practice it means that Loco-script is usable for letters and short documents up to 5K bytes, but not really for books or theses. You could run WordStar as an alternative, but that would be a shame, since Locoscript is so superior in every other way.
CP/M Plus is the latest version of the famous 8-bit operating system that many of us grew up with. It fixes most of what was wrong with CP/M 2.2 and adds features that make it feel more like MS-DOS. For example, you no longer need to hit Control-C after changing a disk, you can edit command lines, and the error trapping is almost civilized. CP/M Plus came along just as the IBM PC was transforming the personal computer market, and very few implementations became available. The Amstrad might draw some new attention to CP/M Plus. It is certainly a grown-up operating system, and there are lots of serious programs available that will be able to run under it—just about any- The PCW version of CP/M Plus includes the GSX software and a bunch of programmer tools, including the RMAC macro assembler, SID debugger, XREF cross-referencer, and loads of utilities. You also get Mallard BASIC and Digital Research's Dr. Logo bundled in for your £399. The latter is a first-class implementation of Logo that looks particularly nice on the PCW's high-resolution graphics screen. Mallard BASIC is business-oriented and differs from earlier Amstrad BASICs that were home-computer-ori-ented with lots of color and sound commands. (Incidentally, the name Mallard refers to a famous British railway locomotive that held the world speed record.) Mallard is a large superset of MBASIC version 5.2, and its claim to fame lies in a keyed file-management extension called Jetsam. Jetsam provides indexed sequential and random file accesses with file and record locking. You can use the keyed file-management extension to write multiuser database programs, although you can't use it under the single-user CP/M Plus. To get some impression of its speed —Mallard is, after all, an illustrious name to live up to—I ran the BYTE BASIC benchmarks. The results that I obtained were consistently 25 percent faster than the results of BASICA on an IBM PC Conclusion The Amstrad PCW 82 56 is a first-rate CP/M computer, regardless of price. Once you consider the price and the included software it becomes an astonishing bargain. Amstrad has blown the whistle on the pricing policies and the profit margins of other manufacturers. The PCW should appeal to two completely different groups of users. A large number of first-time users will be attracted by the price and will consider using the PCW as an alternative to an electric typewriter. These firsttime users will find Locoscript easy to use and the printer capable of excellent-quality output. Users who are writers intending to use the Amstrad to write books may want to consider an alternative CP/M editor such as WordStar, Perfect Writer, or Final Word. On the other hand, computer enthusiasts who wish to upgrade from a home computer to a serious machine will find that the PCW can meet almost any of their needs. Also, impoverished scientific and technical users will find the PCW to be a capable machine. The hardware and CP/M Plus operating system provide plenty of scope for adventurous programming, and you can have the total system for less than the price of upgrading a Commodore 64 to a by-no-means-equiva-lent specification. Put Tlirbo Pascal on it and you have serious computing at a sensible price. As 32-bit processors and multimegabyte memories crowd into the marketplace, it is easy to forget that a machine like the Amstrad has all the computing power that many single users will ever need, plus a software base that includes compilers and applications that were state-of-the-art only a couple of years ago. Amstrad is keeping quiet about transatlantic plans at present, but by the time this column is published, I wouldn't be surprised to see the PCW announced in the U.S. Dick Pountain, Byte | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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