★ HARDWARE ★ LES PC D'AMSTRAD ★ AMSTRAD S PPC 512 AND PPC 640 PORTABLES (YOUR COMPUTER) ★ |
| Amstrad s PPC 512 and PPC 640 Portables (Your computer) | Hardware Les Pc D'amstrad |
Laptops are no longer a novelty - witness the latest offerings from Amstrad that impoverished hack Ewart Stronach tested at his Yacht Club! IT'S NOT LONG ago when to have a lap big enough to hold an MS-DOS computer. complete with twin disk drives, .built in modem, full size keyboard and LCD screen you would have to be at least two axe handles hip to hip Laptop computers are no longer the novelty they used to be but suddenly they are cheap enough to be available to those who can use them best (students, impoverished hack journalists ... ). Amstrad broke new ground with the release of its MS-DOS capable computer some time ago and it was great value then. Its most recent additions to the range are two genuine portables, the PPC 512 and 640 Both machines are about the size of a very thick keyboard with a carry handle protruding from the narrow end. The unit is placed flat down on your lap or desk and the top hinges open toward you. The top becomes the keyboard and reveals the LCD screen which hinges up to any required angle for viewing There are two control knobs, one two-position switch and three LEDs visible on the base and the single or twin disks are three ½ inch units mounted above the carry handle Power is available from ten size C batteries, mains adapter (supplied) or from a car cigarette lighter (adapter supplied) The control knobs alter the brightness of the display and the volume of the speaker, the LCDs indicate which disk is active, which display is active and power on/off The switch sclects battery off/extension on The whole kit is supplied in an attractive nylon carry bag with pockets for all accessories and a robust shoulder strap The unit weighs 5.4 kilograms, packed into its case with power supply and documents. The keyboard The unit supplied for the test was the 'full house' PPC 640 - the 640 kilobytes RAM. twin disk, inbuilt modem variant The modem connection lives under a slip cover on the top of the open unit (the external appearance of both units is identical, but the 512 has. naturally enough, 512K of RAM) The keyboard is a standard AT style layout with separate cursor control keys, number pad and 12 function keys.
The only visible difference to a normal keyboard is the addition of the letters ALT CR on the right hand Alt key which is used in conjunction with the scroll lock key to switch between the LCD screen and an optionally connected video monitor The keyboard is pleasant to use but I prefer a two tone beige keyboard to the two tone grey supplied. The black writing on the darker, non alphanumeric, keys is a little hard to read in adverse light conditions The keys are firm with a barely audible click and nice tactile feedback So much for the looks, how does it work? Opening a flipdown panel along the back of the base reveals a full set of ports There is a serial, parallel and video port which require no explanation and two expansion ports, for connection to an external hard disk device. There is also a DIN plug which will accept the Amstrad monitor with its builtin power supply and a single socket for the mains adapter or cigarette lighter adapter. A set of dip switches allow selection of internal monitor (LCD) or CGA or mono external monitor as default power on devices. The final port is for the connection of a telephone hand piece for use in conjunction with the modem. The test machine was fitted with a British Standard phone jack, but our friends at Amstrad had patched in an Australian jack as a temporary measure. So open your school bags, children, take out your Am-strads, open the lid, prop up the screen and on the count of three, 1 want you all to switch on and start computing. Up and running The first message displayed on powerup is 'Please wait'. After POST (Power On Self Test) is completed, the Amstrad signs on with a description of the model, in this case Amstrad Portable PC 640K (VI 8) and a request to set time and date and fit new batteries. The system clock relies on the same batteries as the computer and in the absence of such batteries tends to forget which day it is. I would rather see a small self contained battery for this purpose as in many instances it would be possible to be without batteries in the machine for some time. The batteries may be changed with the optional DC adapter in use without disturbing the system clock. If a system disk is not in drive A. you are prompted to fit one and press any key. From there on it's standard MS-DOS Version 3.3 with the additional opening message displayed informing you that the with the scroll lock key on, use of the right hand Alt key will toggle the LCD contrast, and use of the right hand Ctrl key will toggle between the LCD and any optional VDU connected It is not possible to have both displays showing at the same time. The disks are standard 3"½ inch floppies, formatted to 720 Kbyte and I had no trouble reading disks made on other similar machines This is good news, as Amstrad in the past has supplied machines with odd sized 3'A inch disks which are rapidly becoming hard to get. Screen test As with most portable machines, the display is a limiting factor. Amstrad has chosen to stay with a supertwist LCD screen, no longer at the forefront of such technology but totally acceptable and obviously part of the overall economics of placing such a computer in the market at such a reasonable price As with most such screens, the angle of viewing is critical and the background light affects the readability, I took the test unit to the Yacht Club, expecting the screen to be hard to read out of doors and was pleasantly surprised to find that it performed very well in those conditions. In my computer room at night, background light bulbs produce an 'halo' effect on the screen and care must be taken in selecting the viewing angle and intensity. Figure 2. Both machines are supplied with a robust nylon carry bag with pockets for all accessories and a robust shoulder strap. The unit weighs 5.4 kilograms, packed into its case with power supply and documents. >> There is no doubt that whenever the unit is in use at its home base, most users would elect to use a standard monitor. The display adapter in the Amstrad allows output to both a mono screen or CGA colour screen I have connected it to all types of screen from a bottom line green screen to a Multisync EGA screen with excellent results. The LCD screen has quite a long decay time which means that characters displayed on the screen tend to hang about a bit before fading away A problem common to high intensity green screens and of no great importance in most applications. I found no compatibility problems with any of the commercial software I tried Amstrad supplied a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 and a copy of SuperCalc4. both of which worked just fine. The software supplied at the price includes DOS 3.3, a program called PPC Organizer and in the case of the PPC 640, a communications package called Mirror 'No Basic', I hear you cry, and you'd be right: no Basic! The PPC Organizer comes with its own 30 page instruction booklet and describes itself as an 'Electronic Information File designed to increase your productivity'. It resembles SideKick in as much is it a TSR (Términate but Stay Resident) style of program which disappears from your screen while you don't need it but may be recalled without disturbing your forefront task later. The front screen displays the time and date on a top line and a boxed menu in the top right of your screen The menu offers: Diary. Word Processor, New address and card file, Search for data, Calculator. Templates and Exit. A function key bar displays the appropriate function key activity along the bottom line A respectable few seconds elapses after initiation before Organizer decides you are a dummy and provides an automatic Help menu Items from the main menu may be selected by moving the highlight bar with the cursor keys or hitting the first letter of the desired subject. The first task is to personalise your program by telling it who you are and it will use this information later to automatically sign memos and letters Now is perhaps not the time to fully review a piece of software, so a brief description only of its functions will suffice. The pop-up calculator is recalled from anywhere within the Organizer by use of the F3 key. The Diary starts by displaying the month set by the system date with the current day in highlight The cursor keys allow movement of this highlight around the calendar. A very short note may be entered (up to six characters) simply by typing directly to the display at this time. A further list of Diary options lurks behind the F10 key and offers: New entries, Show entries (for current date), Find entries. Go to current date and Month Detail. Entries may be made into the notepad and automatically form part of the database which may be searched for linked entries. Any data in the database may be found with the Diary Notes Find function which allows a fairly quick search by limiting the range to a set period of time such as a week, fortnight, month, year or the entire database. If you remembered you had an appointment with Montmorency Foth-erington-Smythe some time next month, a search on any of the names, for a one month period would display the appropriate calendar with the date in highlight, ready for your display of the associated notes. Repeat data may be cut and pasted through the diary to save typing time for regularly used entries.
The Cardfile offers Address Cards and General Cards and the data once entered may be cross referenced to any other category or rapidly searched on any word or phrase The Address function follows the British postal formula, requesting Counties rather than States and Post rather than Post Code Fortunately it's not xenophobic and you may use these fields as you like The card file could become quite large and I imagine search times would lengthen but it would be quite handy to have on board The ability to search through all your suppliers for a product simply by typing in the type of product would be of great assistance to those of us with bad whatisnames. A dialer capable of storing all the commands needed to originate a phone call may be set up with ease This includes the ability to dial in-house sequences needed to get an outside line, pauses to wait for an old fashioned switchboard, and all possible STD/ISD combinations The facility to set up communication parameters such as baud rates, parity and so on may also be included With the telephone connected to your Amstrad. a call to Great Aunt Agatha in Tanganyika is a single command away. The word processor is most basic, but totally adequate for most documents. A template may be set up using the @ symbol which will search an existing card file and replace the data it finds For example, selecting an existing customer's card file and marrying it with a document is as simple as typing - @contact |
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