Amstrad revival- hopeful revisionism?

bertie

I am pleased to announce,  Ive never owned anything Amstrad.   

Binatone was as far down the chain as I went  (I think) but at least it never claimed to be anything it wasnt.

Despite being "in the business"  never actually owned a PC until 1995  !! 

guitartango

There was nothing wrong with the Amstrad 1640DD (double disk drive), worked for years and got me my first job in IT, so thanks Sir Alan 

Intel i8086 @ 8 MHz
640kB RAM
2x 5.25" 720kB floppy drive
14" EGA Monitor (PC-ECD)

We gave the machine away to a company and they were still using it 5 years ago !!! (the Cmos battery was a standard AA)

Snags

The "hi-fi" was awful cheap shit, but some of the computing products were actually pretty solid in context. The PCW word processors were briliant for the time, and affordable. I have fond memories of waking my housemates at 4 a.m. printing out essays on the daisy wheel printer when at Uni.

The PCs/clones in the late 80s/early 90s were OK too (PC1512 and PC1640) in that they worked and were priced at a level where relatively normal people/businesses could afford them, particularly compared to the major brands and even the better quality clones like Elonex. I mean, they were always the "poverty option" but I think you could make a case that Amstrad's involvement in the home computer market was significant in democratising computing, for better or worse, and arguably with less dubious practice than Dell used when they took it on a step a few years later.

{Edit to add} All that said, it's still not a brand that anyone over 40 is going to associate with quality or high-end products.

Philly_Q

digitalscream said:

You're absolutely not wrong - Amstrad computers were basically a ZX Spectrum in a posh-but-poorly-made frock.

I remember my brother getting an Amstrad version of a ZX Spectrum, just looking at the Wiki page I guess it was the ZX Spectrum +2.  So basically it was a ZX Spectrum 128, but it looked really cheap and nasty compared with his old 16K Sinclair one, which was an elegant little thing by the standards of the day.

I don't think I ever owned an Amstrad product, I always thought of them as cheap shite, rightly or wrongly. 

marxski

Gassage said:

Lord Sugar reboots the famous Amstrad brand for his grandson's business 17 years after selling it to Sky | Daily Mail Online

For those of us who grew up in this era, Amstrad for audio products was an absolute joke. 

They were the Reliant Robin of hifi and audio- cheap, terrible sound and build quality and probably even worse than the infamous Tandy Radio Shack 'Realistic' products of the day.

Having any Amstrad products growing up would result in mirth and piss taking of endless proportions.

Now, whilst SurAlan is great value on TV, claiming the brand was anything other than cheap overpriced tat is a leap of faith.

Or am I wrong?

Not all Realistic products were crap. Some hifi components were good. Their synth was designed and built by Moog. All Amstrad on the other hand…

Danny1969

What Amstrad did though which was awesome for musicians is make a cheap midi Hi Fi where the tape deck was a four track recorder ... like a Tascam. 
My first non studio recordings were done on one of these 
 



When we started out PC business in 97 we use an Amstrad Emailer as out main phone for 15 years .. just because the address book in it worked really well. 



I used to do a lot of brokering and often got the old Amstrad PC's, along with Olivetti and such. 

ElectricXII

My dad had an Amstrad PCW word processor, and I remember it being pretty decent at the time (mid-1980s). I typed up my thesis on it.

Rocker

I had an Amstrad PC, twin floppy disk drives and a 20 Mb hard drive. It ran MS-DOS and worked trouble free for several years. I ran WordStar and Lotus 123 and a few simple games on it. It did everything I needed at that time. 

Gassage

I never realised that Amstrad moved into Comps.

Mind you it reminded me of the horrendous days of Time and Tiny Computers.

I had the misfortune to own a Tiny. It got nicked. I wanted to thank the thief.

I had a Sony Vaio after that.

dano

monquixote said:

DiscoStu said:

Was it Amstrad that came with the green screen monitor? Awful thing.
Load of old tut!

I had one, it was great: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Amstrad_CPC_464-IMG_4849.JPG

It was only a green monitor if you wanted it really cheap, you could buy a colour monitor or hook it up to a TV if you preferred.

That takes me back ! My mate had one of them, I remember playing Commando on it, once we'd spent 10mins waiting for the tape to load.

marauder

Amstrad lofi were overpriced junk.
Far worse build and internals than imagined.

https://youtu.be/Zqzrm_4_B94?si=5xvdelTxO2GflyPV

scrumhalf

Amstrad introduced non-gaming computers to a lot of people who would never have considered owning one.

And they brought cheap hi-fi to a lot of people who wished that they had never considered owning one.

Didn't they end up doing something with Tandy before they crapped out? 

snowblind

Wrote up my final year project at university on an Amstrad word processor. At the time is seemed sorta decent in it's own way. Even got to fix a few of them after I got into IT. I particularly recall extracting tinfoil sweet wrappers from the floppy drive on one after the owner's kids had decided to practice posting letters. 

However my memory of just about anything else with the Amstrad name on it says, "cheap tat". Not sure why he wants to resurrect the brand unless he's hoping anyone who actually remembers what they produced has descended into dementia by now. 80s nostalgia isn't enough to bolster goodwill I suspect but the world is nuts these days so who knows?

exocet

monquixote said:

DiscoStu said:

Was it Amstrad that came with the green screen monitor? Awful thing.
Load of old tut!

I had one, it was great: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Amstrad_CPC_464-IMG_4849.JPG

It was only a green monitor if you wanted it really cheap, you could buy a colour monitor or hook it up to a TV if you preferred.

When I was 16, I had a part time job in a local electronics company called Ambit (Based in Brentwood, more famous for TOWIE now but then was also the home to Amstrad. One of the more geeky techs at Ambit went to work for Amstrad on the side and was one of the key designers of the CPC 464. He then went on to head up various UK Internet authorities. Meanwhile my career rise from working in the shop followed a much lower trajectory

swiller

had a 464 and one of these aged 14.

CHRISB50

I was the happy owner of a CPC6128. And the not so happy owner of one of their shitty Sky+ boxes. I have fond memories of the computer. Not so fond memories of the Sky+ box.

Emp_Fab

I remember way back my girlfriend at the time was getting a hi-fi system as a birthday gift from her uncle.  They were going to go out together to choose it.  I advised her in advance - whatever you do, do NOT get an Amstrad.

The next time I saw her, she had her new hi-fi system in 'her' room (lived with her parents) and she was chuffed to show it to me.  The instant I saw it was an Amstrad, I blurted out "Oh for fuck's sake! - I told you not to get Amstrad shit!".  She was upset.

I still feel bad about it to this day.  Sorry Jane.

bertie

my first proper "bought my self"  hi-fi was a Toshiba separates rack (with ubiquitous cabinet)  £375 from Dixons in 1983,  

like this

the amp's still going strong as our PC/"studio"  amp

thermionic

About 15 years ago I worked for a microelectronics company designing dc-dc converter (voltage regulator) chips, Amstrad bought loads of them to go into the Sky TV boxes they were contracted to make at the time. One of my colleagues spent several weeks working with Amstrad engineers to try and fix a problem which was caused by the management not allowing the engineers to design their boards properly for reasons of cost. They ignored the heat dissipation requirements set out in our datasheet and the result was overheating boxes, our chip's temperature protection circuit kicking in and turning off the power to the rest of the board. There were lots of disgruntled Sky TV customers at the time, with boxes which would turn off after an hour or so. The morale of the engineers there was terrible - overworked, underpaid, being blamed for things which were down to greed and poor management..

notanon

Amstrad 1512 with Borland Turbo C, Borland Pascal, Lisp, Prolog, . . . got me through my degree. Good old days!