ChinnyVision - Ep 545 - 40 Years Of The Amstrad CPC
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2024
- On the 11th of April 1984*, Amstrad launched the CPC 464 at the Westminster School. An all in one home computer that would launch Amstrad on the way to being the largest computer manufacturer in Europe (before it all came crashing down). And here we are 40 years later.
This isn't a history, it's my personal view. So if you want 30 minutes of high octane action I suggest you go and watch Cruising The Cut or something. This is an actual CPC's owners view. Not someone cashing in for clicks.
And turn your receives up to 4K. This video features actual CPC footage in 4K.
This is the last weekly Thursday video from ChinnyVision. Stick around though there may be new bits and pieces in the future, who knows.
* The launch was a 2 day event. ACU says it was the 10th and 11th but in the video you will see an invite for the 12th. So it seems the two contemporary Amstrad sources can only agree on the 11th!
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[Plays Southern Rhapsody and spins off into the distance] 
Игры
Fourty fricking years. Man I feel so old. I was a 12 year old boy when I got one handed down from my dad, when he stopped using it. I think that was 1987. He used it for two or so years before that, but it feels like it had been in the living room for all my life. I would just sit and watch him program in basic on it, while chainsmoking ... very different sensibilities about smoking with kids, back then. He would never admit to playing games on it, but he had a suspiciously big box of disks with copies of these. And a print magazine every month collecting all the issues, and I used to marvel at the games reviews in that. Once I got the computer, I started typing all the BASIC listings in those magazines when they weren't on the covertape or coverdisk. My dad's real old and almost forgot all about this, but it clearly defined me.
Are you "the" Jammet who used to frequent some CPC channel on IRC in the 90s?
@chinny, many thanks for all your hard work over the years. Thursdays just won't be the same without you.
An excellent ramble Chinny! Thanks for 10 years of superb vids; enjoy your extra free time and I look forward to random surprise videos as and when.
A very apt video for the last weekly Chinnyvision. Always great to listen to you talk about the Amstrad 8bit, your enthusiasm for it and it being the 40th year anniversary of the 464. Brilliant!
What a perfect way to end weekly Chinnyvisions! Thank you for all your weekly videos Mr Chinny and I look forward to seeing more as and when you release them
My dad bought our CPC464 with colour monitor and a printer in early 1985, for his business. I remember the trip to Dixons on the high street to buy it! I spent many happy hours playing Sultan's Maze, Harrier Attack, Oh Mummy and Roland on the Ropes. I would have been 6 or 7 at the time. I learned to program on that machine, in BASIC at first, and then I learnt Z80. I owe the CPC a lot; most of my job is computer programming in Java and C, the CPC set me up for all of that. Thanks for the excellent (and entertaining) videos over the years mate!!! Good luck with the future of the channel.
I have my favourite RUclips channels based on my retro TV viewing habits. For Saturday mornings, an Open University lecture is now Techmoan and Neil and Dave are Noel Edomonds and Keith. But for Thursday evening, my favourite schedule Tomorrow's World followed by Top of The Pops. My Thursday ritual is now trashed. Thanks for such an incredible and regular contribution all these years.
"The games were pretty ropey..." In particular Roland on the Ropes! The CPC was the first computer I ever used too, back in the summer of 1984! I can't believe it's been that long!
I am going to miss your weekly shows. I always looked forward to a ChinnyVision video.
I remember when I first saw the 464 on the cover of magazines and afterwards in person, it blew out of the water the flimsy Speccy and the ugly breadbin C64. It was truly a huge 8bit battleship and so satisfying and comfortable to type on. And unlike its rivals, the electronics last longer. Brilliant!
As Muhammad Ali once said - true friends are very rare, and you're a true friend Chinny. Always an honour to get a mention, and to witness your passion and knowledge for the old stuff, in particular the Amstrad, which has always been constant for as long as I've known you - golden 80's memories! Nice Tom Baker ref at the beginning. 😉 Must dash! Jamie
40 years - gosh blimey but I feel old 😱I loved my 464 so much, I remember actually having a scrap with some C64 fanboy during a PE Lesson!!! But it's amazing what you can get away with in Rugby practice 😀
I even started with the humble green screen option, but managed to find a colour screen for only £25, back in 1990 I think! Loved that setup so much, I even rescued an old high-back office chair (faux leather) and nicked some of my Mum's bamboo canes from the garden to build a sit in enclosure much like that old star wars arcade game, except my sides were covered too - it had a great atmosphere for playing games like the Bards Tale, Mercenary and even Head over Heels!
I even nabbed one of my Dad's old stereo amplifiers and his old pair of JBL Control 1's - Zynaps *never* sounded so good 😀
I also had the luxury of having the 3rd story of our semi-detached to myself so I could crank the noise without disturbing my parents or neighbours ... I was a naïve kid, took me a long time to realise that changing my bedroom every couple of months was actually a real rarity! (our house had 7 Bedrooms and by this time, my brother had moved out and my Parents had the largest bedroom, but I had the pick of the rest, as long as I did the moving myself!)
Anyhoo, 40 years!!!
I'd love to see a modern re-tooled CPC, much like the Cmdr. X16 or similar ... I know I have been consistently blown away by some of the demo-scene CPC productions of recent years, Batman forever as an example as shown on this very channel!
I mean, if you can do that with Stock hardware ... WOW!!!
Heck, I'd have been lording it over the Atari ST users at school, had that been released in the late 80's!!
I always wondered if you could add graphical hardware via the user port, with its bus connection you might implement a VIC-II or it's sprite caps and features from the SID too?
Perhaps even hook up an RPI for Ghits and Shiggles 😀
Edit: Talking of an re-tooled CPC, how about using an eZ80?
I have read that it's very likely to be very compatible but I'm not really much of a hardware bod so take that with a pinch of salt ...
Edit++: I guess that I'm really describing a CPC+ type of machine, but with modern CPU/CRTC etc ...
Thanks for the videos - look forward to seeing more as and when they land.
This unscripted video definitively establishes you as the Jack Hargreaves of the CPC and all things Amstrad. Nicely done.
Thanks for the weekly videos. Always enjoyable. In 2017 when I stumbled across your channel I binged your content to get me through a rough patch. And I stayed on, as you know. Cheers Chinny 😊
Thank you for the many years of weekly videos, Chinny. I am sure your periodic and occasional uploads will still be appreciated by the subscribers, whenever they happen.
It's more enjoyable when it's a perspective from a user that uses the machines and a more personal view too, so kudos to you for doing that.
I bought one of those gaming super consoles from Ali express and left it in my elderly mothers home were the grandkids and nephews have been enjoying going through the 464 games over the last few weeks, and it comes with 21000 amstrad games. :-)
Many an Amstrad in my area too. First games were Harrier Attack, Oh Mummy and Doors of Doom. Loved Bomb Jack, Barbarian, Robocop, Chase HQ, Super Cars, Audiogenic World Class Rugby, WEC Le Mans, Dizzy and many more 🙂🎁
Learnt how to program on this machine, now a software developer.
Had the colour monitor, played 'Elite' to death, even got my name in to 'Amstrad Action" magazine for a cheat code for Elite :D
Now, I'd be extremely impressed if that name in Amstrad action was the exact same name as you are using for RUclips today.
@@Gambit771 lol, I wish 😁
Edit: one of the names in my username is my really name and is in the magazine. 🤣
You're my goto channel when I need a bit of cheering up. As soon as the theme music starts I feel better. Sorry to hear you're putting the channel into (almost) retirement but will see anything that pops up in the future. All the best 👍
What a beautiful machine. That's the exact one I had with the same joystick.
I bought a 464 a few years ago with a green screen because my original died in about 1990.
Still love it to this day. I just need a computer desk and chair now to set it up 😊
Not being a CPC owner, I was relatively unaware of the details of the platforms history, you've done an amazing job detailing it, thank you
So long and thanks for all the fish Chiiny, Thursday and Friday just won't be the same. Enjoy the free time (if you have any🤔😊). But most importantly thank you, it's been a blast 👍
Great rambling, I appreciated it!
We did not have a CPC in the 80s, my father got us a Thomson TO9 instead which ironically had but copied all the graphical modes of the CPC and like the Plus series also had a 4096 color palette but no sprites.
I do remember drooling over the colorful images of CPC games in the multi format TILT magazine and made sure to memorize it's graphical capabilities 😉.
It's certainly a great series of machine and I hope I will eventually get around to code a few games for it. Don't hold your breath though. 😉
See you in future videos!
Thanks for all the great videos so far Chinny and congratulations on the birthday of your favourite computer!
All the best Chinny, thank you for the many, many brilliant vids over the years. You will be missed on a Thurs eve. 👍
I never had one a kid but had something similar in the Australian Microbee. I have one now though and absolutely love it, such a well thought out z80 machine.
Great video. Enjoyed seeing the green screen and 464, reminds me of my second hand set-up in 1987! Such an elegant and well designed machine, which still looks good today. Thank you for all the weekly videos and the great community you have built here and in the Discord, I've loved every minute of it!
Happy Big 4-0, CPC! :) That makes it a ruby anniversary, I believe. I think it's such a cool computer with its all-in-one look similar to the original Macintosh computer (albeit a hell of a lot cheaper in price) and I also think it's a bit of a shame this kind of philosophy didn't catch on outside of laptops, because while I do appreciate the flexibility and versatility of modern desktop machines (especially the ability to swap out components to upgrade your PC), it does cause quite a bit of unnecessary complexity for newcomers such as my mother, and there are also compatibility issues to consider with modern machines (cue my father getting in a rage every 10-15 seconds because of a particular component messing up the OS). OK, the older microcomputers aren't as fast or effective, but at least their hardware is standardised up to a point. Out of all the main 8-bit computers I've used in my life, the CPC is the one that has crashed the least (Spectrum is the winner in that regard) and has been the most consistently reliable (despite its plague of Speccy port games).
Farewell Chinnyvision 😔
The only channel I've ever been a patron for. The sincerity and total unpretentiousness of the channel is a pleasant change from everything else on RUclips!
Thank you for the hours of entertainment, I've even had binges of watching Chinnyvision back to back all evening with a side order of booze.
I never had an Amstrad, or any 8-bit machine in the 80s despite wanting one. I started with an Amiga when I was 12 so was a bit of a latecomer. I've really enjoyed following your journey, from you seeing Harrier Attack on a CPC in 1985!
I look forward to whatever content you can put up in the future.
Cheers.
Everyone I knew and myself had a colour monitor, didn’t know anyone who had a green screen. Such an amazing machine with a great infrastructure around it. This computer had a huge influence on my life.
Like you my first encounter with an Amstrad was Harrier Attack on a mates 464 (green screen)...absolutely loved it! It was the first non-education game I'd played, only having played Pod on the BBC at school.
Later my parents meticulously researched computers to buy and we ended up with a 6128 in late '88. As you said a HUGE factor was being able to do serious stuff. The monitor was a must for clear display in mode 1/2 and there's no way my dad would have a computer on the TV. My mum was a typist and the CPC had a keyboard similar to her electric typewriter. My parents both used it for word processing & databases (Brunword & Mini Office II).
I spent a lot of time doing Basic type ins & messing around. Also Logo, and pixel art in OCP. Plus of course loved the games (even the Amsoft ones when I didn't have anything else). Getting a tape deck was pretty exciting as disc games were hard to find in shops and I had a mate with loads of tapes.
Fun times, cheers!
Thats it. The serious side is overlooked in the CPC's success. A parent who had one eye on word processing was never going to end up with a Spectrum squinting over a TV.
Excellent episode this, really interesting.
Didn't know you were stopping the weekly uploads, will miss them but hopefully you'll still be putting stuff out now and then.
All the best mate👍
Saddened that this is the last of your regular videos as I have enjoyed them very much. I look forward to the videos you prodeuce as and when you are willing and able. Just wanted to say thank you for all the entertainment over the years.
This is my favorite channel for classic computer content. Congratulations and great job
My favourite computer of the era, my memories are plentiful.
But having green screen monitor playing some games remember getting serious headache. , some of mastertronic gems . Oh mummy and that bloody tune 😂 😅😅.
Still play some of games today.
Lovely stuff, thanks Chinny. Roll on your Peter Davison years
I am NOT going twice a week. :-)
Fewer episodes though! Anyway, very much looking forward to this new era - so long as things don't get so desperate we have to rope in Ian Levine, Hans Zimmer, Faith Brown and that bloke from Bucks Fizz to get you to make more episodes :)
Unadventures we may be but all have our own memories of having only one Computer Although we did have others you always remember your first one. And no one can take that away.
You sound happier, and this was just great. Take care Chinny.
Thanks. Didn't think I'd sound any different but I must have done. Since Christmas it's been a case of running on empty due to no cache of episodes. Although Dr Destructo was fun the other week.
Excellent 4th doctor reference. Thanks for all the vids, Chinny!
Not the end just different - I look forward to the as-and-when! :)
My first computer was an Amstrad CPC 464 with colour monitor. My Mother got it on HP back in 1985. I still have one of the original CPC 464s
Built my first website on the CPC in 1994. Internet access very occasionally with an Amstrad branded modem dialing into a modem at a local college and reading webpages in lynx and via telnet connections.
Thanks for the 10 years. Looking forward to the occasional surprise uploads. Now I need to go and get my 6128 down from the loft and see if it still lives...
It will. And if it doesn't squirt a good quality contact cleaner onto the DC in and the power switch. Both tend to oxidise. Doesn't hurt to do the monitor input either.
Really enjoyed this, I'm off to set the 464 up!
Got my 464 with colour monitor for christmas 85 and liked that little computer a lot. Now I have couple of 6128s and color monitor and some modern accessories and I still adore these machines. 40 years and still kicking and well alive! And yeah, all, even the ”good” 80s joysticks are utter trash by modern standards. That’s why I built my own from sanwa parts for my 8- and 16-bits :)
I also got my 464 for xmas 85 :) But it was delivered with a GT-65 green screen and I had to wait for at least 2 years before a CTM-640 became affordable.
@@ollerich32 Where did you get one? Officially Amstrad didn't sell them separately although some orphaned ones occasionally turned up in advertising listings.
Thanks for all the episodes Chinny, have been a devotee for some years now! Amazing stuff, and I'm glad that you will still be releasing videos albeit on a less gruelling schedule. Enjoy the well earned rest :)
Cheers. Indeed I'll still be around but just not as often. Basically doing stuff as I want to
Good memories - much more fun than today
There was merit in the all-in-one design, and looking back now it is striking how similar to the Enterprise the Amstrad's coloured keyboard ended up being. (That machine had a neat little built-in joystick, which was distinctive). It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the CPC had gone with the 6502 processor - instead of lazy Spectrum ports, you would have got garish C64/BBC ports instead! Though, Sir Alan would still have cheaped out and gone with the 3" disk.
I have been impressed by some of the recent Amstrad homebrew, and the Plus-enhanced games continue to get better. But really, Amstrad's legacy in home computing is not as important as the PCW/PC clones they put out towards the end of the Eighties. Far more people used them.
I recently converted to Chinnyvision, only discovered you during 2020 and lockdown. I will continue to look through the old videos, but best of luck for whatever you do in future.
(EDIT: It's a Venusian Lobster, not a crab, in Super Pipeline II. And they shouldn't appear on level 2, they should be introduced on level 3...)
I do wonder if the coloured keys were a last minute addition. But then again you can't read too much into the prototype colourings as apparently they were all made from spare plastic pellets.
I was worried there, at least we'll have you now and then.
I only knew Amstrad owners that like myself had the colour monitor.
Fantastic off-the-cuff rambling video.
A well packaged collection of mostly off-the-shelf electronics and software, leaning heavily on the quality manufacture of Amstrad's Japanese and Korean contacts. Sometimes it pays to follow.
Indeed. Look at the Enterprise. Announced before the CPC and yet hit the shops mid 1985! All that clever technology but all that counts is you get it in front of the punters on time and on budget.
My 1st computer in 1988, at age of 7, happy days!
Happy Birthday my dear CPC !
Another cracking video with tons of great facts on this great home computer , Alan sugar was a master at getting technology into the public hands at a reasonable price
My first experience on amstrad was at a friend's on boxing day (1985 or 86 )after they got the green screen version for xmas. Loved Roland on the ropes and harrier attack . The amstrad was very capable in the right hands look at robocop , chase hq to name just a few. Way too many lazy speccy ports that gave the amstrad a bad name as most people I knew had c64 or speccy
I brought a cpc 464 few years ago enjoy getting it out every now and then
Pretty good for rambling heh, neat to see the monochrome screen as I associate the CPC with lots of color.😉Some nice history on how this platform came to be, the part about UK vendor vultures looking for cheap units made me laugh.😆
6:11 - look like the bloody Adams Family! My first computer was a CPC464 - very happy memories - albeit only 64k worth of memory. I'll get me coat.......
My nephew and friend had the green screen one, didn't know anyone with the colour screen, did make up a scart RGB cable with the din plug and a 3.5mm jack plug for audio for my friend so he could play the games in colour.
40 years that went quick. My first memory of the 464 was when it was showcased on blue Peter, not even sure how I remember that. What always fascinated me was it managed to be a success considering its relatively late debut compared to its competitors.
Marketing muscle from an experienced company who had the ability to also sell it abroad. Alot of their competitors were either dog and pony shows (Dragon, Oric)or losing money hand over fist (Sinclair, Acorn). Get 50 titles onto the system, get your retail partners to commit to 100,000 units and then market the hell out of it.
Yeah, it is definitely interesting that Alan Sugar understood immediately what Jack Tramiel, Warner (when they owned Atari) and Commodore post Tramiel were incapable of realizing: that a computer is only worth as much as the software one can buy for it.
Had they understood that, maybe those companies would still be around today (well, Atari still is but in name only).
Somebody might put out a more ‘coherent’ video, but it won’t be as honest or passionate. Long live the CPC, and long live Chinnyvision.
Well, Fare thee well to Chinnyvision, the Real Hardware retro channel. Still, looking forward to the ad-hoc era, certainly seems like the thing to do for makers of videos about things. Might even join you in Ad-hoc territory.
I think a lot of people have quit due to ad rates being so poor these days. Not an issue here of course. 10 years ad free and counting.
What else could it end on?. Been nice seeing a ton of games that didn't really get much attention back in the day get some love (or hate) Thanks for all the vids and looking forward to the occasionals
Ghost Busters looked good.
I have a lot to say about this: AMSTRAAAAAAAD!!!
Did you manage to pick up another copy of "The Amstrad Story" book which you were showing at 24:09 as I stll have the copy you sent me several years ago.
I'll miss the weekly uploads, but for now, thank you for providing excellent weekly content for the past ten years, Chinny.
IIRC I already had it before I sent my original copy to you. I couldn't be without it as a reference book!
Thanks for all the well made vids. How can I make a retrospective donation?
Thanks but honestly don't worry. It's not about the money, otherwise I'd have the videos plastered in adverts.
Has it really been (almost) ten years since the very first ChinnyVision video was uploaded to RUclips? Wow - time seems to fly more quickly than ever nowadays... and your demeanour was much calmer back then! 😉
Enjoy your well deserved semi-retirement, Chinny. What am I going to watch on Thursday evenings now?
I used to hold back. Then I realised I didn't have to.
Great Vid as always but I was always a Speccy type. I remember when I first got my Speccy 48k & seeing Horace Goes Skiing load up & going WOW. I never liked Joysticks much a bit Clunky.
I do kind of wonder what would have happened if Nintendo approached Amstrad to release the NES and Alan Sugar responded by pointing out the protoype NES as a computer and insisting on releasing that as the Amstrad Nintendo computer.
There was a rumour a bit later about a potential Sega collaboration.
Thank you for all the great videos, of which I have only seen a small percentage and done a lot of skipping. Still great work. I cannot seem to shake the thought that this might be a sign of the times. You are most definitely younger than me, but how young can you be and still remember the 8-bit micros? Will there be any to take over or will the scene slowly wither and die now? And more importantly - what will you use all that spare time for, you lazy bum? :-) (Maybe you said in the video, I was cleaning downstairs with the volume turned up)
That colour monitor was not bad at all, easily hacked to run on other computers.
It was a bit ropey in mode 2 (80 column) which some of the reviewers picked up on. Although if you were regularly using 80 column software you were probably better off with the green screen anyway.
Noooooo dont go !!!!
Not stopping totally. Just having a pause and then will do stuff ad-hoc when I feel like it. In fact I'm already eyeing up a couple of games for the Summer.
Why no longer weekly? Enjoy your videos tremendously from the US.
Weekly multiformat videos using real hardware are a lot of work, This is not a full time or professional channel and I just can't manage it any more. Unlike some retro channels I don't use other people to do the editing or capture. I don't have scripts that can be written by someone else either. From day one it has just been me. I only managed it as long as I did because I kept a large cache of episodes in reserve (sometimes as many as 10 weeks worth). Since the tail end of last year I've been running on 2 or 3 weeks worth. I'll still be around though.
Will there ever be an Amstrad mini so I can try it? I never saw one, but I live in Quebec
I hope not given how rubbish that 64 mini I reviewed was.
I can only hope, really. I got all the other minis, but this one would be the king and queen for me.
Your best hope is that the guys who did the recent ZX Touch handheld (based on the ZX Spectrum) do the same for the Amstrad. But I wouldn't hold your breath...
We got a second hand 6128 with color monitor AND a tv tuner very late, in Feb. 1990 iirc, from my dad's cousin's daughter's husband to be, so go figure. He gave us a few tapes and a lot of floppies with LOTS of pirated games (most back then would fit in half a side of a disk). My brother despised the system bc he was doing programming and you couldn't do crap with it and, by 1990, PC was clearly the way to go, but I loved the system for the games and because it was a HUGE improvement over a 48k Spectrum+.
I remember getting a Telemach joystick (a homegrown brand back in the day from Spain), which was amazing: looked like an arcade stick. With color graphics (adding insult to injury, we had our 48k Speccy plugged to a b/w tv, and they took the computer away from me 2 years prior so I had been 2 years either sneaking to arcades at bars and our equivalent to chippies, or playing at friends' places), so it really felt like having a little arcade at home.