I literally cried tears of joy for you when the tiger image came up. What a truly wonderful dedication from a Son to Father. I've no doubt he continues to be proud of you, no matter where he is. Happy Holidays to you and your wife ♥
What?? no "PCB Waaaaayyyyyyyy"..?? in this video?? or i miss it?? :-| ....... Christian (@Retro Recipes) just like when you spill coffee or any other liquid on a keyboard .. the dishwashing liquid is probably leaked inside ... and the rubber domes membrane (if it have one) .. well that piece of old rubber .. shouldn't be very happy with all that moisture .... and if it doesn't have rubber domes... and it's the PCB (which as you know will start to stands for Poor Corroded Board for washing machineeeeeee) no seriously... the circuit board receive all that liquid .... ummm .. I don't know .... I mean ... even with a fan blowing air directly to him for several hours ... some of that moisture is going to be there... for several hours... or days... That can not be good man... :-\
I lost my Dad almost 10 years ago. He was a programmer for many years as well as a musician who penned nearly 75 songs in his life. We had a 486 PC when I was in high school that he used word perfect to write all the lyrics to his songs. The computer was gone several years but I was able to get a backup of the entire 540 MB drive before it died. Less than a year before he died, I was able to retrieve all of those word perfect files from that drive using VMware and booting up the old disk image of that machine. He was thrilled his music would live on, even if he wasn't, as he died from Leukemia in February 2010. Sending you a virtual hug Perifractic! You are not alone.
I understand your nostalgia - I feel it too. The thing about nostalgia now, is that it's better than it was. That's the defining characteristic of nostalgia - to make our past seem better than the present... or the future. You're doing better than you ever have, the past is only a benchmark.
I'm too old; we didn't have personal computers when I grew up. The original Texas Instruments TI-30 calculator didn't show up until my senior year in high school. It's good you have memories of you & your dad setting the machine up. Mine passed in '84, so I know what it's like to miss him. He was an infantryman in WW2 Europe. Lord knows how he would have reacted to PCs. Glad to see your "youth" collection is done!
I had the 1640 and used it extensively for accounting, word processing and so much more. Alan was a true 'entrepeneur' with the way he took on the pc market to deliver what was still a the cheaper price a 'quality' product. Loved the whirring sound of those discs :):)
To be honest, it's so refreshing to have such real and lovely ppl like you and your lady on RUclips! Really special! Keep it going! Share with us, bring more real emotions. Such kind of videos put real use to yt.
Great video Chris. It's great that you have this PC on your collection, by that way your memories with your father will never be missed. Thanks for sharing it with us. Greetings from #Madrid #Spain
Had one of these, it was my 3rd home computer. A 512 with dual floppys and a colour monitor. Did a little modding with the help of my late father, upgraded the memory to the whole 640k and put a 32mb Winchester hard card in the back. The hard disk was attached to the controller card so I kept the two floppy drives. This brought back a lot memories, sounds like it also did with you.
Beautiful video to watch... for many reasons, including the homage to your Dad. Glad you've now completed your museum! I keep looking at Amstrad 464 & 6128's on eBay as I had one of each... but I had loads of stuff with mine. Unfortunately the Amstrad got stolen from our shed once I upgraded to the Amiga. Not sure I could actually bring myself round to buying one as it wouldn't be the same. Also my wife isn't as understanding as Ladyfractic, and would be annoyed at the space it'll be taking up! But I am glad someone is giving these machines a new life. It was the CPC 464 I got at 12, that started me on my programming career!!! Thank you Lord Sugar for such a wonderful machine!!! :)
Not only was this educational but also incredibly sweet. It is not often that experiences like that can be repeated so many years later. Happy times. Cheers.
I was really much more thrilled than I had any legit reason to be when that IMAGES folder appeared on the DOS disk. Hope everyone in the Fractic family has a great holiday season.
I grew up with the hard drive model with a colour monitor. So many memories - groaning to life as I powered it up on a chilly morning, the "whistle" of the hard drive as it seeked, and the distinctive beep of the loud PC speaker. Ours booted straight into MS-DOS (never used GEM), but we had a ton of games - Sokoban, classic Sierra AGI/SCI adventure games, Sesame Street, Test Drive, and Monopoly among others. I also spent many hours with Microsoft Paintbrush (based on Zsoft Paintbrush and very similar to Paintbrush in Windows 3.x). In 1993 we gave it to my cousin (as we had a faster 486), and while he made good use of it for a while, it has not been seen since.
What a wonderful collection. That truly is something, and it's good to see these machines have ended up in a place that honors them. God I miss the 80's so much... buying magazines and typing in pages of code was a blast!!!... Literally photos of CRT televisions in black and white displaying up and coming games... I had an AmstradCPC484 then later the 128.... my first PC was an Australian VZ200 from Dick Smith Electronics, I loved coding basic on that old thing. I never owned a C64 but would love to get one one day as my friends always fought with me over which one was better hehe.... the good old days.
This Amstrad PC-1512 was the first computer my father bought, here in France. I remember, when I was younger, I spent countless hours colouring this tiger on the computer (we had a colour monitor with it) :-)
Great video as per usual. Thank you for sharing your memories, I lost my dad earlier in the year and I know the feeling when doing things that you used to do together when they are no longer with us.
I love those old adverts for the 1512, especially the french one, maybe because i'm french ! first steps in the pc wolrd also for me, with my dad too. thank you, it was a good moment.
I loved your video. And similarly that's how I got back into my old Commodore computers again. It's because of my Mom who tried the best an really hard for us, her kids: We got translated versions of "The Home Computer Course" at the magazine kiosk,-- which was locally called "Mi Computer" in my country, and she realized the learning potential of these devices; so she bought us a second hand Commodore 64. After owning an Atari 2600 this was amazing! So I got back my original C64 and repaired it back in 2017, (my brother had it stored, and time did its thing with the poor old machine). Then reacquired some of the Amigas that followed (2019), and finally, my brother gave me our old Amiga 1200, which I am slowly restoring and I'll give it back to him once I'm finished... Just as you, there were the "Tiger" equivalents for us, and remembered fondly of the days with our Mom, which as with your Dad, is no longer with us... Beautiful video, and thanks for sharing something so personal. I'm moved. --- I have spoken! :)
YES!!!! I mentioned to you before that PC1512 was my first PC! Upgraded to 640k, 40 meg IDE (yes, IDE) hard card was added, Media Vision Thunderboard, and 1200 baud modem later swapped to a 2400! Oh how I wish I still had that machine!!! Starting to watch now. What a great way to spend my lunch break today! ;)
I have a soft spot for this machine. Had exclusive access to one of these every day for my first year at college on a Computer Studies course. Playing Space Quest III and Digger at break and lunchtimes.
Putting the battery compartment in a spot under the monitor is a great idea! No need to tear apart half of the machine to replace them. I never had an Amstrad (in fact, my first machine was a yugoslavian ZX called INES) but I got my first PC (IBM 5150) in 1989. My late mother borrowed it from her workplace where she worked for 30+ years as a programmer in FORTRAN and Cobol. Without her, I wouldn't know *anything* about computers today. She sadly passed away five years ago and I miss her dearly every day. A wonderful video as always :) Happy holidays to you and the Mrs. :)
This brings back so many memories for me too as the PC1512 was also my first PC. I got it in 89 or 90 as an upgrade to my first computer which was a CoCo2. I only had the SD model and the monochrome monitor. Thanks for this!
I had one of those, purchased during the brief period that they were imported into the USA. It had an 8086, so it had a full 16-bit data path, unlike the crippled 8088 in the typical clones. I got the extra memory (a full 640k!) and, IIRC, an 8087 chip, that I didn't really need. Later I added a 30-mb hard drive, and had quite a setup, 32 years ago. I doodled in the paint program in GEM. Still doing similar stuff, 3+ decades later.
many thanks, mate. this was my very first computer, so this one is very special to my. i remember the sound of the floppydrive ;) i started with the b/w screen and one 5 1/4" Drive, upgrading to cga later and installing a 40MB Harddisk
This was our family's first computer and the first PC I ever used, also in 1986 - exactly the same as this one, PC1512 DD-MM. Later it was upgraded to 640K RAM and a WD "hardcard". Astonishingly it still works - the hard card needs a little flick of the wheel which presumably encourages the heads to un-park, but it spins up and all my computing history is there from childhood right up to University - I obviously had a BASIC programming assignment to do over Christmas holidays one year as I found a program I wrote for calculating laminar/turbulent flows in pipes! The floppy drives need a bit of attention which is a shame as there's a very complete library of PCPlus SuperDisks to reminisce over (and the magazines from issue 1 too, in their very elegant binders)
Thanks for this! Great trip down memory lane. In the early 90's I worked at a computer retailer in Canada and we carried the Amstrad PC's. I loved the 1640! Our demo model had a 40Mg HDD, EGA card / Monitor and Sound Blaster and used to run Sublogic's Jet as the demo software.. We actually sold a lot of them. I remember adding a hard drive to a floppy model was interesting due to the non-standard hard drive mounting brackets. We got creative with our tin snippers. ;). Otherwise, great machines. We sold them beside IBM PS1's, Amiga's and c64s. Great times to be in the industry!
That was a trip down memory lane. I used to sell bunches of those back at a computer store so long ago. I was the tech, so I got to open and upgrade them before they went out the door. I think I remember swapping one of the floppies for 10meg hard disks, maybe even an occasional Seagate 20megger. :-)
Reconnecting with lost loved ones through pictures, places and things is a lovely thing to do. That was obviously very important to you, and a lovely warm, nostalgic trip down memory lane to the casual observer. Mr Fractic....Your Fired !....i mean Hired !...(i can't be the only one to have said that surely ?....Peace.
Yes Amstrad PC1512 was the first PC my family had back in the mid/late 80s before we had a MSX Toshiba. Different kettle of fish and could do a lot more stuff.
I remember a friend bringing me his Amstrad "Hi-Fi" system to repair once, after seeing what was inside...or rather the lack of things inside, I decided Sugar was a grifter & vowed never to buy anything with his name on it, ever....it was the worst piece of electronics i have ever had to work on, which is quite an achievement if you knew some of the rubbish i've repaired over the decades... Still, i'm glad you got a working 1512 and you enjoy reminiscing ....as i did with the glimpse of the Atari ST....
Great video. I still own the PC1512 my dad bought us! Actually I still own all of the computers he bought us. He bought me even many years later a spectrum 16K, allready outdated at that time.. but still I always wanted to have one. So now I had a Speccy also. The computers he bought back in the days : ZX81,CPC6128,PC1512,SPECTRUM 16... On top of it all my mother won in 1988 an Amiga 500 in a contest. This all was for me the start to buy and collect many (very close to all) Amstrad / Sinclair / Amiga / Commodore computers. Thanks mom and dad! Sadly they are not around anymore to see my "little" collection.. memory lane..
One thing to note about the dishwasher - dishwasher detergent usually contains sodium hydroxide and/or potassium hydroxide. These chemicals react with aluminum, so don't wash anything aluminum in the dishwasher. I worry about putting electronics in the dishwasher because a lot of electronic components contain aluminum and may be damaged by the detergent solution. For example, electrolytic caps are usually aluminum. I expect most keyboards would be fine, but it's something to consider.
I enjoyed walking down memory lane with you on this one. I've been Chasing Tigers myself this last year. Resurrected my old Apple //e in April and booting up old spreadsheet and word processing docs that he/we had created, still loadable on 5.25 disks from 1983/84!!... was an incredible experience. Also picked up a fully functional Macintosh Plus recently and hearing the tones of Klondike dealing up cards also gave some goosebumps. Wish I could tell him just how cool this stuff still is.
Great video man! It touched me... My dad brought home our first computer, a ZX Spectrum, and it changed my life. About the images being stored on the DOS disk: Maybe they only fit there once the other disks were full.
I got my PC1512 in the early 90s. I bought it off one of my brothers and it replaced my C64. I had the SD (single drive) version with the MM display, but it also had a 30MB hard card (8bit ISA expansion with the HDD and controller on a metal bracket). It took up two slots due to the width. I remember making an ISA expansion card for it in A-level electronics at school. I remember I got the extra 128k memory update for Christmas one year and thought I had broken the PC when it wouldn't power on. Turns out I had one leg of one of the memory chips had gone down the outside of the DIL socket. Reseating it correctly and I had 640k. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! :)
Great video as usual,I had a heart stopping moment when the base unit fell!!!,and your final comment about your dad was so lovely and totally true..going to play on my CPC464 now for a blast from the past 😀
I once sold and serviced these back in 1987-89. Great machine and quite affordable compared to its competitors in the day. Also sold its upgrade, the 1640, another good machine. Then the AMSTRAD 2086 came out, and we all know how how that went (looking at you Seagate)....
Got tears in my eyes as you were talking about your dad. I fully can understand that. And I remeber the tiger as well, but I saw it the first time on my first XT from Peacock in the end of 1987. Got also a mouse from Genius that days and still have the old mouse pad of it. Dr.Halo was the name of the paint program the mouse came with. ;-)
The 1512 was my first PC :) Always great to see one! Ours was sadly donated and the one I got to replace it recently didn't come with the monitor. I've jimmy rigged a power supply but still need to do something to be able to hook it up to a standard monitor.
This video has made me so happy. The PC1640 was the first PC I had, the model with the 20MB Hard Drive. Back then, I didn't even realize it was possible to get other software for it. My parents mostly used it as a word processor (It had WordPerfect on, I think), but I spend many many hours playing around in GEM, using paint and learning to program in Locomotive Basic! Ah, such memories, I'd really like to get my hands on one again
Between the late 1980's and early 1990's I taught computing to students on Amstrad 1512's using that GEM Operating system it was good fun. We had some with 20 meg drives but converted some to 40 meg and as the operating system could only handle 32 meg we partitioned them into 32 meg and 8 meg. Tiger Tiger still burning bright
OH MAN!!!! I understand it being bittersweet. Mine belonged to my grandfather first, who gave it to me as a hand-me-down when he got a Tandy 1000 TL/2 (I think it was a 2) to replace it. He died back in 1998. Mine also had the color monitor, and Prodigy actually supported the Amstrad graphics mode. Standard CGA on Prodigy was black and white, but not on Amstrad! Also, the one you have has the same disk drives that mine had! All of the others I have seen, both in advertisements and on RUclips, have the ones with the crooked latches. I miss GEM desktop and that machine so much. It was quite a step up from the Timex Sinclair and the CoCo 2. Then I went from this to a 486 (first machine I ever built), so it was even a bigger step up haha. GREAT video as usual!
27 odd years ago this was the first PC I ever used on a YTS scheme and also the first time using a mouse and Deluxe Paint. There was always a rush to the double disk drive machines and latecomers had a fun day of disk swapping ahead of them...
I basically found an Amstrad PC1512 SD before it was retro to keep it (about 20 years ago)... in Canada I might add. Came with the 20MB HD and 640KB RAM. Anyone know where to download all the software for this gem? I still have it! Happy you have found your family memories here.
Well done on finding the tiger! I just found a book on the Space Shuttle my late Uncle loved after 20+ years so I know that particular bittersweet feeling of being reacquainted with something without someone. Wishing you & Lady F a very happy Christmas
I remember sitting infront of one of these in the sixth form at school, ah the joys. I got my mother to buy me a commodore pc -1 instead for home, loved it. I proud that you have shown this for your dad :D
Congratulations for the last piece you got :) My father used to have an Olivetti M250 instead, but he glued darkened screen protectors on every monitor for no apparent reason
The tiger file loading was......aaaah!!! LOL Great machine BTW, and a real game changer at that time. :) My dad had a PCW at his office, too. Fond memories... Cheerio.
Great video. I have never heard of this brand of pc before but if its retro than I am going to click. Nice bit of background history of this machine between you and your dad and nice to see you now have your collection built and sorry your dad is not able to fully share this with you but he is still with you in thought and spirit and I bet he was smiling as well you found that image that you and him shared together when you first bought that PC. Have a good one and may your Christmas be a happy and joyous time. Thank you again.
Such a sweet moment when you dedicated the Tiger find in your dad's honor. (I empathize.) I would do about anything to find my original Commodore 64 as my dad bought it for me for Christmas when I was about 12. I have the box still (and therefore the serial number), however finding it would be impossible as I sold it many years ago. Thank you for sharing this moment. It brought back memories for me as well. :-D
Thank you. That’s great that you have the box though. I didn’t even keep that, though I have some game boxes. I’m planning an episode about finding all my old stuff soon.
Sad to hear about your dad. Just like him, my dad introduced me to computers when he bought a VIC20 in the early eighties, and then the C64. An interest that has since been my entire professional life. And just like your father, mine is not around either today. But lets praise and thank of them for being so on the bleeding edge back then when it was far from common. Hell I was the only one in my class that had a computer for years. When he bought the C64 he even made HIS father take on the old VIC20, so aged 70 (in 1983) my grandfather learned BASIC on his own! Incredible... :)
We had an Amstrad 286 with GEM. My favorite thing about GEM Paint was the ability to create custom patterns on the color palette and use them for fills.
For me it was the image of King Tutankhamen's death-mask on the Amiga in Deluxe Paint... It was only 12-bit color (back when PCs were doing 8-bit colour :-) ) but to me it looked amazing. And when they brought out a 24-bit graphics card, (16,777,216 colours... I'll always remember that number!) it looked better than a photo. Not that I ever had the 24-bit graphics card.
I keep coming back to this video. There's a certain charm about the video and the machine I can't put my finger on. Lovely cleanup job too. Those scanlines on the monitor!
@@RetroRecipes Hello! New subscriber here, I was short tempred with my Amstrad and now the question the computer asks me asked over and over again is that I need a font in order to type any information into the computer. Can you help?
Just for the record...the pc1512 and the later 1640 where the first pc's for many people here in Greece. Amstrad was very popular here...The cpc 6128 was the best selling home computer between 1986-1988.
My tiger back in the days was the mask of Tutankhamun that came with Deluxe Paint on the Amiga... up to this day the only thing existing is the real mask of Tutankhamun on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo... but that's a different story.
My first x86 was an Amstrad too, but slightly later, a 486SX-25, have fond memories of playing civ, doom and discworld (amongst others) on it - my father bought it for me on my birthday, came into my room to find it on my bed after school, damn I was happy
My parents got us the Amstrad CPC 664 with built in disc drive (the less popular brother of the CPC 464 with the built in tape drive) for Xmas 1985 and it also had an external data tape drive for most of the games, together with a colour monitor. We had hardly any games on disc (except The scout steps out and a Grand Prix game) although they loaded a lot faster than the tape drive. Have many happy memories of playing all the games (harrier attack, dizzy island, Biggles, Aliens etc). I did spend ages loading a game on tape sometimes though, only for it to crash at the last minute and then having to rewind the tape to start again. I also tried to do a bit of programming with something called turtle? and used to read some Amstrad magazines for programming code tips and game reviews, great days. Sadly my dad had a loft clear out and threw it out years later and I only found out afterwards as I would have loved to have kept it.
The first computer my parents got for home was a PC1512 with the 640KB of RAM and a colour monitor. I think we must have had a later model as I'm sure I remember it having a fan in it. Later my parents got it upgraded with a 10MB hard drive, which was black and really stuck out like a sore thumb, had a big rectangular red light on it and went "beep" a lot. Under Mum's influence the hard drive had WordStar 5.5 installed on it, and I spent a great deal of time writing silly stories on it and generally learning how to type under her guidance. My mother was taught to type at school because the girls were meant to become secretaries, but this skill has helped me to a pretty high-paying job and I'm baffled why it's not taught today. As for the other things the computer could do... I was desperate for a LOGO system, but Basic2 had a turtle mode so I spent ages getting confused by it because it defaulted for some reason to operating in radians, which at the age of 8 I really didn't understand. Eventually I discovered that you could convert from degrees and my drawings got a lot better. My sister and I also got the PC1512 poster image and made the lady naked, having been "inspired" by the adverts on television at the time for a brand of deodrant which obviously wanted us to think that if we used it we'd be "natural". Instead we found it hilarious, because we were largely too young to actually understand why you needed to have deodrant in the first place. Lovely to see this video, and a system in such good condition.
Awesome glad you completed the collection. My late dad preferred fixing cars and model cars to computers i don't think he even played a game my mom though loved games mostly mario and nuclear strike lol
Oh the Amstrad PC’s, can’t say that I could get quite as nostalgic over them as you. I briefly had a job trying to sell them but being an Amiga guy myself they were hard to get excited about. I do remember that tiger though a nice image but it was no colourful king tut. Glad it bought back good memories for you though.
Thanks for this nostalgia trip with my first computer - bought with my father...!
So glad you enjoyed this. Here’s to our wonderful parents 🍻 Thank you for your support 🙏
I literally cried tears of joy for you when the tiger image came up. What a truly wonderful dedication from a Son to Father. I've no doubt he continues to be proud of you, no matter where he is. Happy Holidays to you and your wife ♥
Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot!
What?? no "PCB Waaaaayyyyyyyy"..?? in this video?? or i miss it?? :-| .......
Christian (@Retro Recipes) just like when you spill coffee or any other liquid on a keyboard .. the dishwashing liquid is probably leaked inside ... and the rubber domes membrane (if it have one) .. well that piece of old rubber .. shouldn't be very happy with all that moisture .... and if it doesn't have rubber domes... and it's the PCB (which as you know will start to stands for Poor Corroded Board for washing machineeeeeee) no seriously... the circuit board receive all that liquid .... ummm .. I don't know .... I mean ... even with a fan blowing air directly to him for several hours ... some of that moisture is going to be there... for several hours... or days... That can not be good man... :-\
@@Ramdileo_sys you missed it, it's at 13:41
Hope you're doing okay, dude. That last bit can't have been easy to say out loud.
Great video.
23:32 i can hear the emotion in your voice, and i feel it.
Great video as always :D
I lost my Dad almost 10 years ago. He was a programmer for many years as well as a musician who penned nearly 75 songs in his life. We had a 486 PC when I was in high school that he used word perfect to write all the lyrics to his songs. The computer was gone several years but I was able to get a backup of the entire 540 MB drive before it died.
Less than a year before he died, I was able to retrieve all of those word perfect files from that drive using VMware and booting up the old disk image of that machine. He was thrilled his music would live on, even if he wasn't, as he died from Leukemia in February 2010.
Sending you a virtual hug Perifractic! You are not alone.
❤️🙏❤️🕹️❤️🙏❤️
I understand your nostalgia - I feel it too. The thing about nostalgia now, is that it's better than it was. That's the defining characteristic of nostalgia - to make our past seem better than the present... or the future. You're doing better than you ever have, the past is only a benchmark.
I'm too old; we didn't have personal computers when I grew up. The original Texas Instruments TI-30 calculator didn't show up until my senior year in high school.
It's good you have memories of you & your dad setting the machine up. Mine passed in '84, so I know what it's like to miss him. He was an infantryman in WW2 Europe. Lord knows how he would have reacted to PCs.
Glad to see your "youth" collection is done!
I was in tears for you over the picture. Such a wonderful memory! Great video brother!
Thank you ❤️
I had the 1640 and used it extensively for accounting, word processing and so much more. Alan was a true 'entrepeneur' with the way he took on the pc market to deliver what was still a the cheaper price a 'quality' product. Loved the whirring sound of those discs :):)
17:04 and the 1.0/1.1 version we got on the CPC..
Thank you for taking us along on this journey!
Cheers from Greece!
To be honest, it's so refreshing to have such real and lovely ppl like you and your lady on RUclips! Really special! Keep it going! Share with us, bring more real emotions. Such kind of videos put real use to yt.
Wow. Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️
@@RetroRecipes Well, self earned :) I've seen a lot here but every time I watch a new episode it leaves a good feeling. Greetings from germany
Great video Chris. It's great that you have this PC on your collection, by that way your memories with your father will never be missed. Thanks for sharing it with us. Greetings from #Madrid #Spain
Thank you Luis. Greets and love from rainy California!
Wow! Such touching words about your dad towards the end of the video... I know what you mean man... Really nice!
Had one of these, it was my 3rd home computer. A 512 with dual floppys and a colour monitor. Did a little modding with the help of my late father, upgraded the memory to the whole 640k and put a 32mb Winchester hard card in the back. The hard disk was attached to the controller card so I kept the two floppy drives. This brought back a lot memories, sounds like it also did with you.
Beautiful video to watch... for many reasons, including the homage to your Dad. Glad you've now completed your museum! I keep looking at Amstrad 464 & 6128's on eBay as I had one of each... but I had loads of stuff with mine. Unfortunately the Amstrad got stolen from our shed once I upgraded to the Amiga. Not sure I could actually bring myself round to buying one as it wouldn't be the same. Also my wife isn't as understanding as Ladyfractic, and would be annoyed at the space it'll be taking up! But I am glad someone is giving these machines a new life. It was the CPC 464 I got at 12, that started me on my programming career!!! Thank you Lord Sugar for such a wonderful machine!!! :)
Not only was this educational but also incredibly sweet. It is not often that experiences like that can be repeated so many years later. Happy times. Cheers.
Thanks Pauline
I was really much more thrilled than I had any legit reason to be when that IMAGES folder appeared on the DOS disk. Hope everyone in the Fractic family has a great holiday season.
Than you for sharing your journey. Your love for these old computers is only eclyped by the love of your father.
I grew up with the hard drive model with a colour monitor. So many memories - groaning to life as I powered it up on a chilly morning, the "whistle" of the hard drive as it seeked, and the distinctive beep of the loud PC speaker. Ours booted straight into MS-DOS (never used GEM), but we had a ton of games - Sokoban, classic Sierra AGI/SCI adventure games, Sesame Street, Test Drive, and Monopoly among others. I also spent many hours with Microsoft Paintbrush (based on Zsoft Paintbrush and very similar to Paintbrush in Windows 3.x).
In 1993 we gave it to my cousin (as we had a faster 486), and while he made good use of it for a while, it has not been seen since.
In less than 50 seconds, you and your dog both improvised off of each other. Amazing.
She writes all the material though.
What a wonderful collection. That truly is something, and it's good to see these machines have ended up in a place that honors them.
God I miss the 80's so much... buying magazines and typing in pages of code was a blast!!!... Literally photos of CRT televisions in black and white displaying up and coming games...
I had an AmstradCPC484 then later the 128.... my first PC was an Australian VZ200 from Dick Smith Electronics, I loved coding basic on that old thing. I never owned a C64 but would love to get one one day as my friends always fought with me over which one was better hehe.... the good old days.
This Amstrad PC-1512 was the first computer my father bought, here in France.
I remember, when I was younger, I spent countless hours colouring this tiger on the computer (we had a colour monitor with it) :-)
Great video as per usual. Thank you for sharing your memories, I lost my dad earlier in the year and I know the feeling when doing things that you used to do together when they are no longer with us.
Thank you. I'm sorry to hear that.
I love those old adverts for the 1512, especially the french one, maybe because i'm french ! first steps in the pc wolrd also for me, with my dad too. thank you, it was a good moment.
I loved your video. And similarly that's how I got back into my old Commodore computers again. It's because of my Mom who tried the best an really hard for us, her kids: We got translated versions of "The Home Computer Course" at the magazine kiosk,-- which was locally called "Mi Computer" in my country, and she realized the learning potential of these devices; so she bought us a second hand Commodore 64. After owning an Atari 2600 this was amazing! So I got back my original C64 and repaired it back in 2017, (my brother had it stored, and time did its thing with the poor old machine). Then reacquired some of the Amigas that followed (2019), and finally, my brother gave me our old Amiga 1200, which I am slowly restoring and I'll give it back to him once I'm finished... Just as you, there were the "Tiger" equivalents for us, and remembered fondly of the days with our Mom, which as with your Dad, is no longer with us... Beautiful video, and thanks for sharing something so personal. I'm moved. --- I have spoken! :)
Really touching at the end, my father got me in to computers and alot of the time, i think of him when I'm working on something.
YES!!!! I mentioned to you before that PC1512 was my first PC! Upgraded to 640k, 40 meg IDE (yes, IDE) hard card was added, Media Vision Thunderboard, and 1200 baud modem later swapped to a 2400! Oh how I wish I still had that machine!!! Starting to watch now. What a great way to spend my lunch break today! ;)
The tiger is the equivalent of the mask of Tutankhamen for Amigas :)
... or the Owl for BBC computer owners.
...or the Japanese woodcut of the lady combing her hair for early Mac Users
I have a soft spot for this machine. Had exclusive access to one of these every day for my first year at college on a Computer Studies course. Playing Space Quest III and Digger at break and lunchtimes.
Putting the battery compartment in a spot under the monitor is a great idea! No need to tear apart half of the machine to replace them.
I never had an Amstrad (in fact, my first machine was a yugoslavian ZX called INES) but I got my first PC (IBM 5150) in 1989. My late mother borrowed it from her workplace where she worked for 30+ years as a programmer in FORTRAN and Cobol. Without her, I wouldn't know *anything* about computers today. She sadly passed away five years ago and I miss her dearly every day.
A wonderful video as always :) Happy holidays to you and the Mrs. :)
Cheers! Same to you!
My dad used to enjoy playing Commando which was a BASIC game on the TI-99/4A / Myarc Geneve. I spent hours watching him
I was unreasonably invested in that damn Tiger being there.
:-D
This brings back so many memories for me too as the PC1512 was also my first PC. I got it in 89 or 90 as an upgrade to my first computer which was a CoCo2. I only had the SD model and the monochrome monitor. Thanks for this!
I would never have owned an Amstrad...But, I appreciate your appreciation! I was a Commodore boy!
I had one of those, purchased during the brief period that they were imported into the USA. It had an 8086, so it had a full 16-bit data path, unlike the crippled 8088 in the typical clones. I got the extra memory (a full 640k!) and, IIRC, an 8087 chip, that I didn't really need. Later I added a 30-mb hard drive, and had quite a setup, 32 years ago. I doodled in the paint program in GEM. Still doing similar stuff, 3+ decades later.
Bloody wicked. Your father may not be there to enjoy it, but I want to thank you for bringing us along! Cheers mate! My best to MrsF.
Thank you
many thanks, mate. this was my very first computer, so this one is very special to my. i remember the sound of the floppydrive ;) i started with the b/w screen and one 5 1/4" Drive, upgrading to cga later and installing a 40MB Harddisk
This was our family's first computer and the first PC I ever used, also in 1986 - exactly the same as this one, PC1512 DD-MM. Later it was upgraded to 640K RAM and a WD "hardcard". Astonishingly it still works - the hard card needs a little flick of the wheel which presumably encourages the heads to un-park, but it spins up and all my computing history is there from childhood right up to University - I obviously had a BASIC programming assignment to do over Christmas holidays one year as I found a program I wrote for calculating laminar/turbulent flows in pipes!
The floppy drives need a bit of attention which is a shame as there's a very complete library of PCPlus SuperDisks to reminisce over (and the magazines from issue 1 too, in their very elegant binders)
Thank you for being wonderful and for sharing the nostalgia and of course we love your channel
Thanks for this! Great trip down memory lane. In the early 90's I worked at a computer retailer in Canada and we carried the Amstrad PC's. I loved the 1640! Our demo model had a 40Mg HDD, EGA card / Monitor and Sound Blaster and used to run Sublogic's Jet as the demo software.. We actually sold a lot of them. I remember adding a hard drive to a floppy model was interesting due to the non-standard hard drive mounting brackets. We got creative with our tin snippers. ;). Otherwise, great machines. We sold them beside IBM PS1's, Amiga's and c64s. Great times to be in the industry!
That was a trip down memory lane. I used to sell bunches of those back at a computer store so long ago. I was the tech, so I got to open and upgrade them before they went out the door. I think I remember swapping one of the floppies for 10meg hard disks, maybe even an occasional Seagate 20megger. :-)
Reconnecting with lost loved ones through pictures, places and things is a lovely thing to do. That was obviously very important to you, and a lovely warm, nostalgic trip down memory lane to the casual observer. Mr Fractic....Your Fired !....i mean Hired !...(i can't be the only one to have said that surely ?....Peace.
So far you are! Haha thanks.
@@RetroRecipes Thank you for your reply.
Yes Amstrad PC1512 was the first PC my family had back in the mid/late 80s before we had a MSX Toshiba. Different kettle of fish and could do a lot more stuff.
I remember a friend bringing me his Amstrad "Hi-Fi" system to repair once, after seeing what was inside...or rather the lack of things inside, I decided Sugar was a grifter & vowed never to buy anything with his name on it, ever....it was the worst piece of electronics i have ever had to work on, which is quite an achievement if you knew some of the rubbish i've repaired over the decades...
Still, i'm glad you got a working 1512 and you enjoy reminiscing ....as i did with the glimpse of the Atari ST....
Great video. I still own the PC1512 my dad bought us! Actually I still own all of the computers he bought us. He bought me even many years later a spectrum 16K, allready outdated at that time.. but still I always wanted to have one. So now I had a Speccy also. The computers he bought back in the days : ZX81,CPC6128,PC1512,SPECTRUM 16... On top of it all my mother won in 1988 an Amiga 500 in a contest. This all was for me the start to buy and collect many (very close to all) Amstrad / Sinclair / Amiga / Commodore computers. Thanks mom and dad! Sadly they are not around anymore to see my "little" collection.. memory lane..
One thing to note about the dishwasher - dishwasher detergent usually contains sodium hydroxide and/or potassium hydroxide.
These chemicals react with aluminum, so don't wash anything aluminum in the dishwasher. I worry about putting electronics in the dishwasher because a lot of electronic components contain aluminum and may be damaged by the detergent solution.
For example, electrolytic caps are usually aluminum.
I expect most keyboards would be fine, but it's something to consider.
Hooray for tiger! We used to have that very computer. I do recognise the tiger from the deep depths of my memory. :D
I enjoyed walking down memory lane with you on this one. I've been Chasing Tigers myself this last year. Resurrected my old Apple //e in April and booting up old spreadsheet and word processing docs that he/we had created, still loadable on 5.25 disks from 1983/84!!... was an incredible experience. Also picked up a fully functional Macintosh Plus recently and hearing the tones of Klondike dealing up cards also gave some goosebumps. Wish I could tell him just how cool this stuff still is.
Great video man! It touched me... My dad brought home our first computer, a ZX Spectrum, and it changed my life.
About the images being stored on the DOS disk: Maybe they only fit there once the other disks were full.
Great memories. Vividly remember the Tiger on my own PC1512. And playing many hours of Commander Keen
I am 43 and my first computer which I still have was an Amstrad CPC 6128.
Used to play Arkanoid with my father, I miss him too.
❤️
I got my PC1512 in the early 90s. I bought it off one of my brothers and it replaced my C64. I had the SD (single drive) version with the MM display, but it also had a 30MB hard card (8bit ISA expansion with the HDD and controller on a metal bracket). It took up two slots due to the width. I remember making an ISA expansion card for it in A-level electronics at school. I remember I got the extra 128k memory update for Christmas one year and thought I had broken the PC when it wouldn't power on. Turns out I had one leg of one of the memory chips had gone down the outside of the DIL socket. Reseating it correctly and I had 640k. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! :)
Great video. Dads and Mums are the best. Great memories.
Great video as usual,I had a heart stopping moment when the base unit fell!!!,and your final comment about your dad was so lovely and totally true..going to play on my CPC464 now for a blast from the past 😀
Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot.
I once sold and serviced these back in 1987-89. Great machine and quite affordable compared to its competitors in the day. Also sold its upgrade, the 1640, another good machine. Then the AMSTRAD 2086 came out, and we all know how how that went (looking at you Seagate)....
Got tears in my eyes as you were talking about your dad. I fully can understand that. And I remeber the tiger as well, but I saw it the first time on my first XT from Peacock in the end of 1987. Got also a mouse from Genius that days and still have the old mouse pad of it. Dr.Halo was the name of the paint program the mouse came with. ;-)
Thank you for sharing a special part of your childhood. I always look forward to the weekend to find you’ve released a new video.
Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️
One of my fav. So many warm memories. Great video.
The 1512 was my first PC :) Always great to see one! Ours was sadly donated and the one I got to replace it recently didn't come with the monitor. I've jimmy rigged a power supply but still need to do something to be able to hook it up to a standard monitor.
I'm always looking forward to new videos from the Fractics, Chris. You do DaddyFractic proud.
Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot!
Well said, indeed 🙏
This video has made me so happy. The PC1640 was the first PC I had, the model with the 20MB Hard Drive. Back then, I didn't even realize it was possible to get other software for it. My parents mostly used it as a word processor (It had WordPerfect on, I think), but I spend many many hours playing around in GEM, using paint and learning to program in Locomotive Basic! Ah, such memories, I'd really like to get my hands on one again
Between the late 1980's and early 1990's I taught computing to students on Amstrad 1512's using that GEM Operating system it was good fun. We had some with 20 meg drives but converted some to 40 meg and as the operating system could only handle 32 meg we partitioned them into 32 meg and 8 meg. Tiger Tiger still burning bright
OH MAN!!!! I understand it being bittersweet. Mine belonged to my grandfather first, who gave it to me as a hand-me-down when he got a Tandy 1000 TL/2 (I think it was a 2) to replace it. He died back in 1998. Mine also had the color monitor, and Prodigy actually supported the Amstrad graphics mode. Standard CGA on Prodigy was black and white, but not on Amstrad! Also, the one you have has the same disk drives that mine had! All of the others I have seen, both in advertisements and on RUclips, have the ones with the crooked latches. I miss GEM desktop and that machine so much. It was quite a step up from the Timex Sinclair and the CoCo 2. Then I went from this to a 486 (first machine I ever built), so it was even a bigger step up haha. GREAT video as usual!
Such an entertaining video! Love these stories. Your father would be proud of you, well done!
Thank you.
27 odd years ago this was the first PC I ever used on a YTS scheme and also the first time using a mouse and Deluxe Paint. There was always a rush to the double disk drive machines and latecomers had a fun day of disk swapping ahead of them...
Same here, I was on a YTS scheme (young thick and stupid or youth training scheme) :D
I sold Amstrad computers for my Dad back in the day. He's been gone a few years now and this takes me back. Thanks
I'm sorry to hear that
Always good times when you get a retro recipes upload
I basically found an Amstrad PC1512 SD before it was retro to keep it (about 20 years ago)... in Canada I might add. Came with the 20MB HD and 640KB RAM. Anyone know where to download all the software for this gem? I still have it! Happy you have found your family memories here.
Ladyfractic looks so pretty decorating the Christmas tree.
And the tree looks so pretty being decorated by her!
22:33 - Such a drama. I almost crying. (My mom threw away my PC-8001MKII which I used to own in early '90)
Well done on finding the tiger! I just found a book on the Space Shuttle my late Uncle loved after 20+ years so I know that particular bittersweet feeling of being reacquainted with something without someone. Wishing you & Lady F a very happy Christmas
I remember sitting infront of one of these in the sixth form at school, ah the joys. I got my mother to buy me a commodore pc -1 instead for home, loved it. I proud that you have shown this for your dad :D
What a great journey you had finding that tiger. Your Dad would be very proud :-)
Congratulations for the last piece you got :)
My father used to have an Olivetti M250 instead, but he glued darkened screen protectors on every monitor for no apparent reason
Saw the exact same image here in my hometown in northern Sweden in the eighties. Ahh good times
The tiger file loading was......aaaah!!! LOL Great machine BTW, and a real game changer at that time. :)
My dad had a PCW at his office, too. Fond memories...
Cheerio.
Great work - glad you found it! Surely, the next chapters in this story are to identify and meet Rogers.....
There's an idea!!
Great video. I have never heard of this brand of pc before but if its retro than I am going to click. Nice bit of background history of this machine between you and your dad and nice to see you now have your collection built and sorry your dad is not able to fully share this with you but he is still with you in thought and spirit and I bet he was smiling as well you found that image that you and him shared together when you first bought that PC. Have a good one and may your Christmas be a happy and joyous time. Thank you again.
Thank you Clint!
Such a sweet moment when you dedicated the Tiger find in your dad's honor. (I empathize.)
I would do about anything to find my original Commodore 64 as my dad bought it for me for Christmas when I was about 12. I have the box still (and therefore the serial number), however finding it would be impossible as I sold it many years ago.
Thank you for sharing this moment. It brought back memories for me as well. :-D
Thank you.
That’s great that you have the box though. I didn’t even keep that, though I have some game boxes. I’m planning an episode about finding all my old stuff soon.
Perifractic: "This thing is incredibly quiet"
Computer: *CRT noises intensify*
I couldn't hear it, but then again I'm ast 40, and high frequency noises like that escape me. Thankfully.
@@KennethSorling yea, I've only turned 18 last September and I try to take good care of my hearing. Crt noise still comes in loud and clear 😅
Sad to hear about your dad. Just like him, my dad introduced me to computers when he bought a VIC20 in the early eighties, and then the C64. An interest that has since been my entire professional life. And just like your father, mine is not around either today. But lets praise and thank of them for being so on the bleeding edge back then when it was far from common. Hell I was the only one in my class that had a computer for years. When he bought the C64 he even made HIS father take on the old VIC20, so aged 70 (in 1983) my grandfather learned BASIC on his own! Incredible... :)
Thank you Per. Love, Per.
Dadfractic is certainly proud!!!
We had an Amstrad 286 with GEM. My favorite thing about GEM Paint was the ability to create custom patterns on the color palette and use them for fills.
The Amstrad PC20 has volume control next to the power button, its specs internally are basically the same except for the extra cga video modes.
So glad for your sweet memories that just revived. 🌹
For me it was the image of King Tutankhamen's death-mask on the Amiga in Deluxe Paint... It was only 12-bit color (back when PCs were doing 8-bit colour :-) ) but to me it looked amazing. And when they brought out a 24-bit graphics card, (16,777,216 colours... I'll always remember that number!) it looked better than a photo. Not that I ever had the 24-bit graphics card.
Yo! Amazing timing. Just served myself some lunch. Now, off to a great saturday noon! Cheers.
I keep coming back to this video. There's a certain charm about the video and the machine I can't put my finger on. Lovely cleanup job too. Those scanlines on the monitor!
Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️
Me too!
I also have an Amstrad PC1512 but it has a ram error and it doesn’t boot. I hope I can get it to work
@@RetroRecipes Hello! New subscriber here, I was short tempred with my Amstrad and now the question the computer asks me asked over and over again is that I need a font in order to type any information into the computer. Can you help?
@@dannwan8537 Sorry never heard of that. Register at cpcwiki forum or the main Amstrad user group on Facebook and ask there 👍🕹️
Just for the record...the pc1512 and the later 1640 where the first pc's for many people here in Greece. Amstrad was very popular here...The cpc 6128 was the best selling home computer between 1986-1988.
I use to play on these in Dixons. They were good value and reasonable quaility. I always wanted the 1640 model.
Maybe I saw you there ;-)
That GEM tiger blew my mind in 1987. I remember cutting the picture of it out of an Amstrad magazine at the time. Great video!
I'm glad I wasn't the only one! I honestly had no idea that image resonated with so many people. 👍🕹️
My tiger back in the days was the mask of Tutankhamun that came with Deluxe Paint on the Amiga... up to this day the only thing existing is the real mask of Tutankhamun on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo... but that's a different story.
My first x86 was an Amstrad too, but slightly later, a 486SX-25, have fond memories of playing civ, doom and discworld (amongst others) on it - my father bought it for me on my birthday, came into my room to find it on my bed after school, damn I was happy
My parents got us the Amstrad CPC 664 with built in disc drive (the less popular brother of the CPC 464 with the built in tape drive) for Xmas 1985 and it also had an external data tape drive for most of the games, together with a colour monitor. We had hardly any games on disc (except The scout steps out and a Grand Prix game) although they loaded a lot faster than the tape drive.
Have many happy memories of playing all the games (harrier attack, dizzy island, Biggles, Aliens etc). I did spend ages loading a game on tape sometimes though, only for it to crash at the last minute and then having to rewind the tape to start again.
I also tried to do a bit of programming with something called turtle? and used to read some Amstrad magazines for programming code tips and game reviews, great days.
Sadly my dad had a loft clear out and threw it out years later and I only found out afterwards as I would have loved to have kept it.
i miss my dad too, an electronics repair man with is own shop. we started on coco III and then c64.
That sounds so cool. Peace man.
The first computer my parents got for home was a PC1512 with the 640KB of RAM and a colour monitor. I think we must have had a later model as I'm sure I remember it having a fan in it.
Later my parents got it upgraded with a 10MB hard drive, which was black and really stuck out like a sore thumb, had a big rectangular red light on it and went "beep" a lot. Under Mum's influence the hard drive had WordStar 5.5 installed on it, and I spent a great deal of time writing silly stories on it and generally learning how to type under her guidance. My mother was taught to type at school because the girls were meant to become secretaries, but this skill has helped me to a pretty high-paying job and I'm baffled why it's not taught today.
As for the other things the computer could do... I was desperate for a LOGO system, but Basic2 had a turtle mode so I spent ages getting confused by it because it defaulted for some reason to operating in radians, which at the age of 8 I really didn't understand. Eventually I discovered that you could convert from degrees and my drawings got a lot better.
My sister and I also got the PC1512 poster image and made the lady naked, having been "inspired" by the adverts on television at the time for a brand of deodrant which obviously wanted us to think that if we used it we'd be "natural". Instead we found it hilarious, because we were largely too young to actually understand why you needed to have deodrant in the first place.
Lovely to see this video, and a system in such good condition.
Awesome glad you completed the collection. My late dad preferred fixing cars and model cars to computers i don't think he even played a game my mom though loved games mostly mario and nuclear strike lol
Great video as always. Somehow I got sawdust in my eyes near the end...
Oh the Amstrad PC’s, can’t say that I could get quite as nostalgic over them as you. I briefly had a job trying to sell them but being an Amiga guy myself they were hard to get excited about. I do remember that tiger though a nice image but it was no colourful king tut. Glad it bought back good memories for you though.
(And of course, that last minute... I too think of my late father who soldered the first ZX80 for me... unforgettable moments in time)