I appreciate the amount of research and polish going into these. As a 23-year-old American I've had zero exposure to microcomputers, so hearing about them from someone who was there is a real treat.
It's refreshing to see your comment it's good to know that young people are open minded enough to take an interest in the humble beginnings of microcomputers. I feel blessed that I lived through these times it's a generational thing we all go through I guess. I say this because I am 44 and sometimes I've wished I was born earlier so I could have lived through the swinging sixties. We all take everything for granted in a way and we should embrace and enjoy every minute we are on this Earth and make the best of all opportunities that come our way otherwise you will look back with regret (I advise NEVER to regret anything even if you are justified to do so because all the time we are alive there is still time to make good )
@@TheFusedplug I'm 50 and I'm glad to have enjoyed the era of the microcomputers. Back then my father bought me a CPC-464 with color monitor. Those were the days...
Sugar is testament to the idiocy of our society, in the way that no matter how thick or outright racist you might be, so long as you have built up a business (no mater how crappy your products were) you're somehow some kind of guru who deserves to be listened to
@@DavidGraeberWasRight Alan Sugar is Jewish. I don't know what he has said to make you write that comment. Please can you let me know what racist comment you refer to
I'm from France and the CPC was the microcomputer we needed at the time. C64 was unheard of, Thomsons were in the schools (but not really comparable to what the CPC had to offer) and all the DOS/Apple II stuff was crazy talk.
I loved my Amstrad CPC 6128 when I was a kid. I learned to code BASIC and Z80 assembly on it, which gave me my love of programming (which is my job these days). Mind you, a part of it was that it was a present from my granddad for Christmas 1990, not long before he died in 1991 - so I have a personal reason for my fondness of the CPC.
I am 14 and recentley helped my grandad to restore his 1987 amstrad 1640 with a hard drive (fancy) because it wqs all yelow but now it is the correct color after spending probably 23 hours cleaning and re installing the operating system. I realy enjoyed it and hope to try and code on it.
I lovehated our 1640 hard. The hard drive was unreliable and the EGA mode never worked properly, but it was a real proper PC, unlike the Ataris and Amigas and consoles my friends had.
In 1987 we got our first Amstrad. The Amstrad PC1512, quite a popular MS-DOS (with Gem Desktop) PC. The magazine "PC PLUS" was actually originally called "PC PLUS Amstrad". There was quite a high uptake of that machine and I remember playing lots of games on it such as Arkanoid, Wizball, Bruce Lee etc
The Amstrad CPC was released the same year as Sinclair QL, Commodore C16, Commodore plus 4, Enterprise, Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ and Spectravideo 728. The one with success was the Amstrad CPC. The magazines were very impressed with the build quality of the Amstrad CPC. The return rate because of faulty equipment was much lower than the competition including the ZX Spectrums and Commodore C64.
+Ivar Fiske I think Kim is being far too harsh on the CPC in his videos. The CPC is actually well made on the whole and has a large database of great games and also serious software, with some of the games being technically good; infact many of them were beyond what the Commodore 64 was capable of with graphic resolution and colour, or wire frame 3D or racing games etc. I owned a rubber key Spectrum 48K and had to return it under guarantee about four times, before I received one that worked and lasted without going faulty. However my CPC never needed returning and was used for thousands of hours without once going wrong. I think the CPC was a very well rounded computer, which could cover many areas competently; something you could not say about the C64 or others.
I've put this one off as I loved my Amstrad growing up; it's hard to reconsile personal affection for the machine with the nature of Alan Sugar's strategy of maximum profit for minimum input and bugger the quality. It feels like unrequited love! Still the Amstrad all in one idea was a goody, even if the tech wasn't. Great video, though: thank you once again for taking the time to make.
I got an Amstrad CPC464 for Christmas in about 1984, have lots of good memories playing stockmarket and trivial pursuit with family and gauntlet and target renegade multiplayer but on the whole the games weren't great, at least they were easy to copy 👍
The monitor (which used an RGB connection) meant that the picture was so much better than anything else around at the time. I later mangled the connection with so I could use it on my imported Sega Megadrive and once again, my picture was so good compared to the bloody awful TV connected efforts from Sinclair etc. Amstrad did sell a TV modulator for their CPCs and I used one once. No way you would be in mode 2 and reading text with one of those!
loved my cpc 664 still play the games on my PC now. stock market and classic racing my fav games and a few others. still funny playing football manager. loved my vic20 and c64 before my amstrad
The unsung hero is the PCW which sold more than the CPC and speccy combined, or the Amiga and ST combined. Probably the most popular 8bit PC outside the c64.
I really do enjoy these types of documentaries you put out. I'm not really informed on the old Micro computers, but I've been really finding them interesting and your stuff is really informative to a newbie like me, especially when its mostly about the British market. Anyway love your work, keep it up :)
Another great documentary Kim, I think you've really hit your mark when it comes making videos. I just hope more people get to see them because with quality of your releases, you deserve to be having a 100k subs and more :)
+mattyfox666 Agreed, love these vids. History about computing is incredible. Kim, you ought to visit the computer museum in Cambridge.. you would have an incredible time there as they have every, and I mean *every* old computer and console which you can play with.
Oh yes. Looking forward to this. The Amstrad 464+ was my computer as a kid, so can't wait to watch this video when I get home from work. Keep up the great work Kim.
When it comes to the build quality of the Amstrad CPC range, I'd say they were top quality. I had all sorts of problems with the Spectrum and C64, including overheating, cassette issues etc.. But my Amstrad never had problems - and I know it was the same for my friends and other Amstrad users. From what I've heard/read, you can buy an Amstrad and it will still work fine. But I don't know if the monitors still work, but probably not. Anyway, you can buy an RGB scart cable these days. Also, as much as the Amstrad had lots of Spectrum ports, games that were specially made for the machine were often very colourful and impressive.
Considering this video doesn't really talk about the people who made the CPC, I'd say the lack of passion is a matter of perception. The efforts of Roland Perry and his team to make a success of this doomed project were nothing short of heroic. Given an unrealistically short deadline, they managed to turn in a machine with a solid architecture and quality operating system, while also creating an in-house publisher to ensure there was plenty of software at launch. It's quite a story and much more interesting than moaning about Alan Sugar, who was just the guy demanding it all be ready by Christmas. Although I suppose there's no denying his all-in-one design philosophy was also a good idea for a computer and Steve Jobs clearly agreed. The CPC itself had a decent keyboard and could do 80 column text and turned out to be great for small businesses and word processing (leading to the very successful PCW) and one of the best machines to learn to code thanks to the excellent BASIC and manual written largely by Roland Perry himself.
What can I say another master piece, you should honestly consider making video gaming documentaries full time, I couldn't stop the movie out if sheer joy, keep up the amazing work my queen of documentaries.
My mum used to have an Amstrad 464 Plus, she bought it back in 1989 or so when she decided to go to college once me and my brother were in school and my sister was close to starting school at the time. Played quite a few games on it, I think she's still got the old thing in the attic with all of the games that were bought for it. Feeling old now after watching a few of your videos.
compared with the other 8bit home computers the cpc was great for coding: good basic, 80x25 characters, good keyboard and a copy and paste function. also thanks to the build in tape, in the months before christmas 1984, we kids would be in the department stores writing and sharing software.
i have realy enjoyed your series,i think the UK and euro game scenes are completly forgotton,and there very important,just imagine no ARM chips for a start,thanks so much
I'm from the rubber key era. I actually started with a zx81 which had a membrane keyboard! Then a speccy 48k, then an AMstrad CPC 464 with colour monitor, I actually quite liked the machine. Excellent vids btw. Cheers.
Kim, you're on fire with these videos! The research, the editing, the topics, the wealth of information; and they grip you, they're fascinating! Thank you so much for making them for us all. I hope big things come your way, you deserve it. it's so good seeing the history of videogames and computers from the British perspective, a viewpoint which has seemingly been neglected or pushed aside on youtube and 'games media' due to the passion our American cousins have for Atari and Nintendo. Please keep up the good work, it's great to listen to someone so intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate about this stuff : )
The CPC464 was my first computer when I was a kid. I remember trying my hand at BASIC, typing what seemed like 100's of lines of code just to get a blue and yellow flashing circle - that's if I was lucky and didn't get a lad of syntax error messages. Also, waiting for donkeys trying to load a game on a tape with that whirly noise, then watching it crash and having to start again. We must have had a load of patience back then!
Just noticed that the QL advert mis-spells Macintosh. That would stand out a mile these days, but I guess at the time most people wouldn't have noticed or cared as it wasn't really a household name.
It was only ever shown at the launch event. Never shown on TV. Never shown at cinemas as planned. So hardly anyone saw it until the modern era when it became ubiquitous thanks to micro men.
Great work, very interesting. The speccy wasn't particularly popular here in Australia, but the CPC systems sold well enough. I didn't have one, but I knew a few who did. I remember seeing the MegaPC thing for sale alongside Amiga 600s, Amiga 1200s and crap Commodore PCs and little black and white compact Macs. I got an A1200, despite Commodore having just gone under when I got it - it still seemed like the best option unless I just wanted to play games - and we had a Sega Master system 2 for that...
Thanks, I've enjoyed your video, but, like many others have commented here also, I'm rather surprised you did not mentioned the great cheap amstrad PC compatible series Pc1512 and PC1640, they were very popular here in Portugal. With the Intel's 8086 at 8mhz rather than the stock Intel 8088 used in xt's. I grew up with the spectrum and had a PC1512, both very popular and cheap here. Thanks again for the videos.
Sugar's genius was, as he called it himself, 'the mug's eyeful'. He realised that the average lorry driver would buy their appliances from Argos Catalogues based on the photos, so made shiny boxes with lots of buttons, and the cheapest possible electronics inside. The punter wouldn't know the audio quality was sh1te, there was nothing to compare it to.
Very Interesting. Thanks for that. A CPC6128 was my 2nd computer, after a Vic. I always saw it as better than the spectrum, because mainly I hated the awful keyboard on the speccy. Too me the Spectrum always seemed like it had been cobbled together (especially the early ones). The Amstrad CPC just worked. There was no drama with it, it was built well enough, the software was good enough etc... The Monitor was OK too. I do think you spent too much time on the CPC464 though, the PCW range was hugely successful, and I know people in business today that STILL use them. Thanks.
I would like to add another point of view. Here in Germany in the mid 80ies the CPC and the C64 were the main popular computers, at least among my friends. The keyboard of the CPC 6128 was a great business type keyboard. The programming language basic (Locomotive basic) was good. Shipped with the cpc also was CPM, which helped me switch to DOS and linux later on. In my opinion the CPC was a great jumpboard for later programmers and IT-guys into the world of modern PCs. The programming handbook (basic) of the german Schneider CPC was one of the best guides I have read in my whole life as a programmer. Regarding gaming there were better machines, yes. Your great documentary did miss one thing. The CPC's death was the rare 3 inch floppy drive. In his biography I read, that they got hands on a cheap stock of lots of these drives, and so they built them into the CPCs (and their textprocessing computer Joyce). The floppy disks were robust and cool, double sided, but expensive. I bought my cpc6128 with green monitor for 799 Deutsche Mark in 1987. 10 floppy Disks (3 inch) did cost addional 100 DM. Too expensive compared to the cheap 5,25 floppies of the c64 or the upcoming 3,5 floppies of the Amiga and the PCs.
Those disks were robust because they were designed to be sent though the mail without packaging. This was actually part of the design specification. The Amstrad Spectrums also used them.
So enjoyable, I love being taken back to my childhood in this way. Like many of us I had friends with Spectrums, CPC's, Commodore +4's and I had to make do with an old and arthritic VIC20. I had the last laugh in 1991 when my parents bought me an A500+ just in time for all of my friends to ditch the Amiga and buy mega drives. I guess I was forever destined to be behind the times but I wouldn't have it any other way. Keep up the top work Kim!
I don't know why you basically skipped the three most successful Amstrad lines. The Amstrad PCW sold 8 million computers with monitor and printer. A huge success and big money maker. The total sale of Sinclair ZX Spectrum including Amstrad sales of the Spectrum, was only 5 millions. Amstrad dominated the PC market in Europe for several years from 1986 to around 1990 with 12 million machines sold. The Sky decoders sold really well too. A small number of was tried sold in the USA through their Spanish importer Indescomp, it failed badly. But it gave us and the French the Amstrad CPC 6128. The Amstrad CPC 6128 was the best selling Amstrad CPC in France. A disc based machine with 128 kB memory. One of the reasons for its success was that France had its own TV standard. As the Amstrad CPC came with its own monitor included, that was not a problem.
@@Turtle_Zed At the time, the error return rate of Amstrad home computers were way lower than the competition. Better engineering and build quality did this
@ I can’t agree with you there. I must have been very unlucky because everything I owned which had the name Amstrad on it (PC or HiFi) was very flaky caused by poor build quality and cheap components.
Nice video ;) I recall one of the major selling point of the 464 was the included Easy Amsword wordprocessor. Today we dont think much about getting a wordprocessor, but back then getting one for free & along with a good keyboard computer really was something. When i had to step up from my belowed ZX81 back then it was a tough choice, however the colourfull amstrad screenshots in mags won me over. I think i recall Sugar saying that to him the 464 was just a big calculator & it was never really supposed to be a gaming machine, something that is quite apparent when you read thru early amstrad mags & get one gray page after another with spreadsheets & databases & pcw blue pages.
The Amstrad CPC, which is also remembered as "Schneider" as it was distributed by them (Belgium, Germany, etc), did have its personality gaming-wise. It had a mascot, Roland. Many Roland games, some of which were rebranded ports (like, Fred became Roland on the Ropes). And it's apparently this Alan Sugar guy who's behind that character & game range, so it looks like he did care.
These documentary style bio vids have become my favorite of all the guys who do this kind of thing within the gaming genre. I've watched a ton of them, from many different people, and these are the best blend of information, humor, and personality. The gaming historian could maybe learn a thing or 2 :) Both great, but I think you grab the lead buddy :) Thanks for the great content!
Amstrad was my first love, and games always looked better on Amstrad compared to my mates C64 and Speccy, they used to come to my house to play 2 player beat em ups that were only one player on their systems. In my circle it was the "posh" choice.
I will say that the Locomotive BASIC that came with the CPC was easily one of the best versions BASIC that came with any of the 80s home computers. Certainly leagues ahead of that awful Commodore BASIC. It really got me into programming.
Interesting take on things, not sure about this second phase you go on about, the speccy an c64 were only out 2 years before the cpc. And hey, I like Alan. Shrewd and hardworking. It' easy to be jealous of him I guess. ;)
+Novabug I kind of think of it as a second phase because there was almost a chance of there being a big crash around 1985/86 or so. C64 were only just establishing themselves in the UK + Acorn and Sinclair were doing very badly thanks to, variously, wasting tons of money on American ventures/not being able to make enough Electrons for Christmas/the QL and the C5...things could have been hairy if they'd all gone down. But then Acorn were bought up by Olivetti, Amstrad bought the Spectrum, the C64 continued to gain ground and the CPC stabilised the market, so the potential crash was averted. I also think of it as a second phase because that was the point where any pretence of microcomputers being computers that could do everything from games to spreadsheets to word processing and the like was dropped - after 1986 these machines are just about all marketed on games alone. ...I actually warmed to Alan Sugar a little through making this video. I still fall to the side of not being a big fan of his, but he has his plus points. Should be noted that anyone looks better when they come directly after Robert Maxwell.
As for your views on the GX, your spot on with the 'difficult to compete' theme and the lack of games. However, only 3 of the 26 official games were identical copies of the cpc originals. Some were slightly altered, other completely re-done. 10 were specific to the gx. I've done a series on this comparison. And you mention the build quality. The console itself wasn't that bad both externally and internally, but the pack in psu was cheap rubbish and was mainly the cause of breakdowns. Yes, some killer carts popped up, but this happens with many consoles of that era. If the gx had been supported correctly, it would have had a better life. And way better than the C64GS anyway. Pity, but I guess all the firms of that early era suffered sticky fates. Aside from Nintendo of course. :)
Truthfully? I was getting ready to slay the GX4000 when I was preparing for this...and honestly, after playing with it? I couldn't really. Like, if there'd been more games along the likes of Robocop 2 it'd have been pretty freaking great (I can't stress enough how good that game is actually)...most of the GX games that I played, like Burnin' Rubber, Switchblade and Mystical (which, funnily enough, I believe is one of the straight GX ports? Incredibly rare too) I quite enjoyed! Easy to see why it failed though...I'd almost want to try and buy one if they weren't actually surprisingly expensive (*sigh* what isn't these days?) That Batman is just a super piss-take though...all that extra money just for a cartridge and a splash screen! Also amusing that almost every game on there is either by Ocean or Titus.
+Kim Justice Ocean and Titus did a lot yeah, best supported the system. Lorciel also. Batman is disappointing with just the title screen and a plus palettle colour change. Good job it was a good game on the cpc. Mystical IS one of the carbon copy games yes. :) For my money, Pang is the best game using the plus features and great playability. Hey, why now get one. The games are the expensive part, the consoles can be picked up cheap, grab a decent psu and a C4CPC flash cart... boom, full Gx library. ;)
Kim, I can't help feeling that your dislike of Alan Sugar has coloured your opinion of his company's products. I cannot agree that the build quality of his computers was poor, especially when you take into account what you were paying. I have owned both a Spectrum and an Amstrad CPC 464, and the Amstrad was a pleasure to use compared with the Spectrum. None of the Amstrad computers ever had keys that fell out when you turned the keyboard upside down. I never experienced RAM pack wobble on the Amstrad. The Amstrad computers actually came with a decent keyboard and a decent monitor (for the time) that could actually display the colour red properly. What's more, you got four (yes four) dedicated cursor keys, unlike the Spectum (none) or the Commodore C64 and Vic 20 (two - Yes really. You were expected to use a shift key to make the cursor go in the opposite direction!). The built in tape drive worked way better than the ghetto blaster you used with your Spectrum. Plus the BASIC (from Locomotive Software) was way better than the Spectrum's or the Commodore 64's, and at least on a par with BBC BASIC. The dot matrix printer was crap though. In other respects Amstrad were way more professional than their competitors. I had to wait about a year from the launch date of the Spectrum before it was finally delivered. Amstrad computers were in the shops right from the start. In fact at one point you could struggle to keep up, as Amstrad seemed to be releasing a new computer every week. The CPC 664 was only produced for 6 months. I don't understand why you find it so distasteful that Alan Sugar was interested in making money. He was running a company. That's what companies do. Whatever a company's mission statement says, that is the number one priority. If they don't make money, they don't survive. Do you think that the top priority of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon etc. is your welfare? Nope. It's money. Sure, they can have other priorities, but money comes top of the list. In some ways this can be a good thing. I think Amazon's success is due to providing a service that the customer wants, and doing it better than the competition. That is how you make money. Have you never seen an item in a shop (or more likely not seen it, because it is out of stock) and thought "Sod it. I'll just buy it on Amazon.". Anyway, I digress. Not much in the video about the staggeringly successful PCW series of CP/M computers, and the PCW IBM PC compatibles either, but I guess your focus is on games. One last thing, and then I will shut up. I think you misrepresent Clive Sinclair as a "boffin". (Actually that might have been a different video). He was certainly more interested in how the computer works than Alan Sugar, but the design of the Spectrum was down to Richard Altwasser. Pretty sure Clive had no involvement except on a superficial level.
Thanks. Would have liked to have seen more on Amstrad's PC compatibles - and an honourable mention should go out to their gloriously awful CP/M business machines of the early 1990s - remember them? They weren't PC compatible, but they looked like PCs. They came with a printer, monitor, Wordstar and LocoScript - or something.
No mention of the Sorcery game, nor Nonterraqueous, nor of the excellent and quite performant Locomotive BASIC, nor the brilliant concept of copy cursors and the Copy key? And how about underestimating the utility of a RGB monitor I used for over 12 years, first with the CPC464, then with my Atari ST and a quickly soldered 6-pin RGB adapter, and also as a PAL TV monitor for my VHS VCR? That CPC464 (distributed by Schneider in Germany) was such a great first computer to use and study, easily better than the C64 or Speccy. I still have mine in working condition. Anyway, thumbs up from me. Cheers!
not really, Trameil would sue to death people who quit his company and then started another company that would or could compete with him and he also literally fucked all the people that worked for him that did not belong to his inner circle(his sons and his sycophants)
I can't help thinking the guy who made this video has some sort of axe to grind. If everything Lord Sugar did was a flop, why is he still worth millions today?
hat's off to you, I been watching your videos for 1/2 a day, and wow YOU ARE pretty nerdy.. i can't even come close. but i am also nerdy. Keep up the good work man!
Great video! However if you're doing a story of Amstrad in the 80's-90's then you've missed out a huge chunk here - specifically their PC's from the mid 80's onwards - they were hugely successful and market leader for a good number of years. It's kind of ironic that most articles or documentaries about Amstrad - much to my annoyance - they always focus entirely on their PC range and only have a small footnote mention of the CPC, here it's the opposite! lol
The CPC was my first computer - my Dad bought it for me and my siblings around 1989. Although I thought it was okay at the time, I never loved it as much as I loved my future gaming machines such as the Nes and Snes. My favourite game on the system was probably Contra, although there were a couple of other "okay" games such as Dan Dare and Impossible Mission.
Nice vid. I remember the ggreen and red keyed computer, and the GSX4000, I thought Robocop looked good, but it disappeared from the pages of Mean Machines fairly quickly. I had a Nes. And the Amstrad didn't have the games to support it.
Really interesting, well made and insightful video. Surprised you have relatively few subs so far, I can see huge potential in your channel if you keep this kind of quality up!
Vectrex here in America was of a similar concept; except it had a monitor with wireframe graphics and it used cartridges instead of disks or tapes. And Vectrex was more of a video game system, and not a computer (hope I am saying this right). This was back in the early 80s (I am guessing around 1982-1983).
I think your hatred for Alan has clouded your judgement somewhat. I’m not keen on him either, but there are some things you missed. The reason the cpc was popular in France was due to the fact that their colour system, secam was almost impossible to generate from a cheap computer. The majority of computers that sold in France could produce RGB and bypass this issue. The cpc took a step further and took the tv out of the equation by including its own display device. You missed a whole section on the pcw being a top seller amongst book writers, and the fact almost every company in the Uk had at least one pc1512 or 1640 as there was nothing remotely near the price of these machines that could do what they could. Like I said, I’m not his biggest fan, but credit where it’s due
Oh god the Amstrad PCW. My mother, of all people, had one of those and worked from home. It used 3 inch (not 3 1/2 inch) floppies that NOTHING ELSE seemed to use, and she had the 9512 which looked like it had emerged from a car crusher.
While I appreciate the research that's obviously gone into this, you've missed several important points: 1. the CPC isn't as technically unnoteworthy as you made out, as the computing magazines of the time attested; and 2. the experts in the field at the time were not saying Amstrad were coming in too late - in fact, the CPC was widely praised prior to its launch, with many experts considering it the best machine coming to market. No, Amstrad didn't produce a machine that beat all comers but that was clearly not its purpose. It did change things though, as the all-in-one systems we all have these days clearly shows. In many ways, the CPC is a victim of timing; and if it had been quicker to market, the fanboy legions would be singing a different tune to the one we are all so tired of hearing now.
I imagine many mainland Europeans will say a different thing too about the CPC. If nothing else, I think Lord Sugar's push into that untapped market was the big thing he should be remembered for. Not trying to pig-headedly tap into an American market that was essentially on lock-down between the C64 and, later on, IBM compatibles. The idea that anything from Sinclair would succeed here is laughable, and even the BBC wasn't going to break the hold IBM had. Interestingly, the IBM PC was also an all-in-one piece of kit, as were many PC compatibles. Lord Sugar was clearly onto something. Something "good enough" with all the bits and bobs you need from the getgo, will always win the day.
+Jesus Zamora Amstrad didn't try to enter USA with the Amstrad CPC 6128. It was the Spanish distributor that had a go at the US market. If Kim Justice is saying that Amstrad was having a go at the US market, he hasn't researched that part good enough
dartsma464 She also made the point that Amstrad made no effort for the US, which was part of why Amstrad were so successful. They saw how Sinclair (with the Timex Sinclair models) and Acorn (with the BBC Micro) failed, and decided not to jump into the meatgrinder. I can tell you as an American who grew up post-crash, any attempt would have been just as disastrous as Sinclair and Acorn. Hell, I hadn't even KNOWN Sinclair and Acorn tried to break America until I started watching these videos. When I grew up, you had "computers" (IBMs) and Apples. That's how consolidated the market was after the gaming crash and the microcomputer price war.
Interesting vid Kim, the amstrad CPC (green monitor!) was my first computer and so, in a way, nothing can compete with that nostalgia. As you point out in the vid, he was a business man very much of the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' philosophy. When we got our first Sky plus box it was Amstrad and it was a buggy POS, we replaced it with a PACE model a couple of years later and it was a totally different experience. I think he could never hope to belong to a world of high quality manufacturing and modern electronics. From what I read most of his wealth now comes from property. He is an entertaining character but certainly no business genius.
Nah. Alan Sugar made money on his own without daddy’s help-definitely not a parallel to Trump. Plus, most people in the UK hate Alan Sugar. And they’re leaning Labour now and lost their shit (in a good way) when Corbin won the early general election this year. So yeah. Sugar as PM? Not likely. EDIT: ...oops.
Whats that tune playing over most of the section about sugar buying sinclair? It sounds like what I can only describe as '8 bit PiL'...in other words bloody demented brilliance!
In a way, yes, but it didn't apply to everything. The Sinclair Executive calculator was quite expensive, costing half an average monthly salary; it undercut the Western products but was a few times more expensive than Japanese ones. That is rich people toy. The Sinclair Black Watch was also not necessarily cheap. And then there's this not so subtle difference. Sinclair computer products were very bare bones, they were the cheapest single item you could buy, but also pretty much the worst. Amstrad is different, it's a very capable full fledged machine which wouldn't have you pay for one extension after the other. Think of the things you'd need to hang onto the cheapest Spectrum to make it whole: cassette recorder, 32K ram expansion cart, soundcard, a joystick adapter... But the basic Amstrad came fully loaded, it even came with the monitor. Amstrad was all about convenient ready to roll packages that were on the whole still in the impulse price range. I think Sinclair's marketing decisions are actually born from a kind of slightly naive pragmatism. If, as alleged, he didn't think computers were of any actual use, it made total sense to make them bare bones and cheap. But it's Sugar who mastered the marketing of impulse purchase.
I'd say that while there are some similarities, there are huge differences, too. Sinclair was an innovator (that's not to say all of his inventions were successful, of course!) with his pocket calculators, micro televisions and computers - and I think saw himself as a benevolent force for bringing new high-technology to "the man in the street". But that affordability inevitably meant quality compromises, particularly in terms of electronic components. Sinclair's greatest failing was that sometimes he simply assumed that there would be market demand when a little research would have told him there was actually (almost) none - notably the C5. Sometimes he'd try to convince the public that their lack of interest was due to their ignorance: ie "You don't realise it yet but you *need* a C5". Those products that did sell well largely did so through luck and good marketing as much as anything. Whether his products were successful or not, Sinclair wasn't interested in personal wealth: ironically a lot of the profit from his successful products was ploughed into R&D for subsequently unsuccessful ones (eg the QL and the C5). Sugar, on the other hand, is no innovator, simply jumping on a number of existing bandwagons (hi-fi, computers, set-top boxes). Sugar did carry out market research and found a gullible public. You might argue that the PCW range was innovative in its day but all Sugar did was to cobble together some old hardware, a cheap monitor and some (actually very good) Wordprocessor software. But most of Sugar's products were of deliberately poor quality in order to undercut competitors and dominate the budget market to fund his plutocratic lifestyle. Sinclair's take on "affordability" was borne of benevolence - Sugar's was borne of cynicism.
Dave Matthews You're not wrong, but numerus products that are and were immediately successful and changed how we view things were introduced under circumstances that would show negligible market interest in prior research. Some company heads are simply more successful with that than the others.
If you liked this then think about having a gander through my social media, and get yourself on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/KimbleJustice
I appreciate the amount of research and polish going into these. As a 23-year-old American I've had zero exposure to microcomputers, so hearing about them from someone who was there is a real treat.
It's refreshing to see your comment it's good to know that young people are open minded enough to take an interest in the humble beginnings of microcomputers. I feel blessed that I lived through these times it's a generational thing we all go through I guess. I say this because I am 44 and sometimes I've wished I was born earlier so I could have lived through the swinging sixties.
We all take everything for granted in a way and we should embrace and enjoy every minute we are on this Earth and make the best of all opportunities that come our way otherwise you will look back with regret (I advise NEVER to regret anything even if you are justified to do so because all the time we are alive there is still time to make good )
@@TheFusedplug I'm 50 and I'm glad to have enjoyed the era of the microcomputers. Back then my father bought me a CPC-464 with color monitor. Those were the days...
Sugar is testament to the idiocy of our society, in the way that no matter how thick or outright racist you might be, so long as you have built up a business (no mater how crappy your products were) you're somehow some kind of guru who deserves to be listened to
@@DavidGraeberWasRight
Alan Sugar is Jewish. I don't know what he has said to make you write that comment. Please can you let me know what racist comment you refer to
I'm from France and the CPC was the microcomputer we needed at the time. C64 was unheard of, Thomsons were in the schools (but not really comparable to what the CPC had to offer) and all the DOS/Apple II stuff was crazy talk.
Brilliant as always. 10/10
Love all the old adverts you manage to dig up.
Cameos by Brian Clough, Alan Partridge and the Mega Powers, it's why I love your videos more than anyone else's on youtube.
Middlesbrough are shite. Stop boring us.
@@tigereye1208 It is not he who is the bore here Sir.
My CPC-464 is still working like new. Great machine.
I loved my Amstrad CPC 6128 when I was a kid. I learned to code BASIC and Z80 assembly on it, which gave me my love of programming (which is my job these days). Mind you, a part of it was that it was a present from my granddad for Christmas 1990, not long before he died in 1991 - so I have a personal reason for my fondness of the CPC.
I am 14 and recentley helped my grandad to restore his 1987 amstrad 1640 with a hard drive (fancy) because it wqs all yelow but now it is the correct color after spending probably 23 hours cleaning and re installing the operating system. I realy enjoyed it and hope to try and code on it.
I lovehated our 1640 hard. The hard drive was unreliable and the EGA mode never worked properly, but it was a real proper PC, unlike the Ataris and Amigas and consoles my friends had.
Good thing about the Amastrad is it was the birth of Dizzy.
Yep. .. Amstrad was big in France back then, many people had one
In 1987 we got our first Amstrad. The Amstrad PC1512, quite a popular MS-DOS (with Gem Desktop) PC. The magazine "PC PLUS" was actually originally called "PC PLUS Amstrad". There was quite a high uptake of that machine and I remember playing lots of games on it such as Arkanoid, Wizball, Bruce Lee etc
Wow wizball I had totally forget that one, what a weird game
Lack of a turbo switch on those machines was a flaw, as it meant games for the original IBM PC often ran too fast.
The Amstrad CPC was released the same year as Sinclair QL, Commodore C16, Commodore plus 4, Enterprise, Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ and Spectravideo 728. The one with success was the Amstrad CPC. The magazines were very impressed with the build quality of the Amstrad CPC. The return rate because of faulty equipment was much lower than the competition including the ZX Spectrums and Commodore C64.
+Ivar Fiske I think Kim is being far too harsh on the CPC in his videos. The CPC is actually well made on the whole and has a large database of great games and also serious software, with some of the games being technically good; infact many of them were beyond what the Commodore 64 was capable of with graphic resolution and colour, or wire frame 3D or racing games etc. I owned a rubber key Spectrum 48K and had to return it under guarantee about four times, before I received one that worked and lasted without going faulty. However my CPC never needed returning and was used for thousands of hours without once going wrong. I think the CPC was a very well rounded computer, which could cover many areas competently; something you could not say about the C64 or others.
I've put this one off as I loved my Amstrad growing up; it's hard to reconsile personal affection for the machine with the nature of Alan Sugar's strategy of maximum profit for minimum input and bugger the quality. It feels like unrequited love! Still the Amstrad all in one idea was a goody, even if the tech wasn't.
Great video, though: thank you once again for taking the time to make.
You Sir are on a roll. Best channel on the TH-cams by far, keep em coming.
Great video. I love these documentary style videos.
I got an Amstrad CPC464 for Christmas in about 1984, have lots of good memories playing stockmarket and trivial pursuit with family and gauntlet and target renegade multiplayer but on the whole the games weren't great, at least they were easy to copy 👍
The monitor (which used an RGB connection) meant that the picture was so much better than anything else around at the time. I later mangled the connection with so I could use it on my imported Sega Megadrive and once again, my picture was so good compared to the bloody awful TV connected efforts from Sinclair etc. Amstrad did sell a TV modulator for their CPCs and I used one once. No way you would be in mode 2 and reading text with one of those!
loved my cpc 664 still play the games on my PC now. stock market and classic racing my fav games and a few others. still funny playing football manager. loved my vic20 and c64 before my amstrad
Very well put together, great job. You are the definitive source for all things retro micro computers and deserve more followers
The unsung hero is the PCW which sold more than the CPC and speccy combined, or the Amiga and ST combined. Probably the most popular 8bit PC outside the c64.
And the most popular CP/M machine ever I believe.
Working class and intelligent Lord Alan Sugar.
I grew up in France , and oh yes the Amstrad!!
I really do enjoy these types of documentaries you put out. I'm not really informed on the old Micro computers, but I've been really finding them interesting and your stuff is really informative to a newbie like me, especially when its mostly about the British market. Anyway love your work, keep it up :)
Another great documentary Kim, I think you've really hit your mark when it comes making videos. I just hope more people get to see them because with quality of your releases, you deserve to be having a 100k subs and more :)
Tape Deck. IN A KEYBOARD!? now i've seen everything!
+விஷ்ணு கார்த்திக் Not only that but when it needed to pause to wait to load the next bit it would automatically and start by itself too.
Very handy.
Your content, unbelievably, improves every video. I was the 464 owner, and games like Oh Mummy shaped me into the degenerate mess I am today
+mattyfox666 Agreed, love these vids. History about computing is incredible. Kim, you ought to visit the computer museum in Cambridge.. you would have an incredible time there as they have every, and I mean *every* old computer and console which you can play with.
Amstrad was making half-yearly profits of c.£128m in1986. That is well over half a billion in today's money! Not bad for a barrow boy!
Chase HQ looks pretty good on an Amstrad and always loved SCI on the Master System
Oh yes. Looking forward to this. The Amstrad 464+ was my computer as a kid, so can't wait to watch this video when I get home from work. Keep up the great work Kim.
+purplezebrahoover I hope you could see past Kim's negative opinions on the CPC. Apart from that it was a very good video.
When it comes to the build quality of the Amstrad CPC range, I'd say they were top quality. I had all sorts of problems with the Spectrum and C64, including overheating, cassette issues etc.. But my Amstrad never had problems - and I know it was the same for my friends and other Amstrad users. From what I've heard/read, you can buy an Amstrad and it will still work fine. But I don't know if the monitors still work, but probably not. Anyway, you can buy an RGB scart cable these days. Also, as much as the Amstrad had lots of Spectrum ports, games that were specially made for the machine were often very colourful and impressive.
+kingstonlj The monitors tend to still work very well today.
I really liked my Amstrad colour monitor, so it's nice to know that some of them are still working well.
My CPC-464 and its colour monitor are both work working flawlessly after all these years...
Considering this video doesn't really talk about the people who made the CPC, I'd say the lack of passion is a matter of perception. The efforts of Roland Perry and his team to make a success of this doomed project were nothing short of heroic. Given an unrealistically short deadline, they managed to turn in a machine with a solid architecture and quality operating system, while also creating an in-house publisher to ensure there was plenty of software at launch. It's quite a story and much more interesting than moaning about Alan Sugar, who was just the guy demanding it all be ready by Christmas. Although I suppose there's no denying his all-in-one design philosophy was also a good idea for a computer and Steve Jobs clearly agreed.
The CPC itself had a decent keyboard and could do 80 column text and turned out to be great for small businesses and word processing (leading to the very successful PCW) and one of the best machines to learn to code thanks to the excellent BASIC and manual written largely by Roland Perry himself.
I used DOS RPED for years without knowing why it had that odd name.
What can I say another master piece, you should honestly consider making video gaming documentaries full time, I couldn't stop the movie out if sheer joy, keep up the amazing work my queen of documentaries.
My mum used to have an Amstrad 464 Plus, she bought it back in 1989 or so when she decided to go to college once me and my brother were in school and my sister was close to starting school at the time. Played quite a few games on it, I think she's still got the old thing in the attic with all of the games that were bought for it.
Feeling old now after watching a few of your videos.
In the first 12 minutes you said 4 times you don't like Sugar. I got the message the first time.
I had an Amstrad. Cheers for the doc.
compared with the other 8bit home computers the cpc was great for coding: good basic, 80x25 characters, good keyboard and a copy and paste function. also thanks to the build in tape, in the months before christmas 1984, we kids would be in the department stores writing and sharing software.
i have realy enjoyed your series,i think the UK and euro game scenes are completly forgotton,and there very important,just imagine no ARM chips for a start,thanks so much
I'm from the rubber key era. I actually started with a zx81 which had a membrane keyboard! Then a speccy 48k, then an AMstrad CPC 464 with colour monitor, I actually quite liked the machine.
Excellent vids btw. Cheers.
Kim, you're on fire with these videos! The research, the editing, the topics, the wealth of information; and they grip you, they're fascinating! Thank you so much for making them for us all. I hope big things come your way, you deserve it. it's so good seeing the history of videogames and computers from the British perspective, a viewpoint which has seemingly been neglected or pushed aside on youtube and 'games media' due to the passion our American cousins have for Atari and Nintendo. Please keep up the good work, it's great to listen to someone so intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate about this stuff : )
Really excellent work.
Magic, Kim! Frikken TV-documentary quality stuff.
...in the good way.
Great stuff Kim, enjoyable as always - your output gets better and better. Recently subscribed and binged most of your content - awesome work!
The CPC464 was my first computer when I was a kid. I remember trying my hand at BASIC, typing what seemed like 100's of lines of code just to get a blue and yellow flashing circle - that's if I was lucky and didn't get a lad of syntax error messages. Also, waiting for donkeys trying to load a game on a tape with that whirly noise, then watching it crash and having to start again. We must have had a load of patience back then!
Just noticed that the QL advert mis-spells Macintosh. That would stand out a mile these days, but I guess at the time most people wouldn't have noticed or cared as it wasn't really a household name.
That _might_ have been deliberate to avoid being sued or for copyright reasons.
But it probably was more likely an oversight.
It was only ever shown at the launch event. Never shown on TV. Never shown at cinemas as planned. So hardly anyone saw it until the modern era when it became ubiquitous thanks to micro men.
Brilliantly put together as always!
another brilliant video. never really liked amstrad either myself, but can definitely see why people would have fond memories of the CPC.
Great work, very interesting. The speccy wasn't particularly popular here in Australia, but the CPC systems sold well enough. I didn't have one, but I knew a few who did. I remember seeing the MegaPC thing for sale alongside Amiga 600s, Amiga 1200s and crap Commodore PCs and little black and white compact Macs. I got an A1200, despite Commodore having just gone under when I got it - it still seemed like the best option unless I just wanted to play games - and we had a Sega Master system 2 for that...
Thank you for this top quality production! Thank you.
Surely the PCW deserved a mention. Average piece of CP/M kit, but Locoscript was an excellent word processor. .
i'm still using old notebooks like Amstrad NC100 and 200
Thanks, I've enjoyed your video, but, like many others have commented here also, I'm rather surprised you did not mentioned the great cheap amstrad PC compatible series Pc1512 and PC1640, they were very popular here in Portugal. With the Intel's 8086 at 8mhz rather than the stock Intel 8088 used in xt's.
I grew up with the spectrum and had a PC1512, both very popular and cheap here. Thanks again for the videos.
Another fantastic documentary, Kim! Absolutely loving these. :D
Sugar's genius was, as he called it himself, 'the mug's eyeful'. He realised that the average lorry driver would buy their appliances from Argos Catalogues based on the photos, so made shiny boxes with lots of buttons, and the cheapest possible electronics inside. The punter wouldn't know the audio quality was sh1te, there was nothing to compare it to.
Very Interesting. Thanks for that.
A CPC6128 was my 2nd computer, after a Vic.
I always saw it as better than the spectrum, because mainly I hated the awful keyboard on the speccy.
Too me the Spectrum always seemed like it had been cobbled together (especially the early ones).
The Amstrad CPC just worked. There was no drama with it, it was built well enough, the software was good enough etc...
The Monitor was OK too.
I do think you spent too much time on the CPC464 though, the PCW range was hugely successful, and I know people in business today that STILL use them.
Thanks.
Excellent! Informative! Funny!! You definatly have an amazing talent for the infomentarys!! I love watching them. Keep up the good work!!
I would like to add another point of view. Here in Germany in the mid 80ies the CPC and the C64 were the main popular computers, at least among my friends. The keyboard of the CPC 6128 was a great business type keyboard. The programming language basic (Locomotive basic) was good. Shipped with the cpc also was CPM, which helped me switch to DOS and linux later on. In my opinion the CPC was a great jumpboard for later programmers and IT-guys into the world of modern PCs. The programming handbook (basic) of the german Schneider CPC was one of the best guides I have read in my whole life as a programmer. Regarding gaming there were better machines, yes.
Your great documentary did miss one thing. The CPC's death was the rare 3 inch floppy drive. In his biography I read, that they got hands on a cheap stock of lots of these drives, and so they built them into the CPCs (and their textprocessing computer Joyce). The floppy disks were robust and cool, double sided, but expensive. I bought my cpc6128 with green monitor for 799 Deutsche Mark in 1987. 10 floppy Disks (3 inch) did cost addional 100 DM. Too expensive compared to the cheap 5,25 floppies of the c64 or the upcoming 3,5 floppies of the Amiga and the PCs.
Those disks were robust because they were designed to be sent though the mail without packaging. This was actually part of the design specification. The Amstrad Spectrums also used them.
So enjoyable, I love being taken back to my childhood in this way. Like many of us I had friends with Spectrums, CPC's, Commodore +4's and I had to make do with an old and arthritic VIC20. I had the last laugh in 1991 when my parents bought me an A500+ just in time for all of my friends to ditch the Amiga and buy mega drives. I guess I was forever destined to be behind the times but I wouldn't have it any other way. Keep up the top work Kim!
I don't think I'd be doing what I do as a tech support engineer if it wasn't for my Amiga.
I don't know why you basically skipped the three most successful Amstrad lines. The Amstrad PCW sold 8 million computers with monitor and printer. A huge success and big money maker. The total sale of Sinclair ZX Spectrum including Amstrad sales of the Spectrum, was only 5 millions. Amstrad dominated the PC market in Europe for several years from 1986 to around 1990 with 12 million machines sold. The Sky decoders sold really well too. A small number of was tried sold in the USA through their Spanish importer Indescomp, it failed badly. But it gave us and the French the Amstrad CPC 6128. The Amstrad CPC 6128 was the best selling Amstrad CPC in France. A disc based machine with 128 kB memory. One of the reasons for its success was that France had its own TV standard. As the Amstrad CPC came with its own monitor included, that was not a problem.
@@Athena_cute_AI I'll never forget his appalling, rip off hi-fis 🤮
@LorraineHinchliffe-vg5cb lol 😂 oh yeah Amstrad ones are utter cheap garbage
All Amstrad stuff was total crap and if anything went wrong with them, you were on your own.
Sugar was nothing more than a cockney ‘Del Boy’
@@Turtle_Zed
At the time, the error return rate of Amstrad home computers were way lower than the competition. Better engineering and build quality did this
@ I can’t agree with you there. I must have been very unlucky because everything I owned which had the name Amstrad on it (PC or HiFi) was very flaky caused by poor build quality and cheap components.
My first computer was an Amstrad. Then after the Amstrad i got an Amiga 500
Nice video ;) I recall one of the major selling point of the 464 was the included Easy Amsword wordprocessor. Today we dont think much about getting a wordprocessor, but back then getting one for free & along with a good keyboard computer really was something. When i had to step up from my belowed ZX81 back then it was a tough choice, however the colourfull amstrad screenshots in mags won me over. I think i recall Sugar saying that to him the 464 was just a big calculator & it was never really supposed to be a gaming machine, something that is quite apparent when you read thru early amstrad mags & get one gray page after another with spreadsheets & databases & pcw blue pages.
The Amstrad CPC, which is also remembered as "Schneider" as it was distributed by them (Belgium, Germany, etc), did have its personality gaming-wise. It had a mascot, Roland. Many Roland games, some of which were rebranded ports (like, Fred became Roland on the Ropes). And it's apparently this Alan Sugar guy who's behind that character & game range, so it looks like he did care.
Roland is named after the designer. Roland Perry. The prototype cpc was called arnold, an anagram of Roland.
These documentary style bio vids have become my favorite of all the guys who do this kind of thing within the gaming genre. I've watched a ton of them, from many different people, and these are the best blend of information, humor, and personality. The gaming historian could maybe learn a thing or 2 :) Both great, but I think you grab the lead buddy :) Thanks for the great content!
Amstrad was my first love, and games always looked better on Amstrad compared to my mates C64 and Speccy, they used to come to my house to play 2 player beat em ups that were only one player on their systems. In my circle it was the "posh" choice.
Once again your docs style is detailed comprehensive and gripping. You have nailed it well done!
I will say that the Locomotive BASIC that came with the CPC was easily one of the best versions BASIC that came with any of the 80s home computers. Certainly leagues ahead of that awful Commodore BASIC. It really got me into programming.
That's not Ted Rogers...that's that bird from the abattoir who looks like Ted Rogers!
Very insightful and interesting as always.... keep'em coming!
Interesting take on things, not sure about this second phase you go on about, the speccy an c64 were only out 2 years before the cpc. And hey, I like Alan. Shrewd and hardworking. It' easy to be jealous of him I guess. ;)
+Novabug I kind of think of it as a second phase because there was almost a chance of there being a big crash around 1985/86 or so. C64 were only just establishing themselves in the UK + Acorn and Sinclair were doing very badly thanks to, variously, wasting tons of money on American ventures/not being able to make enough Electrons for Christmas/the QL and the C5...things could have been hairy if they'd all gone down. But then Acorn were bought up by Olivetti, Amstrad bought the Spectrum, the C64 continued to gain ground and the CPC stabilised the market, so the potential crash was averted.
I also think of it as a second phase because that was the point where any pretence of microcomputers being computers that could do everything from games to spreadsheets to word processing and the like was dropped - after 1986 these machines are just about all marketed on games alone.
...I actually warmed to Alan Sugar a little through making this video. I still fall to the side of not being a big fan of his, but he has his plus points. Should be noted that anyone looks better when they come directly after Robert Maxwell.
Fair points dude. I get what your saying. Indeed, many business moguls far worse than him, and he's entertaining on the Apprentice also. :)
As for your views on the GX, your spot on with the 'difficult to compete' theme and the lack of games. However, only 3 of the 26 official games were identical copies of the cpc originals. Some were slightly altered, other completely re-done. 10 were specific to the gx. I've done a series on this comparison. And you mention the build quality. The console itself wasn't that bad both externally and internally, but the pack in psu was cheap rubbish and was mainly the cause of breakdowns. Yes, some killer carts popped up, but this happens with many consoles of that era. If the gx had been supported correctly, it would have had a better life. And way better than the C64GS anyway. Pity, but I guess all the firms of that early era suffered sticky fates. Aside from Nintendo of course. :)
Truthfully? I was getting ready to slay the GX4000 when I was preparing for this...and honestly, after playing with it? I couldn't really. Like, if there'd been more games along the likes of Robocop 2 it'd have been pretty freaking great (I can't stress enough how good that game is actually)...most of the GX games that I played, like Burnin' Rubber, Switchblade and Mystical (which, funnily enough, I believe is one of the straight GX ports? Incredibly rare too) I quite enjoyed! Easy to see why it failed though...I'd almost want to try and buy one if they weren't actually surprisingly expensive (*sigh* what isn't these days?)
That Batman is just a super piss-take though...all that extra money just for a cartridge and a splash screen! Also amusing that almost every game on there is either by Ocean or Titus.
+Kim Justice Ocean and Titus did a lot yeah, best supported the system. Lorciel also. Batman is disappointing with just the title screen and a plus palettle colour change. Good job it was a good game on the cpc. Mystical IS one of the carbon copy games yes. :) For my money, Pang is the best game using the plus features and great playability. Hey, why now get one. The games are the expensive part, the consoles can be picked up cheap, grab a decent psu and a C4CPC flash cart... boom, full Gx library. ;)
Kim, I can't help feeling that your dislike of Alan Sugar has coloured your opinion of his company's products. I cannot agree that the build quality of his computers was poor, especially when you take into account what you were paying. I have owned both a Spectrum and an Amstrad CPC 464, and the Amstrad was a pleasure to use compared with the Spectrum. None of the Amstrad computers ever had keys that fell out when you turned the keyboard upside down. I never experienced RAM pack wobble on the Amstrad. The Amstrad computers actually came with a decent keyboard and a decent monitor (for the time) that could actually display the colour red properly. What's more, you got four (yes four) dedicated cursor keys, unlike the Spectum (none) or the Commodore C64 and Vic 20 (two - Yes really. You were expected to use a shift key to make the cursor go in the opposite direction!). The built in tape drive worked way better than the ghetto blaster you used with your Spectrum. Plus the BASIC (from Locomotive Software) was way better than the Spectrum's or the Commodore 64's, and at least on a par with BBC BASIC. The dot matrix printer was crap though.
In other respects Amstrad were way more professional than their competitors. I had to wait about a year from the launch date of the Spectrum before it was finally delivered. Amstrad computers were in the shops right from the start. In fact at one point you could struggle to keep up, as Amstrad seemed to be releasing a new computer every week. The CPC 664 was only produced for 6 months.
I don't understand why you find it so distasteful that Alan Sugar was interested in making money. He was running a company. That's what companies do. Whatever a company's mission statement says, that is the number one priority. If they don't make money, they don't survive. Do you think that the top priority of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon etc. is your welfare? Nope. It's money. Sure, they can have other priorities, but money comes top of the list. In some ways this can be a good thing. I think Amazon's success is due to providing a service that the customer wants, and doing it better than the competition. That is how you make money. Have you never seen an item in a shop (or more likely not seen it, because it is out of stock) and thought "Sod it. I'll just buy it on Amazon.". Anyway, I digress.
Not much in the video about the staggeringly successful PCW series of CP/M computers, and the PCW IBM PC compatibles either, but I guess your focus is on games.
One last thing, and then I will shut up. I think you misrepresent Clive Sinclair as a "boffin". (Actually that might have been a different video). He was certainly more interested in how the computer works than Alan Sugar, but the design of the Spectrum was down to Richard Altwasser. Pretty sure Clive had no involvement except on a superficial level.
These videos are great thanks Kim
Thanks. Would have liked to have seen more on Amstrad's PC compatibles -
and an honourable mention should go out to their gloriously awful CP/M
business machines of the early 1990s - remember them? They weren't PC
compatible, but they looked like PCs. They came with a printer, monitor,
Wordstar and LocoScript - or something.
No mention of the Sorcery game, nor Nonterraqueous, nor of the excellent and quite performant Locomotive BASIC, nor the brilliant concept of copy cursors and the Copy key? And how about underestimating the utility of a RGB monitor I used for over 12 years, first with the CPC464, then with my Atari ST and a quickly soldered 6-pin RGB adapter, and also as a PAL TV monitor for my VHS VCR? That CPC464 (distributed by Schneider in Germany) was such a great first computer to use and study, easily better than the C64 or Speccy. I still have mine in working condition. Anyway, thumbs up from me. Cheers!
We had one of them double decker Amstrad video players, my dad was a media teacher so would borrow it on a weekend to copy the films we rented
Wow Alan Sugar made Jack Tramiel look like sweet heart.
not really, Trameil would sue to death people who quit his company and then started another company that would or could compete with him and he also literally fucked all the people that worked for him that did not belong to his inner circle(his sons and his sycophants)
Gweat vid mate😂. I will never forget Amstrads appalling rip off HI-FIs back then🤮
The CPC machine was good, but I have always despised Alan Sugar. I agree with you, he does only care about money.
I can't help thinking the guy who made this video has some sort of axe to grind. If everything Lord Sugar did was a flop, why is he still worth millions today?
Jaleel Aslam he said his dad worked for Amstrad - maybe his dad had some problems in the company? He seems obsessed with it in this video.
@@DavidB-rx3km
I assumed it was Amstrad bought his favorite company Sinclair
hat's off to you, I been watching your videos for 1/2 a day, and wow YOU ARE pretty nerdy.. i can't even come close. but i am also nerdy. Keep up the good work man!
To be fair, the Emailer sounds like he was aiming for the eventual niche that smart phones filled.
haha great video. lol@the cheering fan falling through the roof and the Ashens reference :) Good work.
Great video! However if you're doing a story of Amstrad in the 80's-90's then you've missed out a huge chunk here - specifically their PC's from the mid 80's onwards - they were hugely successful and market leader for a good number of years. It's kind of ironic that most articles or documentaries about Amstrad - much to my annoyance - they always focus entirely on their PC range and only have a small footnote mention of the CPC, here it's the opposite! lol
The CPC was my first computer - my Dad bought it for me and my siblings around 1989. Although I thought it was okay at the time, I never loved it as much as I loved my future gaming machines such as the Nes and Snes. My favourite game on the system was probably Contra, although there were a couple of other "okay" games such as Dan Dare and Impossible Mission.
Nice vid. I remember the ggreen and red keyed computer, and the GSX4000, I thought Robocop looked good, but it disappeared from the pages of Mean Machines fairly quickly. I had a Nes. And the Amstrad didn't have the games to support it.
Really interesting, well made and insightful video. Surprised you have relatively few subs so far, I can see huge potential in your channel if you keep this kind of quality up!
I love that you used monty on the run theme in this!
I never really had any experience of the Amstrad, but this was still a really interesting video to watch. :-)
You would love my dad, he was IBM for 30 years, I was lucky growing up with computers, I still can remember dos codes.
These long assed docu videos you are making are fucking brilliant.
Really enjoying some of your documentaries :)
Vectrex here in America was of a similar concept; except it had a monitor with wireframe graphics and it used cartridges instead of disks or tapes. And Vectrex was more of a video game system, and not a computer (hope I am saying this right). This was back in the early 80s (I am guessing around 1982-1983).
I think your hatred for Alan has clouded your judgement somewhat. I’m not keen on him either, but there are some things you missed. The reason the cpc was popular in France was due to the fact that their colour system, secam was almost impossible to generate from a cheap computer. The majority of computers that sold in France could produce RGB and bypass this issue. The cpc took a step further and took the tv out of the equation by including its own display device. You missed a whole section on the pcw being a top seller amongst book writers, and the fact almost every company in the Uk had at least one pc1512 or 1640 as there was nothing remotely near the price of these machines that could do what they could. Like I said, I’m not his biggest fan, but credit where it’s due
Oh god the Amstrad PCW. My mother, of all people, had one of those and worked from home. It used 3 inch (not 3 1/2 inch) floppies that NOTHING ELSE seemed to use, and she had the 9512 which looked like it had emerged from a car crusher.
While I appreciate the research that's obviously gone into this, you've missed several important points: 1. the CPC isn't as technically unnoteworthy as you made out, as the computing magazines of the time attested; and 2. the experts in the field at the time were not saying Amstrad were coming in too late - in fact, the CPC was widely praised prior to its launch, with many experts considering it the best machine coming to market.
No, Amstrad didn't produce a machine that beat all comers but that was clearly not its purpose. It did change things though, as the all-in-one systems we all have these days clearly shows. In many ways, the CPC is a victim of timing; and if it had been quicker to market, the fanboy legions would be singing a different tune to the one we are all so tired of hearing now.
I imagine many mainland Europeans will say a different thing too about the CPC. If nothing else, I think Lord Sugar's push into that untapped market was the big thing he should be remembered for. Not trying to pig-headedly tap into an American market that was essentially on lock-down between the C64 and, later on, IBM compatibles. The idea that anything from Sinclair would succeed here is laughable, and even the BBC wasn't going to break the hold IBM had.
Interestingly, the IBM PC was also an all-in-one piece of kit, as were many PC compatibles. Lord Sugar was clearly onto something. Something "good enough" with all the bits and bobs you need from the getgo, will always win the day.
+Jesus Zamora Amstrad didn't try to enter USA with the Amstrad CPC 6128. It was the Spanish distributor that had a go at the US market. If Kim Justice is saying that Amstrad was having a go at the US market, he hasn't researched that part good enough
+dartsma464 she.
dartsma464 She also made the point that Amstrad made no effort for the US, which was part of why Amstrad were so successful. They saw how Sinclair (with the Timex Sinclair models) and Acorn (with the BBC Micro) failed, and decided not to jump into the meatgrinder. I can tell you as an American who grew up post-crash, any attempt would have been just as disastrous as Sinclair and Acorn. Hell, I hadn't even KNOWN Sinclair and Acorn tried to break America until I started watching these videos. When I grew up, you had "computers" (IBMs) and Apples. That's how consolidated the market was after the gaming crash and the microcomputer price war.
In his biography, Sugar says he made one or two attempts into the American market, with no avail.
Interesting vid Kim, the amstrad CPC (green monitor!) was my first computer and so, in a way, nothing can compete with that nostalgia. As you point out in the vid, he was a business man very much of the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' philosophy.
When we got our first Sky plus box it was Amstrad and it was a buggy POS, we replaced it with a PACE model a couple of years later and it was a totally different experience. I think he could never hope to belong to a world of high quality manufacturing and modern electronics.
From what I read most of his wealth now comes from property. He is an entertaining character but certainly no business genius.
Better be careful Kim. This guy could be your next Prime Minister. Similar thing seems to have happened to us here in the USA.
Nah. Alan Sugar made money on his own without daddy’s help-definitely not a parallel to Trump.
Plus, most people in the UK hate Alan Sugar. And they’re leaning Labour now and lost their shit (in a good way) when Corbin won the early general election this year.
So yeah. Sugar as PM? Not likely.
EDIT: ...oops.
@@rabidrabbitshuggers this comment aged well...
handymchandface I know fuck all about UK politics and my previous comment proves it.
Whats that tune playing over most of the section about sugar buying sinclair? It sounds like what I can only describe as '8 bit PiL'...in other words bloody demented brilliance!
+madcapoperator Ben Daglish's 48k speccy theme for "Dark Fusion".
+Kim Justice ta duck...btw you're really excelling with these most recent videos. Currently my favorite video gaming related channel on youtube!
+Kim Justice insane track. that PiL reference is p spot on.
I always thought that Clive shared the similar philosophy of make it cheap, sell it to more people. I guess I was mistaken or something?
In a way, yes, but it didn't apply to everything. The Sinclair Executive calculator was quite expensive, costing half an average monthly salary; it undercut the Western products but was a few times more expensive than Japanese ones. That is rich people toy. The Sinclair Black Watch was also not necessarily cheap.
And then there's this not so subtle difference. Sinclair computer products were very bare bones, they were the cheapest single item you could buy, but also pretty much the worst. Amstrad is different, it's a very capable full fledged machine which wouldn't have you pay for one extension after the other. Think of the things you'd need to hang onto the cheapest Spectrum to make it whole: cassette recorder, 32K ram expansion cart, soundcard, a joystick adapter... But the basic Amstrad came fully loaded, it even came with the monitor. Amstrad was all about convenient ready to roll packages that were on the whole still in the impulse price range.
I think Sinclair's marketing decisions are actually born from a kind of slightly naive pragmatism. If, as alleged, he didn't think computers were of any actual use, it made total sense to make them bare bones and cheap. But it's Sugar who mastered the marketing of impulse purchase.
I'd say that while there are some similarities, there are huge differences, too. Sinclair was an innovator (that's not to say all of his inventions were successful, of course!) with his pocket calculators, micro televisions and computers - and I think saw himself as a benevolent force for bringing new high-technology to "the man in the street". But that affordability inevitably meant quality compromises, particularly in terms of electronic components. Sinclair's greatest failing was that sometimes he simply assumed that there would be market demand when a little research would have told him there was actually (almost) none - notably the C5. Sometimes he'd try to convince the public that their lack of interest was due to their ignorance: ie "You don't realise it yet but you *need* a C5". Those products that did sell well largely did so through luck and good marketing as much as anything. Whether his products were successful or not, Sinclair wasn't interested in personal wealth: ironically a lot of the profit from his successful products was ploughed into R&D for subsequently unsuccessful ones (eg the QL and the C5).
Sugar, on the other hand, is no innovator, simply jumping on a number of existing bandwagons (hi-fi, computers, set-top boxes). Sugar did carry out market research and found a gullible public. You might argue that the PCW range was innovative in its day but all Sugar did was to cobble together some old hardware, a cheap monitor and some (actually very good) Wordprocessor software. But most of Sugar's products were of deliberately poor quality in order to undercut competitors and dominate the budget market to fund his plutocratic lifestyle.
Sinclair's take on "affordability" was borne of benevolence - Sugar's was borne of cynicism.
Dave Matthews You're not wrong, but numerus products that are and were immediately successful and changed how we view things were introduced under circumstances that would show negligible market interest in prior research. Some company heads are simply more successful with that than the others.
Yes, it's years after the fact, but GODDAMN you make some great docos, mate! :D
I will watch this soon. From the your description of the video it seems you left out the PC and PCW line as well as the Sky boxes