System Information: Amstrad PCW 8256 / 8512

Development, History, Games, Internals, Additional Information, Photos

 

Specifications Table
Manufacturer: Amstrad
Year Released: 1985
 		Year Discontinued: 1987 
Size & Weight: Unknown at this time
Storage: 3" Floppy Disk
CPU: Zilog Z80
Speed: 4Mhz
Additional Processors: Custom Amstrad ASIC chip
System Memory: 256K or 512K depending on model (split into 16K banks)
Graphics Modes: 720px x 256px
Max Colours: Monochrome display
Sound: Internal Beeper
Ports: Amstrad Printer Port / Expansion port
Power Rating: Mains operated. All power supplied by monitor.
Original Cost £399.99



 

 

8 out of 10

Retro-Zone.Org - Retrospective Review:

The Amstrad PCW 8XXX series was a God send for small businesses and schools around the world. It showed that it was possible to have a professional computer at an affordable cost. Although not a great machine for games - it's value as a business machine cannot be underestimated. A great computer which did exactly what it was designed to do while filling a rather large hole on the computer market.

Do I have one in my Collection?

 

NO

I had one of these a long time ago. I got it cheap from my school as they were upgrading to the 9xxx series. At the time I had no idea I was to become a collector so I threw it away when I discovered it wasn't really good for games. I have been on the look out for a boxed 8256 / 8512 for a long time now and keep my fingers crossed that one day I will complete my collections of Amstrad machines.


 Additional Links:





 

Development:

Reportedly designed (outlined anyway) by Sir Alan Sugar himself on a business flight to the Far East. The premise was simple - make a business machine that can perform the most common tasks needed at an affordable cost. Sir Alan realised that most computers in business were being used to write documents or letters and store those files on a disk for quick reproduction. So the PCW (Personal Computer Word-Processor) was born to fulfil that task. Adhering to Amstrad's "One Box With Everything" approach it came with a monitor, keyboard, disk drive, printer and software included. During the development process the project the create the first PCW machine was codenamed "Joyce" after Sit Alan's secretary at the time. The machines were sold in Britain through the retail store "Dixons" (which is now called "Currys Digital") and distributed around the world via various partners like Schneider (in Germany). The PCW was even sold in America via large department stores.
In the 2 years of the 8xxx series life over 700,000 PCW's were sold making Amstrad one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the UK and Europe.

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History:

In a time when the IBM PC cost more than £2000, to have a computer which could take care of all your business requirements for only £399 was just too tempting to resist. The PCW had no real competition and was the cheapest computer in it's class. The machine was hurt a little by Amstrad's insistence on using the Hitachi 3" disk drives as they had with the CPC6128. This made it difficult to interchange documents with other computers which were using the then standard 3.5" Sony disk drives.
Although the 8xxx series was only in production for 2 years it was replaced by the 9xxx series - which boasted a better screen, 3.5 inch disk drives and a standard Centronics printer port. The 9xxx PCW's were 100% compatible with their 8xxx cousins and helped the PCW series find it's way into more and more small businesses and schools as they could now use any Centronics compatible printer.

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Games:

Although not a gaming machine, due to the numbers of PCW's sold it was only a matter of time before someone thought "I wish this computer did fun things too!". There were around 100 game titles released for the PCW range of computers, but most were simple games [see screen shot showing "Draughts" game]. The monochrome display and limited graphical capabilities meant that the PCW could not compete with other computers of the day when it came to gaming.
The majority of software written for the PCW range was aimed at the business user. Word Processors, Spreadsheets, Databases and even simple Desktop Publishing applications were released which would run under the CP/M environment.

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Internals:

The internals of the PCW were kept as simple as possible to reduce the manufacturing costs. The PCW 8xxx series had no internal ROM storage for the operating system - in fact it did not have an onboard operating system at all. The ASIC chip contained just enough software to access the first sector of a floppy disk - and this disk would have to be "bootable" and contain the operating system for the computer. Most applications on the PCW required you to "boot" into CP/M first - and then load the application you wished to use. The Machine came with either 256 or 512 Kilobytes of RAM most of which was not used by the software but as a "RAM DISK" for the temporary storage of files. The PCW 8xxx series was powered by the ever popular Zilog Z80A processor running at 4Mhz - although this speed was reduced by the onboard timing circuit of the PCW to 3.5Mhz. The monitor was a standard green screen as used on the CPC series beforehand but the internal graphics hardware was only capable of on monochrome graphics anyway. There was no real sound hardware in the PCW - instead there is a standard beep and click sound which seems to be generated by the onboard ASIC (system on a chip) microchip custom designed by Amstrad.
Sir Alan also had a shed load of 3" disk drives to get rid of so decided to use those on the PCW 8xxx series too (one of the machines major drawbacks was that the disks were not compatible with other business machines of the time.) All of the computing hardware and disk drives was housed inside the monitor casing - meaning only 1 power outlet was required to run the whole setup. The included Amstrad Dot-Matrix printer was marketed as "Near Letter Quality" and could handle different fonts and graphics.

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Additional Information:

The Amstrad PCW is capable of running the SymbOS operating system just like the CPC6128.
Many add-ons were produced by third party manufacturers for the PCW 8xxx series, such as Centronics printer interfaces, light pens and networking peripherals.

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Photos

Gallery (click on a thumbnail to enlarge)


















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References:

 

 

 

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