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Old 9th Nov 2021, 10:40 pm   #41
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

Oh! I also have a mint / boxed GX4000 games console, I completely forgot about that. It only had the one bundled game (a race game) with it. I suppose I should have a look around and see if anyone has produced a 'super cartridge' for it, as has happened with so many other units. I didn't buy it, someone at a previous workplace was having a clearout and gave it to me.
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Old 10th Nov 2021, 5:40 pm   #42
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

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Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post
Oh! I also have a mint / boxed GX4000 games console, I completely forgot about that. It only had the one bundled game (a race game) with it. I suppose I should have a look around and see if anyone has produced a 'super cartridge' for it, as has happened with so many other units. I didn't buy it, someone at a previous workplace was having a clearout and gave it to me.
The cart was called Burning Rubber , i dont believe anyone has produced a super cart for it however.

I did love the GX4000 design , looks like a flying saucer!!
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Old 11th Nov 2021, 2:04 pm   #43
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

I took a brief look around and it seems Amstrad cartridges had a form of protection in the form of the 'ACID' chip which was a kind of 'key' or 'dongle' to let the cartridge run. Although this has apparently been reverse-engineered I just don't think anyone loves the GX4000 enough to go to the necessary lengths to make it fun to use again.

The actual code in the other chip, the EPROM, 'is in the clear' so there is apparently nothing to stop you putting a ZIF socket in the one cartridge which the system came with and dropping different EPROMs into it. I may look into that.
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Old 13th Nov 2021, 9:34 pm   #44
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

just a CPC 464 with the color screen ^^
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Old 13th Nov 2021, 10:42 pm   #45
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

Always loved the amstrad 901 CB's. Modern looking back in the day and still are in my opinion, Ok not great performers, But one of my favourites.


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Old 14th Nov 2021, 7:40 pm   #46
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

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I must agree with M3VUV51, Amstrad is in the same region as ALBA and Currys own brand stuff, Proline etc.
Does anyone remember Amstrad being hauled over the coals for calling a Television Stereo when it had just two speakers and phase shift between them giving an effect but not in true stereo?
Very naughty!
I remember that, was it the 2200 ?
But don't forget Mr Sugar spent his formative years working in `Ackney`s Ridley Rd Market, I rest my case

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Old 14th Nov 2021, 10:51 pm   #47
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One product I will speak up for, though, is the Amstrad Studio 100. At the time, an entry-level Japanese 4-track portastudio cost upwards of £3-400, and if I recall correctly, the Studio 100 came in at around a third of that.
Absolutely agree. I still have two in storage!
The tape drives were Tanshin types from the early 80s and not really suited to the rigours of multitracking, but I used mine for years. It was a strange beast trying to be all things to all people - it had 'hi fi' mode where you could use the ropey inbuilt radio and plastic turntable, 'DJ' mode where you could mix the signals from these with external sources, then the 'studio' mode which was the most versatile. A 6-channel mixer back then would have cost a lot of money!

Of most of their mini systems and boomboxes, the less said the better. Nothing different than the likes of Alba and Binatone or other black plastic junk. I still have one of their early mini systems with a BSR deck on a sliding drawer which I found dumped years ago and saved.

Their VCRs were mostly Orion I think, same insides as the average Matsui or Saisho or Alba. They usually worked satisfactorily after a belt change.

Their computers seemed a lot more useful, people liked them a lot when they came out. I still have a CPC464 with a monitor that has a TV UHF tuner box, and a PCW 8256 which I cannot use as I lost the keyboard. My late father used to use that a lot. The only thing I recall about that is the awful word processor. If you pressed the wrong key, all your text would scroll up and off the screen, presumably up into the ether or something, never to be seen again!
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Old 15th Nov 2021, 12:40 am   #48
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

I don't think I currently have any Amstrad stuff, though I have had or used various Amstrad items in the past.

Main ones were:
Amstrad VCR4600 VHS long-play video recorder (made by Funai in Japan),

Amstrad Fidelity SRX200 satellite receiver also made in Japan. I upgraded it from 16 to 48 channels by replacing the microcontroller chip with one intended for an Amstrad SRD400 . The front panel buttons and remote control keys worked a little differently after the "upgrade" but it enjoyed several years' extra life. I remember using it with an add-on VideoCrypt decoder to receive Channel 5 after they started broadcasting in 1997. Most of High Wycombe could not receive Channel 5 terrestrially nor receive Freeview until 2012 so a satellite TV system was (and still is) pretty much essential here. Even today, the local Freeview relay transmitters only carry a small selection of channels, not the full service, so almost everyone here has satellite or cable. Of course, satellite TV is all-digital nowadays and the analogue Amstrad receiver has long since gone to the tip. Amstrad produced some Sky digital satellite boxes, some of which I've also used in the past. I recall the Amstrad DRX100 digibox (made in Portugal by Samsung?) and having to replace a surface-mounted capacitor in the tuner module to cure a 'no signal' fault.

PCW8256 - I didn't own one, but used one at Bristol Polytechnic (now known as UWE) in the late 1980s. I didn't use it as a word processor, but as a computer running CP/M and Turbo Pascal programming language. As an excercise we had to write a database program in Turbo Pascal.

I've encountered various other Amstrad items including a TVR1 TeleVideo combi with a blown power supply. A blue high-voltage capacitor and the switching regulator chip had failed. I had a version of the Amstrad CB radio, rebadged as SpinneyTronic. Also an Amstrad CD/TV (5 inch black and white TV and CD player boombox). I even spotted an Amstrad clock radio with vacuum-fluorescent display at a car boot sale earlier this year but didn't buy it.

On the whole, Amstrad stuff was cheap and cheerful. Not the best quality but it kept many people happy. For that reason I'm not going to say anything too negative about it.
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Old 15th Nov 2021, 9:05 pm   #49
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

It was better than many of the current cheap & cheerful stuff anyway. I mostly remember Funai or Shintom based VCR's but it's fully possible they also sourced some from Orion.
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Old 16th Nov 2021, 12:35 am   #50
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I mostly remember Funai or Shintom based VCR's but it's fully possible they also sourced some from Orion.
No you're right, they were Funai. My mistake.

I had forgotten about the TV. We had the dreaded CTV2200 with the 'superwide sound' (dual mono), a budget remote/teletext set that my old man found irresistable for the price in ASDA After they upgraded to a Nicam set in about 1992, that 2200 set lasted me right up to the millennium, after being used in our student house in uni. Then the line stage went pop - I took one look at that rats nest inside and got a K30 instead

We also had an SRD400 (?) satellite receiver, simplicity itself to tune in and use as all the buttons were on the front panel. No idea what happened to it.

I think that a lot of Amstrad units were so simple that they lasted quite well - because there wasn't much to go wrong!
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Old 16th Nov 2021, 12:46 am   #51
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Quote:
.... and a PCW 8256 which I cannot use as I lost the keyboard. My late father used to use that a lot. The only thing I recall about that is the awful word processor. If you pressed the wrong key, all your text would scroll up and off the screen, presumably up into the ether or something, never to be seen again!
That sounds like a bug I found in the original Locoscript 1. I don't remember the key, but mine involved a drop-down menu selection. I must have a note of it somewhere in the letter I wrote to Amstrad at the time, buried away on a 3" disk!. Amstrad gave me an updated version that fixed it. I had to pass their offices in Brentwood on my way to the station every day, so was able to pop in and collect it myself.
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Old 22nd Nov 2021, 12:29 am   #52
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

The one and only Amstrad product I ever bought was a PC1512. I bought it jointly with my late father. It was the sort with two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives and no hard disk. You could boot to several types of DOS. It taught me a lot about computers, that machine. It also reminds me of my father as he was using it the evening before he died (he had a heart attack while playing tennis).

At the time (1988) it was just about the only reasonably priced PC widely available. It proved reliable although I replaced it three years later with a non branded Windows 3.1 machine with a 512mb HDD…. Those were the days….

Having said that my general attitude to Amstrad was that, although cheap, it was poor quality (usually OEM, ie manufactured by another company) compared to big Japanese brands that flooded the electronics market at the time.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 11:49 am   #53
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I remember when I read an article on Sir Alan... telling his designers .. "Give them a mugs eyeful of flashing lights .. don't forget that your target market is the truck driver and his wife". There used to be an a surplus component selling outfit called Sednz (or something like that) in the same region as his TV factory in Shoeburyness and I guess they sold his surplus/floor sweepings.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 12:07 pm   #54
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I started out my audio life with an Amstrad RP10 record player, which was followed by a TS56 Tower System, so convinced was I of the superiority of the marque! However, even at a very young age, I felt sure that the steady "dum-dum-dum-dum" noise though the speakers as the plastic bars on the turntable passed under the stylus on the bottom side of the record playing was not a good thing!

The icing on the cake was when one of the hi-fi magazines I used to love reading gave away a free stylus balance. It went up to 5g and I was upset to find out that my treasured Amstrad seemed to be tracking at well above this. I duly added Blu-Tac and weights to bring it down to something sensible, whereupon it naturally barely tracked at all! My brother-in-law then gave me his old Bush Audiosystem 1500 music centre with Garrard turntable, Shure MM cartridge and a sensible tracking weight, which wiped the floor with the Amstrad and started my upgrade path.

My only other Amstrad encounter came a good few years later when I acquired two amplifiers at the same time - one Amstrad EX-220 and one Rogers Ravensbourne. I serviced both and replaced the knackered PSU capacitors in the Amstrad and was rather surprised to find that, not only was it quite a decent sounding amplifier, it was also noticeably sonically superior to the (IMHO very average) Rogers.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 2:12 pm   #55
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

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There used to be an a surplus component selling outfit called Sednz (or something like that) in the same region as his TV factory in Shoeburyness and I guess they sold his surplus/floor sweepings.
I bought a PC1640DD from Bull Electrical when they were being sold off cheaply (£79 IIRC). But no monitor (which also contained the PSU). I bought a non-Amstrad SMPSU from another surplus outfit, but still needed a monitor.

And then I saw the ad in Television Magazine for "damaged" Amstrad monitors. I excitedly phoned to find out more. And phoned. And phoned. When I finally got through, a gentleman who sounded like he'd just come back from the boozer helpfully described them "all smashed to smithereens". I never ordered from Sendz after that.

In the end, I bought a S/H IBM monitor from a local junk shop, after which I had a very reliable word processor.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 2:32 pm   #56
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

In the very-early-90s a number of my clients had the little Amstrad TV-VCR combis dotted around their offices; this was back before 'proper' computer-based-training came along and the little Amstrads were used along with workbooks to deliver training-courses on programming languages, software updates etc; there was a US-based company called "Learning Tree" who made a lot of these instructional videos back then.

A quick bit of Googlism shows they are still in business. The little Amstrads worked just fine for playing-back videos for one or two people to watch while sitting together at a desk doing an "Introduction to MVS/ESA System Administration" course , but the screen was a bit small for 'entertainment' viewing.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 3:51 pm   #57
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This is the one that started it all for Sir Alan.
My Amstrad 8000 amplifier, his first home manufactured consumer electronic unit.
Before this he did have other Amstrad branded items but they were just OEM units such as Cigarette lighters and intercoms not made by him.
This 8000 unit is actually a mk2 but there is minimal differences so im told.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 4:34 pm   #58
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The Amstrad FX9600 fax machine. I must still have it somewhere and was always reliable an far cheaper than the equivalents. It had a microcasette answering machine incorporated. It used thermal paper, though which was not recommended for archiving as the text became invisible after a few weeks!
The other item was an emailer I bought for my Mum. Huge LCD screen and a slide-out keyboard. She did manage to email her sister in America a few times before it refused to do anything other than be a big phone.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 4:38 pm   #59
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Default Re: Amstrad.What stuff do you have?

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This is the one that started it all for Sir Alan.
My Amstrad 8000 amplifier, his first home manufactured consumer electronic unit.
Before this he did have other Amstrad branded items but they were just OEM units such as Cigarette lighters and intercoms not made by him.
This 8000 unit is actually a mk2 but there is minimal differences so im told.
It was kind of 'Texan-like' in its narrow wooden sleeve. As was the later IC2000.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 6:09 pm   #60
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The IC2000 was actually a good amp, probably more by accident than design! Not sure about the claim of Amstrad being 'pioneers of integrated circuits' though...
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