Thanks for watching.  Yes it is me, a bit huskier than normal after being under the weather but determined to get this weeks episode out for you so do excuse the slightly different voice, but I hope you enjoyed the episode.  Here's hoping we don't run into any nasty surprises in episode two.  What are your memories of the CPC range?  Neil - RMC

Love it! The 464 was my second computer after a Vic 20.  I always thought the CPC range was something of an oddity for Amstrad. They were well designed, solidly built and outperformed most of their competitors. Very out of character for Amstrad!

"if there are girthier 8 bit micros, I'd like to meet them." This immediately made me think of the Texas Instruments 99/4a. While not very wide initially at 38cm, it had the expansion port on the side, and required all peripherals to supply a pass through connector. Chaining several options was amusing to say the least.

Beautiful machine! The industrial design is wonderful. Alan Sugar was not only a great business man and shrewd, he also gave value for money to the people, by leaning on the supply chains. As it should be in a free market true capitalist economy. I want a CPC!!!

My childhood memories in one video ..... thanks for making this.

I got my CPC 464 for Christmas 1984. Although I'd later get handed down my uncle's Commodore 64C and would move on to an A1200 my first love was the CPC. It was the poor relation in the UK, and games were often ports from inferior systems, like R-Type being hastily ported from the Speccy, or the disaster that was Outrun, but when it was given care it looked spectacular. I think that's why I loved it so much: it was the underdog. There's something about the colours of an Amstrad game which to my eyes looks better than the somewhat murky colours of the Commodore 64, especially on games like Sorcery, Operation Wolf, Gauntlet and Rainbow Islands. If I could choose two memories, it would be of seeing that little triangle of orange on the top corner of a Mastertronic game telling you it was for the Amstrad, and the vertical flash of lettering on a new edition of Amstrad Action in the newsagents — oh and destroying my eyes and getting early-onset RSI from keying in pages of machine code.

I had a 6128 in 1986. It was great after the Spectrum! Then, I got a RF converter (a big black box that sat under the monitor) and I had a TV in my room for when I got bored with playing games, or had some homework to do ;)
Happy days :D

Thanks for this!

I bought my 6128 brand new for £379.99 - I asked for discount for cash in the shop. My sister carried the computer box and I carried the colour monitor. It lasted me all the way through University before people talked about talking computers to uni.

I still own it, it probably needs the capacitors replaced but about 12 years ago I switched it on and it wasn’t reading disks - I only needed to swap out the perishes drive belt.

That baby was still working great!

Definitely my best computer before I discovered Macs.

I also had the TV tuner, and I cobbled together a ROM socket box from a magazine project and was able to run all sorts of great programs. I always wanted a hard drive for it but they were so expensive back then and now they are like hen’s teeth!

I also had a 3.5” Drive that plugged in at the back and I could read and write to PC formatted 720k floppies. It also allowed me to archive huge amounts of graphics which I created to save space on the rather expensive 3” diskettes.

And I bought an Amstrad DMP2000 dot matrix printer.

Watching this really brought back some happy memories. My CPC 464 wasn’t my first computer (had a ZX81 and Speccy before that), but it was the one that clicked with me and got me into computing properly. It was the first machine I learned to code properly on, and is the reason I later became the tech journalist and a massive technology geek I am today. I later upgraded to a 464 Plus (which due to it running the 6128 plus firmware) which proved to be a fantastic machine as it had the 6128’s excellent keyboard, could address a 64K external ram pack like it was the 6128’s internal memory, had two joystick ports as standard, had Centronics connectors instead of edge connectors for printer and the expansion bus, as well as having the ASIC chip. If only it had come a few years earlier.

Anyway, can’t wait for part 2, and in the interim this video has already motivated me to try and buy a decent condition 6128 of my own from eBay (given the lack of decent CPC emulators).

And, as controversial as I know it is, the CPC kicks the crap out of the Speccy any day of the week 😀

I have quite a few 464s (first one I rescued when I saw it in someone's front porch, along with a monitor and everything else, they were about to throw it away - close call!), but it took a long time to finally obtain a 6128, even though it was back when vintage 80s home micro tech hadn't yet rocketed up in value on the used market (won it on ebay in Jan/2012). Bizarrely though, not long after I managed to get three more units all from different sources. They didn't come with manuals, but I obtained two manuals separately as well. 2012 was a good year for winning 80s stuff on ebay.

Oh and to one and all, May the 4th be with you! 8)   (in the traditional, original trilogy sense of course, not the modern RJ SJW garbage)

Nice, wish I could afford one (and had the space).  IMHO the CPC needs three tweeks for perfection - an HxC floppy emulator, an mp3 player for cassette, and a 256k Silicon Disk.

The original CPC464 monitor just provided 5v for the computer. The disc drive in the 664 and later the 6128 needed 12v so this was added to the monitor power supply. Hence how they're two seperate cables with the 5V cable coming from the monitor and plugging into the keyboard and the 12V the other way round. It also stopped you getting them the wrong way round

Always loved the CPC... The Z80 is faster than a stock 8088, despite the 1 wait state on a 4 clock "macrocycle" -- The DJNZ makes all the difference. The 6128 was the stuff of dreams when I was a kid, but I had only a CPC 664, so I had to make my own tweaks to run at 60Hz screen refresh and run Turbo Pascal with a few KB of memory left to use. Many fond memories: my first computer, my first BASIC (Locomotive Basic is awesome since it's extendible), my first assembly language and machine code, my first Turbo Pascal, my first 3" (yes, 3!) and 5.25" floppies, etc.

I was always re-soldering the power input connector on my 464, it would get looser and looser every time you plugged or unplugged it (and my parents made me dismantle the computer everyday).

When I saw the wood louses in your video, the memories came back of my repair experiences - I remember once I found loads of live ants in there, and kept it a secret - my abusive parents would have found some reason to blame me for their very existence, and take the computer (again) for some random length of time!

Knowing this, I kept my mouth shut, and did my soldering (illicitly - i wasnt supposed to have anything useful in my room!) and quickly put the machine back together (complete with some of the ants). It had worked every day thus far, no reason it wouldn't continue to do so... I was, of course, correct. I bet that CPC464 would still work today, if I hadn't left and never gone back as soon as I was old enough!

Lovely =D  Look forward to part 2!

When it comes to the image, you can build a DIN to SCART cable very easily or simply buy one. All of the schematics are available online and the image quality is actually superb! To solve the power problem you can use a 5v/2A wall wart with NORMAL polarity just for testing purposes, or go full out with another 12V/1A wart with REVERSED polarity to operate the floppy as well

I am glad to say I still own my original CPC6128, with colour monitor and dot-matrix printer!

OMG this was my first computer, this is so nostaligic for me, you just made my day =)

Anyone else here remember Ambit, a very Techy electronics supplier. After wondering what happened to them it turns out the guys including who set it up, including Roland Perry,  then went on to design the Amstrad computers. Alan Sugar started the project by doing what he did best; coming up with the concept of including a monitor to save kids hogging the family TV, and putting the PSU in the monitor to save cost. As a result the CPC might have been the first computer where the case design was finished before the CPU was selected.

Ah now we're talking!  I've just completed the hard work on restoring my own 30 year old 464.  Despite having spent 22+ years in the loft, it worked with no problems, though required being taken apart and getting a damn good clean.  I've left my old MP2 modulator untouched and went down the scart/dc power supply route, and was very impressed with the results.  All it needs now is some heatsinks, some "goop" to lubricate the noisy tape deck, some belts and a bit more elbow grease to clean the tape deck window and some springs for the keyboard.

But like most old 464 users, what I really want is a 6128 to use on more regular basis.  It's just finding one that doesn't cost silly money.  The 8 and 16Bit market on ebay does seem a bit mental these days.

Anyway, your channel (along with one or two others) is responsible for introducing me to this slippery slope of hardware restoration.   Thank you.