The CPC 464 is the first personal home computer built by

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstra ...

in 1984. It was one of the bestselling and best produced microcomputers, with more than 2 million units sold in Europe. The British microcomputer boom had already peaked before Amstrad announced the CPC 464 (which stood for Colour Personal Computer) which they then released a mere 9 months later. Amstrad was known for cheap hi-fi products but had not broken into the home computer market until the CPC 464. Their consumer electronic sales were starting to plateau and owner and founder

Alan Sugar Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar (born 24 March 1947) is a British business magnate, media personality, author, politician and political adviser. In 1968, he started what would later become his largest business venture, consumer electronics com ...

stated "We needed to move on and find another sector or product to bring us back to profit growth". Work started on the Amstrad home computer in 1983 with engineer Ivor Spital who concluded that Amstrad should enter the home computer market, offering a product that integrated low-cost hardware to be sold at an affordable "impulse-purchase price". Spital wanted to offer a device that would not commandeer the family TV but instead be an all-in-one computer with its own monitor, thus freeing up the TV and allowing others to play video games at the same time. Bill Poel, General Manager of Amsoft (Amstrad's software division), said during the launch press release that if the computers were not on the shelves by the end of June, "I will be prepared to sit down and eat one in

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson comm ...

Technical specifications

The CPC 464 is powered by the

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

processor after the original attempts to use the 6502 processor, being used in the Apple II amongst many other 8-bit computer families, failed. The Z80 runs at 4 MHz, has 64K of memory and runs

AMSDOS AMSDOS is a disk operating system for the 8-bit Amstrad CPC Computer (and various clones). The name is a contraction of Amstrad Disk Operating System. AMSDOS first appeared in 1984 on the CPC 464, with added 3 inch disk drive, and then on the ...

, Amstrad's own OS. The unit includes a built-in

tape drive A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability. ...

and the choice of a colour or green monochrome monitor. The graphics are generated by a Motorola 6845 chip, providing 3 standard display modes, each using colours chosen from a palette of 27. *Mode 0 - 160×200, 16 colours *Mode 1 - 320×200, 4 colours *Mode 2 - 640x200, 2 colours Its sound is supplied using the

General Instrument General Instrument (GI) was an American electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. They formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer. During the 1950s, ...

s AY-3-8912 sound chip that provides 3-voice, 8-octave sound capacity through a built-in loudspeaker with volume control. Later versions of the 464 have a headphone jack that can also be used for external speakers. The CPC 464's code name during development was 'Arnold'.

Reception

The 464 was popular with consumers for various reasons. Aside from the joystick port, the computer, keyboard, and tape deck were all combined into one unit that attached to the monitor via two cables. The monitor also contained the power supply unit which powered the whole unit via one wall plug. It did not have very many wires and was simple enough for even the most inexperienced user to install.

References

{{Reflist Amstrad CPC