ScuzzBlog: Diaries December 2018
Entry 21st December 2018: Post 05: Amstrad CPC464 - Apprentice at work
Amstrad CPC464 - Apprentice at work
He may have been relatively new to the home computing market but
Mr Sugar new what he was doing in producing this cricket bat of
a computer. I for one was very critical of Amstrad in the early
days. They really did know how to load kit with extra buttons
and gadgets just so they could sell them cheap. But the cheapness
of the product meant less than quality parts and they tended to
fail very quickly. We struggled with his record players and
general hi-fi units [ if you can call them that ].
But my resistance to move over to Amstrad, only to be forced to
adopt the name under Spectrum caused me to reject the whole Speccy
range given the poor quality of the Plus2. I was convinced that
Amstrad were just rubbish, so I didn't give the CPC464 a second
look.
And yet by my using an Amstrad at work I was seduced by the old
PCW9512 which became my main computer from 1987 through to 1993.
A full six years, and it broke my heart when that computer
finally bit the bullet.
And so when I finally got round to getting a CPC464 and 6128 I
was a little saddened at the way I had shunned this computer. It
really is a great tool and I love it to death.
It took me quite a while to repair all the various rubber bands
in the drives on not only the CPCs but the PCWs also. All fixed
now and working just fine. I seriously have no issue with Amstrad.
I feel that I was somewhat harsh to Mr Sugar in my view on his
computer achievements. I have a different view of Clive Sinclair
but I better not go into that.
So I took out a CPC from the very attractive and stylish box and
flicked her on to give her a whirl and she did not disappoint.
I love the way the machine clicks as she loads from cassette. You
never sense the process is going to fail. The only down side is
having to have the monitor to feed the computer. Does mean not
having that extra wire or power brick lying around.
And isn't it odd that one of the early games was called The Apprentice.
Well done Mr Sugar you never will appear on my Sheldon Cooper list
of mortal enemies. But you do make the top twenty of technological
visionaries.
Amstrad CPC464 - Apprentice at work
>
|
