Amstrad PCW
Encyclopedia
The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computer
s produced by British
company Amstrad
from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was under 25% of the cost of almost all IBM-compatible PC systems in the UK. As a result PCWs became very popular in the home and small office markets, both in the UK and in Europe, and persuaded many technophobes to venture into using computers. However the last two models, introduced in the mid-1990s, were commercial failures, being squeezed out of the market by the falling prices, greater capabilities and wider range of software for IBM-compatible
PCs. The last model branded as a PCW was totally incompatible
with the earlier ones.
In all models, including the last, the monitor's casing included the CPU, RAM
, floppy disk
drives and power supply for all of the systems' components. All except the last included a printer in the price. Early models used 3-inch floppy disks, while those sold from 1991 onwards used 3½-inch floppies, which became the industry standard around the time the PCW series was launched. A variety of inexpensive products and services were launched to copy 3-inch floppies to the 3½-inch format so that data could be transferred to other machines. Rad Systems in Harrow (now www.techno-mart.co.uk) were the first company in the UK to supply the PCW 8256 with 512K RAM, about six months before Amstrad.
All models except the last included the Locoscript
word processing
program, the CP/M
Plus operating system
, Mallard BASIC
and the LOGO programming language at no extra cost. A wide range of other CP/M office software and several games became available, some commercially produced and some free. Although Amstrad supplied all but the last model as text based systems, graphical user interface
peripherals and the supporting software also became available. The last model had its own unique GUI
operating system and set of office applications, which were included in the price. However none of the software for previous PCW models could run on this system.
's founder Alan Sugar
realised that most computers in Britain
were used for word processing
at home, and allegedly sketched an outline design for a low cost replacement for typewriter
s during a flight to the Far East. This design featured a single "box" containing all the components, including a portrait-oriented
display, which would be more convenient for displaying documents than the usual landscape orientation. However the portrait display was quickly eliminated because it would have been too expensive, and the printer also became a separate unit. To reduce the cost of the printer, Amstrad commissioned an ASIC
(custom circuit) from MEJ Electronics, which had developed the hardware for Amstrad's earlier CPC-464
. Two other veterans of the CPC-64's creation played important roles, with Roland Perry managing the PCW project and Locomotive Software
producing the Locoscript
word processing program and other software. The CP/M
operating system
was added at the last minute. During development the PCW 8256 / 8512 project was code-named "Joyce" after Sugar's secretary.
For the launch the product name "Zircon" was jointly suggested by MEJ Electronics and Locomotive Software, as both companies had been spun off from Data Recall, which had produced a word processing system called "Diamond" in the 1970s. Sugar, preferring a more descriptive name, suggested "WPC" standing for "Word Processing Computer", but Perry pointed out that this invited jokes about Women Police Constables. Sugar reshuffled the initials and the product was launched as the "Personal Computer Word-processor", abbreviated to "PCW". The advertising campaign featured trucks unloading typewriters to form huge scrap heaps, with the slogan "It's more than a word processor for less than most typewriters". In Britain the system was initially sold exclusively through Dixons, whose chairman's dream was that computers would cease to be exclusive products for the technologically adept and would become consumer products.
or a Mac would cost a comparative fortune." At its United Kingdom
launch in September 1985, the basic PCW model was priced at £399 plus value added tax
, which included a printer, word processor
program, the CP/M
operating system
and associated utilities
, and a BASIC
interpreter
. Software vendors quickly made a wide range of additional applications available, including accounting, spreadsheet
and database
programs, so that the system was able to support most of the requirements of a home or small business.
Shortly afterwards the Tandy 1000
was introduced in the UK with the MS-DOS
operating system and a similar suite of business applications, and became the only other personal computer system available for less than £1,000 in Britain. At the time the cheapest complete systems from Apricot Computers
cost under £2,000 and the cheapest IBM PC
system cost £2,400. Although competitors' systems generally had more sophisticated features, including colour monitors, Whitehead thought the Amstrad PCW offered the best value for money.
In the USA the PCW was launched at a price of $799, and its competitors were initially the Magnavox Videowriter and Smith Corona PWP, two word processing systems whose prices also included a screen, keyboard and printer. The magazine Popular Science thought that the PCW could not compete as a general-purpose computer, because its use of non-standard 3-inch floppy disk
drives and the rather old CP/M
operating system would restrict the range of software available from expanding beyond the spreadsheet
, typing tutor and cheque book balancing programs already on sale. However the magazine predicted that the PCW's large screen and easy-to-use word processing software would make it a formidable competitor for dedicated word processors in the home and business markets. The system was sold in the USA via major stores, business equipment shops and electronics retailers.
The PCW redefined the idea of "best value" in computers by concentrating on reducing the price, which totally disrupted the personal computer
market. The low price encouraged home users to trade up from simpler systems like the Sinclair Spectrum, whose sales had passed their peak. According to Personal Computer World, the PCW "got the technophobes using computers". In the first two years over 700,000 PCWs were sold, gaining 60% of the UK home computer market, and 20% of the European personal computer market, second only to IBM's 33.3% share. Having gained credibility as computer supplier, Amstrad launched IBM-compatible PCs, once again focussing on low prices, with its PC1512 surpassing the IBM PC on performance and beating even the Taiwanese clones on price. Amstrad became the dominant British personal computer company, buying all the designs, marketing rights and product stocks of Sinclair Research Ltd
's computer division in April 1986, while Apricot later sold its manufacturing assets to Mitsubishi
and became a software company.
In the PCW's heyday the magazines 8000 Plus (later called PCW Plus) and PCW Today were published specifically for PCW users. In addition to the usual product reviews and technical advice, they featured other content such as articles by science fiction
writer and software developer Dave Langford on his experiences of using the PCW.
When the PCW line was retired in 1998, 8 million machines had been sold. The Daily Telegraph estimated that 100,000 were still in use in the UK, and said that the reliability of the PCW's hardware and software and the range of independently-produced add-on software for its word processing program were factors in its continued popularity. Laing says the PCW line's downfall was that "proper PCs
became affordable". IBM, Compaq and other vendors of more expensive computers had reduced prices drastically in an attempt to increase demand during the recession
of the early 1990s. In 1993 the PCW still cost under £390 while a PC system with a printer and word processing software cost over £1,000. However after adjustment for inflation
the retail price of a multimedia
IBM-compatible PC in 1997 was about 11% more than that of a PCW 8256 in 1985, and many home PCs were cast-offs, sometimes costing as little as £50, from large organisations that had upgraded their systems.
Users of Windows
, Unix
or Mac OS X
systems who wish to run programs that were developed for the PCW 8256, 8512, 9256, 9512 and 9512+ can use an emulator
called "Joyce". There is also another one only for Windows
called "CP/M Box".
of RAM
and one floppy disk drive. Launched a few months later, the PCW 8512 had 512 KB of RAM and two floppy disk drives. Both systems consisted of three units: a printer; a keyboard; and a monochrome
CRT
monitor whose casing included the processor, memory, motherboard
, one or two floppy disk
drives, the power supply for all the units and the connectors for the printer and keyboard. The monitor displayed green characters on a background that appeared black when the system was active. It measured 12 inches (30.5 cm) diagonally, and showed 32 lines of 90 characters each. The designers preferred this to the usual personal computer
display of 16 64-character lines, as the larger size would be more convenient for displaying a whole letter. The monitor could also display graphics well enough for the bundled graphics program and for some games.
The floppy disk drives on these models were in the unusual 3-inch "compact floppy" format. Rumours that Amstrad opted for the 3-inch disk format because it bought a large quantity of these drives cheaply from Matsushita when makers of IBM-compatible PCs standardised on the 3½-inch format. cannot possibly be true because the PCW was designed in 1984 and the first IBM PC with a 3.5" drive was the IBM Personal System/2
launched in 1987. In the range's early days supplies of 3-inch floppies occasionally ran out, but by 1988 the PCW's popularity encouraged suppliers to compete for this market. There are several techniques for transferring data from a PCW to an IBM-compatible PC, some of which also can transfer in the opposite direction, and service companies that will do the job for affordable fees.
While all the 3-inch disks were double-sided, the PCW 256's 3-inch drive and the PCW 8512's upper one were single-sided, while the 8512's lower one was double-sided and double-density. Hence there were two types of disk: single-density, which could store 180 KB
of data per side, equivalent to about 70 pages of text each; and double density, which could store twice as much per side. The double-density drive could read single-density disks, but it was inadvisable to write to them using this drive. Users of single-sided drives had to flip the disks over to use the full capacity.
The dot matrix
printer had a sheet feed for short documents and a tractor attachment for long reports on continuous stationery
. This unit could print 90 characters per second at draft quality and 20 characters per second at higher quality, and could also produce graphics. However it had only 9 printing pins and even its higher quality did not match that of 24-pin printers. The dot matrix printer was not very robust as its chassis was made entirely of plastic. Users who needed to support higher print volumes or to produce graphics could buy a daisy-wheel printer
or graph plotter
from Amstrad. The daisy-wheel printer could not produce graphics.
The keyboard had 82 keys, some of which were designed for word processing, especially with the bundled Locoscript
software – for example to cut, copy, and paste. Non-English characters such as Greek
could be typed by holding down the ALT or EXTRA key, along with the SHIFT key if capitals were required. Other special key combinations activated caps lock
, num lock
and reboot
.
A wide range of upgrades became available. The PCW 8256's RAM could be expanded to 512 KB for a hardware cost of about £50. An additional internal floppy disk drive for the 8256 would cost about £100, and installation was fairly easy. Alternatively one could add external drives, for example if a 3½-inch drive was needed. Graphical user interface
devices such as light pen
s, mice and graphic tablets could be attached to the expansion socket at the back of the monitor. Adding a serial interface connector, which cost about £50, made it possible to attach a modem
or non-Amstrad printer.
Enthusiasts nicknamed the PCW 8256 "Joyce" and the 8512 "Joyce Plus". The designs were licensed to the German consumer electronics company Schneider, which slightly modified their appearance and sold them as "Joyce" and "Joyce Plus". The partnership between Amstrad and Schneider had been formed to market the Amstrad CPC
range of computers, and broke up when Amstrad launched the PCW9512.
word processor
program which included spellchecker and mail merge
facilities. In all other respects the 9512's facilities were the same as the 8512's.
In 1991 the 9512 was replaced by the PCW 9256 and 9512+, both equipped with a single 3½-inch disk drive that could access 720 KB. The 9512+ had 512 KB of RAM, and two printer options, the Amstrad daisy-wheel unit and a series of considerably more expensive Canon inkjet printer
s: initially the BJ10e, later the BJ10ex and finally the BJ10sx. The 9256 had 256 KB of RAM and the same dot matrix printer as the 8256 and 8512, as well as the older Locoscript version 1.
systems.
This model, whose displays labelled it "PcW16", was introduced in 1995 at a price of £299. Despite its name it was totally incompatible with all previous PCW systems. Instead of having two operating environments, Locoscript
for word processing and CP/M
for other uses, it had its own GUI
operating system
, known as "Roseanne". This could only run one application at a time, and starting another application made the previous one save all the files it had changed and then close. The bundled word processor was produced by Arnor, and could read Locoscript
files but saved them in its own format. The package also included a spreadsheet, address book, diary, calculator and file manager. Amstrad never provided other applications, and very little third-party software was written for the machine.
The display unit, which also contained the processor, motherboard and RAM, was the standard 640×480 pixels in size and worked in VGA mode. The PcW16 included a standard 1.4 MB
floppy drive. While competitors included hard disk
drives with capacities of a few hundred MB to a few GB
, the PcW16 used a 1 MB flash memory
to store the programs and user files. Like previous PCW models, the PcW16 used the 8-bit
Zilog Z-80 CPU, which first appeared in 1976, while other personal computers used 16-bit
CPUs or the more recent 32-bit
CPUs. The price included a mouse for use with the GUI, but did not include a printer.
In the magazine PCW Plus Dave Langford expressed a series of concerns about the PcW16: the operating system could not run the many CP/M programs available for previous PCW models; the flash RAM was too small for a large collection of programs, but programs could not be run from the floppy disk, which was designed for backing up files; and a second-hand IBM PC with Locoscript Pro looked like a more sensible upgrade path for users of earlier PCWs. Few PcW16s were sold.
The word processing
software Locoscript
was included in the price of the hardware. The manual provided both a reference and a tutorial that could enable users to start work within 20 minutes, and some users found the tutorial provided as much information as they ever needed.
The program enabled users to divide documents into groups, display the groups on a disk and then the documents in the selected group, and set up a template
for each group. The "limbo
file" facility enabled users to recover accidentally deleted documents until the disk ran out of space, when the software would permanently delete files to make room for new ones.
Layout facilities included setting and using tab stop
s, production of page headers and footers, with automated page numbering; typographical effects including proportional spacing, a range of font sizes, and bold, italic and underline effects. The cut, copy and paste facility provided 10 paste buffers, each designated by a number, and these could be saved to a disk. The menu system had two layouts, one for beginners and the other for experienced users.
Locoscript supported 150 characters and, if used with the dot matrix printer, could print European letters including Greek and Cyrillic, as well as mathematical and technical symbols. The program allowed the user to work on one document while printing another, so that the relative slowness of the basic printer seldom caused difficulties. Locoscript did not run under the control of a standard operating system
but booted directly from a floppy disk. Users had to reboot
if they wanted to switch between Locoscript and a CP/M application, unless they used a utility called "Flipper", which could allocate separate areas of RAM to Locoscript and CP/M.
Locoscript version 1, which was bundled with the PCW 8256 and 8512, had no spell checker
or mail merge
facilities. Version 2, which was bundled with the PCW 9512, included a spellchecker and could provide mail merge by interfacing to other products from Locomotive Software
, such as LocoMail and LocoFile. Locoscript 2 also expanded the character set to 400.
known as "CP/M Plus" or "CP/M+". This provided a range of facilities comparable to those of MS-DOS
, but imposed a significant limitation: it could not address more than 64 KB of RAM. Since CP/M took 3 KB of this, the most that CP/M applications could use was 61 KB. The rest of the RAM was used as a RAM disk
(exposed under the drive letter "M:" for "memory"), which was much faster than a floppy disk but lost all its data when the machine was powered off. On the other hand the standalone Locoscript word processor program was able to use 154 KB as normal memory, and the rest as a RAM disk.
Mallard BASIC
, like LocoScript, was a Locomotive Software product, but ran under CP/M. This version of BASIC
lacked built-in graphics facilities, but included JetSAM, an implementation of ISAM
that supported multiple indexes per file, so that programs could access records directly by specifying values of key fields. The CP/M software bundle also included the Digital Research
implementation of Seymour Papert
's LOGO programming language and a graphics program that could produce pie chart
s and bar chart
s.
. Many of these were at least as good as similar commercial offerings, but most had poor documentation.
range of CPUs: Z80 at a clock speed of 4 MHz but slowed to 3.4 MHz by the internal clock in the 8256 and 8512; Z80 at 4 MHz in the 9512, 9256, 9512+ and PCW10; and Z80A at 16 MHz in the PcW16.
The Z80 could only access 64 KB
of RAM
at a time. Software could work round this by bank switching
, accessing different banks of memory at different times, but this made programming more complex and slowed systems down. The PCW's CP/M
applications could not use more than 64 KB, and the system used the rest of the RAM as a RAM drive. On the other hand the standalone Locoscript
word processor program was reported as using up to 154 KB as normal memory, and the rest as a RAM disk.
Unusually, the Z80 CPU in the PCW 8256, 8512, 9512, 9256 and 9512+ had no directly connected ROM (read-only memory
, which most computers need to start the boot process
). Instead, at startup, the ASIC
(customised circuit) at the heart of the PCW provided access to part of the 1k ROM within the Intel 8041 microcontroller
used to drive the printer. The Z80 would copy 256 bytes via the ASIC into RAM, providing sufficient instructions to load the first sector
from a floppy. The ROM-based code cannot display text, being too small to support character generation; instead it displays a bright screen which is progressively filled by black stripes as the code is loaded from floppy.
To make the printer
cheap enough to be included with every PCW, Amstrad placed the majority of its drive electronics inside the PCW cabinet. The printer case contained only electromechanical components and high current driver electronics; its power was supplied via a coaxial power connector
socket on the monitor casing, and rather than using a traditional parallel interface
, pin and motor signals were connected directly by a 34-wire ribbon cable
to an 8041 microcontroller
on the PCW's mainboard.
Most models of PCW were bundled with a 9-pin dot matrix printer
mechanism, with the later 9512 and 9512+ models using a daisywheel (with a different cable; the printers were not interchangeable with the dot matrix models). These PCW printers could not, of course, be used on other computers, and the original PCW lacked a then-standard Centronics
printer port. Instead, the Z80 bus and video signals were brought to an edge connector
socket at the back of the cabinet. Many accessories including parallel
and serial
ports were produced for this interface. Some of the later models included a built-in parallel port
; these could be bundled with either the dedicated Amstrad printer, or a Canon
Bubblejet model.
The machines were built around the 8-bit
Zilog Z80
processor, running at 4 MHz, and managed the relatively large amount of RAM
main memory using a technique known as bank switching
(allowing access to more than the Z80's normal 16-bit
address bus
reach of 64 kB
). The PCW divided RAM into 16 kB sections, of which four could be accessed at any time. In CP/M
, the memory used for the display was switched out while programs were running, giving more than 60 kB of usable RAM. While the Joyce architecture was designed with configurations of 128 kB and 256 kB of RAM in mind, no PCW was ever sold with 128 kB of RAM.
The PCWs were definitely not designed to play games, although some software authors considered this a minor detail, releasing games like Batman
, Head Over Heels
, and Bounder
. The PCW video system was not at all suited to games. In order that it be able to display a full 80 column page plus margins, the display's addressable area was 90 columns and the display had 32 lines. The display was, in fact, monochrome
and bitmapped, giving a resolution of 720 by 256. Even with one bit per pixel, this occupied 23 kB of RAM, making software scrolling
far too slow for fluid text manipulation. In order to improve this, the PCW implemented roller RAM, with a 512-byte area of RAM used to hold the address of each line of display data, effectively allowing very rapid scrolling. The video system also fetched data in a special order designed so that plotting a character eight scan lines high would touch eight contiguous addresses. This meant that very fast Z80 copy instructions like LDIR could be used. Unfortunately, it meant that drawing lines and other shapes could be very complicated.
The PcW16 does not share any hardware with the original PCW series, other than the Z80 CPU, and should be considered to be a completely different machine.
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s produced by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
company Amstrad
Amstrad
Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....
from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was under 25% of the cost of almost all IBM-compatible PC systems in the UK. As a result PCWs became very popular in the home and small office markets, both in the UK and in Europe, and persuaded many technophobes to venture into using computers. However the last two models, introduced in the mid-1990s, were commercial failures, being squeezed out of the market by the falling prices, greater capabilities and wider range of software for IBM-compatible
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
PCs. The last model branded as a PCW was totally incompatible
Computer compatibility
A family of computer models is said to be compatible if certain software that runs on one of the models can also be run on all other models of the family. The computer models may differ in performance, reliability or some other characteristic...
with the earlier ones.
In all models, including the last, the monitor's casing included the CPU, RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drives and power supply for all of the systems' components. All except the last included a printer in the price. Early models used 3-inch floppy disks, while those sold from 1991 onwards used 3½-inch floppies, which became the industry standard around the time the PCW series was launched. A variety of inexpensive products and services were launched to copy 3-inch floppies to the 3½-inch format so that data could be transferred to other machines. Rad Systems in Harrow (now www.techno-mart.co.uk) were the first company in the UK to supply the PCW 8256 with 512K RAM, about six months before Amstrad.
All models except the last included the Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
word processing
Word processing
Word processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.-External links:...
program, the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
Plus operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, Mallard BASIC
Mallard BASIC
Mallard BASIC is a BASIC interpreter for CP/M written by Locomotive Software and supplied with the Amstrad PCW range of small business computers, the ZX Spectrum +3 version of CP/M Plus, and the Acorn BBC Micro Z80 second Processor....
and the LOGO programming language at no extra cost. A wide range of other CP/M office software and several games became available, some commercially produced and some free. Although Amstrad supplied all but the last model as text based systems, graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
peripherals and the supporting software also became available. The last model had its own unique GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
operating system and set of office applications, which were included in the price. However none of the software for previous PCW models could run on this system.
Development and launch
AmstradAmstrad
Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....
's founder Alan Sugar
Alan Sugar
Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar is a British entrepreneur, media personality and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m , and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011...
realised that most computers in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
were used for word processing
Word processing
Word processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.-External links:...
at home, and allegedly sketched an outline design for a low cost replacement for typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s during a flight to the Far East. This design featured a single "box" containing all the components, including a portrait-oriented
Page orientation
Page orientation is the way in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing. The two most common types of orientation are portrait and landscape...
display, which would be more convenient for displaying documents than the usual landscape orientation. However the portrait display was quickly eliminated because it would have been too expensive, and the printer also became a separate unit. To reduce the cost of the printer, Amstrad commissioned an ASIC
ASIC
ASIC may refer to:* Application-specific integrated circuit, an integrated circuit developed for a particular use, as opposed to a customised general-purpose device.* ASIC programming language, a dialect of BASIC...
(custom circuit) from MEJ Electronics, which had developed the hardware for Amstrad's earlier CPC-464
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...
. Two other veterans of the CPC-64's creation played important roles, with Roland Perry managing the PCW project and Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software was a small British software house which did most of its development for Amstrad's home and small business computers of the 1980s....
producing the Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
word processing program and other software. The CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
was added at the last minute. During development the PCW 8256 / 8512 project was code-named "Joyce" after Sugar's secretary.
For the launch the product name "Zircon" was jointly suggested by MEJ Electronics and Locomotive Software, as both companies had been spun off from Data Recall, which had produced a word processing system called "Diamond" in the 1970s. Sugar, preferring a more descriptive name, suggested "WPC" standing for "Word Processing Computer", but Perry pointed out that this invited jokes about Women Police Constables. Sugar reshuffled the initials and the product was launched as the "Personal Computer Word-processor", abbreviated to "PCW". The advertising campaign featured trucks unloading typewriters to form huge scrap heaps, with the slogan "It's more than a word processor for less than most typewriters". In Britain the system was initially sold exclusively through Dixons, whose chairman's dream was that computers would cease to be exclusive products for the technologically adept and would become consumer products.
Impact on the computer market
In 1986 John Whitehead described the Amstrad PCW as "the bargain of the decade", and technology writer Gordon Laing said in 2007, "It represented fantastic value at a time when an IBM compatibleIBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
or a Mac would cost a comparative fortune." At its United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
launch in September 1985, the basic PCW model was priced at £399 plus value added tax
Value added tax
A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...
, which included a printer, word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
program, the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
and associated utilities
Utility software
Utility software is system software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. A single piece of utility software is usually called a utility or tool....
, and a BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
interpreter
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
. Software vendors quickly made a wide range of additional applications available, including accounting, spreadsheet
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
and database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
programs, so that the system was able to support most of the requirements of a home or small business.
Shortly afterwards the Tandy 1000
Tandy 1000
The Tandy 1000 was the first in a line of more-or-less IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack chain of stores.-Overview:...
was introduced in the UK with the MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
operating system and a similar suite of business applications, and became the only other personal computer system available for less than £1,000 in Britain. At the time the cheapest complete systems from Apricot Computers
Apricot Computers
Apricot Computers is a British manufacturer of business personal computers, originally founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" , changing its name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. in the 1980s...
cost under £2,000 and the cheapest IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
system cost £2,400. Although competitors' systems generally had more sophisticated features, including colour monitors, Whitehead thought the Amstrad PCW offered the best value for money.
In the USA the PCW was launched at a price of $799, and its competitors were initially the Magnavox Videowriter and Smith Corona PWP, two word processing systems whose prices also included a screen, keyboard and printer. The magazine Popular Science thought that the PCW could not compete as a general-purpose computer, because its use of non-standard 3-inch floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drives and the rather old CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system would restrict the range of software available from expanding beyond the spreadsheet
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
, typing tutor and cheque book balancing programs already on sale. However the magazine predicted that the PCW's large screen and easy-to-use word processing software would make it a formidable competitor for dedicated word processors in the home and business markets. The system was sold in the USA via major stores, business equipment shops and electronics retailers.
The PCW redefined the idea of "best value" in computers by concentrating on reducing the price, which totally disrupted the personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
market. The low price encouraged home users to trade up from simpler systems like the Sinclair Spectrum, whose sales had passed their peak. According to Personal Computer World, the PCW "got the technophobes using computers". In the first two years over 700,000 PCWs were sold, gaining 60% of the UK home computer market, and 20% of the European personal computer market, second only to IBM's 33.3% share. Having gained credibility as computer supplier, Amstrad launched IBM-compatible PCs, once again focussing on low prices, with its PC1512 surpassing the IBM PC on performance and beating even the Taiwanese clones on price. Amstrad became the dominant British personal computer company, buying all the designs, marketing rights and product stocks of Sinclair Research Ltd
Sinclair Research Ltd
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. Originally incorporated in 1973 as Ablesdeal Ltd., it remained dormant until 1976, and did not adopt the name Sinclair Research until 1981....
's computer division in April 1986, while Apricot later sold its manufacturing assets to Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi
The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...
and became a software company.
In the PCW's heyday the magazines 8000 Plus (later called PCW Plus) and PCW Today were published specifically for PCW users. In addition to the usual product reviews and technical advice, they featured other content such as articles by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer and software developer Dave Langford on his experiences of using the PCW.
When the PCW line was retired in 1998, 8 million machines had been sold. The Daily Telegraph estimated that 100,000 were still in use in the UK, and said that the reliability of the PCW's hardware and software and the range of independently-produced add-on software for its word processing program were factors in its continued popularity. Laing says the PCW line's downfall was that "proper PCs
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
became affordable". IBM, Compaq and other vendors of more expensive computers had reduced prices drastically in an attempt to increase demand during the recession
Recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...
of the early 1990s. In 1993 the PCW still cost under £390 while a PC system with a printer and word processing software cost over £1,000. However after adjustment for inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
the retail price of a multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
IBM-compatible PC in 1997 was about 11% more than that of a PCW 8256 in 1985, and many home PCs were cast-offs, sometimes costing as little as £50, from large organisations that had upgraded their systems.
Users of Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
or Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
systems who wish to run programs that were developed for the PCW 8256, 8512, 9256, 9512 and 9512+ can use an emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
called "Joyce". There is also another one only for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
called "CP/M Box".
PCW 8256 and 8512
The PCW 8256 was launched in September 1985, and had 256 KBKilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
and one floppy disk drive. Launched a few months later, the PCW 8512 had 512 KB of RAM and two floppy disk drives. Both systems consisted of three units: a printer; a keyboard; and a monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
CRT
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
monitor whose casing included the processor, memory, motherboard
Motherboard
In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...
, one or two floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drives, the power supply for all the units and the connectors for the printer and keyboard. The monitor displayed green characters on a background that appeared black when the system was active. It measured 12 inches (30.5 cm) diagonally, and showed 32 lines of 90 characters each. The designers preferred this to the usual personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
display of 16 64-character lines, as the larger size would be more convenient for displaying a whole letter. The monitor could also display graphics well enough for the bundled graphics program and for some games.
IBM Personal System/2
The Personal System/2 or PS/2 was IBM's third generation of personal computers. The PS/2 line, released to the public in 1987, was created by IBM in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing an advanced proprietary architecture...
launched in 1987. In the range's early days supplies of 3-inch floppies occasionally ran out, but by 1988 the PCW's popularity encouraged suppliers to compete for this market. There are several techniques for transferring data from a PCW to an IBM-compatible PC, some of which also can transfer in the opposite direction, and service companies that will do the job for affordable fees.
While all the 3-inch disks were double-sided, the PCW 256's 3-inch drive and the PCW 8512's upper one were single-sided, while the 8512's lower one was double-sided and double-density. Hence there were two types of disk: single-density, which could store 180 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
of data per side, equivalent to about 70 pages of text each; and double density, which could store twice as much per side. The double-density drive could read single-density disks, but it was inadvisable to write to them using this drive. Users of single-sided drives had to flip the disks over to use the full capacity.
The dot matrix
Dot matrix
A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional array of LED used to represent characters, symbols and images.Typically the dot matrix is used in older computer printers and many digital display devices. In printers, the dots are usually the darkened areas of the paper...
printer had a sheet feed for short documents and a tractor attachment for long reports on continuous stationery
Continuous stationery
Continuous stationery or Continuous form paper is paper which is designed for use with dot-matrix printers and line printers. Other names for continuous stationery include fan-fold paper, sprocket feed paper, burst paper, tractor-feed paper, and pin feed paper...
. This unit could print 90 characters per second at draft quality and 20 characters per second at higher quality, and could also produce graphics. However it had only 9 printing pins and even its higher quality did not match that of 24-pin printers. The dot matrix printer was not very robust as its chassis was made entirely of plastic. Users who needed to support higher print volumes or to produce graphics could buy a daisy-wheel printer
Daisy wheel printer
Daisy wheel printers use an impact printing technology invented in 1969 by David S. Lee at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to premium typewriters such as the IBM Selectric, but two to...
or graph plotter
Plotter
A plotter is a computer printing device for printing vector graphics. In the past, plotters were widely used in applications such as computer-aided design, though they have generally been replaced with wide-format conventional printers...
from Amstrad. The daisy-wheel printer could not produce graphics.
The keyboard had 82 keys, some of which were designed for word processing, especially with the bundled Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
software – for example to cut, copy, and paste. Non-English characters such as Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
could be typed by holding down the ALT or EXTRA key, along with the SHIFT key if capitals were required. Other special key combinations activated caps lock
Caps lock
Caps lock is a key on many computer keyboards. Pressing it sets an input mode in which typed letters are uppercase by default. The keyboard remains in caps lock mode until the key is pressed again...
, num lock
Num lock
Num Lock is a key on the numeric keypad of most computer keyboards. It is a toggle key, like Caps Lock and Scroll Lock. Its state is commonly represented by an LED light built into the keyboard....
and reboot
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
.
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
devices such as light pen
Light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy...
s, mice and graphic tablets could be attached to the expansion socket at the back of the monitor. Adding a serial interface connector, which cost about £50, made it possible to attach a modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
or non-Amstrad printer.
Enthusiasts nicknamed the PCW 8256 "Joyce" and the 8512 "Joyce Plus". The designs were licensed to the German consumer electronics company Schneider, which slightly modified their appearance and sold them as "Joyce" and "Joyce Plus". The partnership between Amstrad and Schneider had been formed to market the Amstrad CPC
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...
range of computers, and broke up when Amstrad launched the PCW9512.
PCW 9512 and 9256
The PCW 9512, introduced in 1987 at a price of £499 plus VAT, had a white-on-black screen instead of green-on-black, and the bundled printer was a daisy-wheel model instead of a dot-matrix printer. These models also had a parallel port, allowing non-Amstrad printers to be attached. The 9512 was also supplied with version 2 of the LocoscriptLocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
program which included spellchecker and mail merge
Mail merge
Mail merge is a software function which allows to create multiple documents from a single template form and a structured data source.-History:This technique of merging data to create gave rise to the term mail merge....
facilities. In all other respects the 9512's facilities were the same as the 8512's.
In 1991 the 9512 was replaced by the PCW 9256 and 9512+, both equipped with a single 3½-inch disk drive that could access 720 KB. The 9512+ had 512 KB of RAM, and two printer options, the Amstrad daisy-wheel unit and a series of considerably more expensive Canon inkjet printer
Inkjet printer
An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...
s: initially the BJ10e, later the BJ10ex and finally the BJ10sx. The 9256 had 256 KB of RAM and the same dot matrix printer as the 8256 and 8512, as well as the older Locoscript version 1.
PCW 10
This was a PCW 9256 with 512 KB of RAM, a parallel printer port, and Locoscript 1.5 instead of Locoscript 1. The PCW 10 was not a success, and few were produced. By this time other systems offered much better print quality, and the PCW was a poor choice as a general-purpose computer, because of its slow CPU and incompatibility with MS-DOSMS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
systems.
PcW16
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
for word processing and CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
for other uses, it had its own GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, known as "Roseanne". This could only run one application at a time, and starting another application made the previous one save all the files it had changed and then close. The bundled word processor was produced by Arnor, and could read Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
files but saved them in its own format. The package also included a spreadsheet, address book, diary, calculator and file manager. Amstrad never provided other applications, and very little third-party software was written for the machine.
The display unit, which also contained the processor, motherboard and RAM, was the standard 640×480 pixels in size and worked in VGA mode. The PcW16 included a standard 1.4 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
floppy drive. While competitors included hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
drives with capacities of a few hundred MB to a few GB
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
, the PcW16 used a 1 MB flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
to store the programs and user files. Like previous PCW models, the PcW16 used the 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
Zilog Z-80 CPU, which first appeared in 1976, while other personal computers used 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
CPUs or the more recent 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
CPUs. The price included a mouse for use with the GUI, but did not include a printer.
In the magazine PCW Plus Dave Langford expressed a series of concerns about the PcW16: the operating system could not run the many CP/M programs available for previous PCW models; the flash RAM was too small for a large collection of programs, but programs could not be run from the floppy disk, which was designed for backing up files; and a second-hand IBM PC with Locoscript Pro looked like a more sensible upgrade path for users of earlier PCWs. Few PcW16s were sold.
Software
This section covers the PCW 8xxx, 9xxx and 10 series; software for the PcW16 is described above.Locoscript word processor
Word processing
Word processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.-External links:...
software Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
was included in the price of the hardware. The manual provided both a reference and a tutorial that could enable users to start work within 20 minutes, and some users found the tutorial provided as much information as they ever needed.
The program enabled users to divide documents into groups, display the groups on a disk and then the documents in the selected group, and set up a template
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
for each group. The "limbo
Limbo
In the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other...
file" facility enabled users to recover accidentally deleted documents until the disk ran out of space, when the software would permanently delete files to make room for new ones.
Layout facilities included setting and using tab stop
Tab stop
A tab stop on a typewriter is a location where the carriage movement is halted by mechanical gears. Tab stops are set manually, and pressing the tab key causes the carriage to go to the next tab stop...
s, production of page headers and footers, with automated page numbering; typographical effects including proportional spacing, a range of font sizes, and bold, italic and underline effects. The cut, copy and paste facility provided 10 paste buffers, each designated by a number, and these could be saved to a disk. The menu system had two layouts, one for beginners and the other for experienced users.
Locoscript supported 150 characters and, if used with the dot matrix printer, could print European letters including Greek and Cyrillic, as well as mathematical and technical symbols. The program allowed the user to work on one document while printing another, so that the relative slowness of the basic printer seldom caused difficulties. Locoscript did not run under the control of a standard operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
but booted directly from a floppy disk. Users had to reboot
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
if they wanted to switch between Locoscript and a CP/M application, unless they used a utility called "Flipper", which could allocate separate areas of RAM to Locoscript and CP/M.
Locoscript version 1, which was bundled with the PCW 8256 and 8512, had no spell checker
Spell checker
In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...
or mail merge
Mail merge
Mail merge is a software function which allows to create multiple documents from a single template form and a structured data source.-History:This technique of merging data to create gave rise to the term mail merge....
facilities. Version 2, which was bundled with the PCW 9512, included a spellchecker and could provide mail merge by interfacing to other products from Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software
Locomotive Software was a small British software house which did most of its development for Amstrad's home and small business computers of the 1980s....
, such as LocoMail and LocoFile. Locoscript 2 also expanded the character set to 400.
CP/M operating system and applications
The PCW included a version of CP/MCP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
known as "CP/M Plus" or "CP/M+". This provided a range of facilities comparable to those of MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, but imposed a significant limitation: it could not address more than 64 KB of RAM. Since CP/M took 3 KB of this, the most that CP/M applications could use was 61 KB. The rest of the RAM was used as a RAM disk
RAM disk
A RAM disk or RAM drive is a block of RAM that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive...
(exposed under the drive letter "M:" for "memory"), which was much faster than a floppy disk but lost all its data when the machine was powered off. On the other hand the standalone Locoscript word processor program was able to use 154 KB as normal memory, and the rest as a RAM disk.
Mallard BASIC
Mallard BASIC
Mallard BASIC is a BASIC interpreter for CP/M written by Locomotive Software and supplied with the Amstrad PCW range of small business computers, the ZX Spectrum +3 version of CP/M Plus, and the Acorn BBC Micro Z80 second Processor....
, like LocoScript, was a Locomotive Software product, but ran under CP/M. This version of BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
lacked built-in graphics facilities, but included JetSAM, an implementation of ISAM
ISAM
ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for indexing data for fast retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers...
that supported multiple indexes per file, so that programs could access records directly by specifying values of key fields. The CP/M software bundle also included the Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
implementation of Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
's LOGO programming language and a graphics program that could produce pie chart
Pie chart
A pie chart is a circular chart divided into sectors, illustrating proportion. In a pie chart, the arc length of each sector , is proportional to the quantity it represents. When angles are measured with 1 turn as unit then a number of percent is identified with the same number of centiturns...
s and bar chart
Bar chart
A bar chart or bar graph is a chart with rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the values that they represent. The bars can be plotted vertically or horizontally....
s.
Sold separately
Many software vendors supplied versions of their products to run with CP/M Plus, making a wide range of software available for the PCW, often very cheaply:- Alternative word processors included Superwriter and WordStarWordStarWordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
. - Several spreadsheetSpreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
programs became available, including SupercalcSuperCalcSuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer....
II and MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's MultiplanMultiPlanMultiplan was an early spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft. Known initially by the code name "EP" , it was introduced in 1982 as a competitor for VisiCalc....
. - DatabaseDatabaseA database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
programs adapted for the PCW included Sage Database, Cardbox and dBaseDBASEdBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers. It was originally published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on ported to the Apple II and IBM PC under DOS...
II. - The MicroDesign, Desk Top Publisher, Newsdesk and Stop Press desktop publishingDesktop publishingDesktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
packages were used by groups of authors for newsletters. - The Sage GroupThe Sage GroupThe Sage Group plc , commonly known as Sage, is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is the world's third-largest supplier of enterprise resource planning software , the largest supplier to small businesses, and has 6.1 million customers...
's Popular Accounts and Payroll, and the Camsoft payroll and accounting software. - Other programming languages, including CC (programming language)C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
. - Many games for the PCW. Most were text adventures but there were also graphical games like Bounder and Head over Heels.
Free software
Many free packages could run under CP/M but required careful setting of options to run on the PCW series, although a significant number had installer programs that made this task easier. Programs that were already configured for the PCW covered a broad range of requirements including word processors, databases, graphics, personal accounts, programming languages, games, utilities and a full-featured bulletin board systemBulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
. Many of these were at least as good as similar commercial offerings, but most had poor documentation.
Technical design
All PCW models, including the PcW 16, used the Zilog Z80Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
range of CPUs: Z80 at a clock speed of 4 MHz but slowed to 3.4 MHz by the internal clock in the 8256 and 8512; Z80 at 4 MHz in the 9512, 9256, 9512+ and PCW10; and Z80A at 16 MHz in the PcW16.
The Z80 could only access 64 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
at a time. Software could work round this by bank switching
Bank switching
Bank switching is a technique to increase the amount of usable memory beyond the amount directly addressable by the processor. It can be used to configure a system differently at different times; for example, a ROM required to start a system from diskette could be switched out when no longer...
, accessing different banks of memory at different times, but this made programming more complex and slowed systems down. The PCW's CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
applications could not use more than 64 KB, and the system used the rest of the RAM as a RAM drive. On the other hand the standalone Locoscript
LocoScript
thumb|right|400px|The opening Disc Management screen in LocoScript 1.40. The "hidden files" are the LocoScript software.The word processing software package LocoScript by Locomotive Software was introduced as one of the programs bundled with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985...
word processor program was reported as using up to 154 KB as normal memory, and the rest as a RAM disk.
Unusually, the Z80 CPU in the PCW 8256, 8512, 9512, 9256 and 9512+ had no directly connected ROM (read-only memory
Read-only memory
Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...
, which most computers need to start the boot process
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
). Instead, at startup, the ASIC
ASIC
ASIC may refer to:* Application-specific integrated circuit, an integrated circuit developed for a particular use, as opposed to a customised general-purpose device.* ASIC programming language, a dialect of BASIC...
(customised circuit) at the heart of the PCW provided access to part of the 1k ROM within the Intel 8041 microcontroller
Intel MCS-48
The MCS-48 microcontroller series, Intel's first microcontroller, was originally released in 1976. Its first members were 8048, 8035 and 8748....
used to drive the printer. The Z80 would copy 256 bytes via the ASIC into RAM, providing sufficient instructions to load the first sector
Disk sector
In computer disk storage, a sector is a subdivision of a track on a magnetic disk or optical disc. Each sector stores a fixed amount of user data. Traditional formatting of these storage media provides space for 512 bytes or 2048 bytes of user-accessible data per sector...
from a floppy. The ROM-based code cannot display text, being too small to support character generation; instead it displays a bright screen which is progressively filled by black stripes as the code is loaded from floppy.
To make the printer
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
cheap enough to be included with every PCW, Amstrad placed the majority of its drive electronics inside the PCW cabinet. The printer case contained only electromechanical components and high current driver electronics; its power was supplied via a coaxial power connector
Coaxial power connector
A coaxial power connector is a miniature power connector used for attaching extra-low voltage devices such as consumer electronics to external electricity...
socket on the monitor casing, and rather than using a traditional parallel interface
IEEE 1284
IEEE 1284 is a standard that defines bi-directional parallel communications between computers and other devices.-History:In the 1970s, Centronics developed the now-familiar printer parallel port that soon became a de facto standard...
, pin and motor signals were connected directly by a 34-wire ribbon cable
Ribbon cable
A ribbon cable is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result the cable is wide and flat. Its name comes from the resemblance of the cable to a piece of ribbon.Ribbon cables are usually seen for internal peripherals in computers, such as...
to an 8041 microcontroller
Microcontroller
A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM...
on the PCW's mainboard.
Most models of PCW were bundled with a 9-pin dot matrix printer
Dot matrix printer
A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer is a type of computer printer with a print head that runs back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like the print mechanism on a typewriter...
mechanism, with the later 9512 and 9512+ models using a daisywheel (with a different cable; the printers were not interchangeable with the dot matrix models). These PCW printers could not, of course, be used on other computers, and the original PCW lacked a then-standard Centronics
Centronics
Centronics Data Computer Corporation was a pioneering American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name.-The beginning:Centronics began as a division of Wang Laboratories...
printer port. Instead, the Z80 bus and video signals were brought to an edge connector
Edge connector
An edge connector is the portion of a printed circuit board consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching socket. The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a single discrete female connector , and they also tend to be...
socket at the back of the cabinet. Many accessories including parallel
Parallel port
A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...
and serial
Serial port
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...
ports were produced for this interface. Some of the later models included a built-in parallel port
Parallel port
A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...
; these could be bundled with either the dedicated Amstrad printer, or a Canon
Canon Inc.
is a Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.-Origins:...
Bubblejet model.
The machines were built around the 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
Zilog Z80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
processor, running at 4 MHz, and managed the relatively large amount of RAM
Random-access memory
Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...
main memory using a technique known as bank switching
Bank switching
Bank switching is a technique to increase the amount of usable memory beyond the amount directly addressable by the processor. It can be used to configure a system differently at different times; for example, a ROM required to start a system from diskette could be switched out when no longer...
(allowing access to more than the Z80's normal 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
address bus
Address bus
An address bus is a computer bus that is used to specify a physical address. When a processor or DMA-enabled device needs to read or write to a memory location, it specifies that memory location on the address bus...
reach of 64 kB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
). The PCW divided RAM into 16 kB sections, of which four could be accessed at any time. In CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
, the memory used for the display was switched out while programs were running, giving more than 60 kB of usable RAM. While the Joyce architecture was designed with configurations of 128 kB and 256 kB of RAM in mind, no PCW was ever sold with 128 kB of RAM.
The PCWs were definitely not designed to play games, although some software authors considered this a minor detail, releasing games like Batman
Batman (1986 video game)
Batman is a 3D isometric action-adventure game that was released in 1986 under the Batman licence by Ocean Software for the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum and MSX microcomputers.An Amstrad PCW version was also available.-Gameplay:...
, Head Over Heels
Head Over Heels (game)
Head Over Heels is an arcade adventure, released in 1987 for several 8-bit home computers, and subsequently ported to a wide range of formats. Originally, the working title for the game was Foot and Mouth....
, and Bounder
Bounder (video game)
Bounder is an action game developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1985.-Gameplay:The player controls a tennis ball which is used to navigate courses, composed of numerous tiles, which are suspended high above ground...
. The PCW video system was not at all suited to games. In order that it be able to display a full 80 column page plus margins, the display's addressable area was 90 columns and the display had 32 lines. The display was, in fact, monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
and bitmapped, giving a resolution of 720 by 256. Even with one bit per pixel, this occupied 23 kB of RAM, making software scrolling
Scrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
far too slow for fluid text manipulation. In order to improve this, the PCW implemented roller RAM, with a 512-byte area of RAM used to hold the address of each line of display data, effectively allowing very rapid scrolling. The video system also fetched data in a special order designed so that plotting a character eight scan lines high would touch eight contiguous addresses. This meant that very fast Z80 copy instructions like LDIR could be used. Unfortunately, it meant that drawing lines and other shapes could be very complicated.
The PcW16 does not share any hardware with the original PCW series, other than the Z80 CPU, and should be considered to be a completely different machine.