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[http://www.amstrad.com Amstrad PLC] was founded by Sir [[Alan M. Sugar]] [http://www.amstrad.com/about/sir_alan.html] in 1968.
After meeting with quite some success in selling cheap audio equipment (namely, the first all-in-one stereo systems we all use today), Amstrad (which stands for '''A'''lan '''M''' '''S'''ugar '''TRAD'''ing) skyrocketed to the top of British computer manufacturers when it launched the CPC [[464]] in 1985. Further releases in the CPC series, as well as the [[PCW ]] series brough in tremendous amounts of cash and lots of fame for its founder and CEO. The [[Amstrad PC ]] series, although initially another big success, were to be its ultimate demise since Amstrad did not have the strong selling points needed in a clone-infested market.
Nowadays Amstrad is selling, with very modest success, the Em@iler telephones, satelite equipment and various other things - some of which are just own-branded OEM electronics.
On such business acumen did Amstrad prosper, until Sugar, casting round for a new outlet for affordable electronics, lighted upon the computer market.
The conception of the CPC has been well chronicled, notably in [[Amstrad Action]]. The original design team envisaged a machine based around the 6502 processor, because that was what Commodore’s [[Commodore]]’s [[VIC-20 ]] used – one of the best-selling computers of the time, but already on its way out.
The project was go. The designers weren’t. Proving inadequate to the task, they were swiftly booted out, and replaced with names still familiar to CPC users: [[Locomotive Software]], William Poel, and so on. The result was the original CPC 464, a well-built, easy-to-use home computer, which broke no new ground over and above the standards of the time – [[Sinclair ]] [[ZX Spectrum]], [[Commodore 64]], [[BBC Micro ]] – but was sensibly priced and intelligently packaged.
This showed in two ways. Firstly, the CPC was a one-box solution: take it out the box, plug it in, and away you go. The tape drive was built in, so there was no more faffing around with adjusting volume levels before a game would load – standard practice on Sinclair’s machines. The power supply was in the dedicated monitor: the CPC’s competitors needed an external unit and the use of your telly. By selling the computer, tape deck and monitor combination together, Sugar’s baby commanded a higher price – higher profits – yet seemed good value to the customer.
Meanwhile, Sugar was keeping busy. The one-box approach was repeated in 1986 to produce the PCW 8256, a word- processor with distinct similarities to the CPC. £399 got you a computer, monitor, word-processing software, disc drive and printer; another good deal, and to this day, the PCW is what most laymen associate with the word ‘Amstrad’. It, too, spawned a host of derivative machines with varying memory, disc drive and printer configurations.
Then came the [[PC]]. IBM’s unexciting business computer, for that’s all it was in the mid-1980s, had been cloned a thousand times in the States – notably by Compaq. It had even been cloned over here, by some outfit called Advance. But once again, no-one had done the one-box solution as cheaply as Amstrad was to.
The entry-level PC1512, with monochrome monitor and 512k memory, could be yours for the price of a PCW. (Though you didn’t get the printer.) Colour versions, upgraded specs (the PC1640), and ‘luggable’ laptops (the PPC512 and 640) followed. All did rather well – well enough, at any rate, for Amstrad to be able to afford to buy Sinclair Research, its main British rival.
=== Back to basics ===
Sir Clive Sinclair’s company had pioneered British home computing. After the simple ZX80 and ZX81 came 1982’s phenomenally successful ZX Spectrum, an affordable "colour clashing" computer with barely serviceable sound and a bizarre rubber keyboard. Cheap, cheerful, and easy-ish to use, the public loved it. In Britain, neither the CPC nor America’s Commodore 64 ever caught up with the ‘Speccy’.
But Sinclair’s next-generation computer, the partially 16-bit QL (for Quantum Leap), was a disaster. The firmware was ridiculously bugged. Deliveries were slow, even by Sinclair standards (about on a par with [[Robot PD]], in fact). And flashes of brilliance in the design, such as the elegant Motorola 68008 processor, were countered by the idiotic decision to use unreliable Microdrive tape cartridges instead of discs.
(Another digression: this is one of the most fascinating pieces of firmware ever to grace an 8-bit machine. The Plus 3 DOS was chocker with self-test modes, hidden displays, and other ‘Easter Eggs’ that could be activated by obscure combinations of keys.)
The other Sinclair was the PC200, a dismal home PC cased in Sinclair black. With similar capabilities to the PC1640, it was Amstrad’s first attempt to challenge the ST and [[Amiga]]. Though eerily prescient in anticipating the PC’s modern-day role as all-round entertainment station, the PC200 nonetheless tanked. The Amiga, in particular, had set new standards in graphics and sound, giving rise to spectacular new games like Xenon, Populous, Lemmings and Dungeon Master. The PC200 went ‘beep’ and displayed a handful of feeble colours – making it, if nothing else, an ideal inheritor of the Sinclair tradition.
=== Beginning of the end ===
