The Amstrad CPC (Colour Personal Computer) series was a series of 8-bit home computers that was manufactured by the british company [[Amstrad]] between 1984 and 1993 (?). The CPC, like most of its contemporary home micros, had an integrated computer-in-a-keyboard design. Also incorporated to the keyboard was the tape recorder of disk drive.
In general what Amstrad aimed for was to offer a completely integrated solution at a low price. Just as Amstrad's stereo towers before, A.M.Sugar wanted to provide a solution with as few separate components as possible, with as few cables as possible and at as low a price as possible - so as to make the product attractive to the layman who could theoretically buy it off the back of a track (TM of Amstrad's early practices). As a result, he chose ready off-the-shelf components and used low-cost production methods in an effort to bring manufacturing costs down. He also included a monitor to connect the computer to - a move which, while raising the price, was designed to free the home TV from little brats hogging it for a dose of Ikari Warriors while Eastenders was on. This concept appealed to users and proved to be a success, and Amstrad went on to sell millions of CPCs.
The combination of low cost, integrated design, good manufacturing quality and some impressive features like CP/M and an 80-column display mode (which was lacking in the competition) proved to be a success both with home users and small businesses, and Amstrad went on to sell millions of CPCs.
In all, there were three basic models, the CPC [[464]], [[664]] and [[6128]], plus two more [[Plus|advanced]] models, the CPC464+ and the 6128+. A final iteration was the [[GX4000]] games machine based on the CPC+ computers.
== The 464 ==