As a result, Amstrad chose ready off-the-shelf components and used low-cost production methods in an effort to bring manufacturing costs down. They 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.
The combination of low cost, integrated design, good manufacturing quality and some impressive features like CP/M and an 80-column display mode (lacking in much of the competition, particularly the Sinclair [[ZX Spectrum ]] and [[Commodore 64]]) proved to be a success both with home users and small businesses, and Amstrad went on to sell millions of CPCs.
Because of its use of the Z80, which was also used in the Sinclair models, some of the earliest games found on the CPC were fairly direct ports of the Spectrum versions which failed to take advantage of the CPC's extra capabilities. The amount of Spectrum ports has often been overstated by those who wish to knock the machine, and in fact formed a comparatively small number of largely unsuccessful games. Nonetheless, those that were published left users and reviewers with a bad taste in their mouth.
At its core, the CPC combined a standard 4MHz [[Z80|Z80A ]] with off-the-shelf components and a custom Gate Array chip. The [[firmware]] comprised two 16k ROMs (combined onto one 32k chip): one was effectively the operating system, the other the fast and flexible [[Locomotive BASIC]] interpreter. All machines except the original 464 would also include a further 16k ROM (on a separate chip), the AMSDOS disc operating system.
In all, there were three 'classic' models, the CPC [[464]], [[664]] and [[6128]]; plus two short-lived later [[Plus|advanced]] models, the 464 Plus and the 6128 Plus. A final iteration was the [[Plus|GX4000]] games machine based on the CPC+ computers.
''See also: [[CPC Prototypes]].''
== The 464 ==