3 ms·

Amstrad PC1512 and PC1640 were great machines. They had some weirdness like the proprietary PU mounted in the monitor but were solid, well built and well priced

Amstrad PC1512 and PC1640 were great machines. They had some weirdness like the proprietary PU mounted in the monitor but were solid, well built and well priced, even more they looked kinda futuristic when compared to the boring 8086 clone boxes of that era. And yes, they even came with a mouse and a GUI (GEM by Digital Research).

Lio 6y ago
Sharing PSUs between components was an Amstrad staple. Sugar used the technique in products from hifi's to computers as an innovation to save money and keep costs down. That's not necessarily meant in a bad way. Amastrad often used the savings to to bump up the spec somewhere consumers cared more e.g. memory or a bundled monitor or printer. I think when commodity PCs became wide spread Amstrad ran out of corners to cut to get an edge and became uncompetitive.
- Stierlitz 6y ago
  > I think when commodity PCs became wide spread Amstrad ran out of corners to cut to get an edge and became uncompetitive. It was when Amstrad dropped their own OS in favour of DOS that they became just another commodity PC maker. Actually first Amstrad moved to DR-DOS then MS-DOS to avoid potential compatability issues. Which I'm sure Microsoft would have eventually discovered. http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011207/PX_9923.pdf http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011207/PX_9...
  - rapnie 6y ago
    Ah yes. DR-DOS it was. So long ago, completely forgot about it.
  - Lio 6y ago
    I think that Amstrad's best selling line was actually the WPC range that used CP/M (8 million vs 3 million for CPC line with their own OS). So having their own OS wasn't the deciding factor. I think it's the more commodity nature of PC hardware even compared to CP/M machines that did for them IMHO.
    - mattl 6y ago
      PCW range.
      - Lio 6y ago
        Doh! Yes, sorry PCW. Having a dyslexic moment there.
- achairapart 6y ago
  I called it weird because not standard but that PSU design was also more energy efficient and even completely fanless. And yes, by the time 286s and 386s came to the market there was really nothing more to cut, or even to add. Every part was standardized by then, profit margins shrinked and MS-DOS became ubiquitous.

Lio 6y ago

Sharing PSUs between components was an Amstrad staple. Sugar used the technique in products from hifi's to computers as an innovation to save money and keep costs down. That's not necessarily meant in a bad way. Amastrad often used the savings to to bump up the spec somewhere consumers cared more e.g. memory or a bundled monitor or printer. I think when commodity PCs became wide spread Amstrad ran out of corners to cut to get an edge and became uncompetitive.

Stierlitz 6y ago
> I think when commodity PCs became wide spread Amstrad ran out of corners to cut to get an edge and became uncompetitive. It was when Amstrad dropped their own OS in favour of DOS that they became just another commodity PC maker. Actually first Amstrad moved to DR-DOS then MS-DOS to avoid potential compatability issues. Which I'm sure Microsoft would have eventually discovered. http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011207/PX_9923.pdf http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011207/PX_9...
- rapnie 6y ago
  Ah yes. DR-DOS it was. So long ago, completely forgot about it.
- Lio 6y ago
  I think that Amstrad's best selling line was actually the WPC range that used CP/M (8 million vs 3 million for CPC line with their own OS). So having their own OS wasn't the deciding factor. I think it's the more commodity nature of PC hardware even compared to CP/M machines that did for them IMHO.
  - mattl 6y ago
    PCW range.
    - Lio 6y ago
      Doh! Yes, sorry PCW. Having a dyslexic moment there.
achairapart 6y ago
I called it weird because not standard but that PSU design was also more energy efficient and even completely fanless. And yes, by the time 286s and 386s came to the market there was really nothing more to cut, or even to add. Every part was standardized by then, profit margins shrinked and MS-DOS became ubiquitous.