A lot of people I knew with the Amstrad CPC at the time (80s) had the included green/black monitor, normally set up in their "3rd bedroom" so a lot of the impro

A lot of people I knew with the Amstrad CPC at the time (80s) had the included green/black monitor, normally set up in their "3rd bedroom" so a lot of the improved graphics were totally lost on them. My friend had an Amstrad at the time with that monitor and it lacking colour was a huge disadvantage. The Spectrum hooked up to our family TV over RF with colour looked way better, just because it had colour. People mentioning the Amiga 500, at the time that came out, I think our Spectrum was at least 5 years old, cost £150 at release and the A500 launched at around £400 to £500, I think the Atari ST was similar in cost in the UK, so the price differential was massive. I remember being very jealous of friends playing the included games like "Bart vs. Space Mutants", "Black Lamp" and making "Say" spit out swear words on command. I remember petitioning my parents to buy one and it was a flat "NO" on cost alone. Also, Speccy cassettes were a regular buy on weekend shopping trips at £2 or £3 a go, whereas a lot of Amiga titles were regularly retailing at £20+ (I'm thinking the old Ocean/US Gold arcade conversion titles), so it was totally outside of my parents budget at that time. I had lots of fun though with the early Codemasters games like Dizzy, etc., so no great loss. From memory, interest rates were unexpectedly suddenly sky high and they had somewhat over extended themselves on a big house extension, which luckily, gave me my own "Spectrum room" with a dedicated 14" Philips colour TV for Spectrum fun, so swings and roundabouts I guess. I finally got a second hand A500+ a few years later and immersed myself in all the games I'd "missed", got "online" in around 1990 or so with a US robotics modem my mother would "borrow" at weekends from her bank job and then the cost problems quickly became all about me racking up massive phone bills over the weekends dialling into local BBS's. Fun times.