The explanation in the video for the CPC664 debacle was that they had intended it as the principal successor to the CPC464, but the US distributor demanded a 128K machine that was then designed for, advertised in, and introduced to, the US market (although I wonder how many were sold), leading to dissatisfaction in the UK and other European markets about a better machine not being made available there.And the CPC 664 that was released inbetween the CPC 464 and the CPC 6128 could be called a mistake. As could be said for the later GX4000 games console.
One wonders, however, whether more attention to that commentary around CP/M might have informed their product strategy a bit better. That said, a disk-based version of the original machine did make a lot of sense, given that adding a drive seems to have added £90 to the price, and more RAM would have moved the price further upmarket. Interestingly, the CPC6128 was only £40-50 more expensive than the CPC464 when it eventually came out.
There will have been quite a bit of experience of that in the CP/M realm, though.From the technical perspective, one of the difficulties when designing the CPC 6128 was how to add the extra RAM. Although I don't want to get deeper into technical details here.
In the end, despite those hit products, Amstrad struggled like other companies in sustaining their 8-bit product line. Just as Acorn nudged the BBC Micro family along with the BBC Master series, not entirely appealing to those already looking at the ST and Amiga, Amstrad needed to go beyond the CPC6128 with something like the GX4000 a lot earlier, and perhaps with better fundamental graphical capabilities, as opposed to just adding sprites.
That would have addressed concerns that arose with the Beeb and Master ranges, where applications were constrained by things like a monochrome display in the highest resolution, particularly PC applications running using things like the Torch Graduate or 80186 coprocessor where such applications should have been able to use four or even more colours, and where the lower resolutions needed greater colour depths to uphold compatibility or expectations people had. Better capabilities in the CPC range could have kept CP/M applications interesting for people.
As for gaming, I suppose people did use the Amstrad PC range for games, thinking of at least one person I knew who did, and maybe the Sinclair PC200 was introduced as the realisation dawned that there was a gap in the product range. Then there was the Mega PC which was another case of too little, too late.
Statistics: Posted by paulb — Tue Dec 24, 2024 5:29 pm
