Ruthless: The Story of Amstrad and Alan Sugar in the 80's and 90's - Kim Justice

[@Kim_Justice]

If you liked this then think about having a gander through my social media, and get yourself on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/KimbleJustice

[@Kylehudgins]

I appreciate the amount of research and polish going into these. As a 23-year-old American I've had zero exposure to microcomputers, so hearing about them from someone who was there is a real treat.

[@TheFusedplug]

It's refreshing to see your comment it's good to know that young people are open minded enough to take an interest in the humble beginnings of microcomputers. I feel blessed that I lived through these times it's a generational thing we all go through I guess. I say this because I am 44 and sometimes I've wished I was born earlier so I could have lived through the swinging sixties. We all take everything for granted in a way and we should embrace and enjoy every minute we are on this Earth and make the best of all opportunities that come our way otherwise you will look back with regret (I advise NEVER to regret anything even if you are justified to do so because all the time we are alive there is still time to make good )

[@jagc1969]

@@TheFusedplug I'm 50 and I'm glad to have enjoyed the era of the microcomputers. Back then my father bought me a CPC-464 with color monitor. Those were the days...

[@kalisticmodiani2613]

I'm from France and the CPC was the microcomputer we needed at the time. C64 was unheard of, Thomsons were in the schools (but not really comparable to what the CPC had to offer) and all the DOS/Apple II stuff was crazy talk.

[@pappachook]

Brilliant as always. 10/10 Love all the old adverts you manage to dig up.

[@adamweishaupt2846]

Cameos by Brian Clough, Alan Partridge and the Mega Powers, it's why I love your videos more than anyone else's on youtube.

[@tigereye1208]

Middlesbrough are shite. Stop boring us.

[@steveetienne]

@@tigereye1208 It is not he who is the bore here Sir.

[@kingstonlj]

When it comes to the build quality of the Amstrad CPC range, I'd say they were top quality. I had all sorts of problems with the Spectrum and C64, including overheating, cassette issues etc.. But my Amstrad never had problems - and I know it was the same for my friends and other Amstrad users. From what I've heard/read, you can buy an Amstrad and it will still work fine. But I don't know if the monitors still work, but probably not. Anyway, you can buy an RGB scart cable these days. Also, as much as the Amstrad had lots of Spectrum ports, games that were specially made for the machine were often very colourful and impressive.

[@Gambit771]

+kingstonlj The monitors tend to still work very well today.

[@kingstonlj]

I really liked my Amstrad colour monitor, so it's nice to know that some of them are still working well.

[@jagc1969]

My CPC-464 and its colour monitor are both work working flawlessly after all these years...

[@ivarfiske1913]

The Amstrad CPC was released the same year as Sinclair QL, Commodore C16, Commodore plus 4, Enterprise, Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ and Spectravideo 728. The one with success was the Amstrad CPC. The magazines were very impressed with the build quality of the Amstrad CPC. The return rate because of faulty equipment was much lower than the competition including the ZX Spectrums and Commodore C64.

[@EgoShredder]

+Ivar Fiske I think Kim is being far too harsh on the CPC in his videos. The CPC is actually well made on the whole and has a large database of great games and also serious software, with some of the games being technically good; infact many of them were beyond what the Commodore 64 was capable of with graphic resolution and colour, or wire frame 3D or racing games etc. I owned a rubber key Spectrum 48K and had to return it under guarantee about four times, before I received one that worked and lasted without going faulty. However my CPC never needed returning and was used for thousands of hours without once going wrong. I think the CPC was a very well rounded computer, which could cover many areas competently; something you could not say about the C64 or others.

[@kelpkelp5252]

In 1987 we got our first Amstrad. The Amstrad PC1512, quite a popular MS-DOS (with Gem Desktop) PC. The magazine "PC PLUS" was actually originally called "PC PLUS Amstrad". There was quite a high uptake of that machine and I remember playing lots of games on it such as Arkanoid, Wizball, Bruce Lee etc

[@matt.willoughby]

Wow wizball I had totally forget that one, what a weird game

[@CPCcommander6128]

I would like to add another point of view. Here in Germany in the mid 80ies the CPC and the C64 were the main popular computers, at least among my friends. The keyboard of the CPC 6128 was a great business type keyboard. The programming language basic (Locomotive basic) was good. Shipped with the cpc also was CPM, which helped me switch to DOS and linux later on. In my opinion the CPC was a great jumpboard for later programmers and IT-guys into the world of modern PCs. The programming handbook (basic) of the german Schneider CPC was one of the best guides I have read in my whole life as a programmer. Regarding gaming there were better machines, yes. Your great documentary did miss one thing. The CPC's death was the rare 3 inch floppy drive. In his biography I read, that they got hands on a cheap stock of lots of these drives, and so they built them into the CPCs (and their textprocessing computer Joyce). The floppy disks were robust and cool, double sided, but expensive. I bought my cpc6128 with green monitor for 799 Deutsche Mark in 1987. 10 floppy Disks (3 inch) did cost addional 100 DM. Too expensive compared to the cheap 5,25 floppies of the c64 or the upcoming 3,5 floppies of the Amiga and the PCs.

[@frishnit]

I've put this one off as I loved my Amstrad growing up; it's hard to reconsile personal affection for the machine with the nature of Alan Sugar's strategy of maximum profit for minimum input and bugger the quality. It feels like unrequited love! Still the Amstrad all in one idea was a goody, even if the tech wasn't. Great video, though: thank you once again for taking the time to make.

[@gedbyrne8482]

Surely the PCW deserved a mention. Average piece of CP/M kit, but Locoscript was an excellent word processor. .

[@EgoChip]

The CPC machine was good, but I have always despised Alan Sugar. I agree with you, he does only care about money.

[@ivarfiske1913]

I don't know why you basically skipped the three most successful Amstrad lines. The Amstrad PCW sold 8 million computers with monitor and printer. A huge success and big money maker. The total sale of Sinclair ZX Spectrum including Amstrad sales of the Spectrum, was only 6 millions. Amstrad dominated the PC market in Europe for several years from 1986 to around 1990 with 12 million machines sold. The Sky decoders sold really well too. A small number of was tried sold in the USA through their Spanish importer Indescomp, it failed badly. But it gave us and the French the Amstrad CPC 6128. The Amstrad CPC 6128 was the best selling Amstrad CPC in France. A disc based machine with 128 kB memory. One of the reasons for its success was that France had its own TV standard. As the Amstrad CPC came with its own monitor included, that was not a problem.

[@KaitainCPS]

Just noticed that the QL advert mis-spells Macintosh. That would stand out a mile these days, but I guess at the time most people wouldn't have noticed or cared as it wasn't really a household name.

[@R33Racer]

That _might_ have been deliberate to avoid being sued or for copyright reasons. But it probably was more likely an oversight.

[@medes5597]

It was only ever shown at the launch event. Never shown on TV. Never shown at cinemas as planned. So hardly anyone saw it until the modern era when it became ubiquitous thanks to micro men.

[@Larry]

I've got about 5 of those fucking Amstrad Em@ilers (been intending to do a video on them for years), Thought they didn't work but it turns out any machine that wasn't registered by the time the servers went down are essentially bricked. Also, typical scummy Sugar practices, yup you could play spectrum games on them, but you could only RENT them for 70p a day (of £3.50 for a week) also the entire catalog was Ocean games strangely. Annddd they didn't have a built in answer machine, every day it would automatically call in to a premium rate number to retrieve calls and emails, if you wanted it to or not, loads of complaints from OAP's who had run up an extra £70 a month phone bills from simply having it plugged in.

[@Kim_Justice]

+Larry Bundy Jr What a truly astonishing product. I would call it the best electronic product ever made - no discussion required.

[@syrus3k]

+Larry Bundy Jr That is incredible lol. Screw everyone over as a business plan doesn't really work any more.

[@Larry]

Kim Justice It was an absolute bomb, Tesco bought all the remaining stock and were flogging them off for £7.99 each according to an old Hotukdeals page I found when searching for info. As savvy as Sugar was in the 80s, he turned into a complete moron from the 90s onwards, just like him pushing those YouView boxes now that no one wants.

[@thecoyotespeaks9649]

Wow really? fuck sake

[@queenioana1186]

can this emailer be modded to work on a LAN or local phone network? it would be fun to find other uses for them and rewrite roms

[@KentReynolds]

Once again your docs style is detailed comprehensive and gripping. You have nailed it well done!

[@hartoz]

Very Interesting. Thanks for that. A CPC6128 was my 2nd computer, after a Vic. I always saw it as better than the spectrum, because mainly I hated the awful keyboard on the speccy. Too me the Spectrum always seemed like it had been cobbled together (especially the early ones). The Amstrad CPC just worked. There was no drama with it, it was built well enough, the software was good enough etc... The Monitor was OK too. I do think you spent too much time on the CPC464 though, the PCW range was hugely successful, and I know people in business today that STILL use them. Thanks.

[@danhulson8703]

i have realy enjoyed your series,i think the UK and euro game scenes are completly forgotton,and there very important,just imagine no ARM chips for a start,thanks so much

[@wimwiddershins]

Magic, Kim! Frikken TV-documentary quality stuff. ...in the good way.

[@BigStickyNugs]

I'm from the rubber key era. I actually started with a zx81 which had a membrane keyboard! Then a speccy 48k, then an AMstrad CPC 464 with colour monitor, I actually quite liked the machine. Excellent vids btw. Cheers.

[@walnutpearl]

You Sir are on a roll. Best channel on the KZbins by far, keep em coming.

[@stuartc6774]

The CPC464 was my first computer when I was a kid. I remember trying my hand at BASIC, typing what seemed like 100's of lines of code just to get a blue and yellow flashing circle - that's if I was lucky and didn't get a lad of syntax error messages. Also, waiting for donkeys trying to load a game on a tape with that whirly noise, then watching it crash and having to start again. We must have had a load of patience back then!

[@Retr0Rewind]

Excellent! Informative! Funny!! You definatly have an amazing talent for the infomentarys!! I love watching them. Keep up the good work!!

[@AntiSilence]

I loved my Amstrad CPC 6128 when I was a kid. I learned to code BASIC and Z80 assembly on it, which gave me my love of programming (which is my job these days). Mind you, a part of it was that it was a present from my granddad for Christmas 1990, not long before he died in 1991 - so I have a personal reason for my fondness of the CPC.

[@TheDomdabomb]

Another great documentary Kim, I think you've really hit your mark when it comes making videos. I just hope more people get to see them because with quality of your releases, you deserve to be having a 100k subs and more :)

[@mattyfox666]

Your content, unbelievably, improves every video. I was the 464 owner, and games like Oh Mummy shaped me into the degenerate mess I am today

[@syrus3k]

+mattyfox666 Agreed, love these vids. History about computing is incredible. Kim, you ought to visit the computer museum in Cambridge.. you would have an incredible time there as they have every, and I mean *every* old computer and console which you can play with.

[@fascistgoogification]

Thanks, I've enjoyed your video, but, like many others have commented here also, I'm rather surprised you did not mentioned the great cheap amstrad PC compatible series Pc1512 and PC1640, they were very popular here in Portugal. With the Intel's 8086 at 8mhz rather than the stock Intel 8088 used in xt's. I grew up with the spectrum and had a PC1512, both very popular and cheap here. Thanks again for the videos.

[@andrewk2996]

Very well put together, great job. You are the definitive source for all things retro micro computers and deserve more followers

[@ORANGESPARKY]

I really do enjoy these types of documentaries you put out. I'm not really informed on the old Micro computers, but I've been really finding them interesting and your stuff is really informative to a newbie like me, especially when its mostly about the British market. Anyway love your work, keep it up :)

[@anothergol]

The Amstrad CPC, which is also remembered as "Schneider" as it was distributed by them (Belgium, Germany, etc), did have its personality gaming-wise. It had a mascot, Roland. Many Roland games, some of which were rebranded ports (like, Fred became Roland on the Ropes). And it's apparently this Alan Sugar guy who's behind that character & game range, so it looks like he did care.

[@telemedic5142]

Roland is named after the designer. Roland Perry. The prototype cpc was called arnold, an anagram of Roland.

[@calebfuller4713]

I will say that the Locomotive BASIC that came with the CPC was easily one of the best versions BASIC that came with any of the 80s home computers. Certainly leagues ahead of that awful Commodore BASIC. It really got me into programming.

[@purplezebrahoover]

Oh yes. Looking forward to this. The Amstrad 464+ was my computer as a kid, so can't wait to watch this video when I get home from work. Keep up the great work Kim.

[@EgoShredder]

+purplezebrahoover I hope you could see past Kim's negative opinions on the CPC. Apart from that it was a very good video.

[@terrythe2dmaniac71]

What can I say another master piece, you should honestly consider making video gaming documentaries full time, I couldn't stop the movie out if sheer joy, keep up the amazing work my queen of documentaries.

[@CarDietrich]

Better be careful Kim. This guy could be your next Prime Minister. Similar thing seems to have happened to us here in the USA.

[@rabidrabbitshuggers]

Nah. Alan Sugar made money on his own without daddy’s help-definitely not a parallel to Trump. Plus, most people in the UK hate Alan Sugar. And they’re leaning Labour now and lost their shit (in a good way) when Corbin won the early general election this year. So yeah. Sugar as PM? Not likely. EDIT: ...oops.

[@TruckerJenkins82]

@@rabidrabbitshuggers this comment aged well...

[@rabidrabbitshuggers]

handymchandface I know fuck all about UK politics and my previous comment proves it.

[@robkearsy2995]

Wow Alan Sugar made Jack Tramiel look like sweet heart.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

not really, Trameil would sue to death people who quit his company and then started another company that would or could compete with him and he also literally fucked all the people that worked for him that did not belong to his inner circle(his sons and his sycophants)

[@BigWillChannel]

Great video. I love these documentary style videos.

[@nomadbitmad]

Kim, you're on fire with these videos! The research, the editing, the topics, the wealth of information; and they grip you, they're fascinating! Thank you so much for making them for us all. I hope big things come your way, you deserve it. it's so good seeing the history of videogames and computers from the British perspective, a viewpoint which has seemingly been neglected or pushed aside on youtube and 'games media' due to the passion our American cousins have for Atari and Nintendo. Please keep up the good work, it's great to listen to someone so intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate about this stuff : )

[@TheInfiniteMiseryJumper]

That's not Ted Rogers...that's that bird from the abattoir who looks like Ted Rogers!

[@drwugong]

Great stuff Kim, enjoyable as always - your output gets better and better. Recently subscribed and binged most of your content - awesome work!

[@jackofall3834]

You would love my dad, he was IBM for 30 years, I was lucky growing up with computers, I still can remember dos codes.

[@rabidrabbitshuggers]

“I don’t like Alan Sugar.” Rarely does the very first line of a video take the words right out of my goddamn mouth.

[@SixArmedSweater]

To be fair, the Emailer sounds like he was aiming for the eventual niche that smart phones filled.

[@dipi71]

No mention of the Sorcery game, nor Nonterraqueous, nor of the excellent and quite performant Locomotive BASIC, nor the brilliant concept of copy cursors and the Copy key? And how about underestimating the utility of a RGB monitor I used for over 12 years, first with the CPC464, then with my Atari ST and a quickly soldered 6-pin RGB adapter, and also as a PAL TV monitor for my VHS VCR? That CPC464 (distributed by Schneider in Germany) was such a great first computer to use and study, easily better than the C64 or Speccy. I still have mine in working condition. Anyway, thumbs up from me. Cheers!

[@mistergone5156]

Brilliantly put together as always!

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

Spent a good deal of my time repairing Amstrad Tower Systems and the like, in the 80's, some were relatively new when they died. Now though, people like these things, at the moment I've an Amstrad SM102 stereo in the workshop to restore. The build quality's a king compared to the likes of "Crosley" and the like, with many more features such as Bass and Treble controls. The BSR low-voltage belt drive turntables used in these Amstrads and also Binatones, Murphys, etc, were ghastly things. The speed wouldn't stay spot on, and in the case of Tower Systems, and the SM101/102's was caused by a bloody awful switching arrangement. With the Towers, I'd replace it with a BSR shaded-pole motor driven single-play deck. Easily sourced either new or from the bins ! The SM101/102's needed a different mod, with a new motor with built-in control. The older BSR''s were too heavy for the pop-out motor unit to cope with. Amazing the rubbish I recall :-)

[@RyanDanielG]

These documentary style bio vids have become my favorite of all the guys who do this kind of thing within the gaming genre. I've watched a ton of them, from many different people, and these are the best blend of information, humor, and personality. The gaming historian could maybe learn a thing or 2 :) Both great, but I think you grab the lead buddy :) Thanks for the great content!

[@higgins007]

God, that fucking BBC micro. A suspicious looking teacher with a dodgy mustache tried to get us to use those in the "technology" class when I was 12. Was sure he had put me off computers for life. I hated that damn BBC. Had no clue what I was doing. Now I'm a game developer... shrug!

[@Boojakascha]

There is a slight inaccuracy. Many people believe the 128k was solely produced in Spain. This is false. My 126k (toast rack) was built in the UK. These existed before the buyout of Amstrad.

[@redavatar]

From a Belgian point of view, Amstrad barely made any impact here and had the name for making shoddy stuff that didn't last long. The problem with Sugar's approach, is that he considers consumers as walking bags of money and not people with memories. If they buy something and it breaks down in no time or is obviously made out of cheap parts, they won't forget. It would only take so long before people would stop buying his stuff because even though it looks good on paper, if it's not reliable, people steer clear.

[@davedogge2280]

he's always made mid range, shabby stuff and shipped it to the ill informed and the strapped for cash in the UK and abroad.

[@ian_b]

Yes, they were rubbish. But they were priced accordingly. If you bought an Amstrad you didn't expect it to sound great and last forever, but if you hadn't got much money, you had got something that would play your records, cassettes and the radio, which was literally much better than nothing. He filled the vital gap between "expensive quality" and "nothing". Just like Sinclair's computers had. People don't understand it seems that Britain has always, even when it had the world's largest empire, been a country of relatively poor people. We still are, though it is less evident thanks to ubiquitous cheap electronics. We live in tiny old houses that should have been knocked down decades ago, we have always managed to engineer our economy to disadvantage the masses. As an example, by the 1970s, Germany who had "lost the war" had a far better standard of living than Britain, which "won the war". It has always been like this and, thanks to the idiocy of the British public being fooled into shooting themselves in the foot (e.g. ridiculous planning controls that make housing of a decent standard unaffordable, supported by nonsense about protecting the countryside), it probably always will be like this. Hence, we need companies that produce cheap crap products for cheap crap people. And thus Amstrad, Sinclair and, these days, the rise and rise of shops selling tat for a pound. And you may remember that your last Amstrad was cheap and nasty and the cassette players ran at the wrong speed, but most of all it was cheap. So you buy another one. Because it's that or nothing.

[@redavatar]

Your argument would be correct if Amstrad was really that cheap but its computers weren't that much cheaper than more solid brands. Especially later when they made IBM-PC compatibles, they were only 10% cheaper compared to much more reliable alternatives and the cost savings usually meant cheap lower-end-brand parts which caused all sorts of compatibility issues.

[@ian_b]

redavatar And the Amstrads were pretty good, too. They were typical of the reasonably priced computers which kids with less money could afford. If your parents were middle class, you might have a BBC or a Commodore 64, with disk drives and all sorts. If you were working class, you had a Spectrum or Amstrad, and a heap of cassette tapes. And my argument was actually focussing on the stereo systems, really, anyway.

[@davedogge2280]

***** not strictly true there were 100s of thousands of UK working class kids hat had a C64 and a tape deck with the machine hooked up to the colour tv. OK though I agree very few working class kids had a C64 disk drive and even fewer had a proper monitor.

[@badnewswade]

Thanks. Would have liked to have seen more on Amstrad's PC compatibles - and an honourable mention should go out to their gloriously awful CP/M business machines of the early 1990s - remember them? They weren't PC compatible, but they looked like PCs. They came with a printer, monitor, Wordstar and LocoScript - or something.

[@heidirichter]

Great work, very interesting. The speccy wasn't particularly popular here in Australia, but the CPC systems sold well enough. I didn't have one, but I knew a few who did. I remember seeing the MegaPC thing for sale alongside Amiga 600s, Amiga 1200s and crap Commodore PCs and little black and white compact Macs. I got an A1200, despite Commodore having just gone under when I got it - it still seemed like the best option unless I just wanted to play games - and we had a Sega Master system 2 for that...

[@renbymon]

Another fantastic documentary, Kim! Absolutely loving these. :D

[@joshuat502]

I am 14 and recentley helped my grandad to restore his 1987 amstrad 1640 with a hard drive (fancy) because it wqs all yelow but now it is the correct color after spending probably 23 hours cleaning and re installing the operating system. I realy enjoyed it and hope to try and code on it.

[@ReinaHW]

My mum used to have an Amstrad 464 Plus, she bought it back in 1989 or so when she decided to go to college once me and my brother were in school and my sister was close to starting school at the time. Played quite a few games on it, I think she's still got the old thing in the attic with all of the games that were bought for it. Feeling old now after watching a few of your videos.

[@reclusivebear]

another brilliant video. never really liked amstrad either myself, but can definitely see why people would have fond memories of the CPC.

[@AumchanterPiLetsPlay]

I had an Amstrad. Cheers for the doc.

[@wbb77]

Thank you for this top quality production! Thank you.

[@Ascyltos]

Oh god the Amstrad PCW. My mother, of all people, had one of those and worked from home. It used 3 inch (not 3 1/2 inch) floppies that NOTHING ELSE seemed to use, and she had the 9512 which looked like it had emerged from a car crusher.

[@GameHammerCG]

While I appreciate the research that's obviously gone into this, you've missed several important points: 1. the CPC isn't as technically unnoteworthy as you made out, as the computing magazines of the time attested; and 2. the experts in the field at the time were not saying Amstrad were coming in too late - in fact, the CPC was widely praised prior to its launch, with many experts considering it the best machine coming to market. No, Amstrad didn't produce a machine that beat all comers but that was clearly not its purpose. It did change things though, as the all-in-one systems we all have these days clearly shows. In many ways, the CPC is a victim of timing; and if it had been quicker to market, the fanboy legions would be singing a different tune to the one we are all so tired of hearing now.

[@jesuszamora6949]

I imagine many mainland Europeans will say a different thing too about the CPC. If nothing else, I think Lord Sugar's push into that untapped market was the big thing he should be remembered for. Not trying to pig-headedly tap into an American market that was essentially on lock-down between the C64 and, later on, IBM compatibles. The idea that anything from Sinclair would succeed here is laughable, and even the BBC wasn't going to break the hold IBM had. Interestingly, the IBM PC was also an all-in-one piece of kit, as were many PC compatibles. Lord Sugar was clearly onto something. Something "good enough" with all the bits and bobs you need from the getgo, will always win the day.

[@dartsma464]

+Jesus Zamora Amstrad didn't try to enter USA with the Amstrad CPC 6128. It was the Spanish distributor that had a go at the US market. If Kim Justice is saying that Amstrad was having a go at the US market, he hasn't researched that part good enough

[@GameHammerCG]

+dartsma464 she.

[@jesuszamora6949]

dartsma464 She also made the point that Amstrad made no effort for the US, which was part of why Amstrad were so successful. They saw how Sinclair (with the Timex Sinclair models) and Acorn (with the BBC Micro) failed, and decided not to jump into the meatgrinder. I can tell you as an American who grew up post-crash, any attempt would have been just as disastrous as Sinclair and Acorn. Hell, I hadn't even KNOWN Sinclair and Acorn tried to break America until I started watching these videos. When I grew up, you had "computers" (IBMs) and Apples. That's how consolidated the market was after the gaming crash and the microcomputer price war.

[@roucoupse]

In his biography, Sugar says he made one or two attempts into the American market, with no avail.

[@mariocosti4698]

The CPC was my first computer - my Dad bought it for me and my siblings around 1989. Although I thought it was okay at the time, I never loved it as much as I loved my future gaming machines such as the Nes and Snes. My favourite game on the system was probably Contra, although there were a couple of other "okay" games such as Dan Dare and Impossible Mission.

[@Ascyltos]

I was not yet a glint in the milkman's eye in 1983, but had I been about I probably would have eschewed the Speccy of the time for its dead flesh keyboard alone.

[@dpw81]

My best mate had the green screen version when we were kids. Even as a kid I felt sorry for him.

[@gugplaus1141]

The green monitor was smaller = more practical (to me) and you could use it in a completely dark room. I would have to try the 640 resolution on a colour one, but the screen seemed very much like a tv, so I'm not sure you could study your basic or assembler listings for as long as on a green monitor.

[@jagc1969]

@@gugplaus1141 I could. There was no problem at all. And for the games...what a difference...

[@davidnewton3528]

Interesting vid Kim, the amstrad CPC (green monitor!) was my first computer and so, in a way, nothing can compete with that nostalgia. As you point out in the vid, he was a business man very much of the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' philosophy. When we got our first Sky plus box it was Amstrad and it was a buggy POS, we replaced it with a PACE model a couple of years later and it was a totally different experience. I think he could never hope to belong to a world of high quality manufacturing and modern electronics. From what I read most of his wealth now comes from property. He is an entertaining character but certainly no business genius.

[@fluffibuni8663]

Having gone from a ZX81 to a 48k Speccy, I took the step to get a CPC464 with a colour monitor. As described in the video, the all-in-one package looked very professional and as a budding programmer I found it very appealing. What I really loved about it was the vibrant colour palette and potential for great looking games. I've always thought the C64 colours looked very washed out, and the largely monochrome, colour-bleeding graphics on my Speccy were starting to feel outdated. I was a bit disappointed to see numerous CPC ports use the same Spectrum visuals (Black Tiger was such a let-down), or have the play area reduced to almost ridiculously small proportions to get games running with colourful graphics (1942 ... boooo). However, when the CPC coding was done right, I think it looked and played better than the other 8bit home computers: Bomb Jack, Way Of The Exploding Fist, Sorcery, Barbarian, Bruce Lee, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Gauntlet ... all examples of fantastic CPC ports where I felt the vibrant graphics elevated the experience above the other systems ... well, for me anyway :-)

[@SianaGearz]

For being a 16-colour system, the pale and undersaturated C64 palette is actually a major advantage, as any other 8- or 16- colour computer almost invariably ended up with exclusively eye piercing colours and no chance at subtlety of natural, organic objects and human skin. In particular when there were only 8 basic colours and the rest were slightly less bright versions of them. However, Amstrad CPC is a 32-colour system, allowing it to have both strong and reasonably subtle colours. Also its video modes are more heavyweight, allowing more colours or higher resolution per given block and thus better dithering. Chroma dithers got easily eaten away by the signal encoding at higher resolutions, allowing for more colour subtlety.

[@fredm2144]

Very insightful and interesting as always.... keep'em coming!

[@MarJay1980]

So enjoyable, I love being taken back to my childhood in this way. Like many of us I had friends with Spectrums, CPC's, Commodore +4's and I had to make do with an old and arthritic VIC20. I had the last laugh in 1991 when my parents bought me an A500+ just in time for all of my friends to ditch the Amiga and buy mega drives. I guess I was forever destined to be behind the times but I wouldn't have it any other way. Keep up the top work Kim!

[@MarJay1980]

I don't think I'd be doing what I do as a tech support engineer if it wasn't for my Amiga.

[@bojankotur4613]

My father bought a Schneider CPC-464 after he sold the ZX Spectrum 48k. As a kid, I thought the CPC had excellent graphics and I kind of liked that the ZX Spectrum ports looked the same as they did on a real Spectrum. It was familiar and I liked both systems. Nowadays I feel that all of those ports were a missed chance to make the CPC stand out more. Graphics-wise it was waaaay better than the Spectrum and it was just lazy programming, if you ask me. I also remember a number of games that looked stunning on the CPC: Fruity Frank, Feud, Gryzor, Renegade, to name just a few off the top of my head.

[@queenioana1186]

Sir Sinclair was a visionary, inventive guy, Cury was the University programmer, and Alan Sugar was only the businessman, can you imagine what would have been the computer world today if these 3 would have worked together? Now we live in a IBM driven world with software written Windows...others occupy a small fraction

[@Xyphoe]

Great video! However if you're doing a story of Amstrad in the 80's-90's then you've missed out a huge chunk here - specifically their PC's from the mid 80's onwards - they were hugely successful and market leader for a good number of years. It's kind of ironic that most articles or documentaries about Amstrad - much to my annoyance - they always focus entirely on their PC range and only have a small footnote mention of the CPC, here it's the opposite! lol

[@MCJdiz]

Kim, I want you to imagine for a moment the idea of this man being PM. His American counterpart, as the host of the US Apprentice is an even more distasteful and bombastic individual, (if you could imagine that) and people in my country eat up all of his racist/sexist/xenophobic rhetoric. I digress- I must say that after the blitz, to just crank out all of this wonderful documentary-style content, is not only incredibly insightful, but greatly appreciated. Been a sub for years, but when I get my next paycheck, I will finally pull the trigger and contribute to you Patreon; I comment all the time about how much I respect you, and appreciate your content, and it's time to back it up! Thanks again, Kim!

[@CholoCPC]

Nice video ;) I recall one of the major selling point of the 464 was the included Easy Amsword wordprocessor. Today we dont think much about getting a wordprocessor, but back then getting one for free & along with a good keyboard computer really was something. When i had to step up from my belowed ZX81 back then it was a tough choice, however the colourfull amstrad screenshots in mags won me over. I think i recall Sugar saying that to him the 464 was just a big calculator & it was never really supposed to be a gaming machine, something that is quite apparent when you read thru early amstrad mags & get one gray page after another with spreadsheets & databases & pcw blue pages.

[@keeroogaming2265]

Why was the Amstrad CPC sold as Schneider CPC in Germany? My first computer was a Scheider (Amstrad) CPC 6128. I think it was actually better than the C64, but it had some major issues. 1.) In Germany most people bought the C64. So it was hard to copy games from friends. I had 3 friends who owned a CPC 464, and like 20 who owned a C64. 2.) Compability problems between the CPC 464 and CPC 6128. There was no seperate sold datasette recorder for the CPC 6128. This drove me crazy, because my friends owned the CPC 464 and had some good games on datasette, that I wanted to play. There was a seperate disk drive for the CPC 464, but no datasette drive for the CPC 6128. However, a technican of the store where my parents bought TVs and stuff, sold me a mini casette recorder and fixed some cables together, so it worked as a datasette drive for the CPC 6128. But not all games ran on the CPC 6128. 3.) Both CPC only had 1 joystick port. Wich made it hard to play with friends. There were some joysticks, that had a port for another joystick to plug in and it kinda worked. But the controls on this joystick were mirrored, wich made it pretty useless. I remebered the day I got the CPC. I wanted a C64, but the guy in the store talked my dad into a CPC 6128 with a freakin green monitor. It wasn´t a bad computer, but I always wanted a C64. I found out that they were sold as Amstrad in other countries as I lived with a family in France for some days, who got an Amstrad CPC 464.

[@jesuszamora6949]

IIRC there were some electrical standards that differed in Germany. My best guess is that Amstrad thought a German company would best be suited to put the system out there.

[@renaudg]

1) It's funny how kids in each European country had a different experience ! I grew up in France and it was the reverse situation : everyone in my school with a computer had a CPC 6128. One guy was alone with his C64. Nobody had ever heard of the Spectrum (except on the back of games boxes : it was the computer with the horrible monochrome screenshots) 2) Just because there wasn't an official Amstrad tape deck for the 6128 doesn't mean that you couldn't plug any standard tape recorder with the right cables. 3) There was a joystick port doubler cable available, of course the controls were not mirrored.

[@DarthPerkins]

The Amstrad E.mailer was being given away free a few years back if you did things like enquire about a pension or get a catalogue shopping book.

[@mrk45]

Crazy to think Amstrad started out as a real life Trotter's Independent Traders.

[@Wildeheart79]

Hey Kim, love the vid. You may be interested to know that Steve Coogan's commentary on the Alan Partridge DVD actually mentions the Amstrad Emailer being used as a prop and why they chose it for Alan's character. It's not much more detail but you may want to check it out.

[@LeonardCrassman]

The unsung hero is the PCW which sold more than the CPC and speccy combined, or the Amiga and ST combined. Probably the most popular 8bit PC outside the c64.

[@blackterminal]

Baron Lord General Admiral Sir Emperor Sugar. LOL

[@JohnDoe-yr4wc]

Yes, it's years after the fact, but GODDAMN you make some great docos, mate! :D

[@donboy65]

Vectrex here in America was of a similar concept; except it had a monitor with wireframe graphics and it used cartridges instead of disks or tapes. And Vectrex was more of a video game system, and not a computer (hope I am saying this right). This was back in the early 80s (I am guessing around 1982-1983).

[@simonmd2000]

Really interesting, well made and insightful video. Surprised you have relatively few subs so far, I can see huge potential in your channel if you keep this kind of quality up!

[@jagc1969]

My CPC-464 is still working like new. Great machine.

[@RWSCOTT]

That Operation Thunderbolt footage is nightmare fuel.

[@firstnamelastname-oy7es]

I always thought that Clive shared the similar philosophy of make it cheap, sell it to more people. I guess I was mistaken or something?

[@SianaGearz]

In a way, yes, but it didn't apply to everything. The Sinclair Executive calculator was quite expensive, costing half an average monthly salary; it undercut the Western products but was a few times more expensive than Japanese ones. That is rich people toy. The Sinclair Black Watch was also not necessarily cheap. And then there's this not so subtle difference. Sinclair computer products were very bare bones, they were the cheapest single item you could buy, but also pretty much the worst. Amstrad is different, it's a very capable full fledged machine which wouldn't have you pay for one extension after the other. Think of the things you'd need to hang onto the cheapest Spectrum to make it whole: cassette recorder, 32K ram expansion cart, soundcard, a joystick adapter... But the basic Amstrad came fully loaded, it even came with the monitor. Amstrad was all about convenient ready to roll packages that were on the whole still in the impulse price range. I think Sinclair's marketing decisions are actually born from a kind of slightly naive pragmatism. If, as alleged, he didn't think computers were of any actual use, it made total sense to make them bare bones and cheap. But it's Sugar who mastered the marketing of impulse purchase.

[@davidkmatthews]

I'd say that while there are some similarities, there are huge differences, too. Sinclair was an innovator (that's not to say all of his inventions were successful, of course!) with his pocket calculators, micro televisions and computers - and I think saw himself as a benevolent force for bringing new high-technology to "the man in the street". But that affordability inevitably meant quality compromises, particularly in terms of electronic components. Sinclair's greatest failing was that sometimes he simply assumed that there would be market demand when a little research would have told him there was actually (almost) none - notably the C5. Sometimes he'd try to convince the public that their lack of interest was due to their ignorance: ie "You don't realise it yet but you *need* a C5". Those products that did sell well largely did so through luck and good marketing as much as anything. Whether his products were successful or not, Sinclair wasn't interested in personal wealth: ironically a lot of the profit from his successful products was ploughed into R&D for subsequently unsuccessful ones (eg the QL and the C5). Sugar, on the other hand, is no innovator, simply jumping on a number of existing bandwagons (hi-fi, computers, set-top boxes). Sugar did carry out market research and found a gullible public. You might argue that the PCW range was innovative in its day but all Sugar did was to cobble together some old hardware, a cheap monitor and some (actually very good) Wordprocessor software. But most of Sugar's products were of deliberately poor quality in order to undercut competitors and dominate the budget market to fund his plutocratic lifestyle. Sinclair's take on "affordability" was borne of benevolence - Sugar's was borne of cynicism.

[@SianaGearz]

Dave Matthews You're not wrong, but numerus products that are and were immediately successful and changed how we view things were introduced under circumstances that would show negligible market interest in prior research. Some company heads are simply more successful with that than the others.

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

Recently, I've been on a blast from the past. In the 80's, I had many of Amstrad's products to repair, due to piss-poor build quality for the most part. The El-Cheapo belt-drive record deck used on the later TS33's and SM101/102 audio towers was a case in point. At first the bombproof BSR idler decks with SC12H pickups were used, no trouble with them. With the later TS33's, you could get rid of the deck fitted and replace it with a BSR Idler or Belt-Drive deck, with the familiar big shaded-pole motor. The problem was the motor control module, the cheapo ones ran at 12V DC and the module was crap. Ingress of dirt and appalling switches meant they didn't run at constant speed. The same sort of deck's still used in today's made in china crapophones like crosleys. But, having found I can use a two-speed DC motor on these things, it's possible to breathe new life into them. They almost look like they were built like it. Quite a few survivors of these now rare-ish machines have come to me for repair. Fitted with the BSR SC12H cartridge, they don't sound bad really. Put different long-throw woofers in, and tweeters, new cassette heads, belts, and it usually comes back to life. However cheap they were, these systems are kings compared to today's crapophones, which don't record tapes, or if they do it's DC bias, don't have proper tone controls...The best Amstrads had an ADC magnetic cartridge, and the earlier stuff was pretty good for the price.

[@annapocalypsezero4719]

I had an amstrad I knew no better and well they stood out for me being very young at the time for the colour thing the Amstrad had more clear lines and colours at that time. Plus a lot of what you say screen and built in tape deck etc. It really did help it a lot but I agree with you I really don't like the guy but did enjoy the Amstrad 464 for what it was so them involved in making it I am thankful to as for him though. Do not like at all. Great vid though as the CPC is kind of overlooked a lot so nice of you to give it a fair go even if you didn't like where it came from.

[@davedogge2280]

what happened if the tape deck bust could you attach a 3rd party cassette tape to the computer unit ?

[@annapocalypsezero4719]

I believe you could yes. There were also disk drives for it.

[@heatrayzvideo3007]

We had one of them double decker Amstrad video players, my dad was a media teacher so would borrow it on a weekend to copy the films we rented

[@ShabbaRanksMF]

He is "doomed to wander the Earth in search of his next apprentice."

[@gordonhaddow8345]

Kim Justice, KZbins' greatest Gaming documentarian....

[@mintydog06]

haha great video. lol@the cheering fan falling through the roof and the Ashens reference :) Good work.

[@jesuszamora6949]

Having just seen Chinnyvision's CPC 6128 video, I'd LOVE to see you and him debate Spectrum VS CPC.

[@dartsma464]

yeah, that would be interesting. But I think Kim Justice is afraid that the people finds out that the emperor has no clothes on

[@jesuszamora6949]

To be fair, I don't think Kim is essentially ill-informed - I've NEVER gotten that from any of her videos. I just think that she's let her personal opinion of Lord Sugar get in the way of her opinion of the CPC line.

[@sperrin]

"Her", Kim is male.

[@jesuszamora6949]

Steve, you haven't been paying attention. Kim came out as trans some time back.

[@xMasterCasperx]

You need those links for twitter / facebook / patreon in the description :)

[@PaoloLery]

Great stuff Kim thanks. If you haven't seen it yet you may enjoy - Cassetteboy vs The Bloody Apprentice.

[@oldskooljoypad]

These videos should be made into a DVDs

[@DanAshby]

The monitor (which used an RGB connection) meant that the picture was so much better than anything else around at the time. I later mangled the connection with so I could use it on my imported Sega Megadrive and once again, my picture was so good compared to the bloody awful TV connected efforts from Sinclair etc. Amstrad did sell a TV modulator for their CPCs and I used one once. No way you would be in mode 2 and reading text with one of those!

[@duhmez]

These long assed docu videos you are making are fucking brilliant.

[@PeterHope2]

Really enjoying some of your documentaries :)

[@alexstokoe2542]

I told him off a few years ago, at work. He didn't seem too bothered.

[@MephProduction]

Good thing about the Amastrad is it was the birth of Dizzy.

[@stuartc6774]

Have to make a point about his chairmanship of Spurs. It's true that he wasn't popular in the slightest, mainly due to getting rid of 'El Tel' - the 90's were boring as hell and we were the definition of mediocrity, with the highlights of occasional superstar signings such as Klinsmann. But credit where it is due - when he took over, Spurs were on the knife edge of bankruptcy. Irvin Scholar, the previous chairman, had run the club into the ground and I very much remember an article saying that White Hart Lane could be turned into a Tescos. He did stabilise the club financially and if you have to choose between him or Robert Maxwell, well, the choice is obvious.

[@Kim_Justice]

This is a great point. If Maxwell had taken over, chances are Dele Alli would only know of Spurs through history books.

[@stuartc6774]

+Kim Justice Yeah, that is very true and a scary thought. I think it was something like £20m in the red, which in footballing terms is peanuts today, but back then it was disaster stations. Enjoyed your vid btw, thanks mate.

[@cpcnw]

Had an Amstrad PC1512 with 8 MB hard card!!!