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Amstrad 1640

  • 08-04-2003 1:17pm
    #1
    Amnesiac_ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭


    Anybody ever use an Amstrad 1640 PC? God i loved mine... after years of almost constant use the monitor gave in and it was thown on the rubbish heap. How I miss designing using GEM Paint, programming basic, playing Prince of Persia, Dambusters, using a 1980s version of Microsoft Works...


Comments

  • #2
    ozpass
    Closed Accounts Posts: 931 ✭✭✭ozpass


    Yeah, my mate Kris had a 1640 with dual disk drives and a 20 Mb hard drive (what a beast). Games we played on it were Dambusters, Winter Games, Mission Impossible, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. It was a top system until he got an ST.


  • #3
    ciano
    Closed Accounts Posts: 679 ✭✭✭ciano


    Originally posted by ozpass
    It was a top system until he got an ST.

    I still have a working Atari ST at home somewhere!! :eek:


  • #4
    ShaneOC
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭ShaneOC


    My first PC was an Amstrad PC1512. It had a black and white monitor. It was only meant to have one floppy drive but I got two drives by accident. I upgraded to a colour monitor and also I bought a second-hand 20Mb hard card for £150.

    If I remember correctly it had two operating systems, MS Dos and another weird one which I can't remember.

    Prince of persia....


  • #5
    Amnesiac_ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Amnesiac_ie


    Yeah my 1640 had Ms-DOS and something called GEM which Microsoft borrowed heavily from when creating the Windows OS!


  • #6
    Falkorre
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,219 ✭✭✭Falkorre


    Was the other OS not called "CP/M" ? or was that the programming language?

    I started off on an amstrad 464 (tape driven) then moved onto a 6128+ (annoying but cute 3" disks), then I moved to a 1640, twin huge 5 1/4" drives, swapped one for a 3.5" and installed a 20mb HD.

    I did love that machine, it was huge but reliable, and yeah, sheesh, i remember all those titles, and my fave on the 6128+ was "Burnin Rubber" :) dunno if that was out on the 1640 or not.

    wow, i wish i had that machine now, it got thrown out when i moved away from home tho'. ;) parents didnt know a computer from a doorstop and it woulda done a great job of either lol ;)

    but then I discovered the majik that was the commodore 64, then the various amigas, and then my very first (very old, IBM 8086 clone lol)

    B


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  • #7
    ozpass
    Closed Accounts Posts: 931 ✭✭✭ozpass


    Was the other OS not called "CP/M"

    Maybe not.... AFAIK CP/M was an exclusively 8-bit OS (Zilog Z80 being its CPU of choice) and the 8088 which the 1640 has at it's core is a 16-bit CPU (albeit with an 8-bit data bus). In fact the 8088 was a crippled version of their 8086, provided as a low cost alternative.

    I did a little bit more research though, and it turns out that the version of DOS which the 1640 used is a proprietary one called DOS+ (i.e. non-Microsoft) which is described as being CP/M compatible.... Whether this means it incorporated CP/M commands or actually ran a version of CP/M I have no idea.

    Definitely ran GEM though, and also Locomotive BASIC which all Amstrads had used as their BASIC interpreter up to this point.

    The dedicated Word Processors from Amstrad definitely ran CP/M, but they had Z80 CPU's. :)


  • #8
    Amnesiac_ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 510 ✭✭✭Amnesiac_ie


    Burnin' Rubber! Great game...
    Plus World cup Italia 90 and a great platformer I can't recall off the top of my head... insecty looking astronaut dude... funny thing about the 1640 was that some programs refused to run in colour no matter how often i flicked the switches at the back!
    ***
    The hours I spent playing the Works tutorial games... one was a murder mystery! Bless...


  • #9
    Falkorre
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,219 ✭✭✭Falkorre


    ah, that xplains it (re cp/m) :)

    If i remember correctly, burnin rubber came on a cartridge with the 6128+ which was a much more effective format for that machine as the disks were sooo slow to access. :)

    I remember that the only place I ever found games for it was a place called "Computer City" upstairs in palmerstown S.C. and even they only had about 20 lol :)

    really the 6128+ and b4 it the 464, really had little or no software backup, the later 1640 an 1512 at least you could open up an bastardise to make them run stuff like GemPaint and Easy an such. :)

    (god, GemPaint, i cant believe i once used to spend days on that alone lol) :)

    B


  • #10
    Gyck
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 693 ✭✭✭Gyck


    Gem Paint, wow. I think I still have some crappy scribblings from my hours playing with that most wonderful of lo-res packages.

    I guess I was destined to move from there to Dpaint at some stage in my life, and on to Pro Motion! To think I've still got basically the same package on my PC, millions of MGhz's later...

    I think the 1640 (my dads) leaked its batteries at one stage and had to get a new motherboard. I also remember my sister was using it for word processing and it got a bit screwed up. We left it into some PC shop in Blackrock and the guy gave it back to us with a virus!

    Or was that my Olivetti?


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