Thanks to Monarch for partnering with me! Start your free trial and get 50% off your first year of total money clarity using my link https://monarchmoney.yt.link/2J6Ns7O or code retro50 for 50% Off Monarch Core tier. I found an AMSTRAD PPC640, a weird British "laptop"... but this one is a US market edition?! LINKS: ------------------ 🍎 AMSTRAD history: https://amstrad.com/about-us/ 👉 Edited by the incomparable Diceroll! [email protected] (Amazon links are affiliated links) ══════════════════════════ 💾 For more vintage Apple stuff, please subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/ActionRetro?sub_confirmation=1 💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ActionRetro ══════════════════════════ Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: https://www.amazon.com/shop/actionretro ══════════════════════════ #AMSTRAD #Retro #Computers
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I had one at work in the early 90s. It had a built-in modem which I used to download Public Domain software from bulletin boards for a cover disk on a British PC magazine. You could also put an external monitor on the area to the right of the screen - IIRC the standard Amstrad monitors for their PC-1512 and PC-1640 PCs of the time fit perfectly on top and used Amstrad's proprietary connection system where the power supply was built into the monitor and fed power into the PC by a DIN cable (like the one on the back of the PPC). You used to switch the PCs on by a little button on the back of the monitor. The PPC was portable, in that I would often carry it home on the bus, but you wouldn't want to try to use it on public transport :D
I had a PPC512 and I loved it.
Mine made multipls trips to Donetsk, Ukraine in the 1990s when I was teaching there. For the time it was quite capable. Away from mains power it could run on ten alkaline C batteries long enough to be useful. I also had an adapter to run it from a car cigarette lighter. I think mine is still around here somewhere; might be fun to dig it out and play with it again. Thanks for the video!
QV2 is QuickVerse, electronic Bible software from back in the day from Logos software. Logos is still around and now rents access in a service model.
I reviewed one of these for a PC magazine when they first came out. Back then, reviewers would sometimes get to keep the review kit. This was the only product I insisted on sending back. I still hear that plastic creaking in my nightmares.
We had the PC1640HD XT compatible machine with the EGA colour screen. That one worked with DOS and GEM Desktop 2. It was a fun computer and it felt very advanced for 1986
My dad had one, this video just brought back memories.
that boop boop boop sound, means that the CPU and or GPU maybe on the fritz so you may need to look more inside to clean it
Cool find! I never heard of these. But I found an old vacuum cleaner in the attic that had a familial resemblance to this.
I remember using one of these. A friend and I tried to run a BBS on it because it came with a built-in modem.
I remember seeing that exact bag at flea market few years ago, spent the rest of morning and noon trying to trace who's buying only the computer, in the end i only have a decent bag if not for the obvious holes on the top
i love the battery tube battery!
I had one of these, and the bag, when they first came out in the UK. If you used it as a backpack the plastic digged into your back. The display was much faster than an external monitor though.
that's Lord Sugar to you
My first clone was a hand-me-down, upgraded PC1512DD. I had all the literature that came with it. I remember looking at these in the sales brochures. The Amstrad is the only PC I have left to acquire before having all my childhood computers represented in my collection. PS - graphics may be the enhanced Amstrad graphics. Like Tandy, they had better graphics, and Prodigy took advantage of it. CGA mode was black and white while Amstrad mode had color. They also had a PPC512 I think, which was beige in color, and came with 512KB.
Great video, just one thing though it was Clive Sinclair that brought affordable home computing to the UK not Alan Sugar, Sinclair released three home computers well before Sugar in the ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum and a home computing kit MK14 in 1977
I owned one of these as a teen, in America. It was a lawn sale purchase. Mine lasted for about two hours on ten brand-name C batteries, which was its downfall. I wanted to bring it with me to school but the teachers wouldn't let me plug it in and it cost more than a week's allowance for two hours of battery power.
I remember this fondly as well. I think we ran some kind of electronics/PCB design software on it in a classroom...
I wanted one of these so badly when they were new. I still want one now
I had to maintain a dBASE III+ cost control system on one of those. I think it had an HDD, but it's over 35 years, so I don't really remember the spec. The handle was only really useful for getting it in and out of the bag. It was actually really good for site offices.