Amstrad PCW Computers

Introduction

The PCW computers (known as Joyce in Germany) from Amstrad were sold as a package containing the computer with built-in CRT screen and floppy drive, along with a keyboard and printer, offering great value for money compared to other computer systems. This was a similar approach to Amstrad's CPC series in which the monitor was bundled with the computer and also powered it, simplifying its use. Software supplied with the PCW computers included the LocoScript word processor, Dr. Logo, Mallard BASIC, and CP/M+.

In 1985 the first PCW computer, the PCW 8256, went on sale in the UK for £399, featuring a Z80 CPU running at 4MHz, 256KB RAM, single 3" floppy drive, and a 12" green on black CRT, bundled with a dot matric printer, shortly followed up with the PCW 8512 with two floppy drives and 512KB RAM. The PCW 9512 was released in 1987 for £499, and was similar to the PCW 8512, except that it uses a white on black CRT and came with a daisy-wheel printer. It was superseded by the PCW 9256 and 9512+ in 1991; these computers have 256 KB and 512 KB RAM respectively, a single 3.5" floppy drive, and were bundled either with a daisy-wheel printer or an inkjet type.

The next main entry in the PCW line was the PCW16 in 1995 selling for £299 but has no backward compatibility with the previous PCW computers, and runs the single task GUI O/S Rosanne. Powering the computer is a Z80 @ 16MHz, along with 1MB RAM and 1MB flash memory, and the computer has a built-in 3.5" floppy drive, and white on black CRT, and came with a mouse but not a printer, and had the severe limitation that programs could not be run from floppy, which was only used for backing up files.

By the time the PCW line had come to its end in 1998 a total of 8 million computers had been sold, at which time IBM PCs had become much more common and affordable.

Please read on for more detailed information about the various PCW computers.

Introduction

Amstrad PCW16

Technical - various models

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Amstrad PCW16

Amstrad were always one for providing to their customers exactly what they needed and their range of computers known as PCW (Personal Computer Word processor) had everything you needed to use a computer immediately. The PCW16, known also as Anne (supposedly named after an employee of Amstrad), was released in 1995 and had a black and white monitor built into the computer as well as a 1.44MB 3.5 inch floppy disk drive (used exclusively for backing up files). This PCW, however, is not backward compatible with previous the PCW models, but does have support for PC format disks.

The computer made use of an 8-bit Z80 CPU running at 16MHz with 1MB of RAM and outputted graphics in 640x480 format. In addition to using floppies, the PCW16 had also 1MB of flash memory built in which could be used to save files. The operating system, or at least the visual side, was called Rosanne and functions as a typical GUI (Graphical User Interface).

You can see it below:

The image above shows the PCW16 running its spreadsheet program in which I had typed up a a number of my electronic components 8 years ago. Note that the diagonal thick line on the screen was visible in my camera only due to the differences of the PCW16's refresh rate and that of my camera.

As soon as the PCW16 is plugged into the mains it turns on and does a memory test before asking for the date and time. Oddly, the date resets to 1/2/49 which is possibly the birth date of someone that worked at Amstrad. The PCW16 uses a 'soft' power button, which can be seen at bottom left in the photo above, along with the brightness and contrast controls.

There are a number of ports on the back which are for the printer (DB-25), serial (DE-9), mouse (DE-9) and keyboard (PS/2). You can use a standard PC PS/2 keyboard with the PCW16 but it won't have the coloured keys that the original PCW16 keyboard had. These coloured keys were used as shortcuts and I have listed them below so you know which keys are the coloured ones:

F9=blue

F10=yellow

F11=green

F12=red

My PCW16 has version 1.12 of the Rosanne O/S and in the system settings there is an option to update it. The O/S has persistent menus at the top of the screen (like on a Mac) which give different options based on which program is open. These menu options are accessible with the keyboard using the Alt key much like in Windows. Much like when using a modern browser, the tab key can be used to select different buttons or other controls.

Although the PCW16 does have a desktop, the icons that appear are just buttons for starting a program or for selecting an option, such as to open a file, before the program runs. The programs that are built-in are called Word processor, Spreadsheet, Address book, Diary, Alarm, Calculator and File manager. Overall performance is OK; at times the O/S will be slow to respond even with something simple and then suddenly speed up.

It seems that Amstrad had planned for a number of expansions for the PCW16 but perhaps because of poor sales they never saw the light of day. For one thing, on the bottom of the PCW16 is a small 'trapdoor' which when removed reveals an unpopulated DIP socket and SIL connector, most likely to add a ROM but may have been for programming the flash memory. From opening up the PCW16 it can be seen that the RAM can be upgraded and there looks to be provisions for a VGA socket and a second floppy drive or even a hard drive.

The problem with the PCW16 and the reason it didn't sell well was that is was behind the competition; while it had built-in flash memory it lacked a hard disk and the machine ran on an old processor (Z80). While I can understand the PCW16 not having a colour screen as the programs that came with it were of typical office use, having a bit of colour would have made the machine more appealing-how about an art program?

Technical - various models

Amstrad PCW Hardware Reference:

http://www.systemed.net/pcw/hardware.html

Notes on PCW I/O ports:

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~jacobn/cpm/pcwports.html