Amstrad users?

ShawnRaven

Well folks,
You've probably seen me throw the Amstrad name around, did anyone else here have an Amstrad machine other than myself? I owned one from 1986-1997 (still played it til then too until i no longer had room for it), and had a stack of games for the thing. Provided hours of fun as well.

So have at it folks, own up!

I still have my 464, green monitor and all, still working and a stack of games for it, Dizzy collection too

StopNotWorking

I can remember when we had one alright. It was a long time ago.. black and white screen, cassette deck built into the keyboard.. thats really all I can remember >.<

All I ever did was play some platformer with a turtle that goes through time(???) and a racing game. I wish I still had it though, it was my first ever computer and is to blame for all my short comings to this day -.-

ShawnRaven

hellboy99 wrote: »

I still have my 464, green monitor and all, still working and a stack of games for it, Dizzy collection too

Dizzy games were awesome! I still play em to this day on the xbox 1 via emulation. Fantasy World Dizzy was the first one i played, and still my fave.

beardo81

CPC 6128+

Burnin Rubber on cartridge for those quick loads.....

Whole package looked savage at the time!!

CiDeRmAn

Don't have one, never had one, I was a Speccy boy myself.
A 464 would be nice, with the colour screen, although I am allergic to tape loading times and emu us just so yesterday (rather than retro).

Sleipnir

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

A 464 would be nice, although I am allergic to tape loading times and emu us just so yesterday (rather than retro).

Sultan's Maze took 18 minutes to load from tape and people nowadays complain about boot times :rolleyes:
Or was it 9 minutes....

ShawnRaven

Sleipnir wrote: »

Sultan's Maze took 18 minutes to load from tape and people nowadays complain about boot times :rolleyes:
Or was it 9 minutes....

17 minutes. It was the longest out of the 12 free crappy Amsoft games that came with the 464 in 86 (before they added the 5 Leisure Genius titles the following year).

It used to be so frustrating, i'd load it up before i had my dinner, come back, play it once and end up playing Bridge-It afterwards.

ShawnRaven

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Don't have one, never had one, I was a Speccy boy myself.
A 464 would be nice, with the colour screen, although I am allergic to tape loading times and emu us just so yesterday (rather than retro).

No wonder you're allergic to tape loading times if you owned a speccy!
C64 was worse though with it's unreliable external tape deck, 10 minutes for a game to load, only for it to fail at the very end of it. Ah built in tape decks were great.

LoGiE

Sultan's Maze.... in a word. Painful!

bassnut

ah who could forget roland in the caves with that prehistoric bird type dinosaur after you....decent games i remember renegade 1 and 2, robocop bombjack, paperboy and dizzy of course

irlrobins

Ah man, my first 'PC', the CPC 464 with colour monitor. Loved that machine. Was heartbroken when games started failing to load (I remember praying not to see a "Read Error B" or "Read Error A" on screen). Eventually Dad took it off to somewhere on Parnell St and got the tape drive fixed.

Fav games, Batman and Ikari Warriors!

LoGiE

irlrobins wrote: »

Eventually Dad took it off to somewhere on Parnell St and got the tape drive fixed.

I remember that place, it was just down the road from Peats and down a flight of stairs. I had a few joysticks, c64 tape decks and my amiga with them back in the day. I guess places like that closed when manufacturers found it cheaper to replace the hardware with a brand new one with the same inferior components. Is it a case now where if ps3 pads break you toss it and buy a new one??

irlrobins

From what I remember you had to go up a flight of stairs. Although I think they moved a couple of times, just like Peats did. (Peats used to be beside Ilac, then across the road, then back on the same side as Ilac).

Think the repair crowed was called Microtronics or something nice and 80's tech sounding. And yeah I imagine they've closed shop. Now if some elec gadget breaks it's just replaced. Throw away society etc.

ShawnRaven

irlrobins wrote: »

Fav games, Batman and Ikari Warriors!

Aaaah Ikari Warriors! Now that was a game worth the loading time! Was reading through some old Amstrad Action issues a couple of months back. Now that got the memories flooding back.

CiDeRmAn

There was a place up on Dawson street, Q something or other, got a couple of cheap Speccy games, gods, I must have been about 13! Bugger!

The memories







Have a few of these mags & tapes up in my attic

valleyoftheunos

My Mate had a CPC which was a large part of the reason why he was my mate. We spent a lot of time playing Harrier something or another where you were flying a jump jet in a side scrolling mission to bomb a city, it blew my tiny nine year old mind.

There was also the codemasters classic, BMX Simulator which for us was pretty much impossible. We couldn't get the little feckers to move at all never mind go round the corners.

We also played a lot of some top down shooter in a castle full of Nazis which I suppose might have been the original wolfenstein maybe?

ShawnRaven

valleyoftheunos wrote: »

My Mate had a CPC which was a large part of the reason why he was my mate. We spent a lot of time playing Harrier something or another where you were flying a jump jet in a side scrolling mission to bomb a city, it blew my tiny nine year old mind.

Harrier Attack, one of the few good games that actually was gripping. Once you got to level 5 when everthing came at you at 90mph firing crap at you, you knew you were doomed.

There was also the codemasters classic, BMX Simulator which for us was pretty much impossible. We couldn't get the little feckers to move at all never mind go round the corners.

Glorified Supersprint clone. Grand Prix Simulator was a lot better.

We also played a lot of some top down shooter in a castle full of Nazis which I suppose might have been the original wolfenstein maybe?

Don't think that ever got released for the CPC. I'm not too sure what that one is though, it sounds like Raid Over Moscow, but i could be wrong.

ShawnRaven

hellboy99 wrote: »

Chuckie Egg, I wasted countless hours on that damn game in 1988, it's scary.
Only took about a minute to load too.

Roar

wow, that stryker and the crypts of trogan shot above really brings back memories!

had a 464+. it was the berries. some amazing games on it. although playing them now with an emulator kinda ruins the magic a bit, as a lot of my favourite games are almost unplayable.

mine is still in the attic, but it's broken, it won't display any images. Might take it down and see if i can fix it, or get it fixed..

ShawnRaven

Roar wrote: »

had a 464+. it was the berries. some amazing games on it. although playing them now with an emulator kinda ruins the magic a bit, as a lot of my favourite games are almost unplayable.

Chipped xbox 1 and a copy of arnold x will sort you out. I spent about 2 hours playing Auf Wiedersehen Monty last week.




Awesome

Roar

ShawnRaven wrote: »

Chipped xbox 1 and a copy of arnold x will sort you out. I spent about 2 hours playing Auf Wiedersehen Monty last week.




Awesome

unplayable as in they're so amazingly bad they're ruining my childhood kinda unplayable

although i spent a few hours at seymour goes to hollywood the other day. great game. bit confusing going from studio to studio though.

ShawnRaven

Roar wrote: »

although i spent a few hours at seymour goes to hollywood the other day. great game. bit confusing going from studio to studio though.

I never actually finished that one. I kept getting locked up by Dick Tracy for having my fingerprints on the murder weapon

Roar

i was completely addicted to Burnin Rubber, that came on the cartridge for the 464+. It just went on and on and on, it didn't end. I found a flash version of it online before, can't find it now though!

CiDeRmAn

Dammit, now I want one!
Wonder where I can get the colour monitor version cheaply?
And, is there a way to avoid having to use tapes?
I mean, is there a CD-Rom mod out there?

ShawnRaven

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

And, is there a way to avoid having to use tapes?
I mean, is there a CD-Rom mod out there?

Not as far as I know, I know Codemasters did try for one back in 1990, but there were too many complications that they scrapped the project.

Victor_M

ShawnRaven wrote: »

Chuckie Egg, I wasted countless hours on that damn game in 1988, it's scary.
Only took about a minute to load too.

Ah lads I've just had the biggest trip down memory lane when I saw this! Chuckie egg, what a classic!

Manic miner, the most difficult game ever made.

OutRun, operation wolf, Ikari warriors (classic, 2 player IIRC), Roland on the ropes, harrier attack.

I remember the day I used a double tape deck to copy my first (of many) game. A Karate game Yai Ar Kung Fu I think it was.

I was always a bit envious of C64 owners though, they always had loads more games to choose from/tape to tape copy due to the fact that every one had one.

ShawnRaven

Victor_M wrote: »

Ah lads I've just had the biggest trip down memory lane when I saw this! Chuckie egg, what a classic!

Manic miner, the most difficult game ever made.

OutRun, operation wolf, Ikari warriors (classic, 2 player IIRC), Roland on the ropes, harrier attack.

I remember the day I used a double tape deck to copy my first (of many) game. A Karate game Yai Ar Kung Fu I think it was.

I was always a bit envious of C64 owners though, they always had loads more games to choose from/tape to tape copy due to the fact that every one had one.

Manic Miner was quite tricky. Don't think i ever finished that one either.
Outrun on the CPC was a farce. It lacked everything a decent racing game needed, speed, sound, excitement along with it's fugly multiload system.

I remember the first two games i duped on double tape deck too back in 1987. Paperboy and Jack The Nipper

I was never envious of C64 owners, the slower loading times, the several load fails due to the tape deck being external, especially from dupes where the load would fail if the volume was even slightly knocked out of place.

Built in tape decks = extra win!

Ozziej

Oh the nostalgia. I had a green screen model 464. First game was Roland in Time (virtually impossible, could anyone not an idiot savant finish them?).
Barbarian 1 and 2 were my fav (chopping off heads, hearts) although I loved Batman (based on first film, swinging around factory).
Also Commando and Thanatos (dragon eating witches and killing knights, haunting music on title screen).
I also remember Bard's Tale precursor of world of warcraft.
Dizzy games were great also (wasn't there some genius brothers who designed them all on spectrum first).
New zealand story with the lil kiwi firing arrows.
Oh also Turrican 1 and 2 (great games).
What was the game (beat em up maybe) where when you finished it, Ronald Reagen dropped down in helicoptor to say thank you? Those were the days when America was the goodies.

I was always so jealous of my mates with C64 with much better sound and graphics. Then even more jealous of the amazing Amiga with its technicolour graphics.

The pain of Read error a and b. The horror. My hopes dashed as it become more common. I even bought some kind of cassette with a screwdriver that would adjust the magnetic signal or something. It would work again for one game then die again.

Then I grew up and innocence was dead.

bennyc

beardo81 wrote: »

CPC 6128+

Burnin Rubber on cartridge for those quick loads.....

Whole package looked savage at the time!!

Had that to got tayto coin up hits, rainbow islands and new zealand story were the game highlights. I take it you had the TV Tuner package with the clock radio , the old man still uses the clock radio but the monitor burned out years ago :mad:

Liamo Valentino

I have a CPC 6128 in the attic that still work's. My very first computer.
Dreamed about Final Fight being released for it but 'twas not to be......

ShawnRaven

Liamo Valentino wrote: »

I have a CPC 6128 in the attic that still work's. My very first computer.
Dreamed about Final Fight being released for it but 'twas not to be......

Final Fight did get released in tape format in 1991... it was horrid


Amstrad Action reviewed this in issue 74 and gave it 93%, but i think they were on crack at the time because they were trying to shove the GX4000 down everyones throats as the successor to the Sega Mastersystem!

fleecymanager

wasn't there a flight type game called R-TYPE on the 464 it was state of the art at the time,,,,and what about that the strange noise when the tapes loaded,,,,oooowwwww,,,weeeeeeeeee,,,,ooooowww:D

Gunmonkey

Used to have an Amastrad CPC 464+ back in the day (with Burning Rubber on cartridge), remember picking it up in Portlaoise and getting to choose the 2 games with it, went for some compilation bundles (by Codemasters I think) a sports one and an adventure one (that had the original Dizzy on it). Near the end had almost 100 games for the thing, twas good times. Anyone else copy Basic out of magazines to play very simple games? Or remember the publisher Ocean?

Also a friend had a dual cassette player so would copy games on it, gave me a demo version of Laser Squad

irlrobins

I remember reading the reviews of the 464+ in Amstrad Action and the resident Amstrad fan boys getting all excited by it. Never really saw one in the flesh though.

Used to copy some of the game progs alright. I remember there was some program that you could run first and it would return a checksum for each line you entered. You could then check against the checksum in the mag to see if you had typed it correctly.

And yeah OCean was one of the biggest publishers of games back in the day. Batman, Operation Wolf, New Zealand Story, etc. They were all ocean games.