#amstrad

[yodaprod]

Christian Bale (1987) and Joaquin Phoenix (1985) bedrooms

[beigebox]

One of my favourite things I've never got working, a gift from a coworker that his mother used in the '80s. Amstrad PPC 512 luggable computer that, like any good '80s portable, runs off batteries you can buy at the supermarket. This one takes C cells though, and 8 of them, so it gets heavy quick. AA cells for scale.

This one powers on fine but I struggled to get floppies working in the weird 720kb format it uses, so it's been in the "too hard" pile for a few years.

Part of me wants to gut it and build a Raspberry Pi cyberdeck into the shell but there's no way I can justify that while it still works.

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[centralbunnyunit]

[80sheaven]

Amstrad portable music centre with turntable

[contac]

[digitalfossils]

[pixelfireplace]

Amstrad 6128 plus - 1990

source: PixelatedArcade

[basic-retro-programming]

Above you can see all computer models.

Post #266: Opinion Poll by "Basic Retro Programming", Question: Which home computer was or would have been your favourite between the 1970s and 1980s, 2023.

[technoplanet]

amstrad cpc (colour personal computer)

[pluralzalpha]

One last little run of classic games consoles? These are all 80s and early 90s machines, so we're coming into the era of things I was actually playing with first time round.

The Sega Master System of 1986, the western version of the Sega Mark III, and below, the somewhat cheaper 1990 Master System II. In my day, you were either a Sega or Nintendo household. We were resolutely Nintendo, but we played the Master System II at our neighbour's (that was permitted by the terms of rivalry).

The 1987 European model Atari 7800. Never used the Atari, they were waning by the time I was playing, but I love the design. They had backwards compatibility, which it took forever for the others to catch onto.

The Casio P1000. Short-lived, Japan only, but God, isn't it gorgeous? From 1983. I feel like you could climb inside and live TRON.

The Action Max by WoW from 1987. Beautiful looking bit of kit, but it played games on VHS tapes! You had to plug the Action Max into a VCR and the VCR into the TV. Some games were based on movies which must have led to some error purchases.

The Amstrad GX-4000, a British console released in 1990. Cheap but with great graphics, but the games were crap so it flopped.

VTech Socrates from 1988. Known in European markets as translations of Professor Know-It-All. This was an educational system with limited games but it's a lovely design.

The Systema TV Boy Mk. II (1992 I think). I had one of these, it was terrible. It had over 100 games programmed in, but they were shoddily ported knock-offs of Atari games.

The Sega Mega Drive, or the Genesis if you're American. The original version came out in Japan in 1988, we got it in 1990. I played a lot on these at friends' places after they upgraded from the Master System, until we got:

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1992 UK edition. Abbreviated lots of ways, we always called it the SNES. In Japan it was the Super Famicom, released 1990. The Mega Drive might have looked cooler, but the SNES had the very best games - OK, half of them were the same, but Sega didn't have Mario or Donkey Kong.

[yodaprod]

[kilianromero]

Amstrad Pinball Wizatrd (1986)

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[arconinternet]

The Trap Door & Through the Trap Door (C64/Amstrad CPC/ZX Spectrum, 1986/1987)

You can play them in your browser here. (C64 controls include numpad 84620.)

Oo-arr, the original cartoon's finally on streaming!

[80sheaven]

Gaming on an Amstrad CPC 464. Back To The Future, Oh Mummy, Roland On The Ropes, Sultan's Maze and The Galactic People.