Posts tagged vintage computers

Another machine for the collection – a Amstrad PC1512 DD. It has a 8Mhz Intel 8086 CPU, 512k RAM and 2 360k 5 1/4 disk drives. It did come with a collection of floppy disks, including the Red, Yellow, Green and blue Amstrad disks. If these disks we missing, you download disk images from the Retro Computing Archive Site here. Here is some information taken from Wikipedia

The Amstrad PC1512 was Amstrad’s mostly IBM PC-compatible home computer system, first manufactured in 1986. It was later succeeded by the PC1640.

It launched for £499 and sold very well, as it was one of the first cheap PCs in Europe. It significantly helped open up the European PC market to consumers as well as businesses, and Amstrad’s advertising of the PC1512 was aimed at homes rather than offices. The 1512′s influence was such that the UK PC magazine PC Plus originally targeted itself at the “Amstrad PC 1512 and compatibles”, since home ownership of other PCs at the time was rare.

The PC1512 shipped with 512K of RAM; it could be upgraded to 640K of RAM with an expansion pack. Video output was compatible with the CGA standard, with an extension allowing all 16 colours to be used in the 640×200 graphics mode. The CPU of both the PC1512 and the later PC1640 was an 8 MHz Intel 8086, which was sufficient for playing The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion and Prince of Persia. The power supply was located in the monitor, which made upgrading difficult.