Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7671677.stm

5/10. Oops

What can Chinny get?

Hehehe! I posted this at exactly the same time as you!

I got 9/10, can a mod please lock my duplicate thread? Ta!

I only got 6.
I can't tell the difference between ancient things, and identical looking pc/macs.

7/10 for me.

I got 7.

Believe it or not, a garbled version of this history was one my first year degree exams.

The only one that threw me was the first one, which is slightly worrying. Especially as I've never used a lot of the systems in the quiz.

I got the CPC-464 (was it really that ugly?) and the Neo-Geo wrong. Shame is I!

I had a ZX80 though, no forgetting that one.

9/10 when I tried this earlier, the one I got wrong was the ZX-81, I selected ZX-80!

8

I don't know much about Macs. Or non British stuff come to that.

6/10, though a couple of those were guesses.

9/10 here. The one I missed was a really easy one too...

God, I'm such a geek!

Ummm... it WAS a ZX-80...

Wrong, it is a ZX-80.

Um, it was a ZX-80...

I got 9/10 too, but it was the Amstrad that threw me. Please forgive me, Chinny...

Hey Curiosity, snap!

Well, I selected ZX-81 then

The 464 had an iconic look and a good looking monitor, but the main unit was abit boxy:

(German model shown)

The 6128 was sleeker, slimmer, less boxy, had a nicer LED, better keyboard and better positioning of the ports.


But hey, the 464 was Amstrads first attempt at designing a computer and it was still better looking than the breadbins Commodore were knocking out despite their head start. The machines were well made, sturdy and reliable. The only thing they could be compared to was the BBC Micro which was far far larger and heavier despite it's comparative lack of power. Amstrad did well.

One of the biggest secrets of the day is around 1988 they redesigned the CPC's main board to take advantage of the latest technology. They reduced the component count by nearly a third and as a result the inside of the CPC had a huge amount of empty space!

Likewise the height of the original 464 was high compared to the 6128. This may be because when the CPC was in prototype Amstrad had to have 2 boards inside the box as their custom chips hadn't been produced yet. The prototype CPC in Retro Gamer a while back exhibited this second board despite the case being the same dimensions as a normal 464. The 6128 was much slimmed down.

chinny - would you explode with joy if someone created some sort of glasses which converted everything you looked at into its 80s counterpart?

It wasn't even a hard one. Although shit angle.

Here's a hard one:


How and why Amstrad fans? No cheating.

9/10, got the final Mac one wrong.

Wow, what the hell is that?

Hah, I had no idea so I googled it. That's a great bit of trivia, Chinny.

It's a early Spanish CPC.

When the CPC launched in Spain they taxed all computers that had 64k or less that didn't have proper Spanish keyboards. So Amstrad stuck an extra 8k chip on the board as it avoided the tax.

The machine still only had 64k of RAM though. The extra 8k wasn't wired in. It was just to avoid paying the extra tax.

When the tax was dropped Spain had normal 464's like everyone else.

That is somehow *so* like Amstrad. And Spain.

Wiki says the law was extended to cover >64k computers as well, so they had to make a localised version in the end anyway.. Not saying I trust that more than Chinny's account though

You can imagine Alan Sugar going off on a rant that he's not having special keys made for the Spanish.

France wasn't a problem. You just reordered the British keyboard around. But new key? Fuck 'em!

I like the idea Amstrad shipped computers all over the world with £ signs on them. Fuck the foreigners, if they don't like it they can bloody jump! That's the Amstrad way!

[edit] Actually I need to check that. I'm sure they could switch the keyboard layout on the mainboard so you didn't need to have a £ sign. The same switches also allow you to change the boot-up branding. The only alternative branding ever used was Schneider but the ROM had several company names in it including a Dixons brand name that I forget. At one stage, as Dixons were better known than Amstrad, it was conceived that the CPC might be sold under a Dixons name. I forget which though. Not Matsui though I think.

My memory was abit hazy. I do know the 472 was short lived. It's exceptionally rare in the wild (in this country at least). That said I've never even seen a 664 in the flesh.

5/10 the sega saturn question saved me

Completely shocked myself by getting 9/10. It was only that Mac question at the end that threw me, and it isn't even an old computer is it?

It is a very very heavy one, though. I was tempted to get one, but ended up getting one of the G4 Quicksilver tower things instead as it was far, far cheap to have shipped.

9/10 - I thought the IBM portable was a Compaq.

I was surprised there wasn't a third option for the portable C64, which also looked very similar to that.

It's not but it's a mean question given they're all but identical to the iMac G3s.

Apart from the solid white casing, which is what gives it away. I don't think I ever saw a 'snow' G3, but the eMac also has different stuff on the front (because it's bigger)

6/10. Went to pieces on the Neo Geo, Saturn and eMac.

9/10. I got the "eMac" question wrong. Our school had black Powermac things.

9/10 also. Still got it!

And weighs about ten times as much. I hated eMacs.

How can you not know what a Saturn looks like?!
Back of the class.

I got 8/10. How the hell are you supposed to tell all those bloody Macs apart anyway?

Oh and I felt it was the PET but went for something else instead, like a fool.

Exactly the same mistake I made.

I was doing great until they slipped a modern computer in.