Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

CPC and PCW technology
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Zenobi
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Zenobi »

I would like to introduce a bit more serious brother of the CPC series here

Amstrad PCW (Personal Computer Wordprocessor) is a series of 8-bit office computers produced in 1985-98, 8 million of which were sold. So quite a lot because of the 8biters only the C64 and Nintendo consoles were sold, and including the clones, only Spectrums and MSXs were sold. And out of 16bit only PeCets more were produced. For 2 years, clones were produced in Germany under the name of Schneider PCW, commonly known as Joyce. As rumor has it, that was the name of Alan Sugar's secretary. ;) They were advertised as a cheap alternative to PeCets and in this role they were quite popular in Western Europe, where cheap PC clones from the Far East reached less often than us. They were sold with a monitor, a floppy disk drive, and a simple dot matrix printer, and cost little more than an electronic typewriter. They were also easy to use from the point of view of secretaries who know such machines and not computers anymore. There were 4 generations of this computer, and here are their technical specifications:

PCW 8256 - Z80 3.5MHz processor, ROM only a few bytes to load OS from floppy disk, RAM 256 KB. The only graphic mode is 720x256 in two colors (23KB), it displayed 90x32 characters on a green monochrome monitor, which houses the computer's motherboard, power supply and floppy disk drive. The sound is just a buzzer. The floppy drive is the same as the Amstrad CPC, 3 inch, 1 head, 40 tracks, 180KB on the floppy side. The slightly more expensive model PCW 8512 also had a second, this time a dense two-head 80 tracks station, 720KB, and twice as much RAM. It could print in the background.
The housing has room for a second drive, which in later years was used for a hard drive (20MB at the beginning cost twice as much as PVC) or a 3.5 inch 720KB station. And tuning freaks extended the memory up to 4MB and attached Covox so that it would not be so silent. ;) A LocoScript word processor (the most popular in the world at the time), CP / M +, Mallard Basic, Dr LOGO and GSX was added to the charts.
Initially, it cost PLN 400 and the cheapest PC in England at that time was as much as PLN 1000, thanks to which it won 60% of the office computer market in the UK, and 20% in Western Europe is second only to PC 33%. Anyway, soon more and more of these PeCets were Amstrad PCs. ;)

PCW 9512 - (1987) A bit faster 4MHz. The change in appearance, to a more angular one, is now narrower and taller, because the motherboard and the space for stations have been moved from the right side of the screen to its bottom. Not immediately, but the green picture tube was replaced with black and white. Also the keyboard is now wider and resembles that of the Amstrad PC1512. And the printer can now be clipped above the monitor. It also has a newer version of the LocoScript 2 editor with spell checker.
In 1991 it was replaced by a cheaper PcW 9256 with an older version of the printer and editor, and a PcW 9512+ with a rosette or inkjet printer. However, the more visible change in both was that the basic floppy disk drive was changed to 3.5 inch 720KB, which made the case slightly lower. A standard Centronics port has also been added to easily connect other printers.

PcW 10 - (1993) This is the third generation of this computer, the screen has been reduced by an inch, moreover, the entire computer has shrunk, the station has been moved to the right, optional tough guy, easier to overclock processor and the ability to purchase without a printer. And a return to a smaller compact keyboard as in the first PCW, this time styled similar to CPC +. These ideas were not enough to keep sales high in the face of cheaper and better PCs.

PcW 16 - (1996) Apart from the name, everything was new, only the Z80 was now clocked at 16MHz. It was concluded that since the changes made to the previous model were not appreciated, it was time for a completely new product, slightly closer to the PeCet and incompatible with earlier models. New look, mouse and keyboard like in PC, in ROM aesthetic GUI "Roseanne" (640x480), without multitasking, plus new editor, spreadsheet, address database, schedule, calculator and file manager, all in ROM. 1MB Flash RAM with option for 1 more. 1.44MB drive, read files from old PVC, but saved only in MicroSoft formats. LocoScript never appeared on it, and the ability to run CP / M appeared over time thanks to smarts. However, old Joyce fans did not like him and there were no new ones. Everyone preferred a PC.

PS .: The PCW prototype had a vertically oriented screen, a 16bit processor and a printer built into the monitor. The Isennstein company produced PCW clones with a hard 30MB, 24-pin printer and in black housings. And also a portable model with a 4 inch monitor. For years, Joyce was also planned with a color monitor, but never went into production. And the list of games (yes, yes, games) for PVC includes over 150 titles.
http://www.fvempel.nl/family.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amstrad_PCW_games

In 2007, for these earlier PVC (8,9 and 10), SymbOS, already known from CPC and MSX, was created
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Valdor
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Valdor »

50 PCW games in 30 minutes. :)
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Computeoguy
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Computeoguy »


Pretty nice, reminiscent of the Macintosh games of the era when he didn't have a color yet.
I't does not compute....
alvin
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by alvin »

Mac is rather a different price range, but in fact I do not remember any other equally colorless and office machine. Well, maybe TRS, but it's a decade earlier, and the ZX81 are completely different chapters.
I wonder how long the list of games that were released on both would be.
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PanzerGeneral
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by PanzerGeneral »

I did not know that they did, among others Fairlight and Last Ninja for PCW.
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Wariorr
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Wariorr »


I am looking for Amstrad / Schneider PCW 8256 and 8512 owners to exchange information about this computer. I mean especially the problem of expansion and cooperation with Gotek HXC already built 3 stations ". I have many questions, I will gladly exchange my observations
I'm a great warrior of old lore.
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Oldgirls
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Oldgirls »


I have one Joyce 256KB but expanded to 512KB RAM with an additional IF RS232 + Centronics, with Gotek I have no experience in this equipment but for some time I have been thinking of connecting a hard disk or a CF card.
However, for now there was no time because I have many other interesting equipment;) ... but maybe soon I will also start doing it.
I saw that someone had already made an Interface and wrote an appropriate driver, but I was not able to get tiles for this.

Maybe someone knows where there is a diagram / project or where you can order tiles?
A link to the driver would also be useful.
WE all are OLD.
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Oldlegends
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Oldlegends »


The frame seems to be printed on a 3D printer.
I guess it's not complicated.
Legend of old are still alive.
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Laudguy
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by Laudguy »


And anyone has heard about IF HDD / CF cards for this equipment, is there any description of this project somewhere?
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ThatGuy02
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Amstrad PCW (Joyce)

Post by ThatGuy02 »


I don't see any schematic or tile design there though, unless I'm blind ... ???
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