Back to my Schneider CPC days

[CPC_FREAK_BELGIUM]

A short introduction: when I was 17, I bought myself a Schneider CPC664 with a CTM644 monitor using my saved pocket money. At the time it cost 39,990 Belgian francs — a serious amount back then, but absolutely worth it.


That CPC was my first “real” computer and my introduction to programming. I spent countless hours writing BASIC programs, typing listings from magazines and experimenting until things finally worked.


I still own that very same CPC664 today, along with a few other Schneider machines, including the 6128 and the 464. They haven’t been powered on for many years due to lack of time, but getting rid of them was never an option.


The nostalgia is still very much there, and the plan is to dust them off, power them up again, and dive back into the Schneider CPC world in 2026.

 

[jokersad]

Welcome to Amibay!

I still have my CPC664 from my youth. I also treated myself to a CPC6128. Nowadays, there are lots of excellent expansion cards that offer many great new features, such as a mouse, mass storage, and LAN/WLAN. It's really fun.

Then install SymbOS or FutureOS on it. These open up completely new possibilities on the CPC.

I hope you enjoy it!

 

[CPC_FREAK_BELGIUM]

@ Jokersad

When you look on FutureOS, you will see that I've made the Dutch translation for it on their website.

 

[Imperator]

Hello and welcome on AmiBay !

 

[Watson]

Welcome to Amibay!

 

[Dedale]

I am may be a little bit fresh here to welcome you but welcome on Amibay anyway.

I am glad i found a Belgian who liked the CPC. When i was a kid, i had a C64, i saw adverts for the CPC in magazines and to be honest i was quite repelled by the colours on the adverts ! And i know of no one who had one. It seemed to be more popular in France. But here in Belgium i used to see C64 and later Amigas among the more fortunate ones. Much later in my life i learned about the CPC and its status as the most powerful of the 8 bit home computers. And how rare were the people who knew its hardware intimately.

I think i recall having heard of a certain "rhino" who would be very skilled but difficult to deal with.

Now that i am at it, the forum suggests me a thread with someone selling something CPC related with a "1MB card". Since you are all here, can you tell me how a Z80 powered machine would have a 1Mb RAM ? Segmented memory ? Coprocessor with a larger address bus ?

40K Belgian francs was indeed a steep sum. Especially in the eighties. I recall a friend of mine whose parents bought him an A500 plus for 25 000 Belgian francs in 1992. I should have done the same. Not gifting him a second A500 plus i mean, buying myself that machine.

25k Belgian Francs from 1992 makes roughly 1315 € now taking inflation into account. I don't know when you bought your CPC but that is quite a sum anyway.

 

[CPC_FREAK_BELGIUM]

I am may be a little bit fresh here to welcome you but welcome on Amibay anyway.

I am glad i found a Belgian who liked the CPC. When i was a kid, i had a C64, i saw adverts for the CPC in magazines and to be honest i was quite repelled by the colours on the adverts ! And i know of no one who had one. It seemed to be more popular in France. But here in Belgium i used to see C64 and later Amigas among the more fortunate ones. Much later in my life i learned about the CPC and its status as the most powerful of the 8 bit home computers. And how rare were the people who knew its hardware intimately.

I think i recall having heard of a certain "rhino" who would be very skilled but difficult to deal with.

Now that i am at it, the forum suggests me a thread with someone selling something CPC related with a "1MB card". Since you are all here, can you tell me how a Z80 powered machine would have a 1Mb RAM ? Segmented memory ? Coprocessor with a larger address bus ?

40K Belgian francs was indeed a steep sum. Especially in the eighties. I recall a friend of mine whose parents bought him an A500 plus for 25 000 Belgian francs in 1992. I should have done the same. Not gifting him a second A500 plus i mean, buying myself that machine.

25k Belgian Francs from 1992 makes roughly 1315 € now taking inflation into account. I don't know when you bought your CPC but that is quite a sum anyway.

I live in Limburg, close to the German border, and we often went shopping in Germany, where the Schneider CPC was very well known. One of its strengths was its excellent BASIC version, which did not rely on the peeks and pokes used on the Commodore. A major advantage was the built-in disk drive. Although it used the rather uncommon 3-inch format, it still allowed faster loading and saving of files.


At the time, these machines were very expensive. I bought my CPC in 1985, and based on your inflation calculation, it would cost around €2,104 today.


As for your other questions, perhaps someone else here can answer them. I am personally looking into getting an M4 card.


Finally, I have one last question: is your native language Dutch or French?

 

[Dedale]

I recall the Amstrad PCW with the same 3" diskettes and the green screen.

The language i think in is French. Now i nitpick but the first language i probably used was Spanish. But i am very bad at it. My Dutch is also very limited by i am very open to use it or else i will never learn. I learnt the basics at school and what i need is praktijk. And expanding my woorsdenschat.

But i need people to exercise with and with whom i have some modicum of common interest.

My inflation calculator says 2500 € since it comes from 1985 !