Amstrad PCW 8256 Computer, Games & Batman Footage

A look at the Amstrad PCW 8256 Personal Computer Wordprocessor. A 256k RAM memory computer that was launched in 1985. This was my first games system when I got it back in 1988. The video also features a look at the game 'Batman'. This computer system is very poorly represented on YouTube so I'll be doing more game reviews soon. Please get in touch if you have any PCW 8256 games you no longer need or want :)

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Amstrad
• PCW
• 8256
• Computer
• Retro
• Game
• Batman
• CPC
• CP/M
• Word
• Processor
• Joyce
• Schneider

[cebudave]

This was my first computer back in 1987, also had this game and was able to complete it.

[P5ychoFox]

@cebudave Same here mate. I ordered Batman by mail order in 1988 but they were out of stock and they sent me the text adventure game Time & Magik instead. Glad to finally own Batman now :)

[Lachlant1984]

Did you say this uses 3 inch diskettes? They look more to me like 5.25 inch diskettes in that they don't look like they have a shutter on them, are the disk jackets/cartridges flexible as they were on 5.25 inch disks? Have you ever owned or used an Amstrad CPC?

[P5ychoFox]

@Lachlant1984 Yeah they're 3 inch discs with shutters. I have a CPC 464 and a 464 Plus :)

[LarryBundyJr]

How close is this to the Amstrad CPC version?

[P5ychoFox]

@LarryBundyJr It looks identical to me - just in green :)

[kmment]

i enjoyed this review, i used to see these are 'proper' computers back then and it does look pretty good, like you could do all sorts of things on it not just games

[marcel911]

I remember having to use one of these in 1988/89 at work. As a WP it worked very well I thought.

[wubble78]

@mab06 The game you're thinking of is called Knight Lore.

[wubble78]

My mum did her PhD on this, the dot matrix printer was constantly screeching. And we only had Dr Logo and Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. Otherwise it was pretty cool to have a serious looking computer in the house.

[mab06]

I had this too. I recall another similar isometric game that I can't find any mention of and I wonder if anyone else remembers it. The main thing I remember is that it indicated day and night in game time by showing a sun or moon sumbol, and the main character for some reason turned into a werewolfe each night. Didn't seem to make him more aggressive.. just looked hairy with pointy ears. Any ideas? Very similar in appearance to Batman. Fairlight looks similar too.

[dogmansun]

when I was at secondary school, we had a room full of these in our IT classes Archimedes for proper IT learning, these were for typing practise. Funny thing is, the only useful thing I learned at school was to touch type (as I am doing right now).

Good to see Batman again. I had that on the spectrum and loved it (its in the same line as knightlore as I recall). loved it, but was totally rubbish at it.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Before my time but looks kinda retro-cool and fun.

[s2pideleprank]

your monitor look like a microwave