 The man that started with a hundred pound and a van it's the ultimate rag to riches story the dream child of Margaret Thatcher and according to Lord Alan sugar the guy that brought computers to the masses So the Amstrad story a let me tell you it's a belter of a tale picture this It's the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's in power the world is buzzing with excitement about computers and Alan sugar is a young ambitious entrepreneur with a vision Now sugar is not your average businessman He's a no-nonsense east-end lad with a sharp wit and a knack for spotting a gap in the market And boy did he see a gap when it came to computers you see in those days Computers were expensive complicated beasts that only the super wealthy Tech savvy could afford but sugar had a hunch that there was a market for a simpler more affordable machine The ordinary people could use so he set to work assembling a team of engineers designers who shared his vision and after months of blood sweat and tears they came up with the Amstrad CPC a Sleek and user-friendly computer that was a game changer for Amstrad But here's the thing sugar didn't just want to sell computers. He wanted to revolutionize the way people thought about technology He wanted to make it accessible fun and above all practical and So he created a range of innovative peripherals to go with the Amstrad CPC Including a printer that could print on both sides of the page Remember this was the 80s people and a word processing software that was so intuitive Even a lorry driver and his family could use it and you know what it worked The Amstrad CPC became a huge success with thousands of people buying it for their homes and offices Sugar hit the jackpot, but he wasn't done yet over the years He continued to innovate and adapt to changing technology Launching a range of products that included everything from satellite dishes to mobile phones and then there's the apprentice All right, who's responsible for the creation of the Amstrad CPC? Well, let me tell you it wasn't just one person. It was a team effort led by One and only Alan sugar the man behind Amstrad himself. Yep That's right. The man who loves to say you're fired He assembled a group of talented engineers to design and develop the CPC And they all put their blood sweat and tears into making it a success The Amstrad CPC was built by a team of brilliant minds. I'll tell you what the Amstrad Computer was a bit like a polar bear wearing roller skates. It looked good on the surface But you weren't quite sure if it could actually perform Don't get me wrong It had its strengths like its sleek design and easy to use interface But it also had its fair share of weaknesses The graphics were a bit dodgy and the sound quality was a bit like a cap scratching at a chalkboard But overall it was a decent computer for its time Some people might argue that the Amstrad CPC had some of the best games of its time with titles like Barbarian the ultimate warrior chase HQ and Roland on the ropes However, others might disagree and prefer the games available on other systems like the Commodore 64 or ZX spectrum But if you really want to know the best of the best I'd have to go with chase HQ as mentioned before Robocop and head over heels Those games were the bees knees the cats pajamas the absolute dogs bollocks of the Amstrad CPC gaming So if you were looking for some old-school fun, those are the games to play my friend picture the scene a Sweltering day in the muggy dog days of August 83 Step forward sir Roland Perry a hapless soul Toiling away at a small fry of a company called Ambit International He was bored out of his skull probably by the annual stocktake Ambit made a pretty penny running a mall order catalogue for electronic gizmos funding all sorts of geeky pursuits that got their pulses racing They doubled in publishing a magazine about electronics Designing nifty calculators and even giving Amstrad a hand with their CB radios Perry's job didn't exactly include counting transistors, which probably ranked somewhere between watching paint dry And cleaning out the office fridge on the excitement scale But then low and behold Instructs Bob Watkins the technical director over at Amstrad Perry's ears pricked up with interest This is more action than he's seen in months at Ambig's digs on Brentwood High Street a town Situated smack dab in the middle of London's dreary commuter belt It's a place where the suburban landscape gives way to rolling countryside But excitement is about as common as a politician telling the truth Watkins and Ambit go way back Thanks to some work the company did for Amstrad in the past You see Ambit's managing director William Pol and Stan Randall who was running Amstrad Hong Kong at the time Were boss and buddies and that's how the cookie crumbled The story continues Watkins was lugging around a cardboard box like it was the most precious thing In the universe and plonked it down on the desk right in front of Perry. I mean, it's just a box, right? But then he starts pulling out a stack of papers and the next thing you know He's unveiling a shiny new computer keyboard and get this it's got Amstrad stamped right there in the corner I don't know about you, but at the time that must have been some pretty mind-boggling stuff right there now according to a few articles that I've read along the way and From Alan sugar's autobiography Watkins turns to Perry and says you're one of those computer types, right? Well, we're working on this computer project and our designers have gone AWOL Do you reckon you might be able to help us finish it off? So Watkins goes on to explain why he's even there in Brentwood in the first place Apparently this chap Alan sugar had been keeping an eye on the whole home computer craze That was sweeping the nation Companies like Sinclair, Acorn, Commodore and Oric were raking in the dough Selling thousands upon thousands of these little machines for a couple of hundred quid each and Amstrad Well, they were still stuck in the audio business barely making a dent, but then sugar had an epiphany He realized that the home computer market was ripe for the Amstrad touch and that's where this project comes in Still probably like you. I can't help but feel like there's more to the story than meets the eye But sugar blesses heart didn't know a thing allegedly about computers So he did what any self-respecting entrepreneur would do he asked around and boy, did he get an earful Turns out this computer business was a whole different ballgame compared to the world of hi-fi and CB radio Right, so Amstrad was all set to handle the outside of their new computer You know the way it looks and all that jazz and Alan sugar blesses heart already had some bloody brilliant ideas in that department on what to do But here's the thing When it comes to the actual guts of the thing the electronic circuitry and the operating software Amstrad was a bit out of his depth So what does sugar do in his infinite wisdom? he turns to a couple of blokes who used to work for the company and Reckon they knew a thing or two about computers now I don't know about you, but that all sounds like a bit of a dodgy move to me I mean these two geezers just claim to understand computers That's like me claiming to understand quantum mechanics because I watched a couple of episodes of Doctor Who When you actually hear things like this, it's a wonder a surprise. They actually got this computer anywhere near up and running So according to what I've heard and read Watkins goes up to Perry and asks him if the company Ambit can finish off Amstrad's computer project But get this he's got two bloody conditions First they got to keep the whole thing hush hush like don't tell anyone Amstrad's involved So whenever they show the keyboard to outsiders, they've got to tape over the Amstrad's name Second they've got to finish the whole shebang like super fast before the end of January, which is only five months away Now Perry talks to his managing director William poll and they both agree to take on the project But get this their role is going to be more like project managers They'll find the best designers and oversee the whole operation at first They reckoned they'd only need to devote about half of their time to Amstrad But let me tell you that turned out to be a right load of old bollocks. They were in way over their heads So this Perry bloke the newly appointed project manager starts tapping into his network of contacts from his time as an engineering student at Cambridge University and let me tell you back then Cambridge was like Britain's version of Silicon Valley and as you know Silicon Valley is like a legendary strip of California That's given us these amazing breakthroughs in computing and electronics and so to sum up Cambridge is a bit like that for us Brits In fact back in the 80s the media dubbed the area around Cambridge as Silicon Fenn Essentially it was a hotbed of high-tech companies Sinclair Research and Acorn were the big stars of the show But there were loads of other companies that were killing it in the Cambridge scene It was like a whole new world of tech was opening up right before our very eyes And so as the story goes Perry didn't waste any time He hopped on a train and was in Cambridge within days of Watkins visit He talked to two sets of computer designers and got straight to the heart of the matter The biggest problem was finding some top-notch software designers for the Amstrad computer You see this thing needed an operating system That's like the big boss program that controls all the main activities of the computer And it also needed a basic which is the most widely used programming language in personal computers Without these things software houses wouldn't be able to write any games or any programs that could run on the Amstrad machine So Perry was really up against it He knew he had to get the best software designers on the case if they were going to make this thing work I mean this was a bit like Mission Impossible and as we all know Perry pulled it off Time was ticking which had Perry scurrying around Cambridge trying to find some software designers for Amstrad's new computer project And after a few full starts he finally landed on a gem of a contact in Howard Fisher Fisher had previously worked on a project for Acorn which involved developing a basic for the new Acorn small business package The work had been carried out by a couple of design geniuses Chris Hall and Richard Clayton They had gone on to form their own software partnership called locomotive software Fisher suggested that Perry should give Clayton a shout as he was part of the old Cambridge crowd And you know what they say it's all about who you know Now this is where things get really interesting So Clayton the software genius tells Perry that they need to find a hardware expert to get this project moving Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up. And wouldn't you know it? Mark Eric Jones is just a stone's throw away Clayton immediately suggests giving him a call and seeing if he can come over to help out And this is where things all start coming together quite nicely So this is all getting quite interesting now, but listen to this MEJ's old man was the big cheese over at a little outfit called data recall They were a bit of a who's who in the tech world back in the day We've plenty of former Cambridge folks on board including one Richard Clayton Now data recalls real claim to fame was their fancy word processor the diamond and let me tell you This bad boy was no joke These things used to go for around 10,000 a pop the diamond was top of the line And as it turns out this background would later prove to be a real asset for Amstrad Now, I hope you're finding this a really fascinating story You see it was the cozy confines of the King's Arms Pub in Dawking where the final design for Amstrad's Computer was trashed out and let me tell you they didn't mess around They scrapped the existing software and hardware design and completely transformed the computer into a Z80 base machine They also managed to churn out an operating system and a basic by the end of January Now in my job today, I'm all about productivity and that there is some serious productivity Now here's the real kicker Even the Dawking engineers themselves had no idea who the mysterious client was Perry had spent the whole day teasing them with the talk of a big high street name leaving Clayton to scratch his head and wonder When it came time to give their prototype computer a codename Perry decided to go with Arnold and get this He even went so far as to replace the Amstrad branding on the keyboards with the new moniker Now most people assumed that this was a nod to the general electric company Which was led by none other than Lord Arnold Weinstock Who coincidentally was the biggest manufacturer in all of Britain but get this folks It turns out that Perry had another motive behind the name choice You see Arnold is actually an anagram of his own first name Roland Pretty clever, eh? If you ask me of course the computer would later acquire the more formal name of CPC 464 Which stands for color personal computer coupled with 64 as a nod to its memory size But those early days of codenames and speculation must have been really exciting These new Amstrad computer models use some pretty fancy tech called gate arrays Now originally developed by Ferranti Gate arrays are a game changer in computers because they let you pack a whole bunch of individual components onto a single silicon chip You can custom design a chip to meet a manufacturer's precise specs for a particular piece of equipment It's like having a tailor-made suit for your computer Now back in the day in 1983 gate arrays also known as uncommitted logic arrays Were a pretty new technology for consumer items in the mass market Even the mighty IBM hadn't used them in its first personal computer So why was it such a big deal for Amstrad? Well MEJ had a chat with sugar and he told him that the gate array had three major advantages First off by packing so many components onto one chip They could cut down on the component count and cost of the machine Second they could fit more features into the computer for the same price and third They could reduce the chances of the Amstrad machine being copied because once you've got a customized gate array It's circuitry is effectively hidden closed off The Amstrad CPC 464 computer was a bit of a tricky customer when it came to gaming It wasn't quite like your regular gaming console or computer So it would take some serious effort from those software houses to write games that would work smoothly for it But here's the thing sir Alan sugar being the savvy businessman that he is Knew that he couldn't wait around for those software houses to catch up No, sir He had a plan and that plan was to ask not one not ten But 50 software companies to supply one game each now that might sound like a tall order But you know what they say go big or go home and Alan sugar wasn't going home anytime soon He was going to get those games even if it meant dispatching 50 prototypes by late November and let me tell you that's no mean feat Now if you've ever wondered why the Amstrad CPC when you boot it up has a blue screen background and yellow writing well listen up The Amstrad team had just returned from Japan where they had some rather interesting discussions with their counterparts from Orion Well, it turns out that the Japanese wanted Amstrad to change the screen coloring on their machine Now you might be wondering why the Japanese was so insistent on this point. It all comes down to contrast You see the previous color arrangement on the Amstrad machines was a bit indistinct And the Japanese wanted to make sure that the screen was as clear as possible And how did they plan to achieve this? Well by using yellow letters on a blue background The strongest possible contrast you can get Amstrad wasn't about to argue with the Japanese on this point They agreed to the request and locomotive blessed their souls set about adapting the color codes to make it happen The finishing touches to the design went smoothly thereafter And it just goes to show that sometimes a little tweak here and there can make all the difference You see Alan sugar Had a rather unique vision for his first computer He saw it as a games playing machine for the home for sure But he also wanted it to have one foot in the business market I think even back then sugar was thinking big even back in those early days And part of his plan to make the CPC 464 stand out was to make it big enough to look like an office computer He wanted users to realize its potential for business functions And let me tell you he succeeded the CPC screen was wide enough to take 80 characters Just like most computers found in the office. That's twice the amount normally available for a home computer So Amstrad CPC's first computer the 464 was unveiled a mere eight months after Bob Watkins had walked into Ambit's offices Can you believe it? Talk about a speedy turnaround and by then Amstrad had already hired public relations advisors Michael Joyce consultants to mastermind its increasingly slick product launches. These guys were top-notch They even went as far as hiring the Great Hall of Westminster School A stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament for the CPC 464's launch So the Amstrad CPC was available in three different configurations You had your basic green on black screen model which was going for 229 Then you had a color version for 329 And finally there was a model with an add-on disk drive for 429 When it hit the market the CPC 464 was greeted with pretty positive reviews from the press Some journals even went as far as to call it the people's computer Jack Schofield computer editor for the Guardian had this to say about it This little beauty outperforms the Commodore 64 the machine's main rival in practically every way Plus it's a heck of a bargain costing a cool 80 less than an equivalent Commodore or Atari machine Well, I hope you've enjoyed this video Please like, comment, subscribe or better still leave me a thanks Plus I'd love to get a decent microphone and a decent camera setup and go out and about You know revisit all the old software companies go back and capture most of our misspent youth So until next time Bye