The original range
The philosophy behind the CPC series was twofold, firstly the concept was of an "all-in-one", where the computer, keyboard and its data storage device were combined in a single unit and sold with

 ...

A BYTE columnist in January 1985 called the CPC 464 "the closest yet to filling" his criteria for a useful home computer, including good keyboard, 80-column text, inexpensive disk drive, and

 ...

Processor
The entire CPC series is based on the Zilog Z80A processor, clocked at 4 MHz.
In order to avoid the CPU and the video logic simultaneously accessing the shared main memory and causing video corruption ("snowing"),

 ...

RS232 serial adapters
Amstrad issued two RS-232-C D25 serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector on the rear of

 ...

In order to market its computers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland where Amstrad did not have any distribution structures, Amstrad entered a partnership with Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG, a German company that - very much like Amstrad itself - was

 ...

The Amstrad CPC enjoyed a strong and long lifetime, mainly due to the machines use for businesses as well as gaming. Dedicated programmers continued working on the CPC range,

 ...

BASIC and operating system
Like most home computers at the time, the CPC has its OS and a BASIC interpreter built in as ROM. It uses Locomotive BASIC - an improved version of Locomotive Software's Z80 BASIC for the BBC Microcomputer co

 ...