8 Bit Wars - Spectrum vs Amstrad vs Commodore.

The 8 Bit-era was just simply the best time for home computing. No virus, no booting and no online updates. It was also the era where you knew that if you have the skills you could program a game in the comfort of your bedroom. Nowadays, you have to spend so much money on a computer and the cost of development is absolutely astronomical!

The computers back then were the Spectrum, Amstrad and the Commodore 64. The Spectrum had the cheapest games and were the most playable since the graphics couldn't compete with the other two.

The Amstrad had better graphics than the Spectrum and the sound capabilities could not compete with the Commodore 64. However, when it came to the graphics it had a better palette than the Commodore and most of the software were available on a disk.

The Commodore 64 trounced the other two when it came to sound capabilities and the games had very smooth scrolling which both the Spectrum and the Amstrad seemed to struggle with.

What was interesting about the the three computers was the fact they each had very unique set of buyers. The Spectrum for the those on a budget, the Amstrad for those who needed business applications and the Commodore for those who could afford one.

Amstrad CPC 6128 - 16 Colors and a Built in Disk Drive? Get Out of Here!

I was first exposed to this awesome computer when my father bought it from a garage sale. It came with a few games and I remembered my father telling me how he used to own a previous version and actually rented games on tape through a mail order company.

I remember going through some games looking only for movie titles and game compilations, some only came in tape form which wasn't what I was looking for.

Anyway, this was a sleek machine with a cool built in 3" disk drive which you have to switch sides to use up the full capacity. The disk was awesome and solid, none of the flimsy 5.25 inches or 3.5 inch type. This was hardcore.

The graphics were great even though it had 16 colors. However, I must admit some games were just bad ports from other 8bit computers and so sometimes used only 4 colors. It was also one of the few computers that had 80 column character displays. That was impressive back then.

What sets this computer apart from the rest is the fact that it had a built in disk drive and a matching monitor that was sold as a bundle.