Amstrad PPC640

From: Phil Clayton <musicman38_at_mindspring.com>
Date: Wed Oct 13 19:12:52 1999

I have not found it on any of the internet museums. I wonder how common
this machine was, and if it was marketed in the United States..

>A PPC640 ? At least that's what it was called in the UK.


Yes this was a typo on my part, it is a PPC640..

>> I just purchased one at the local Thrift store yesterday for $4.04
>> and when I got to the checkout line the lady told me it was half price
>> day so for only $2.02 I got this really cool Portable XT dual
>> 720KB floppies, and a nice LCD screen..
>
>It's a reasonable machine. I've been known to use mine as a terminal, or
>to run a drive exerciser program (with the parallel port connected to
>some signals of the drive-under-test), etc.

I am very impressed with its design, for a machine made in 1987..
The keyboard is very nice Full size with numeric keypad and also
12 function keys, not very common in an XT class machine..

Very unsual how the keyboard folds up on it..

>I have the manuals for it (somewhere), including the software tech manual
>and the service manual. It's pretty close to one of the Amstrad desktop
>XT clones -- it's even got the same ASICs in it IIRC.


I looked on the internet for some information on it, but there is nothing on
it, with the exception of the dip switch for the video..

>> Very impressive machine for 1987..
>> And it appears to run on standard D batteries for portable use..
>
>I thought it was C cells, but I might be wrong. Do you have the 2 plastic
>tubes that hold the cells together? I've never tried running it on
>batteries, since it takes 10 cells (!) and they don't last long.


Yes you are right it uses 10 C cells for portable power, doubt if I will
ever
use it in portable mode, the external power supply is just fine..

>On the back are 2 power input connectors. The coaxial one is for a
>12V-ish input, centre +ve, which is what I normally use (from my bench
PSU).
>The 14 pin DIN is a power input (all sorts of _regulated_ voltages) from
>an Amstrad PC monitor. It's probably best to ignore this.

>Oh yes, the power switch on the top is really a changeover from batteries
>to external PSU. It seems a little odd at first.


I believe this is why is was marked "AS-IS" and priced at $2.02 at the
thrift store.
They plugged it in and looked for a power switch and could not find one, and
decided it was bad as it did not power up..

Not usually interested in any machine that is DOS based, but this one has my
interest, atleast for the moment..

Amazing how much fun two bucks can bring...

Phil..
Received on Wed Oct 13 1999 - 19:12:52 BST