back to article 'A word processor so simple my PA could use it': Joyce turns 30

The Amstrad PCW8256 turns 30 this month. In eighteen months it did for the typewriter what the car took thirty years to do for the pony and trap. Alan Sugar’s specification was simple – “A word processor so simple Joyce could use it”. Joyce Caley was his formidable PA and "Joyce" became the codename for the project – and the …

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  1. Alan Bourke

    I remember them well ...

    they were still floating around in the early 1990s PC boom, and always got on my tits for not being a PC. I bet Victor Meldrew had one for pounding out complaint letters to the local paper.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: I remember them well ...

      Ah bless those 3" disks. I remember my girlfriend of the time having typed her dissertation out on her Dad's aging PCW, fetched the disk to me for printing and being surprised that it wouldn't load on my 386.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Amstrad Treatment !

    How about turning diamonds into dog shit, the author has obviously never seen an Amtrash Tower Hifi.

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      @AC

      But Amstrad did produce some moderately acceptable low end HiFi. As an impecunious student, I had an IC2000 amplifier and an IC3000 tuner, which although were not sophisticated, and showed wear poorly, had reasonable electronics, especially if you tweaked them a bit with larger capacitors in the power supply of the amp.

      I looked at the strange, three armed TP12D turntable (it looked a bit like a Rega), but ended up with a Strathearn, because of the Ortofon cartridge that came with it.

      1. Whistlerspa

        Re: @AC

        I had an Amstrad amp as the center of my hifi system. Really grunty and a good sound quality for half the price of the competition. Sadly got stolen in a burglary.

    2. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Butt

      He gave the world TV engineers that could work on satellite dishes once he got the contact for providing rubbish Sky connections that needed constant replacements. I wonder how many on here got their start professionally from that cowboy.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had the 8512 version with twin floppies - one low density single sided, the other high density double sided, and I also added a 5.25" drive.

    I wrote lots of software for it in both Mallard Basic and z80 Assembler - I even had a version of a graphics programme I ported publicised in the Guardian's technology column - I was sending out copies on floppy disks for moths - the joy of stamped addressed envelopes!

  4. Andy 73 Silver badge

    The story goes..

    ..that the reason for the layout of the drives next to the screen was that Amstrad found a large batch of cases manufactured for normal televisions being sold off cheaply when another manufacturer cancelled their order. So Alan Sugar bought them up for pennies and then had the machine designed to fit.

    As with any of the many Alan Sugar legends, I've no idea quite how true it is though.

    1. Oh Matron!

      Re: The story goes..

      The legend of Clive Sinclair punching him in a pub in Camberley is one I hope is true

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The story goes..

        Think that's Chris Curry - but would be nice to imagine it true.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Re: The story goes..

        Umm. What?

        The press reported on Clive Sinclair beating Chris Curry about the head with a rolled-up newspaper in The Baron of Beef in Cambridge during the run-up to Christmas 1984, after seeing an ad in it for Acorn that compared their warranty returns with Sinclair's. Curry was a former employee who'd quit in 1978 after a dispute about new computer models and founded Acorn instead.

        Sugar and Sinclair didn't meet much and were only seen in public together for press coverage of the sell-off of Sinclair Research's computer business to Amstrad.

      3. Jim 59

        Re: The story goes..

        The legend of Clive Sinclair punching him in a pub in Camberley is one I hope is true

        Sinclair is a big man but he's out of shape. Sugarman cycles everywhere...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The story goes..

          >>>>The legend of Clive Sinclair punching him in a pub in Camberley is one I hope is true

          >>>>Sinclair is a big man but he's out of shape. Sugarman cycles everywhere...

          Very true, there is absolutely no way Clive Sinclair could beat Alan Sugar in a fight. Sugar's a street fighter, he'd beat all of us, probably at once :)

      4. GeezaGaz

        Re: The story goes..

        It was Chris Currie, and it was in Cambridge, not Camberley.

        Search for 'Micro Men' a BBC4 Drama about the whole Sinclair vs Acorn battle.

    2. The man from Arnold

      Re: The story goes..

      Never heard that story before but completely untrue. All the computer cabinets were designed from scratch. And like the untrue rumours about using up 'bankrupt stock' three inch drives, it's difficult to imagine a warehouse that would have had hundreds of thousands in, let alone millions.

  5. 45RPM Silver badge

    I’ve given Amstrad stick in the past for making shit computers (PC1512, take a bow), but the PCW8xxx and 9xxx were the finest CP/M computers ever made, and a fitting epitaph for a great operating system. The problem with them was the crappy printer mechanisms and dreadful keyboard. The printer situation could be fixed with an RS232 connected* printer (and third party driver) - but I’m not aware if anyone ever made a better keyboard. I didn’t have one myself, but everyone else seemed to.

    *The number of peripherals made for Joyce was astonishing, especially given its ‘closed’ nature. There were sound cards, interfaces of all flavours, memory upgrades, hard disks - and even an adaptor to turn it into a 286 PC (charitibly - IIRC it was more a case that it turned the PCW into a keyboard and monitor for a 286 PC).

    As for the Amstrad Treatment, you’d get (in order):

    Low quality, low resolution parts that crumbled at first use. Like the Disney printers in Cory Doctorows ‘Makers’

    A splitting headache.

    A massive explosion.

    Another headache, possibly fatal depending on the size of the drone.

    1. The man from Arnold

      The crumbling printer parts must be why so many were still in use ten, even twenty, years later! Abd what people forget is that a 24-pin printer with the same resolution as the PCW's was a luxury item and would have cost more than the whole Joyce just by itself. The standard then was 8-pin.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        Good points. I was thinking more of the thunderous racket that they made, far louder than their contemporaries, because of all the soundproofing that was omitted to save on cost. That and the speed of the mechanisms, or lack thereof.

        In fairness, in terms of quality, the daisy wheel units where as good as any other you might care to mention - and preferable, in my view, to the dot matrix units that were also on offer.

    2. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      There was a third party keyboard, but it was quite late on in the PCW's life. Also, it was probably a hard sell because the PCWs post 8512 had a much better keyboard.

    3. Amorous Cowherder
      Thumb Down

      Don't knock Sugar's cheap and cheerful kit

      We used to have Amstrad 464 and 664 in our house. My first PC was when I was 15, my Dad bought a 1640 ECD ( EGA ) back in '87. It had GEM Desktop ( the first WYSIWYG desktop GUI ) and introduced me to PCs, learning DTP, C language, PASCAL and made me realise that I really wanted to work in IT as a career.

      It was close on 3 years before any of my college mates got PCs of their own, so I had a huge head start on learning about "real" software I'd need to know when I got out into the real world.

      That 1640 got butchered, upgraded with new drives, plugins and it lasted for close on 8 years before it finally breathed it's last breath. Not bad for a cheap'n'cheerful PC clone that sold for £650 when something like an AST with Hercules card green monitor would cost about £1800.

      I'm grateful to Sugar for giving us the opportunity to get a head start on other people when I came to learning about computer tech.

    4. fixit_f

      Here, you leave my PC1512 alone, that was a great piece of kit :-) not really but still, happy memories

  6. Ol'Peculier
    Pint

    Thanks for making me feel old...

    "so had no networking or internet access" Well, net access wasn't that great 30 years ago...

    I know somebody that still uses one of these, although as he's retired not as much now.

    I remember developing a system for an insurance broker (really, 30 uears ago - jeeze) using dBase II and I'm sure we attached an external hard drive attached to the thing. Strangely happy memories...

    Beer, because I wasn't legally allowed to drink back then!

    1. GlenP Silver badge

      Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

      I also know someone who still uses one and has no interest in learning anything more sophisticated or being "connected".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

      Plenty of 'internet', just no 'world wide web'.

      1. The man from Arnold

        Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

        There were so few Internet users ten years later in 1995 that it was still possible to publish a world-wide 'telephone directory' in one volume, with all their email addresses in it!

        1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

          Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

          > in 1995 that it was still possible to publish a world-wide 'telephone directory' in one volume, with all their email addresses in it!

          Wasn't that illegal in Britain in those days?

    3. keithpeter Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

      Those printers used a fair amount of force, so you could use them with stencil based copiers, then a lot cheaper than Xerography (as it was still known).

      I used the PCW in late 1980s to make multicoloured handouts for students when I was on teacher training placement by careful use of different coloured spirit copier ink sheets and repeatedly feeding the paper stack through the printer printing the bits I wanted in blue, then the bits in red then finally drawing on the diagrams.

      Madness.

    4. Maldax
      Thumb Up

      Re: Thanks for making me feel old...

      I can remember installing a third party network on them. I want to call it Amsnet but that could just be my old man memory playing crazy tricks on me

  7. Robigus
    Pint

    Amstrad Syndrome

    At home we use the expression "Amstrad Syndrome" to refer to an item that ticks all of the spec boxes, but fails to live up to expectations.

    From the old Amstrad tower HiFi days when the devices themselves were loaded with features, but sounded like beans being rattled in a can.

    Even so, Amstrad outdid themselves with the CPC and PCW range in terms of usable value.

    Have a pint. No reason, just enjoy.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The games were very good conversions, given the monochrome status of the machine. (Although for Spectrum 3d conversions, that wasn't such an issue). And some pretty good titles such as The Pawn adventure made it across. Not to mention Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and a few other Infocom titles.

    I used one for quite some time with DBASE II, Supercalc, Wordstar and Locoscript. CP/M was certainly preferable to MessyDos machines at the time.

    Nice machine overall. One of Amstrads underrated gems.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Not to mention Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and a few other Infocom titles."

      A lot of the text based adventure games were ported to CP/M from TRS-80 versions. It was relatively simple to load and block move (different RAM start addresses due to ROM locations) having first changed the ROM calls for keyboard i/p and display.o/p

    2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      I seem to recall there was a particularly good helicopter flight-sim for the Joyce. People bought the Joyce thinking it was just a word-processor and were blown away to see it plays games too.

  9. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    Even now, I still get..

    ..."Why can't you find me a word processor that works like my old Amstrad" from my Wife.

    I tried her with Protext in a console session, but had to give up on that when the last simple printer gave up, and it was unable to drive any of the newer printers we had.

    She really moaned when I first showed her Open Office Writer, and it was no better (in fact it was much worse because nothing stayed in the same place) when I put one of the Office 2008 home and education licenses we have on her PC (mainly because she read that self published books for the Amazon Kindle had to be written in MS Word).

    She deliberately appears to adopt the memory of a goldfish whenever I try to get her to learn something on the PC. She wants everything to be presented to her on the screen, so drop-down, unchanging menus is about the only thing she can apparently cope with.

    BTW. I'm not being nasty here. She agrees with my description of her.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Even now, I still get..

      >so drop-down, unchanging menus is about the only thing she can apparently cope with

      Good.

      Imagine a car where an accidental swipe of the sat-nav could hide the steering wheel or brake pedal and take 10mins of rooting around menus to re-enable them.

      There have been plane crashes where the same knob was used to set decent rate and heading, with the difference being a selection on a menu on another screen.

      1. FatGerman

        Re: Even now, I still get..

        > There have been plane crashes where the same knob was used to set decent rate and heading, with the difference being a selection on a menu on another screen.

        Abso-f***ing-lutely. One knob, one function. No, I'm not an old git, I'm a human being with hands and tactile responses in my brain.

        If only I could fully remember the hilarious made-up anecdote I was once told about the drummer using a virtual drumkit with only one thing to hit, but a host of drop down menus.....

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Even now, I still get..

          "One knob, one function."

          So, you're single? Or do you sweat a lot?

      2. P. Lee

        Re: Even now, I still get..

        My current favorite is my iPhone where the answer button once pressed is replaced by the end call button. A little lag, a retry and you have to start again. I'm sure it used to not have lag, but it's all part of the upgrade program! Pressing answer for a call I'm sure is one of the more advanced phone features which requires an awful lot more code complexity than in the past.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Even now, I still get..

      @Peter Gathercole

      Your description matches my sister who is a retired Teacher !!!

      Could teach 35 kids in a class and get 1st class results (Pun intended)

      Yet, cannot be taught anything, particularly if it involves any technology newer than steam.

      It must be something common as I have met many 'cannot be taught' people who as soon as you try they lose 99% of their IQ.

      Total intimidation by anything vaguely technical, maybe.???

      Also total impatience and wanting to know everything now, without going through the initial learning steps first.

      All the attitudes that she would not accept as reasonable from a pupil !!!

      AC of course, there is no army who could save me if she read this :)

      1. jake Silver badge

        @AC "8 hours" (what ever that means, ElReg) Re: Even now, I still get..

        "It must be something common as I have met many 'cannot be taught' people who as soon as you try they lose 99% of their IQ."

        Indeed. Over the last 30+ years, I've noticed that people with a degree or three refuse to look outside their own specialty.

      2. AJ MacLeod

        Re: Even now, I still get..

        "Yet, cannot be taught anything, particularly if it involves any technology newer than steam... Also total impatience and wanting to know everything now, without going through the initial learning steps first.

        All the attitudes that she would not accept as reasonable from a pupil !!!"

        You have just described the typical teacher - in my experience most of them are like that, especially when it comes to technology!

    3. Maldax

      Re: Even now, I still get..

      There you go...

      http://www.seasip.info/Unix/Joyce/index.html

    4. Liam Proven Silver badge

      Re: Even now, I still get..

      You know there _was_ a version of LocoScript for the PC.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LocoScript

      You could run that on 32-bit Windows, or under XP Mode on Windows 7. No idea where you'd legally get a copy now, though. The company hung on for a long time, but I think it's dead now. There's a mirror of the homepage here:

      http://www.locomotive.com/locopcw.htm

      Another company, SD Microsystems, serviced the aftermarket for decades, but I think they've gone too.

    5. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Re: Even now, I still get..

      Let me know if you ever want to sell her.

  10. Jim 59

    Great system

    I remember the PCW8256 as a great business machine that achieved tremendous success by running CP/M and Sage accounts software. It did just this for a decade or more at my family's engineering business located in NE England, where Sage also originates. Many other small companies trod the same path and now Sage is a multi-national.

    Staff would sometimes volunteer how nice the PCW was to use, how fast to boot up and how reliable. They said this without being asked. It proved to be a more than successful replacement for a £10,000 Olivetti minicomputer.

    However I never realised the other side of the PCW until reading a good article in last Saturday's Guardian. It's other role was to be the first word processor owned and used by many famous authors. Seemingly it revolutionised their working lives by freeing them from typewriters. Typing words directly into a screen was new for them, as was the ability to go back and correct. these people used it to write whole books. In that context, the advantages offered by a simple word processor are mind boggling.

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/28/how-amstrad-word-processor-encouraged-writers-use-computers

  11. Jim 59
    Joke

    Another gem

    Speaking of gems, Sugerman's comment on Rooney last night - along the lines of -

    Rooney has broken the record at last. He has had more hair transplants than Bobby Charlton.

  12. CAPS LOCK

    Yes, dBase II was the key ingrediant for me.

    When we ran out of disk space we upgraded to a clone PC and thence to a 386 PC with SCO Xenix and SCO Foxbase. Guess what, we still use some of the Foxbase programs today, although on FreeBSD and MS Foxpro Unix.

    1. Weeble

      Re: Yes, dBase II was the key ingrediant for me.

      Ditto. Still got the original dBII database running under DOSBOX on Windows.

      Had one of the very early PCW8256 machines, Did the 512K memory upgrade with a soldering iron!

    2. Jim 59

      Re: Yes, dBase II was the key ingrediant for me.

      Says CAPS LOCK When we ran out of disk space we upgraded to a clone PC and thence to a 386 PC with SCO Xenix and SCO Foxbase. Guess what, we still use some of the Foxbase programs today, although on FreeBSD and MS Foxpro Unix.

      Ditto. The PC1512 clone was nice too. Fast and neat, with a smaller foot print than some others. Sold in the zillions despite IBM spreading FUD stories about it, which Sugar countered strenuously. Served as a Pascal programming platform for my final year degree project.

      And we have all been on the Moore merry go round since.

      1. Ian 55

        Re: Yes, dBase II was the key ingrediant for me.

        A friend bought an IBM XT after the nice people at IBM told her that, yes, the PC1512 might be much faster and cheaper, but at about five times the cost the XT must be better.

  13. Elmer Phud

    Hmmm. . .

    I remember Framework on an XT

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