Proving that there is still life in the Z80 chip, Amstrad Plc is to launch three new Z80A-based computers aimed at the home computer market: the GX4000 games console, the 464 Plus and the 6128 Plus. Malcolm Miller, Amstrad group sales and marketing director, says that the home computer market has evolved into three different areas – the games console, the entry level computer and the higher-priced 16-bit machines. Amstrad intends to address each of these through its new machines. Targeted at the lowest end of the market, the GX4000 games console, costing UKP99, is looking to take a slice of the market from Sega and Nintendo. It comes with a mains adaptor, two paddle control units and free ROM cartridge with the Burnin’ Rubber game. The 464 Plus is both a computer with a built-in tape drive and a games console – it too comes bundled with a Burnin’ Rubber cartridge, but it also comes with Basic and either a 12 monochrome or a 14 colour monitor, priced respectively at UKP230 and UKP330. The top end model, the 6128 Plus, will home in on the Amiga 500 market. Amstrad says that the Commodore machine with monitor costs UKP800, while the 6128 costs UKP330 with mono monitor, UKP430 with a colour monitor. It has a built-in 3 disk drive and is designed to compete with 16-bit machines. The Plus models incorporate a an 18,000 gate custom chip with 2Kb of on-chip memory which enables them to offer some new features. These include: sound generator hardware that can play three channels of of sound from three programs in memory, without using the CPU – instead the sound generator is fed by a dedicated DMA controller and a command language implements note generation, timing and repeat loops. Meanwhile the graphics hardware offers 16 sprites each with 16 by 16 pixels and each sprite can be magnified by 2 or 4. This means that out of a total palette of 4,000 colours, up to 32 can be represented on screen at any time. All models have an analogue joystick port and two digital joystick or paddle controller ports. The Plus models also include Amstrad Basic, and the top end machine comes complete with Digital Research’s CP/M Plus.
