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These are questions and answers that were previously posted to the Q & A page but have been archived here to keep the latest Q & A shorter and more manageable for download.

General	The very first message!
PC1512	Using monitor on modern PC
Printer	Looking for Windows drivers
PcW16	Printing envelopes
PC2086	Looking for boot disc
PDA600	Problem using Windows software
PC9486	Looking for system discs
PC2386	Use monitor on new PC?
Printer	Need drivers for Win95
PDA600	Need Windows software + cable
PPC	Are serial ports non-standard?
Printer	Need drivers for Win95
PC2386	Upgraded memory doesn't work
PC1640	Using modern inkjet printers
ALT286	Using external monitor
CPC6128	Using monitor as TV
PC5286	Spec. info requested
ALT386	Upgradin hard drive
ANB386	trying to locate utilities
ALT386	Upgrading memory above 4MB
PCW	Converting Locofile database
ANB386	trying to locate utilities
ANB386	Locating disk, connect to Win95
General	Amstrad company info
PC5286	Memory problem
PPC	Startup problems
PC4386	Floppy drive problem
PC3386	Setting drive jumpers
ANB386	Upgrading memory
PC1640	Connecting to modern PC
PPC	Usage/Spec. questions
PDA600	Seeking accessories
PDA600	Seeking accessories
PC4386	Floppy drive problem
Modems	Recommendations?
PC9486	Upgrading CPU, RAM, drive
Year2000	Checking machines compliance
CPC	Locating software
Satellite	Looking for service manual
Monitor	Use with new VGA card
PC2286	Battery problems
General	Cliff's pages are broken
Internet	Launch of new box?
PC1512	Using hi-colour mode
Year2000	The oracle's younger brother speaks
Year2000	The oracle speaks
PCW	Converting discs
Integra	Grinding noise
General	Preparing documents
PC3286	Booting problems
PC2386	Installing cache
General	Locating BAS2000 program
Printer	Drivers needed

AHMED at 10:29:59 Friday May 2 97
required printer drivers for Amstrad, model DMP 3250di Please tell me where i can get this or if you have one,send me one - my address sshown above. Thanks.
Amstrad answers Ah, methinks that maybe you didn't read the other information on this web site. Could I refer you to this?

Lars Rothstein at 17:14:48 Monday April 28 97
Where can I get hold of a register program "Bas 2000" ver 1.92 to my Amstrad PCW 9512? Regards from Lars Rothstein Heijocksgatan 6A S-39247 Kalmar Sweden
Amstrad answers: I'm sorry but I've never heard of this program called Bas 2000 - you describe it as "a register program", I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what that means (though your English is a whole lot better than my Swedish!). If it is a BASIC interpreter that you are talking about then you should find a copy of Mallard Basic on the CP/M disk that comes with a PCW9512 - it's called basic.com.

James Brown in Melboune, Australia at 9:1:52 Monday April 28 97
I've enjoyed reading the questions and answers. I have a 2386 and want to install some hardware cache. Can you tell me what type of cache chips are suitable? Iwould appreciate a general description of a chip in addition to the model of chip. Do I need tag ram? What speed of in nanoseconds is suitable for both the regular and tag SRAM? I appreciate that the chips may be obsolete but let us presume that I can get them. Thank you :- James.
Amstrad answers: Thanks for the compliment. However, all 2386's we ever made were already fitted with the cache chips. When you switch it on you'll see "Please wait...." then "Amstrad PC (vn.nn)" followed by "640K BASE", "3456K EXTENDED" and finally "64K CACHE". If you see that last line then you already have the cache fitted. With the 2386 design there were no options like how much cache was fitted etc. You've either got the 64K, or you haven't - and I strongly predict that you have.

stuart scrivener in heybridge at 18:28:9 Thursday April 24 97
I have a pc3286 and i am unable to boot from the hard drive any more ? I thought it might have been the cmos ? please help!! thanks
Amstrad answers: There's about a 99% chance that you are absolutely right. My guess would also be that you need to edit the CMOS. If, when you switch on the 3286 the version number is 2.4 then after booting from a floppy and getting to the A:\> prompt just press the Ctrl-Alt-S keys together to enter the setup program. OTOH, if the version number is 2.x where x is less than 4 then you need to use a separate copy of Setup.Exe on a floppy disk. If you have the original system disks that came with the machine you should find a copy on there. If not you can download a copy here. If memory serves me correctly the type number to put in for a 40MB disk in a 3286 is 17.

RKM in Manchester, England at 10:42:59 Monday April 21 97
I need to know how to prepare documents for starting up a business, like, a business plan for a computer software company, could anyone help me? If so email me a document of this type. thank you
Amstrad answers: Hello again - didn't we converse via email about this? Or are you a different student at Manchester? Anyway, I can't help thinking you are going about using this internet jobby-wotsit in the wrong way. My first thought to find out about business plans was to jet on over to www.metacrawler.com and enter the phrase "Business Plan". Within moments I had come up with this. It may not be exactly what you need but then I only spent two minutes looking. I'm sure that, with time, I could find a site that covers the specific subject of business plans tailored specifically for computer companies.

Dave in Sheffield at 2:44:23 Wednesday April 16 97
I am working on a 486 Amstrad integra which is making an really bad grinding noise when it is switched on. The screen lights up but nothing else happens. I have checked the hard drive which works fine on a different machine. If anyone can help please contact me. Thank you
Amstrad answers While I'm no expert on hardware I have noticed that my parents Integra sometimes makes a funny noise when it starts up but the sound source seems to be the CD not the HD. Have you tried leaving a CD in it and see if that helps?

John Alan MacArthur in Co Down at 13:19:31 Friday April 11 97
Is there any way of converting data held on Amstrad Disks to PC 3.5" disks and how is it done?
Amstrad answers: Suggest you read the PCW page where I've got some notes about this. What is said there applies equally well to CPC data on 3" disks as well as PCW data because the disk formats are effectively the same and the companies that can copy the PCW data can do the same for CPC. Get to the PCW stuff by clicking here.

Dougie in Dagenham, Essex at 23:46:47 Tuesday April 8 97
Just to add to what Uncle Cliff (he is uncle to my kids), has said about year 2000. What I see is high level applications that can't cope with 00 being 2000 (not 1900). The worst case is when the date routine is written in assembler (and the source has gone missing).

The classic example is Marks and Spencers corned beef. Their warehouse software rejected a whole batch (last year - corned beef has a 3 1/2 year shelf life) as it thought the batch was 96 1/2 years old.

IBM are working hard to get this all working. See their site at http://www.software.ibm.com/year2000 or for an unbiased generic view try http://www.year2000.com.

Cliff in Brentwood, Essex at 09:55:40 Tuesday April 8 97
People keep on asking me whether a particular Amstrad is year 2000 compliant. The following is my standard answer:
Amstrad answers:Define year 2000 compliant. Unfortunately I think you, like a lot of people, have been misled by the media over this 2000 thing. It has very little to do with either the RTC hardware in the computer, the BIOS or even the OS. The place where you are going to see any problems is in high level application software such as accounting, stock control, payroll, spreadsheets, etc. etc. - You should be asking the authors of the application software you use what problems might exist. If, for example, the RTC, BIOS or OS can't cope with the 2000 rollover the worst that is going to happen is that on the first day back after the New Year holiday you are going to have to manually set the clock on your PC using the Date and Time commands (or, more likely, the Control Panel clock). Big Deal! It's hardly going to set the world on fire is it? The place where you ARE possibly going to see problems is when your payroll, tax, stock control or whatever all think it is 1900 rather than 2000 because they only hold the year as two digits. They are then going to do relative time calculations and start getting negative results because instead of it appearing as if the day has stepped on as normal it will appear to have gone back 100 years (36500 days (ish))

By the way, if you want to check just the RTC/BIOS/OS of a machine for "compliance" then all you have to do is go to a C:\> prompt and type DATE 31/12/99 and then TIME 23:59 and sit back for a minute and wait.

Derek J Witt in Manhattan, Kansas USA at 5:21:15 Tuesday April 8 97
Hi. I recently got my hands on a PC1512. I am interested in utilizing the 640x200 16-color graphics in my own programs that I write. I noticed by experiment that the mode that GEM uses is the same mode as the 2-color mode, namely 6H. But, it appears that the colors are obtained by multiple color planes. How do I program these planes for 16-color graphics? Or, is there a place where I might get a tech reference for this system?

Later: The mode I noticed is 7h, not 6h. Sorry for the confusion. :) Sweet dreams, everyone.
Amstrad answers: There was a technical reference manual produced for that PC that described it's funny mode but it was produced 10 years ago and is now out of print. I think I may have an old copy in my manual archive that I could blow the cobwebs off but it's probably best if we continue the technical discussion via email so I will email you directly about it.

Steven Probyn in Towcester, UK at 17:36:0 Monday April 7 97
I have read on the web that Amstrad is about to launch a internet set top box which would undercut the much delayed Acorn Netstation. Is this true and do you know its cost and planned availability?
Amstrad answers: It is Amstrad's company policy never to discuss products that may or may not be in development until a public press launch. Having said that, I'd be highly surpised if Dataflex, our modem company, didn't have something like that in the pipeline. Suggest you check out their web page by clicking here.

Dougie in Nitpicker's Cottage, Dagenham, Essex at 22:47:40 Sunday April 6 97
Your home page is slightly broken. Netscape is really fussy about file names. If you use a < IMG SRC="images\piccy.gif" > in your html then Netscape can't display it. You must use UNIX style names so the IMG tag becomes < IMG SRC="images/piccy.gif" > I think you need to re-write some of these pages now you have moved the graphics to a sub-directory.
Amstrad answers: Cheers big ears, someone else reported that the graphics weren't working - I suspected it must be Netscape as it works fine when I test it in MS IE 3.01, seems like yet another reason to use IE rather than Netscape. Oh, sorry, forgot, you are using an antiquated OS that doesn't have a version of IE aren't you?!
By the way, if you want to nit-pick, your message originally had / in both pieces of HTML but I knew what you meant and have amended it so the point you were making makes more sense.

Cheers and beers, Cliff

Derek Burch in Wilts England at 21:31:28 Saturday April 5 97
I made the mistake when upgrading a pc2286 form 1mb to 2mb of not noting the origial jumper settings before upgrading. Please can you tell me if there is a jumper that affects the battery backup as since the above mistake I cannot get it to store the settings even with fresh batteries, and I have checked for continuity between the battery connector and the board
Amstrad answers: No, later Amstrads that have a battery built into the CMOS chip DO have a link you can make which means "wipe the CMOS" but the 2286 doesn't have this because you always had the option of just taking the batteries out if you wanted to blast the CMOS. My most common error when reassembling 2286/2386s is to forget to rejoin the blue connector from the battery box to the main PCB but I guess you must have that connected OK?

Jason Creasey in Stevenage,UK at 11:59:22 Wednesday April 2 97
I have an old Amstrad branded monitor:Model Number PC14HRCD - EUB with use to be part of an Amstrad 386 based PC. I have moved the monitor onto a 486 PC and have had trouble obtaining a VGA display with 256 colours. The VGA card is a Diamond Stealth 32 using MS VGA driver. I'm about to install Diamond Stealth drivers which may solve the problem but I would like to know if the Monitor is able to support VGA with 256 colours? Also do you know where I can get a manual for this monitor? and how easy will it be to setup the custom monitor parameters with the Diamond Stealth drivers? Many thanks, Jason
Amstrad answers: There is no reason why that monitor shouldn't be able to show 256 colours, 65536 colours or even 16,777,216 colours. HOWEVER: it cannot show more than 480 scan lines. So you can have all that glorious techniocolour in 640x480 mode but you simply cannot use 800x600 or 1024x768 on that monitor. [Actually that's a small lie, I used to get one to work at 800x600 but it involved opening it up and fiddling with the V-size and H-size controls which can be VERY dangerous as there is 25KiloVolts inside a monitor - not for the faint hearted - literally!]. As you can see I don't think this has anything to do with the drivers, it is an electronic design limitation of that rather old monitor design.

Apologies

I have been moving all these web pages from a site at compuserve.com to here at ukonline.co.uk - in the process I inadvertently over-wrote the latest copy of this page so the latest questions have been lost. Sorry. Could I ask anyone who wrote in the last day or two to please resend their questions

Thanks, Cliff Lawson

Dirk Grabner in Germany - Berlin at 8:42:56 Sunday March 30 97
Hallo, I'm looking for the service manual with the circuit diagram from a satelite receiver. Model SRX300 Serial No. GE 52170766 Can you help me? Thank you and best regards
Dirk Grabner
Amstrad answers: Suggest you return to the homepage and follow the link to "Manuals and Spares". There is both a UK and German company listed there who can provide spares including service manuals for all Amstrad products, including sat receivers.

Robert in Cardiff, Wales at 11:33:3 Friday March 28 97
This might be a stupid question, so ignore it if it is. Can I still get Amstrad CPC 6128 software and games anywhere, anyhow? Is this still possible?
Amstrad answers: Suggest you look at the newsgroup called comp.sys.amstrad.8bit. It is full of old CPC users who know all about where to find the software and also has a lot of talk about the PC based CPC (and Spectrum) emulators that are available and let you run those very same games on a PC.

Albert Smith in Scunthorpe at 22:50:37 Thursday March 27 97
Hi Uncle Cliff, Can you tell me which Amstrad machines have bioses that work with the year 2000 and which will count up to 31st Dec 1999 then switch to 1st Jan 1980. Or aren't you affected by those types of problem. Albert.
Amstrad answers: I think this probably works easier if you tell me which machine you've got and then I'll go an use DATE and TIME to set one here to 23:59 on 31/12/1999 (an experiment you can perform yourself) and then I'll tell you what happens. Of course it's not just the BIOS that has to get this right, the operating system has to cope properly as well. I say this because I just tried the experiment on my 9486i that I have here and the following happened. At the stroke of midnight 1999, Windows 95 popped up and said "I've just adjusted your computer automatically for daylight saving time" and set the machine back to 23:00 on 31/12/1999. I had visions of it being stuck in this "Groundhog Day" kind of a loop and wondered if it would repeatedly set the time back to 23:00 each time I reached 23:59..00:00, so I used TIME to wind it on to 23:59 again and waited. Only this time it wound on correctly to 00:01 1/1/2000. I'm not sure if this perculiar (but one off) adjustment for daylight saving is as a result of a bug in the BIOS or a bug in Windows 95 (the latter I think!). Before anyone else mentions it, this had nothing to do with the real daylight adjustment that took place last Sunday. My machine had already done that one for me this morning anyway.

Cliff,

Thanks for the answer. I have a certain loyalty to Amstrad and have the following machines. CPC 464, CPC 6128, PC 1512, PC 1640, PC 2386.

Thanks for highlighting the "groundhog" bug in Wonders 95. I guess we should all use OS/2.
Amstrad answers: Personally, I'm not sure I'd want a life of purgatory just to avoid setting the date on my PC on the morning of 1/1/00

John Nollett in Coventry, UK. at 11:10:17 Tuesday March 25 97
We have a 9486 with a 25Mhz processor, 4MB of ram and a Seagate 130 MB HDD. The processor sits in a ZIF 3 socket, what processor can I upgrade to and which jumpers will need to be changed. The RAM sits in 4 30 pin sockets but there is a single 72 pin socket. Is the mother board capable of taking a 16meg 72 pin, and if so will I need to remove a pair of 30 pin simms. Lastly, is there any limitation to a second HDD drive?
Amstrad answers: I've heard from several people who have upgraded using these Evergreen processor very successfully so I'd maybe recommend those. In theory a 486x rpocessor should be upgradeable to DX4, P63 or P83. Because the 9486 board can be set to run at 25, 33,40,50MHz you can choose the fastest ones you like. Personally I'm not sure whether a processor upgrade beyond something cheap like a DX2-66 is really value for money. You get far more performance increase per pound by upgrading RAM (especially as it's so cheap right now). The other day I got 16MB for my own PC for about £50 including the VAT. You can just get a single 72 pin 16MB SIMM to plug in the socket on your machine which, with the existing 4MB will give you a fairly respectable 20MB. You should have no problem adding a huge 2nd drive to the machine (if there's room for a 5.25" mechanism then I'd recommend the Quantum "Bigfoot" from Dabs Direct. It's 2.5GB for £140+VAT). The only thing is that the BIOS does not support LBA so you may need to use a piece of software such as Ontrack Disk Manager to access above 540MB (ask the person you get the drive from if it comes with that).

chris in Brussels at 7:19:57 Tuesday March 25 97
A friend has asked me what fax/ modem he should buy for his PC 9486 to enable him to access the internet etc. He wants an answer by 26 March. Any suggestions!!
Amstrad answers: (Phew, just made it)I'd recommend any modem on the market today, PAce, Zoom, USR, Hayes, anything really. The current top speed modems are 33K but 56K is just starting to appear so I'd make sure you get one that promises that it can be upgraded from 33 to 56. The only problem though is that there are more than one 56K standards appearing so it's a bit like the VHS/Betamax video war and it's difficult to know which horse to back.

E. Kilpatrick in Manchester at 17:20:24 Monday March 24 97
I, like your Australian correspondent, have a 4386SX PC with a sick floppy drive. CPC say the drive is no longer available, and Citizen (the drive's manufacturer) have no record of it. What can I do?
Amstrad answers: Sorry but I'm not sure what to suggest. We had exactly the same problem here in the office where we use a 4386 as a print server and the other day it started giving errors about the floppy. Thankfully it was just a loose cable but if had been worse then I'm afraid we would have been in the same boat as you.

Duncan Campbell at 19:9:42 Wednesday March 19 97
I am desperately searching for a source of PDA600 penpad accessories. Particularly leather case, pc link cable or printer cable. Also details on what software is or was available on card and where to try for it Many thanks
Amstrad answers: You came to exactly the right place. You'll see that the very next message here is from Peter Mydlarz who runs a company called SCA and they are the main suppliers of bits and pieces for the PDA in the UK so I suggest you click on that blue underlined link below this very line and mail him directly.

Peter Mydlarz in Worthing at 17:35:13 Monday March 17 97
Dear Uncle Cliff, Do you know where I can get any PDA600 pens? CPC have run out. And can you connect the new world phone to a PC for data or SMS?
Amstrad answers: Nope, if CPC don't have them then I don't know where one could get them as they will have all the stock. I guess we'd have no objection if you wanted to get someone to make "lookalikes" for you.
As for the "Worldphone", although Alan has made it's existence public I don't think we are yet in a position to release technical details about it. However it is true that previous Dancall phones have an Option data rate adaptor card available to interface between a PC's PCMCIA slot and the phones C and DI Buses. I would image something similar would be available for any future phones. (bit like the Nokia DTP2).

Thomas L in Sweden at 16:33:54 Saturday March 15 97
1 I have a Amstrad ppc 640 how do I set time and date.
2 Do i need a special disk to start up, If so where can I get it?
3 Is the disk drive 720 kb or 1,4 mb
Amstrad answers: 1. Use the DOS Date and TIME commands
2. Nope, any version of MS-DOS, PC-DOS or DR-DOS can be used as long as it's on 720K disks
3. It is 720K.

Steven McGarva in Glasgow at 13:31:26 Friday March 14 97
Is it possible to connect my old 1640 to my new Pentium PC, if so, how ? I want to output error messages while developing software, so it is only really the monitor I need
Amstrad answers: Yup this is what serial ports were invented for but, of course, that relies on the language development system you are using including a serial/remote debugger (several do).

A. Abraham in Manchester at 19:9:21 Thursday March 13 97
Dear Sir, I have a (ANB amstrad 386-SX notebook), the memory is 1MB and HD is 20MB. I would like to upgrade them, Do you have any information and how much it cost. Many thanks.
Amstrad answers: To upgrade the memory requires a module that was made specifically for Amstrad about 5 years ago. Unfortunately I don't think you can still buy these so the only hope might be to track one down second hand. As for the HD - it is an IDE so can be replaced but be warned that taking an ANB apart to accomplish this has never (in my experience) been anything but a one way street (I couldn't get it back together and working afterwards!).

Steve Metcalfe in East Grinstead at 10:35:29 Thursday March 13 97
I wish to add a second hard drive(Western Digital Caviar 125Mb) to a 3386 for a short while to copy data over. I have been able to format the second drive by disconecting the original Sony SRD3080-50 80Mb I now wish to set the 80Mb as master and the 125Mb as slave. Do you know the jumper settings for the SRD3080-50?
Amstrad answers: Personally no but there is a document floating about on the web that lists about 5,000 drives and their jumper settings. I guess a question in a newsgroup such as comp.sys.ibm or similar will find someone who know which FTP site you can find it on.

Maggie Boucher in Perth AUSTRALIA at 17:29:36 Wednesday March 12 97
I have an Amstrad PC4386SX (the very cute miniature desktop pc) with a very sick 3.5" floppy disk drive. Unfortunately, a standard sized FDD can't physically fit inside the box, and I have been unable to source new or 2nd-hand drives in Australia. I was wondering if there is a way of patching a standard FDD into the system - ie. are the electrical connections for the Amstrad FDD the same as the commonly available variety?
Amstrad answers: Nope, I suggest you contact CPC (details on my page) to get the Amstrad specific spare part. I'm pretty sure that the mechanism is actually a Citizen drive so as an alternative you could try contacting them.

Kevin Flood in Reading UK at 22:32:56 Monday March 10 97
I am tryingto get a PPC 640 working for a friend. The machine starts up and shows the please wait....... It then wil only ask for the system disk about one in ten switch ons !! The rest of the time it just beeps and returns to the please wait .... I have tried pushing the black button that the closing of the keyboard causes to operate but to no avail !! Any ideas please ??
Amstrad answers: Often when a computer is this sick, if you open it up and push all the chips home and make sure all connectors are seated then personal experience shows that about 50% of the time that will catch whatever is wrong. If that doesn't fix it then it will need professional help which is probably going to cost more than the whole thing is worth!! (about 30 pounds).

Andrew Mackinnon in Victoria Australia at 11:42:50 Saturday March 8 97
Hi I've aquired a 5386 with sick memory allocation, can you tell me the I.O settings,for this machine config.sys & autoexe.bat for dos 6.0+ and win3.1 could be good Thanks Andrew.
Amstrad answers: Sorry but I don't understand what it is you require. If you don't like the way DOS has allocated memory why not try the MEMMAKER command which should make optimum settings.

CRAIG SHAKESPEARE at 13:48:48 Thursday March 6 97
COULD I HAVE SOME GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT WHY THE COMPANY DECLINED AS I AM DOING AN ASSIGNMENT ON APPLYING VSM PRINCIPLES TO A BUSINESS. AMSTRAD IS THE COMPANY THAT I WOULD LIKE TO BASE MY ASSIGNMENT ON.
Amstrad answers: I'm afraid I'm just an 'umble computer designer and cannot really comment openly about the company in that way. If you want to know my private thoughts on it then email me directly as cliffl@amstrad.com

Andre williams in Nottingham at 2:51:13 Wednesday March 5 97
Hi again, do you think Amstrad UK might be worth trying for the ANB disk?. Also, any thoughts on how to connect the Laptop to a win95 machine, (to access the cd rom and modem of it?) I've tried laplink for dos V But that appears to be only good for COPYING files I want to run stuff from the win95 machine to the Win3.11 anb? IS it possible? if sho any ideas how? also Is if viable to run win95 on the anb?
Amstrad answers: I am Amstrad UK and I haven't got one. However it might be worth trying Viglen as they sell all the Amstrad PCs these days but as they weren't involved 6 years when the ANB was current I doubt if they'll have even heard of it.
What you need to share drives is the DOS 5/6 Interlink command. I used to use it a lot and swear by it (tho sometimes at it!).
As for Win 95 on an ANB - no I don't think so. Win95 only just gest off the floor in 8MB and while they claim it works in 4 I have never found that to be the case.

Andre williams in Nottingham at 3:46:29 Tuesday March 4 97
Thanx for the prompt reply mr amstrad...I do indeed have a ANB-386sx/20 in the anb user manual there is a section (4.1) refering to the configuration software namely the amstrad configuration programs:- The SPEED command (used for changing processor speed) The DISPLAY command.for changing between EGA ,MDA/herculese or CGA video modes The DEVICE=SCATEMM.SYS (expanded memmry manger) and the DISCHARGE.com program (for discharging battery in situ. I presume these programs originally came on a floppy but i didn't get them when I got the machine ...I'd like to locate them if possible..
Amstrad answers: You and me both. I'd also like to track down copies which I could then add to my file archive for yourself and others. Unfortunately I had to throw out boxes and boxes of old disks to clear the archive at our factory which is being closed and I rather think that this would have been the only place where I might have found such old disks. Perhaps if another ANB user reads this they may consider mailing a copy of those utilities to me?

john rowan in 70 kings head hill, london e4 7ly at 6:55:5 Monday March 3 97
I have two programs from amstrad telling me how to transform a locofile database into a locoscript 2 document usingh locomail, but neither of them works for me. Can anyone give me one that works ? Or I would be willing to pay for someone to do it from my disk. help help help
Amstrad answers: Those things aren't actually anything to do with Amstrad. That is separate software that was developed by Locomotive Software and which was never sold by Amstrad so really the best people to contact are Locomotive directly. You can phone them on 01306 747757 (from outside UK that's +44 1306 747757) or the fact that their internet domain is "locomotive.com" probably means that an email to something like support@locomotive.com would reach them.

jo in hong kong at 2:25:7 Monday March 3 97
i have an alt-386sx. i was able to upgrade the HD from 40 to 420MB, but my problem is that i wanted to upgraded the RAM from 4MB to 16MB, is there a way?
Amstrad answers: Nope, believe it or not, when the ALT was designed (about 6-7 years ago) four Megabytes was considered to be a HUGE amount of memory and more than most people would ever need. How time's change eh? The memory control gate array used within the ALT design only has sufficient pins to address 4MB so there isn't any possibility that the 4MB maximum limit could ever be exceeded on that machine.

Andre williams in Nottingham.. at 1:5:30 Monday March 3 97
ME again....I've just found out I need some s'ware to change the processor speed and discharge the batterys etc, any idea where I can get it?
Amstrad answers: I'm not aware of software for any of our portable machines that allows the processor speed to be changed. As for batery discharge, the usuual way to fully discharge a battery to try and get rid of "memory" effects is to wire it up to a car 12V headlight bulb and leave it to go dim.

Andre Williams in Nottingham England, (They are thinking of knocking down the castle you know! at 1:59:36 Sunday March 2 97
I've just baught a 386sx16 lap top/notebook, it's got 4 meg and an internal 80meg Hd currently running win3.11 IS it possible to upgrade the internal HD,memory and Processor, IE 386 /486 overdrive etc.. I've been told none of the above are possible (Glum) hope you can advise, Oh yeh, what modem can I use with it? It's got LPT1 Com1 And VGA ports, Also I believe the little socket is a PS2, what's it for? I was wondering how I connect a mouse if I want to use a modem via the serial port..Hope you can help
Amstrad answers: I'm a bit confused. You say laptop/notebook but don't say which. I guess it is either an ALT386SX or an ANB386SX? I'll assume ALT386SX. That has a standard 3.5" IDE hard disk which it is fairly easy to upgrade (but Disk Manager or similar is needed if greater than 540MB). The maximum RAM in an ALT is 4MB this is a limit imposed by the number of address pins on the memory control gate array and can never be exceeded. I'm confused by your mention of a PS/2 port - perhaps it is an ANB after all?

Robin Blackstone in Bristol, UK at 18:29:1 Saturday March 1 97
Hi! I have just aquired a 5286, for which i have very little knowledge. It has a sound card in it, what is it compatible with? (it is an Amstrad card) Does it require a special disk drive which is a special size? Can the Hard Disk be upgraded (i know it can) but the screws holding it in are so tightly done up it is impossible to undo them (is there a special technique?) Do you know anything about the 'Mega'Pc's which Amstrad sold, these had a Megadrive unit in them, are these still availible? Thanks Robin
Amstrad answers: The soundcard is almost certainly the Adlib compatible we made. Back in the mists of time the very first PC soundcards only had FM synthesis chips which allowed them to play MIDI music (badly!) but they didn't have the analogue to digital and digital to analogue converters need to record and play WAV files. It was only when the SoundBlaster appeared that these facilities were added. So the bottom line is that that card is more bog end than even the most bog end SB compatable. Considering that these days you can get a wavetable card with MIDI port, WAV record/play, mixer and CD interface for about the same price as a large bag of toffees it rather makes that original, rather sad Adlib clone totally worthless. If I were interested in sound from a PC I'd forget that card and go for some sort of cheap and cheerful SB compatable (as a minimum). (Personally I've got an AWE 32 PnP with 2MB RAM and am considering adding a Yamaha DB50XG to it).

As for the HD in a 5286. It is a bog standard IDE so you can happily replace it with any modern drive but be warned that the 5286 BIOS does not support Logical Block Addressing so you may be limited to 540MB even if the drive is larger. However you can use the excellent Ontrack Disk Manager software to overcome this limit (most large drives come with a free copy anyway - check!).

The Mega PCs with built in Megadrive units were a bit of a flash in the pan about 4-5 years ago. After the 5xxx Mega PC and then a later 7xxx Mega PC we never did any more. Anyway the Megadrive has moved on a lot since those days to a much more advanced machine and at the same time the PC has advanced so much with amazing processor speed and graphics/sound that a current PC (200MHz P5 MMX) outperforms the majority of available games consoles by miles without the need for special hardware.

Maria Randou in Athens, Greece at 23:56:18 Friday February 28 97
Hi! I have a CPC 6128,which I rarely use.I would like to convert the monitor into a TV. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a TV Tuner in Athens,Greece. Could you please give me any suggestions? And if so, could you tell me about the cost? Thank you very much for your time! Maria
Amstrad answers: About 10 years ago we produced a device which was effectively a TV tuner in a box that took UHF TV transmissions and output them to a analogue 1V peak-peak RGB signal suitable for playing into a CPC monitor. I guess this is exactly what you require. Unfortunately we stopped making them about 9 years ago so the chances of finding one secondhand are probably zero. I guess one could design a circuit for onself that did the same thing but it would probably cost more in parts and labour than buying a second hand portable TV set so I'm afraid I'd have to suggest that you forget the idea.

Montana Fiechtner in Rauberweiherhaus, Germany at 12:13:7 Tuesday February 25 97
Hi, we have an old portable Amstrad"ATL 286" and want to use an externat Monitor. I know that there was a key combination to switch from the LCD to the externel Monitor. Would be great if you can tell me which key combination. Thanks and Regards, Montana
Amstrad answers: First you need to download the DISPLAY and SWITCHER utilities if you haven't already done got them. They are in a ZIP called ALTPRG.ZIP that is on my file archive here. Once you've got those you can either use DISPLAY PANEL or DISPLAY CRT to switch between the two or you can load SWITCHER into memory and then [Ctrl][Shift][D] toggles between the LCD and the CRT.

Peter Smith in Hobart, Tasmania at 11:24:16 Tuesday February 25 97
I've got a PC1640. Can I connect new generation ink jet printers (ie HP DeskJet 540. My supply of ribbons for the DMP 3000 has dried up on this side of the World. If yes, what driver should I install?? Cheers
Amstrad answers: The 1640 is just an IBM compatible PC so you can use any printer in the world that will work on any PC. The question of drivers is a software specific thing. Some software (like Windows, Word Perfect, etc., etc.) comes with literally hundreds of drivers for different printers and it is then up to you to pick one matching your printer. If there isn't one for your printer in the particular software you plan to use then you need to contactthe authors of that software to ask if other drivers are available or contact the printer manufacturer to ask them what other printers their printer is compatible with.

Volker Kulp in Germany at 8:21:29 Tuesday February 25 97
I had a old PC2386 with 4 1 MB Simms on it. I want to put 4 4MB Simms in this PC. The BIOS was set to 16 MB, but when I boot the PC only see 4MB. What must i do ?
Amstrad answers: Sounds like you haven't changed the links on the motherboard to reflect the new memory size. Suggest you click here to see my notes on those settings.

Jose Monteagudo in Barcelona, Spain. at 1:27:29 Monday February 24 97
I need the DMP3000 drivers for Windows 95. can you send me ? Thank you.
Amstrad answers: If you return to the homepage and then look under the section entitled "Printers" you will see there that all Amstrad printers are Epson compatible so for Windows you just select one of the Epson drivers when using an Amstrad printer. In the case of the DMP300 which is a 9 pin printer it is compatible with the Epson FX80 so that is the driver you should use.

Mike Lumsdaine in Edinburgh,UK at 15:38:35 Sunday February 23 97
I have a piece of software for programming a robot from a PPC640 using the serial port. I am trying to get it running on a 'standard' PC with no success. I believe there may be something different about the serial ports. How can I resolve my problem? (Any suggestions greatly appreciated). Cheers!
Amstrad answers: Nope the serial port on a PPC was 100% IBM compatible. The only difference that there may be between it and the port on a more modern PC is that good ole fashioned PCs used the 8250 chip for their serial whereas modern PCs use a 16550 but in theory it is supposed to be 100% backwards compatible so I don't see why that would affect a program working on it. Is it not possible for you to contact the authors of the software? Perhaps it is designed with software timing loops or something awful like that so that on a modern PC it just runs far too fast (the PPC was an 8MHz 8086!). I guess you could try switching the Turbo button on your PC to see if that helps at all.

Ken Garvey in Bristol, U.K. at 20:42:32 Friday February 21 97
I have a PDA600 PenPad and, too late, am looking for the Windows connnectivity pack. Can anyone help? Also are there any public domain games for the PenPad? I think a pen-based Tetris would be excellent! *grin*
Amstrad answers: The authors of the Penpad connection software are Eden Group Ltd who are based in Rainow near Macclesfield. I'm pretty sure that there phone number is 01625 576050 so you could phone and ask if they still have that software. If they gave their permission then I have a copy of it that I'd happily put up here to be available for download.

As for games, I'm not aware of any PD software for the Penpad. Some games were written for it but they were only available commercially (in the UK from a company called SCA).

Mario De Carli in Italy at 10:42:30 Thursday February 20 97
I'm looking for a driver for Amstrad Printer LQ-3500. I have a 486 PC and Windows 3.11 Thanks
Amstrad answers: Ah, methinks you didn't read my notes on printers on the homepage? As I say there, all our printers have been Epson compatible so you should just pick the corresponding Epson driver. In the case of the LQ3500 I think that probably means Epson LQ100

Peter Smith in Devon at 7:56:22 Thursday February 20 97
Can I use an Amstrad 2386 monitor on a Pentium based motherboard, PCI graphics card and Windows 95? I have tried it using 'Unknown monitor, VGA at 640 x 400 and I end up with 4 sets of Ghosting.
Amstrad answers: The answer is Yes AND No - Yes the 2386 monitor can be used on the output of any VGA card but note that it is only designed to show up to 480 scan lines so it's fine for 640x480 (in any colour resolution) but 800x600 or 1024x768 are a no-no. Some of the monitors could just about hack it at 800x600 but it sometimes involved the need to open them up and fiddle with V-sync, H-sync, V-size, H-size, V-pos and H-pos potentiometers - which is not for the faint hearted as there is 25 KiloVolts inside those monitors!!

Mark in Hampshire at 21:36:28 Tuesday February 18 97
I am looking to obtain a system boot disk for a 90486 40MHZ PC .Could you please let me know wgere i can find a copy. Thanks
Amstrad answers: The 9486 just came with a totally bog standard copy of MS-DOS 6.2 so there is nothing special or Amstrad specific about it. If you just go to any computer store and buy a copy of MS-DOS that will do nicely. Alternatively (God forbid that anyone from Microsoft may see this!) why not just get a friend to FORMAT a floppy with /S from their own DOS for you? (I claim this is not an infringement of MS copyright because you quite patently DO have a licence to a copy of MS-DOS for that machine). If all else fails phone Amstrad Direct on 0990 933 933 but they'll probably charge you for a replacement.

Mark Hildyard in Horsham, WSx at 16:6:59 Tuesday February 18 97
Hello - I'm having no joy connecting my PenPad600 using the Eden Software Windows (16-bit) Organiser software to my Windows 95 PC via any of the serial ports. When I attempt to upload the database from the PenPad600 to the PC, the upload progress screen either flashes shut immediately, or stays open with no progress on the bar. I'm using 9600 bps with hardware flow control (& also tried XON/XOFF) on the serial port...Any more ideas ??! TVM.
Amstrad answers: Sorry but I don't know what to suggest really. In theory the great thing about that Organiser software and the Penpad connection is that all the choices about baud rate, parity, flow control etc. are set automatically out of your control because the Penpad only uses one setting which cannot be changed (except by specially written PDA600 software) so the Windows based program should just set the port to 9600,n,8,1 and off it goes (This will over-ride anything you may have previously set within the port setup section of Control Panel). If that fails it suggests that maybe there is something more fundamentally wrong, like the cable is faulty or perhaps the serial interface within the PDA is kaput?

D.Forrester in Berwick-upon-Tweed at 11:58:18 Tuesday February 18 97
I need a dos boot for an Amstrad 2086 - where can I obtain a copy? Is there an ftp download available?
Amstrad answers: There isn't a special 2086 boot disk as such. It's just a standard IBM compatible PC and as such it should be possible to boot it from a floppy containing any version of MS-DOS, PC-DOS or DR-DOS. The machine was originally supplied with MS-DOS 3.3 but in this day and age I guess one would probably want to use MS-DOS 6.22. The only proviso is that the disk MUST be 720K, not 1.44MB but other than that any DOS disk will work. The only Amstrad specific things on the original Amstrad disk were a few setup utilities but they're not an absolute must have. If I can find an old 2086 disk in my archive I'll add the Amstrad specific utilities to this very page. Watch this space.

Phill Clay in Manchester at 10:27:37 Sunday February 16 97
How do I print an envelope on the PcW16 using the Deskjet 520 printer
Amstrad answers: I'm not familiar with that particular model of printer. Does it have the facility to feed envelopes? If so then by judicous editing of the margins and paper size and indents it should be possible to get Anne to print in the right position. As an alternative have you considered standard sized sticky labels on an A4 backing sheet. It should be possible to print on that just like a normal A4 page (though it may take a few attempts to get it printing in exactly the right position but then that could be saved as a template).

Dave at 9:10:48 Sunday February 16 97
Hi i need some help getting an old Amstrad 2000 MDP printer I have been given to work in windows 3.11 it is in good condition and works ok in DOS but not in windows despite trying to find a compatible driver:( I wonder if anyone can help? if you can please drop me an email at Dave@sparham.demon.co.uk thanks a lot hope to here from you soon. dave
Amstrad answers: The DMP 2000 is just a bog standard Epson compatible printer so you should just be able to select something like Epson FX80 for any version of Windows. If you try that and even that doesn't work then try the "generic/text only" one. If even that fails then the problem is more fundamental than just picking the right driver though the fact it works in DOS is a little strange!

A Questioner in desparation at 11:9:41 Friday February 14 97
How can I connect the monitor from an Amstrad PC1512 to my new PC
Amstrad answers: I'm afraid you can't, the 1512 video adapter was not electronically equivalent to any other (although it was a kind of CGA) so the monitor is only usable with the 1512 but nothing else.

Cliff Lawson in Brentwood, Essex, England at 10:51:58 Friday February 14 97
Does this work?
Amstrad answers: Yup, sure seems to!

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