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These are questions and answers that were previously posted to the Q & A page but have been archived here to keep the latest Q & A shorter and more manageable for download.

PC9486	Using SCSI card
ALT286	Need replacement screen
PPC	Replacing power adaptor
General	Using Dos 6 alongside Win95
Printer	HP printer problem
PC2286	Using CPU upgrade card
PDA600	Data loss problem
PCW9512	Daisywheel for sale
CPC464	Need software/hardware
PC1512	Fixing memory fault
Printer	HP printer problem
PCW	Using other printers
General	Wordstar Express file format
GX4000	Trying to locate one
PC1512	Fixing speed problem
PC9486	Dual boot to DOS 6.22
Monitor	CPC monitor on other computer
PPC	Adding hard drive
PPC	Adding hard drive
PDA600	Need instruction book
CPC6128	Trying to locate one
PC1640	Adding a 3.5" drive
General	IX1000 need cable+s/w
PCW9512	Need floppies/software
Printer	HP problem fixed
PC9486	Memory upgrade
PC2386	Speed up beyond 20MHz?
CPC464	Adding a 3.5"
PC5286	Soundcard drivers
PC3286	Looking to replace mouse
PC2086	Need DOS 2.11
PC2386	Need startup disc
General	Have him stuffed and mounted!
CPC6128	Doing I/O
PC1640	Adding a 720K
PC4386	Boot up problem
PCW	Using Locoscript
PC4386	Virus problem
PC7486	Making Win95 work
General	Two Satellites query
Monitor	Spec info for 14HRCD
Printer	Need repair
PDA600	Still available?
PPC640	Need software
PcW16	Adding memory
PPC	Searching for Backlight upgrade
General	Marketing programme
ANB386	Hard disk info

John Stevens in UK nr Romsey at 16:26:17 Tuesday August 25 98
ANB386SX20 Do you know the type of hard drive used in this machine - ? cannot find a spec.
Amstrad answers I have a fairly strong feeling that it may be a Connor drive. I know that it is a 2.5" drive but if you ever want to find out the make and heads/tracks/sector information for an IDE drive there are lots of utilities that will read that info from the drive and report it. One of my colleagues wrote one called ASKIDE so I have upload a copy to this web site so you and others can try it. JUst click here to download a copy.

Anon at 18:37:43 Monday August 24 98
what is your current Marketing programme ?
Amstrad answers: Not sure that I understand the question but if you just mean where do we sell Amstrad stuff then try Dixons, Argos, Currys, Index, Tescos etc. Amstrad aren't involved in personal computers any more just consumer electronic goods such as satellite receivers, video, TV, hi-fi etc. (though a lot of those things "secretly" contain a computer).

C J Hall in Buckinghamshire at 22:1:54 Sunday August 23 98
Is there any upgrade to backlite the display on my ppc640 i could do it myself with led's but if there i s anyinfo it would be appreiceated
Amstrad answers: Sorry to say but there is no "official" upgrade so I'm afraid it's definitely time for a spot of DIY. I think all you could hope to achieve is some edge mounted lighting as it would probably be impossible to get an EL panel in behind the display and I think it's transfective anyway so it would probably completely bugger things up when the backlight wasn't being used. The other downside of backlights (and the reason why the PPC didn't have one) is that they EAT batteries in no time flat.

Giles Read in Southampton, England at 12:23:35 Sunday August 23 98
In the PcW16 FAQ it says that "it is very easy to add another 1Mb of Flash and another 1Mb of DRAM", but that at the time of writing no commercial arrangements are in place to provide such a service. I am particularly interested in adding this extra memory, and I have sufficient technical expertise (i.e. skill with soldering surface-mount components!) to perform the upgrade. Is there any technical information available which describes the necessary steps? I only need limited details, e.g. "fit a HMXXXXX in IC X and IC Y to updrade the DRAM, and HMYYYYY in IC Z to upgrade the Flash store". If this information is available, I would be quite happy to provide a write-up and some pictures of the process so that instructions could be posted on the Web. (also e-mailed to ask_uncle_cliff)
Amstrad answers: It really is as simple as just soldering the new chips to the bare sites that already exist on the board then it will all magically work. The cabinet will grow by 1024K to give you about 1300K free (but existing contents WILL BE LOST! So back up first). It is almost totally pointless in upgrading the DRAM as about the only software that will benefit is the print routines that are used when printing to an OKI GDI laser printer. The file size limits in things like the word processor and spreadsheet are bound by other constraints and they won't benefit from more DRAM.
I don't have a schematic to hand so your best way to find the components to fit is to open your machine and look at the components already fitted - you just need to duplicate them for this to work. Be warned, however, that the stupid internal construction (inherited from older designs) means you have to take out just about everything else to get access to the digital board in order to identify and then fit new components.

C J Hall in buckinghamshire at 11:5:13 Sunday August 23 98
I have just got hold of a ppc640 with modem and internal 40meg hard disk i have downloaded the setup disk from here but what about software for the modem anything about the running of this ppc would be of great help chris
Amstrad answers: Methinks that maybe you got the wrong "setup" discs from my file archive. If you really did get something called SETUP then that is of no use on the PPC. The file you should have got is called PPCDISKS.ZIP and contains all the PPC speccific software including the Mirror communication program that can be used with the modem (not sure I'd recommend it in this day and age - something like Telix might be better).

Gord at 17:23:18 Friday August 21 98
Are there any Amstrad PDA600's still available?
Amstrad answers: Not from Amstrad - I know nothing more than the details I give on the Penpad page. We dumped all remaining stocks a few years ago and as far as I can gather they have subsequently been passed from pillar to post with a strong likelihood that they have ended up with some warehouse operation in the US.

Surani Neangoda at 7:44:14 Thursday August 20 98
Dear Cliff, I was given a DMP4000 printer by my cousin which has been sitting with her for years! After clean up and repair, it was working fine. Suddenly, I find the mechanism moving the printer head and the mechanism moving the paper carriage has gone on strike! Please help me. If you can send me the circuit diagram for this printer, my brother can do the needful, he is good at such jobs. appreciate very much your help.
Amstrad answers: Bad news I'm afraid. In all my years here I think I can honestly say that I have never seen a schematic or service manual for ANY of our printers. I have a pretty strong feeling that they weren't considered repairable and would simply have been swapped out ion the case of failure. You could try contacting CPC and see if they stock individual spares for the various bits inside a DMP4000 but I doubt it. Besides which I'm almost sure that you'd pay more to repair it than you could buy a far better modern inkjet for. I was recently looking for a printer myself and ended up getting an Epson Stylus 600 for about £130 but by today's standards this is quite a high end/expensive printer and you can get something pretty good (about 1000 times better than the DMP4000) for £50-100. (The Epson 600, by the way, really is the dog's danglies!)

Sander Edwards in Idaho, USA at 5:13:47 Wednesday August 19 98
Hi, got an Amstrad PC14HRCD monitor. Just wondering what it is (dp, res, etc) and if it's worth fixing. (Has a power supply problem)
Amstrad answers: We made various dot pitches but it is most likely .28 it is probably capcble of resolutions up to 1024x768

Arlindo Ferreira in Portugal at 18:53:13 Tuesday August 18 98
I want to know if the Satelite Receiver Amstrad srx340 has the possibility to receive Astra and Eutelsat (Hot Bird) satelite in just one cable.
Amstrad answers: I don't know a lot about satellite but as far as I know if the two satellite are not within a degree or two of each other then you'd need to invest in a steerable satellite dish. For "proper" support on satellite products you really need to write to our Satellite Support Dept. (they aren't on line) at the address given on my contacts page.

yasuki kinai at 4:41:22 Tuesday August 18 98
I have PC7486SLC (amstrad), BIOS is Quadtel Mother bord is VSC 386sxd V2.01 OS is WINDOWS 3.1 disk space is 130MB I want to chenge WINDOWS 95 but only runing by safe mode Maybe must upgrade BIOS Please advice to me ,Thankyou
Amstrad answers: Nope it shouldn't be necessary to change the BIOS to run Win95 on that machine. The only problem you may hit is a lack of memory as Win95 normally needs a minimum of 8MB and the 7486SLC probably only has 4MB. The fact that Safe Mode works shows that Win95 will run so it is just a case of disabling all the extra hardware drivers and then adding each one back until you find the one that prevents it working in Normal mode.

Martin Turnbull in Canberra, Australia at 11:26:19 Sunday August 16 98
Dear Cliff, First, if you are already looking at my question of 15 Aug 98 then STOP! - don't waste anymore of your valuable time on me! Yes, I was missing something really really basic here... and a warning to us all I suppose....If you should ever be lucky enough to pick up such a nice old machine for a song VIRUS CHECK IT! If you refer to my last message and note the message that comes up when you boot, that is the response you may get if you boot sector is infected with the JUNKIT.A boot sector virus and all your *.com files now have the JUNKIE.A virus in them which will pass to any machine in which you insert said diskette. Junkie has an encryption algorithm which apparently makes the com files impossible to clean, but the boot sector of the HDD can be saved. Well, muggins here put said discs in his you-beaut work machine and realy brought the house of cards down... The prevoius owner had not only infected the HDD boot sector but the old orignal DOS installation discs as well. I have used a win95 virus recovery & starup disc to fix it all. All I need now is to get hold of a clean version of DOS & win3.1 ( I might even try win 95 & see if it really will run in 4MB like MS claim in their documenation - ha ha). Thank you for being here for people like us & I know I can drop in if I need help in the future... Regards, Martin
Amstrad answers: Glad you found the problem. Win95 will JUST work in 4MB as I was a beta testser back in 94-95 and ran it on my 2386 with just 4MB but I very quickly upgraded the memory as you couldn't actually do anything and even something simple like running Control Panel took about 5 minutes to load!!

Ron Clooney in Southampton u.k. at 14:18:15 Saturday August 15 98
I have a pc1640 and a citizen abc printer. I am having difficulty installing the printer so it works with a 1985 version of locoscript. When that programme is running, at the top of the screen, it says "Printer idle, using none". When I try to print a document it displays the error message "current printer is... printer intended?". I don't have the original locoscript manual.
Amstrad answers: Well you've got me mightly confused there as on the one hand you say you have a 1640 (which is a PC) and on the other hand you say you are running Locoscript (which normally runs on a PCW). I guess you either meant you have a PCW8256 or you meant that you are running LocoScript PC but in either case the answer to your question is the same - to get the bits needed to support other printers you need to contact Locomotove Software

Martin Turnbull in Canberra, Australia at 13:2:18 Saturday August 15 98
G'Day, If have just picked up a PC4386SX for $20 (it appears to have been looked after and has an epson LX-86 thrown in). It has MS-DOS 4.01 disketttes & a clean HDD. Installing DOS seems to go OK but when rebooting it displays this message: The MS-DOS 6 Setup was not completed Insert the UNINSTALL #1 diskette in drive A Press the ENTER key to continue Now, the DOS '6' bit throws me..... Your forum here helped me to find out how to check the BIOS (ctrl+shift+a) & all apears OK (the original sticker on the back that says 'HDD Type 23' matches & at least points to a well made pc!) I normally work with a clone P133 & win95, am a Technician who first played with DOS 2.? too many years ago to remember... now working in multimedia training dev. job, but his machine is for the kids to work with. Have I missed something really basic here??? Any suggestions grealty appreciated, Martin
Amstrad answers: I see from your later message above that you already found your problem to be a virus infection.

ALAN SHONS in PORTSMOUTH UK at 11:44:58 Saturday August 15 98
WANT TO FIT 3.5" FLOPPY TO 1640 . HAVE DONE IT BEFORE. KNOW THAT 1.4M WILL ONLY RUN AS 720K. SEEM TO REMEMBER HAD TO RUN SOME SORT OF SET UP PROG AND THEN SET TO 3.5" 720K BUT NO LONGER HAVE MANUAL. TNX ALAN
Amstrad answers: No set up to run. The "magic" involved is simply the use of either DRIVPARM or DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS in your Config.Sys file. That's all that's required to make a 720K drive work. Think it's the /F:7 that means the drive is a 720K.

Richard Walter in W�schbach (Germany) at 10:31:45 Thursday August 13 98
Dear Cliff, I`d like to steer my telescope with my old CPC 6128 using step motors and an interface. For this I need the Locomotive BASIC 1.1 orders for Working with the RS323 and Centronics Port and their syntax. It isn`t in my Manual so where can I find this? Richard
Amstrad answers: Well the CPC doesn' have an RS232 interface so there's no way you can control that from BASIC but the parallel port can be written to using PRINT #8 commands (as explained in the manual) but I predict that this will not give suficient control for what you want to do. I'd guess you'd want to be able to set individual bits and maybe read back the state of the BUSY line. To do that you'll have to write some Z80 assembler and use the fact that the port is at I/O address #EFxx for the output 7 data bits and the STROBE line and the Centronics BUSY signal comes back in on bit 6 or the 8255 port B which is at I/O address #F5xx

Dudley S Jackson in Calne, Wilts UK at 22:41:33 Tuesday August 11 98
Not a question but thanks for providing this excellent site. I have just bought an Amstrad PC 1640 ECM 30HD, just like one I had 10 years ago. Sadly it needs System Disk 1 to get it going. I hope then it will work, and I have just downloaded the zip file to enable this. Again, many thanks.
Amstrad answers: Aw shucks, a compliment! (Have this user stuffed and mounted on a pedestal!)

Lynton Washer in United Kingdom at 17:55:4 Tuesday August 11 98
I Have been asked to sort out an Amstrad pc2386/65. This Computer Batteries went flat and have been replaced it now asks for "Insert System Disk" The owner doesnt have any such disk. Where can I obtain One Quickly, Posible Download ???. Many Thanks Lynton Washer
Amstrad answers: There's nothing particularly special about the system disk it is looking for - any copy of MS-DOS can be used to awake the beast. The only "special" thing you will need is a copy of the Setup.Exe program to set the hard disk type number in the CMOS so that it becomes visible again. That program is available in my file area.

Alun Bell at 19:1:37 Monday August 10 98
Anywhere I can get Dos v2.11 (originally for PC2086)? A label printing program I was rewriting for a customer has gone belly up. The original .exe will only run of 2.11 and they have no disks. As I need the original to print all the drug names (it's for a vet!) to put in the new dbase - I'm stuck! Help please.. :)
Amstrad answers: Fraid you are wrong. Amstrad has NEVER supplied a version of DOS less than 3.2 (which was supplied with 1512 and 1640). By the time we got to 2086 we were supplying MS-DOS 3.3 - It's actually an infringement of Microsoft's copyright for anyone to give you a copy of it but if you don't tell them get ppcdisks.zip from my file area as that includes a copy of DOS 3.3 (but not a word to MS!)

Andy Johnston in Southampton, UK at 17:6:38 Monday August 10 98
A friend of mine has an Amstrad PC3286 without a mouse. I have been in touch with CPC, as your web page instructs, and they say that the manufacture of the mouse has been discontinued. Will a standard serial mouse work OK? Any help from anyone who knows would be greatfully appreciated.
Amstrad answers: A standard serial mouse will most definitely work on a 3286 and what's more it will be about a million times more ergonomic than the awful Amstrad thing so you get two benefits for the price of one! The only piece of "magic" you require is that the motherboard link must be removed to disable the on board mouse interface. That's documented on my AT page.

Graham Parker in Brisbane, Australia at 1:36:51 Sunday August 9 98
Need Help. I have a Amstrad PC5286 with Amstrad Soundcard for which I cannot find DOS sound drivers for. Can anyone please help? The markings on the card include "Amstrad PLC 1991 with the number 3100-015P-4 below it. One of the chips has YAMAHA YM3812 stamped on it. The system just had a HDD upgrade by a PC Service Centre whom supposedly transfered all data although I cannot find reference to sound drivers at all. The old drive is now not accessable since I recieved it back from the repairer although it was working before the HDD upgrade and they are not interested in helping any further with this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Amstrad answers: There are no separate drivers for that card as such but it is designed to be Adlib compatible so if you run a DOS based game that includes FM sound you just select "Adlib" off the list of available soundcards and it should work with the card in the 5286.

Pablo Estrada Fern�ndez in Le�n, North of SPAIN at 1:22:44 Sunday August 9 98
Hi, Cliff! So, I have just bought a 3 1/2 " drive and I would like to join it to my CPC 464 plus. I only have tape and two conectors. Could you give me information about how to connect it? Thanks a lot, Cliff...
Amstrad answers: Well first off you are going to need to hunt round the second hand shops to see if you can find a DDI-1 disk interface that plugs onto the back of a 464. Once you've found one you've still got the problem that it was designed to work with a 3" FD1 drive not a 3.5" so you need to do some further modification. This is explained in the FAQ for the comp.sys.amstrad.8bit newsgroup and if you post a request there you may well find someone willing to sell a DDI1.

Michael White in Gloucester, Ont., Canada at 19:17:54 Friday August 7 98
Hi Cliff, I have recently resurrected my old Amstrad PC2386 and was pleased to find your site. I read that Bob Morris replaced the Amstrad CPU with a Cyrix, so I thought since I had a spare AMD 386DX33 lying about, why not try it. I did and it works (well I am having trouble bringing up Windows 3.11, but I'll sort it out later). My problem is the Setup programme only has a maximum speed of 20MHZ. I also tried the "Device Speed" command, but it will not accept a value greater than 20. Any suggestions? Thanks, Mike
Amstrad answers: Absolutely no way that you can make the motherboard go at more than 20MHz. It isn't designed to go any faster and effects like capacitance and signal skew would be come apparent at higher clock frequencies.
Back in the mists of time there was a company called "Badger" who did a 33MHz plug in board that did work in a 2386 but this did something a bit like modern pentiums do by offering a slower external bus speed than the internal CPU clock speed. In that case the outside world still thought it was a 20MHz CPU but inside it ran machine cycles at 33Mhz. Needless to say that company went out of business many moons ago and the board never went into production (I had the only sample and hence the only 33MHz 2386 in the world).

Henk Hendriks in Netherlands at 10:13:57 Friday August 7 98
I have an Amstrad PC 9486, can i expand my memory to 32 MB Non-edo ? If no, how much memory is maximal for this computer ?
Amstrad answers: No problem to use 32MB of non EDO in that machine. Just use standard SIMMs from any of the thousands of suppliers out there.

Sybil Hewson in Australia at 4:37:15 Sunday August 2 98
Cliff, Just to let you know all is well - one has to get into Hewlett-Packard's Set-up, into Advanced, Peripheral, Parallel, and change the Mode from ECP to EPP. Hope this may help someone else as frustrated as I! The HP chap said I would have to change it again to use the HP printer, but not so - they both work on EPP - is it any wonder I get confused?? Thanks again. Sybil
Amstrad answers: Glad you got it sorted.

Craig Edwards in www.stokecoll.ac.uk at 12:42:22 Friday July 31 98
Does anyone know were I can get locoscript2 for the pcw9512+ computer. I would also like to know what sort of floopy disk drive a pcw9512+ has
Amstrad answers: Well the obvious faceitious answer to that question is "Yes" but it'd probably be more helpful if I told you that www.locomotive.com would be more than happy to sell you a copy (and far more up to date than v2 - they are currently at version 4). The drive in a 9512+ is a 720K 3.5" which uses CP/M format (9 sector) disks.

Saeid Shenouda in USA and Egypt at 8:59:39 Friday July 31 98
I have the Amstrad Index Phone IX1000 but I don't have the Indexlink cable but I can make one for myself w/ some help from you. If you actually have the Indexphone IX1000 Indexlink cable, You can just check it w/ a continuity meter to tell me the wiring diagram. Or if you can look at the wiring colors and how many are they and how are they connected to the serial computer connector. It is pretty simple to find out. I appreciate your prompt response. I am a computer science professional and admire the Index phone and trying to hook it up to my computer but want the wiring diagram to make a cable. I have seen the computer interface w/ the Indexphone and I am impressed with it and would love to try it. Thank you, Saeid
Amstrad answers: Like I said when we talked via email, I have neither an IX1000 or the cable so can't check this but hopefully someone else reading this may have one and could buzz out the cable for you and advise you of the wiring.

Brian Watson in Sutton, Ely, Cambs at 6:49:36 Friday July 31 98
I have just had an enquiry from someone who wants to buy a copy of Protext for her PC1640, but only has the original 5.25" drive(s) fitted. We now only supply the program on 3.5" discs (single or double density is no problem). Is it a simple matter to replace the original drive on a 1640 with a 3.5" one, or to *add* a 3.5" as an additional drive, in terms of the machine recognising it? And does the same answer apply to the 1512 (to save a follow-up enquiry when someone asks me about that!)? If it is fairly simple mechanically too, it would seem a good option to suggest to her.
Amstrad answers: 'Ello matey - you generally get a more guaranteed response to questions by emailing me direct (or post a message on c.s.a.8) but to answer that... It isn't easy to replace A: with anything but a 360K 5.25" but B: CAN fairly easily be replaced with a 3.5" (then you just use a DRIVPARM or DRIVER.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS to let DOS know) but NOTA BENE: It must be a 720K drive, not a 1.44MB as the 1640 predates (and can't handle) the higher capacity drive. Same goes for 1512.

Tino Longueira in La Coru�a (Spain) at 16:49:3 Thursday July 30 98
I love the CPC 6128, but I don't have one. It is possible to get a CPC 6128? Where? Price?
Amstrad answers: Best place to look on the internet is the Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.amstrad.8bit - you often see people advertising second hand machines there. I'd expect to be able to get a 6128 for about £30-50 (don't ask me what that is in Pesetas!).

Gordon Alexander in Aberdeen, Scotland at 8:54:7 Thursday July 30 98
Where can I get a copy of the PDA 600 instruction book as I have recently acquired one without the manual.
Amstrad answers: As stated elsewhere on these pages (in several locations in fact!) you should be able to get spare manuals and parts for Amstrad equipment from either Edcom or CPC (the latter are to be found at www.cpc.co.uk)

Jim Strickland in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA at 21:30:13 Tuesday July 28 98
RE: PPC and hard disk. Thanks for your help. Since anything plugging into that port would necessarily be external, it offers no advantage over plugging a parallel port zip drive into the back of the PPC, loading its drivers from floppy, and calling it done. I was hoping there was a way to put the drive INSIDE, but having looked, there doesn't appear to be.
Amstrad answers: Is it all right for me to say "I told you so" at this point? :-)

Jim Strickland in USA at 0:37:12 Tuesday July 28 98
Several times you imply adding a hard disk to the ppc640 is possible, if not economically feasable. Well, I'd like to do it, just for the sake of doing it. Any suggestions?
Amstrad answers: Suggestions? Well maybe you'd want to see a psychiatrist to see if they could do anything about this masochistic streak that you have! But if you really want to add a hard drive then everything you need is given on my portables page where I document the pin out of the A/B expansion connectors on the back of the PPC. As you will probably recognise these are the standard ISA bus signals so you just need to run them to an ISA slot and then plug a hard disk controller into it and everything should be hunky-dory. Well that's what would happen in a perfect world but on most PCs the signals running to the ISA slots have all the necessary latching and buffering. The signals on the PPC do not so you will have to design circuitry to do all the necessary stuff. I'd highly recommend that you contact www.cpc.co.uk and get a copy of the service manual which will include a schematic so you can see what is happening on the PPC side of those signals and then you should be able to design the necessary electronics to interface to a standard ISA card.

ionathan in Paris, France at 14:36:49 Monday July 27 98
Asking for a friend (I know nothing about Amstrad computers). He has come upon what seems to be a CPC screen, manufactured by Schneider - ref Colour Monitor CTM640, and he wants to try and connect it to another computer... 1 Is this possible? Does anyone have indications for the 2 leads that go into the screen (a 6 dot DIN & what looks like a power jack...) 2 If this is not possible, who needs a screen like this? Feel free to email or fax (+33 1) 43 49 16 51. TIA
Amstrad answers: Well the bad news is that that monitor is of no use except with a CPC 464 comnputer but the good news is that there are several CPC owners who regularly read the comp.sys.amstrad.bit Usenet newsgroup and spare monitors are often sold quite quickly if you place an advert there.

Darrin Garnham in Guernsey,channel islands at 10:38:26 Friday July 24 98
Hi Clive.Ref the question asked by Anon on 15th July,about loading DOS 6.22.I need to do this to my 9486,my question is that on my Win95 CD,there is a file called "oldmsdos",could this be dragged across to the system files in Windows95,and loaded this way,as oppose to the above question raised by Anon.
Amstrad answers: Do you have ANY idea how many brownie points you lost by calling me Clive (though you are only the ten-gazillionth person to do it!).
The folder called "oldmsdos" on the Win95 just contains some of the utilities that used to come as standard with older versions of MS-DOS (like the BASIC) but aren't now installed when you first install Windows 95 - it isn't a copy of an old version of MS-DOS - the last thing Microsoft would ever do is give away software for free!! If you want a copy of MS-DOS 6.22 I think it still costs about £50-60. If you already have a copy then you need to proceed as detailed in my previous reply - unfortunately, there isn't a simpler way than what I described previously.

Alan Hawken in Waitotara - New Zealand at 3:40:14 Friday July 24 98
I have a 1512dd that has been upgraded to 640 and a 30 meg miniscribe hard card added (real expensive at the time). This machine is now in go slow! As though the turbo button (non-existent) was off. A program that the kids were using (I suspected a maths program), was slowing it down. I used to be able to rectify the problem by disconecting the batteries. That solution does not now work. Is there any way I can rejuvenate this ""rock thowing beastie"" to its former glory? Alan
Amstrad answers: Well there isn't a lot you can do to make an 8MHz 8086 run VERY fast as it is approximately 200 times slower than a modern 400MHz Pentium II machine but if you are saying that the same machine is now running slower than it used to then changing the batteries will not make any difference - that machine does not store the processor speed in CMOS and in fact the processor speed is not changeable at all. However it is possible that a driver loaded in either config.sys or Autoexec.Bat is hogging the CPU time and giving the impression of reduced performance so I'd temporarily rename those files to something else and reboot and see if the apparent speed is restored to it's former glory.

Fabrizio Pedrazzini in Italy at 11:48:3 Thursday July 23 98
Where could I buy a used or new Amstrad GX4000 game system? Every place in Europe is a good one...
Amstrad answers: I sometimes see people advertisng second hand GX4000 (and CPC Plus) machines on comp.sys.amstrad.8bit so I'd recommend asking the same question there. If you have newsreading software you can access csa8 directly but if not use www.dejanews.com to access the newsgroup.

Martin Orton in Dorset, UK at 21:54:36 Tuesday July 21 98
Hi, I am trying to find some clues about a mail-merge database format I think was part of Wordstar Express which I am informed was bundled with some Amstrad PC's. The files in question have the extension MLD and appear to be produced by something called EZMail. I cant quite figure out the file structure, my objective is to convert these files to a format usable by current database applications, ASCII character separated for example. Any information would be greatly appreciated
Amstrad answers: Fraid you've got me there as I don't think the company who worte WordStar Express can still provide support for it. Is it not possible to actually run a copy of the WordStar and then find if it has the ability to output the database contents in some well known format such as CSV? Course if you can make the program run you could maybe just do a mailmerge with the database and print the results to file (if the program has this option) and then you'll have the text in an easily readable format.

Bob Harrison in Kingsbridge, Devon, UK at 13:54:44 Monday July 20 98
Hello again! Many thanks for last response. Looking at my friend's PCW it does indeed have a PC-standard parallel printer port at the back of system unit - it must, therefore, be a 9512+ you mention. I think our problem lies in trying to make the system redirect its printer output to this parallel printer port. We seem to have discovered how to get LocoScript to change its printer (we have manual for LocoScript but no system manual). I would appreciate your advice as said friend is on the point of dissolving in tears at being deprived of being able to print. Amstrad answers: Ah well like I probably said previously - the people you need to contact are Locomotive Software. For one thing it is only versions 2 and onwards of Locoscript that may support a printer connected via that connector and even then I think you need their printer support pack that includes all the necessary drivers. Your best bet is to have a look at www.locomotive.com.

Sybil Hewson in Australia at 8:8:28 Monday July 20 98
Me again, Cliff. No wonder I had trouble - Hewlett-packard told me I was using DOS from the wrong place - instead of going through "Programs" I should have re-started the computer under Shutdown - Restart in DOS. Printer and computer speak to each other now. It's just that there is no driver for it - HP blames Windows. Suggests I should get in touch with Epson. Don't know about that, but I'll try it - maybe when computer-literate son-in-law visits next! Thanks again, Cliff. Sybil
Amstrad answers: You're welcome - hope you find what you are looking for.

Robert Longstaff in Guildford, Surrey, UK at 18:23:33 Sunday July 19 98
Hi Cliff. I have a PC1512 that's had its memory upgraded to 640K. However it's just started coming up with 'System Memory Fault' on bootup and rather than trash the whole machine I thought of a sneaky idea - assuming only one (or no more than two) memory chips have died I could take out x number of chips to reduce the memory back to 512K and try booting up. If that doesn't work I could play swapsies with the chips in the 512K slots until it finally gets going. If you think it's even a workable theory could you let me know which chips on the board cover the 512K area. Thanks.
Amstrad answers: Well part of what you suggest will work - if you just remove the extra 128K and change the link (near the memory sockets) back to the original position that will take the new memory out of circuit and may (probably will) fix the problem. But after that there isn't a lot else you can do as the 512K is made up from 8 chips that are different to the 8 that made up the add-in 128K and they aren't socketed so if the fault lies there I think it's good night Vienna!

Pablo Estrada Fern�ndez in Le�n, Spain at 13:58:54 Sunday July 19 98
Hi, CLIFF. Thank you very much for answering my question. So, I need soft and hardware to my CPC 464 plus, because I'm studying Industrial Enginnering and I have one project: resurrect old machines, build new operating systems for them (I built AOS (Amstrad Operating System) and It's better than W95...) One friend is trying to connect 6128 to PC and get a network. So, could you give me some information or people who could help us? Thanks, Cliff and remember: OLD MACHINES ARE THE PARENTS OF NEW MACHINES
Amstrad answers: As always I'd very strongly recommend posting this kind of question in the comp.sys.amstrad.8bit newsgroup as you won't find a greater density of CPC "devotees" anywhere else on the internet!

Sybil Hewson in Australia at 7:15:22 Saturday July 18 98
Thanks very much again, Cliff. I am persuaded that it's this old chook who's "buggered". However, I'll keep trying!

Gavin Paterson in Glasgow, Scotland at 12:40:16 Friday July 17 98
If anyone is interested in buying a PCW 9512 daisywheel printer for v. cheap (postage + £10) then mail me - Thief's left it when they took the PCW, still in good condition
Amstrad answers: As always I'd very strongly recommend posting this kind of advert in the comp.sys.amstrad.8bit newsgroup as you won't find a greater density of PCW "devotees" anywhere else on the internet!

Monika Ochsenbein in Paris at 20:50:52 Thursday July 16 98
Suddenly my PDA600 displayed memory full, memory free 0%, I cannot work at all my addresses and tel.numbers, but my anniversaries are still in. My date has gone back to 1993, I erased many notes/drawings but memory free still 0%. I have no card. Have I lost my data ? Any ideas what to do ? Thank you.
Amstrad answers: Sorry to say it but I'm 99.9% certain that you have lost your data and after such a fatal crash as you have had I would suggest that the only sensible thing to do would be to remove all batteries to completely clear the machine of any remaining corrupted data. This is one of the reasons why it is prudent to keep backups of any important data on whatever type of computer you might happen to use. In the case of the PDA this means getting a copy of the Windows connection kit and cable so youcan take regular copies of your precious data in case a similar thing might re-occur.

Thomas Wibmer in Munich, Germany at 18:33:20 Thursday July 16 98
I own a PC 2286 and riecently I bought a CPU-Card, which is a 16-Bit ISA-Card with an Intel 468-33 on it and it is made to work in a so-called "passive mainboard"! When I put it on a passive mainboard (i.e. a board with just slots on it) it works properly. How can I make it work in my Amstrad? There are two problems: 1) The Amstrad does not seem to have a "Power-Good" cable but the card needs a link between the power good cable an itself, which is usually not too difficult to make (but even if I take +5V or -5V or GND it's not working)! 2) I don't know whether the Amstrad does actually support such "Slot-In-CPU-Cards" for upgrading. Can You help me?
Amstrad answers: It strikes me that there is far more likelihood of the CPU card suppliers being able to answer these questions than me but I would have thought that the "power good" was just a logic signal that was asserted to say that the PSU had attained 5V. As such I would have thought that tying it to one of the TTL levels would have worked but you say that doesn't work so I haven't a clue how you get round that (by the way -5V probably was not a very good idea!!). As for 2) I've never heard of anyone successfully using a plug in CPU card in an Amstrad but to be honest I've never heard of a plug in CPU card - full stop!

Sybil Hewson in Oz at 7:20:18 Thursday July 16 98
Thank you very much for answering my question, Cliff. I do have an HP printer attached to the HP computer, and that works. As I said in my question of the 9th, I am (mostly) computer illiterate - should I have done something else after I made a copy of the autoexec.bat LPT1 file? I do apologise if I'm wasting your time. Again, thankyou. Sybil
Amstrad answers: I fear you may have misunderstood. The command COPY Autoexec.bat lpt1 does not make a copy of the file on disk but "lpt1" is a special DOS device that routes output to the printer (lpt is short for Line PrinTer). So what should have happened if you typed that command is that the contents of the text file "autoexec.bat" should have been printed on the attached printer. This is the VERY simplest way of sending something to a printer that doesn't rely on Windows or all that nonsense and if you typed that command and nothing came out on the printer it shows that there is a FUNDAMENTAL problem that goes much deeper that just a setup issue in Windows. If you do that Copy command and nothing happens then either the printer interface, the cable or the printer is completely buggered.

steve harrington in england at 23:43:55 Wednesday July 15 98
thank you for information about broken screen and i'm sorry for shouting
Amstrad answers: No problemo - I think you must have caught me on a bad day!!

Anon at 13:11:21 Wednesday July 15 98
I have Windows 95 installed on my 9486,however i would like to load DOS 6.22 as well,is this possible?.Reason being is i have a lot of dos based software which runs a lot better on 6.22 as oppose to Window 95 ,some games won't run at all!!!.,although they install okay.Help.
Amstrad answers: OK, what you ask is eminently possible (I find myself doing it quite a lot to get machines onto one of our networks using DOS when the Windows 95 has failed) but it isn't the simplest of things in the whole world so "pin back your lug holes..."
What you are trying to achieve in the end is to put the three important MS-DOS files in the root directory of the hard disk where Windows 95 loads from. The three files are called IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM but there are a couple of small problems. First they are usually hidden system files so it isn't as easy as just COPYing them from floppy to hard disk and secondly Windows 95 also starts from three files with identical names so if you just copied them over you'd erase the vital Windows 95 files.
The way that the Windows 95 dual boot feature gets round this is that it has the MS-DOS versions of the files renamed as IO.DOS, MSDOS.DOS and COMMAND.DOS when they are not being used. Then on the occasions that you do boot into MS-DOS it renames them to the .SYS and .COM names and renames the Windows 95 versions as IO.W40, MSDOS.W40 and COMMAND.W40 (cos Windows 95 is really Windows version 4!!).
So to add MS-DOS you need to do the following: First make security copies of the Windows 95 files in case anything goes wrong. Take a blank floppy, boot W95 from the hard disk, go to a C:\> prompt and type the command SYS A: which will copy the system files to that floppy (hopefully you won't need this). Also copy SYS.COM from \WINDOWS\COMMAND to the floppy. Now reboot the machine from a floppy containing MS-DOS 6.22 (or whatever) and at the A:\> prompt give the command ATTRIB -S -H -R *.* to make all the hidden and system files visible. Then give the command COPY IO.SYS C:\IO.DOS followed by COPY MSDOS.SYS C:\MSDOS.DOS and finally COPY COMMAND.COM C:\COMMAND.DOS. Right, so far so good. There is just one final two part step. First you need to ATTRIB -S -H -R C:\MSDOS.SYS to make one of the Windows 95 files visible. Then because unlike in MS-DOS, the file MSDOS.SYS in Windows 95 is rally a text file you can then run an editor (such as EDIT) to examine and modify the contents of the Windows 95 MSDOS.SYS in the root of C: - you need to add a new line under the [options] section which says bootmulti = 1. Save the modified file and if you want to set it back to hidden/system/readonly status (probably wise) you can use ATTRIB +R +S +H MSDOS.SYS.
In theory you have now done it so restart the computer and when you see "Starting Windows 95..." on screen press the [F8] key. Instead of the normal 7 entry menu you should now have a new 8th option which says "8. Use old version of MS-DOS", choose that and MS-DOS 6.22 should start. You can create Autoexe.Bat and Config.Sys files while MS-DOS is running and these will automatically be renamed back to Autoexec.Dos and Config.Dos when you restart into Windows 95. To get back to Windows 95 just press Ctrl-Alt-Del and the next time the machine starts it will go into Windows 95 (unless you press [F8] and select option 8).
That's all there is to it but if something went wildly wrong boot from that floppy you made at the start and then SYS C: from the A:\> prompt.

Ted Anderson in Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.A. at 19:26:50 Tuesday July 14 98
For the PPC640, can a regular A/C adapter be used to power it from the DC IN port in the back? Is the tip supposed to be negative or positive? How much current will it draw? Most A/C adapters are limited to 300 mA. Thank you in advance.
Amstrad answers: It should be possible to use a standard PSU but I'm afraid I don't have a PPC here to check what the voltage level and polarity requirements are. The one thing I do remember about the PPC was that the PSU was rated for over 1A because the surge current as the floppy disk motor starts is pretty high (maybe 700mA) and then the modem can also consume a lot of power (maybe 500mA) so if you starts to access a floppy while the modem is connected (say you are downloading a file) then the combined current drain is very high. Maybe 1.5A to be on the safe side. As far as I can remember it was something like 11 or 13V as it is internally rectified and 12V is needed for the floppy drive motor.

STEVEN HARRINGTON in KIDDERMINSTER ENGLAND at 23:17:6 Monday July 13 98
I HAVE A ALT 285 PORTABLE WITH A BROKEN SCREEN, WHERE CAN I GET A NEW ONE FROM THANK YOU
Amstrad answers Why is everyone SHOUTING AT ME this morning? It is bad internet netiquette to use all upper case text unless you are REALLY ANGRY and want to SHOUT A LOT!
All Amstrad spares including ALT screens should be availble from either CPC or Edcom who's details are given on my spares page.

peter morgan in scotland at 3:34:17 Monday July 13 98
I have recently upgraded my 9486i to windows 95. All is fine except for the pci scsi card i moved in from my other machine that i was getting rid of. The card is an NCR815XS to which are connected a HP 6020 cd writer and Microtek scanner. I have retreived the correct driver for the scsi card but still I cannot get access to any of the devices on the scsi bus. Do i need updated drivers for the PCI bridge and if so what and where are they obtainable.
Amstrad answers: No the "PCI bridge" is a complete red herring. You should just find that if you install the card and then it's software following exactly the same instructions that allowed you to install it in Windows 95 on the previous PC then it should work just as well on the 9486i. If it doesn't then you should ask the supplier of that card/peripheral for help.

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