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Bill Tilghman in Boston , MA USA at 18:11:18 Friday October 9 98
Need in Windows NT 4.0 to rename a .TXT file and have date part of the file name. I have tryed ESC ANSI..not working
Amstrad answers: And the relevance of this to Amstrad is.....? Wouldn't you be better off asking Microsoft? (rhetorical). However, if I were you I'd post the enquiry in one of the comp.sys.ibm.pc or comp.sys.os.NT type newsgroups.

Andreas in sweden at 18:46:39 Wednesday October 7 98
where is the reset-button in the satelite-resever??I must reset it because I have forgoten my "PIN".so please tell where it is!!
Amstrad answers: Sorry but I don't know much about satellite systems - I presume the manual doesn't say (or you don't have it). I'm afraid you'll have to revert to the old fashioned methods and contact Sat support at the following address/numbers

David Lawson (no relation:) in London at 0:16:44 Wednesday October 7 98
My trusty old ALT386sx returned home last week after two years with a friend. He wanted a modem fitted. By huge coincidence, an almost identical machine was sitting on my table from one of his colleages. This had developed an intermittent fault accessing the hard disk. It demanded a floppy instead. Then an even bigger coincidence. My old machine started to develop the same fault. I suspected a virus. Both machines had been infected with Form A and cleaned by Microsoft Antivirus. But neither this nor the latest McAfee can find anything else. The sporadic fault on one machine is now almost continuous and the other has gone from fault-free to the same. I can switch on several times and get a HD boot but then face problems on both machines for the next dozen or so boots as each rejects the HD and can only be activated by a floppy. So I am left with a weird problem. Why should two machines develop the same fault within days? They were both bought at the same time from the same source in 1991 and now live in the same office but have led different lives. Mine was fairly static, kept first in my home and then in the new owner's office. The other has travelled around the world and probably been bashed around a lot. But both were running perfectly well until recently. And what is that fault? The hard disks are OK, as they run in other machines. Is it a BIOS/CMOS corruption? (Phoenix 1988-90). I noticed that both machines (which have been hardly used in the last six months) were showing dates beyond the year 2000. Gawdnose why. Perhaps a Millennium bug has scrambled the internal logic?
Amstrad answers: Sounds to me just like the hard disks are dying of old age. Time to back up and then replace/junk them.

John Spencer at 19:50:27 Tuesday October 6 98
I HAVE A 4.3G HD IN MY SYSTEM, BUT WIN95 ONLY ALLOWED ME TO USE 2G; NOW I HAVE WIN98 INSTALLED, I HAVE ALSO INSTALLED A SECOND 1.7G HD. HOW DO I COPY THE PRIMERY TO THE SLAVE AND VICE VERSA. THANK YOU
Amstrad answers: DID YOUR CAPS LOCK KEY GET STUCK? Or do you just like SHOUTING a lot?
Although the question has nothing to do with Amstrads in particular I can tell you that the way to copy the contents of one hard disk to another is using XCOPY. Be sure to run it from a DOS box in Win95 (not a standalone DOS prompt) to ensure that long file names are copied correctly. You'd probably want to use something like: XCOPY C:\ D:\ /E /C /H /R /K

Lee Philpot in UK at 13:22:58 Tuesday October 6 98
Does anyone know how I would go about getting / connecting a printer to a notepad NC100 Any help / info that would help me in my endeavours please feel free to email me Thanks. l.philpot@newport.ac.uk
Amstrad answers: NC100 has a standard, PC compatible, parallel interface so you can connect any printer that you might also connect to a PC. The NC100 already has built in "drivers", (though it only ever does bold and italic anyway!) The supported printer types are: Simple, IBM 24 pin, Epson 9 pin, Epson 24 pin, Canon BJ10E and Laserjet.

Jussi Tiilikainen in Finland at 12:22:36 Tuesday October 6 98
I have bought an Amstrad PC-1640 with 20 Megs harddisk. The old owner, Well, I don't know what he has done, but I cant chance autoexec.bat or config.sys and in startup computer doesn't show me the usual texts (only please wait ) And can I get somewhere drivers for my screencontroller (sorry for a wrong term, I wish you understand)Thanks for answers!
Amstrad answers: Well if you never see anything more than "Please wait..." then the computer is just plain broken and needs to be repaired (if you think it's economical to do so).

Anon at 8:12:54 Tuesday October 6 98
Does anyone have a service manual for the Amstrad Studio (Master) 100 Mixer Desk. TIA Sue
Amstrad answers: Did you try CPC at www.cpc.co.uk?

Dave Ellis in UK at 0:20:49 Tuesday October 6 98
When I bought my Amstrad 1640 many years ago I also bought the Infomaster database (Amstrad PC Software SOFT 50020). I have a lot of information in it that I now want to transfer to my new Windows 98 machine. I have transferred all the files across but Infomaster won't run (even in MS-DOS mode). I believe that Infomaster was a cut down version of Dataease but I haven't been able to find any information on either of these products either in news groups or via search engines. Do you know whether there is a Windows version of a database that will read Infomaster files? As a very last resort I could convert all the files to csv but I really don't want to. Thanks,
Amstrad answers: I think you're right that InfoMaster was a cut down version of Dataease and every now and again on the news, Money Programme, etc. I keep seeing organisations running what appears to be DOS based database software with that very familiar green and blue look of Dataease so I'm 99.9% certain that it must still be a supported product. I have a very strong feeling that the overall company responsible for all that software was called Sapphire and, what's more, I do believe they may have been based in Ilford in Essex. I'm really surprised that putting "Dataease" into a web search engine didn't turn anything up for you. But maybe try "Sapphire" as well.

Later... I just went and typed "Dataease" into the web search engine I normally use (Metacrawler) and it immediately gave me a link to www.dataease.co.uk - I think you must have been using a very poor search engine! (It looks like they are up to Windows version 5!!)

F.GAZZINO in KOREA at 13:2:53 Monday October 5 98
Hello, I am looking for the electronic schematic of the CPC 6128, 464 and the DDI 1 interface. Can you help me for this research ? Thank's
Amstrad answers: I'm pretty sure that Kevin Thacker has got scans of the service manuals on his excellent CPC web site - linked from my own CPC page.

Daniel Carman at 0:42:3 Monday October 5 98
I have a question about BBC Basic on the NC100 , How do I get OPENOUT to work ? , because no matter how I type it I always get a Syntax error message .
Amstrad answers: How about I = OPENOUT("TEST") then BPUT I, 37, followed by CLOSE#I

peter in London at 21:42:26 Sunday October 4 98
My amstrad Integra P75 loses the colour red after my computer has been running for about 5 mins,despite my efforts I am unable to rectify this problem. Any advice to rectify this would be greatly appreciated. Peter
Amstrad answers: At the end of the day the monitor in an Integra, like the monitor in any computer is nothing more than a souped up colour telly (in fact it's like a colour telly but with the tuner taken away). As such anyone who repairs TVs should be able to have a fair crack at fixing that red gun problem which is probably a capacitor, transistor or diode that "drifts" as it gets hot. Probably the best first step is to look for computer shops in your local Yellow pages and just ring round to see if any of them do monitor repairs.

Pablo Estrada Fern�ndez in LEON (Spain) at 9:18:49 Sunday October 4 98
Hi, Cliff! So, I have recently bought two CPC 6128, but they have broken their 3" drives, so, could I conect a 3� drive on them? how could I do it? Thanks...
Amstrad answers I think you'll find this is all explained in the FAQ for comp.sys.amstrad.8bit and, what's more, that newsgroup is full of people who have done it and would be more than willing to answer any questions you might have if you run into problems. I think I've got a link to Emmanuel's FAQ from my CPC page.

Bill Tropp in Carol Stream, IL at 0:26:50 Sunday October 4 98
I need to find the setup software for an Amstrad 1386. Its a 20Mhz 386 with 4M of Ram. Thanks
Amstrad answers: File archive - top of page - called Setup.Exe

Brian Jenkins in Benfleet, Essex. at 8:20:19 Saturday October 3 98
I have an Amstrad 7386SX40 which I now use on Paket Radio, The Radio Ham's version of The Internet. The backup battery has died on me. have you any info on what the battery is so I can purchase one before I strip the computer down. Thanks.
Amstrad answers: Nope fraid I'm not familiar with the battery used in 7386 and I just checked the CPC catalogue and I couldn't see it listed there but this is probably because it just uses a standard "Dallas" part as found in most modern PCs but I'm afraid you'll have to open it up to see the part used (normally a large black rectangular blobby thing - you'll know it when you see it).

Martin in near Sevenoaks, Kent at 19:39:7 Friday October 2 98
Have installed a new hard disk on a friend's Integra as the old one was dead. Will pick up the TV software in due course. Can you help with the sound card. There was sound before the HD died and the sound card appears properly setup in system properties hardware now. What are we missing, should it run with just a standard windows setup or do I need something else.
Amstrad answers: Not sure that I can help much except to say that on the occasion I had to reinstall an Integra the soundcard "just worked" with no fiddling. It couldn't be something silly like having forgotten to reconnect a speaker wire or something while you were inside changing the hard drive could it?

Lee Holyoake in Shropshire, England. at 21:49:48 Thursday October 1 98
Hi, I'm trying to get my brothers ANB386sx20 working. The psu/charger doesn't work and the NiCad won't charge. He tells me the laptop worked fine off the psu when it was working. I've tried powering the machine with 6v directly onto the batery connections but the power light comes on for a few seconds then goes off. The machine refuses to power up. Any ideas. Thanks, Lee
Amstrad answers I do know that the ANB was full of thermal protection and charge monitoring circuits to make sure that it's battery couldn't get hot. I'd guess that if you try and use anything but the "official" PSU then the thing is probably performing thermal shutdown or something like that. You may be able to get the official PSU as a spare part from www.cpc.co.uk but I wouldn't be surprised if they charge more than the whole ANB is now worth.

IVS-Computerservice Joachim Schaerffe at 21:19:30 Thursday October 1 98
K�nnen Sie mir eine Bedienungsanleitung f�r das Pen Pad PDA 600 schicken. Ich w�re Ihnen sehr dankbar. F�r Ihre M�he danke ich Ihnen im voraus Mit freundlichen Gr��en Joachim Sch�rffe PS Meine Adresse lautet IVS-Computerservice Ostpreu�enstra�e 2 37449 Zorge Germany
Amstrad answers: Sorry but I cannot speak German. Have you tried contacting Wiedmann? They are a German company who specialise in support for the PDA600. There is a link to them from my Penpad page.

DesertHwkk in Pa at 10:53:12 Wednesday September 30 98
i would like to know where and if i can buy keyboards for Amstrad PC1512pc i have 7 of them that needs keyboards thanks>>Dave
Amstrad answers: Try Edcom and/or CPC - details on this very web site.

Liz in Luxembourg at 15:45:16 Tuesday September 29 98
I have two questions about the SRD 600 satellite receiver that I hope you can help me with.
1. How do I turn off subtitles from the screen? The teletext page will not go to page 860, which contains the technical information and using the available text on subtitles does not clear the screen i.e. when I input subtitles off the subtitles remain on the screen.
2. I want to try to receive some new channels - namely TV1000 Cinema at 11.823 but the receiver will only go to 11.755mhz. If it is possible to receive these frequencies above 11.755, could you advise me on the most cost effective and practical ways of doing this. I am also keen to get Canal+S and Gul at 12.092 and 12.015. I have an old Philips LNB presently fitted to the dish which works well for the stations received.
Thank you in advance for your help. Liz in Luxembourg
Amstrad answers: Well I'd love to be able to help but I don't really know the first thing about satellite systems as I work in the computer design department so I'm afraid you'll have to revert to the good old fashioned communication methods to phone, fax or write to the Satellite Support Dept. at the address/numbers shown here. I seem to remember hearing that there is some sort of frequency shifting gadget you can get to extend the receivable range of a sat receiver but I don't know any details.

Niall Kennedy in Ireland at 15:18:57 Tuesday September 29 98
Re: GEM applications: True, there is hardly any current application software for GEM, but the old stuff has the right system requirements for a 1512/XT. For personal, non-commercial use, Caldera is allowing the old software to be distributed. Go to http://cws86.kyamk.fi/mirrors/cpm/, look for DOWNLOAD and then GEMWORLD.
Amstrad answers Thanks for that.

Niall Kennedy in Ireland at 15:15:1 Tuesday September 29 98
Re: Mallard BASIC on PC: You'll find it in Locomotive's catalogue at http://www.locosoft.demon.co.uk/pcwcat.htm#catlnk. If you've still got the system disks, there is also a PCW emulator at http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/pcw.html.
Amstrad anwsers: Thanks for that but I think that is the old URL for Locomotive. I think Howard said they'd moved (or were moving) from Demon so it's safest to start by accessing them at www.locomotive.com

Alan Vince in NSW - Australia at 6:57:55 Tuesday September 29 98
A friend I know has an AMSTRAD PC1640. The batteries are now dead and they cannot get the settings for Hard Drive anywhere. To the best of my knowledge it is as was, so it has the original hard drive. Can anyone help with this problem please?
Amstrad answers: Did you see what you did there? You fell into the common trap that almost everyone else does of thinking that the PC1640 is an AT class of PC like modern computers where you have CMOS RAM holding a hard disk type number and that the hard disk isn't visible until that number is set. Well the 1640 is a 12 year old design of computer that is an XT (not AT) class of computer and, if you can remember those halcyon days, you may remember that rather than the main system BIOS supporting the hard disk (and therefore needing to be told what type it is) each XT hard disk had it's own controller card with a BIOS that matched the hard drive mechanism that was attached so you never had any of this fiddly business with hard drive type numbers. The hard drives in those days really were "plug in and go". The downside was that you had to replace the controller each time you changed hard drive. The upshot of all this is that if the batteries go flat in a 1640 (or any other XT computer) it has no impact whatsoever on the working of the hard disk, it will just still be there everytime you switch on. Of course, the 1640 IS a 12 year old computer and there's every chance that the hard drive in such an old computer may just have died of old age. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with the batteries. So the bottom line is that the hard drive in that old thing has probably just popped it's clogs.

Alan King in London at 0:25:34 Tuesday September 29 98
Does anyone know where I can get some GEM applications for the PC1512.
Amstrad answers: Well, I'm 99.9% certain that the rights to GEM have now passed to Caldera so maybe that'd be the place to start looking for continued GEM support but let's face it that it is a 13-14 year old operating system and there probably hasn't been much development for it in the last 10 years. So anything you do find us unlikely to be very contemporaneous.

brian f harder in australia at 14:35:21 Monday September 28 98
pc3386sx have loaded dos 6.22 but will not accept loading windows 3.11 takes floppy 1&2 of win 3.11 and then will not load any futher disks and gives message shut down other programs running.

Further to my previous question. The exact message received after loading floppy 2. Cannot start windows in standard mode. Make sure you are not running other protected mode software,or try starting windows in 386 enhanced mode by typing win /3. I have tried this with no result. All help appreciated,thanks.
Amstrad answers: Most of the problems one used to get when trying to start Windows 3 were to do with either HIMEM.SYS or EMM386.EXE - you want to have a look at the lines that are loading those in your Config and Autoexec files and see if you can spot a problem. Basically speaking you'll want to use the 3386 Setup to make sure all memory is Extended (not Expanded) and then have a Config that loads Himem.Sys (probably best to go for the one from the DOs 6.22 disks) and then a line that loads EMM with something such as EMM386 RAM NOEMS

Erich Grassl at 10:41:14 Monday September 28 98
Please send me the pinout of PDA 600 serial interface
Amstrad answers: From page 46 of the PDA manual

1 +5V 2 TxD 3 RTS 4 Rxd 5 CTS 6 Gnd 7 n.c. 8 n.c.

James at 10:3:4 Sunday September 27 98
Can I get Mallard Basic from anywhere? I would like run a Mallard Basic game on my PC but I don't have my Amstrad anymore.
Amstrad answers: I'm sure that Locomotive would be more than happy to sell you a copy. They can be found at www.locomotive.com

Uncle Roger in San Francisco, California, USA at 20:13:3 Wednesday September 23 98
I am looking for some info on Amstrad and the PPC640. In addition to the info listed on my web site at < http://www.sinasohn.com/clascomp/ > that I'd like to have, I'd also like to find out when the company was founded and how many were made. Also, if anyone has a PPC512 or other models, or one with the hard disk option that they want to get rid of, I would be most interested. Thanks for a great site, btw!
Amstrad answers: Amstrad was founded by Alan Sugar about 30 years ago. Amstrad was actually short for Alan Michael Sugar TRADing company Limited. Alan is still very much in charge today thought about £100m richer than he was when he started selling car aerials out of the back of a van in a street market in the East End of London.
I don't know the exact figures but I'd guess at there maybe having been about 30-50,000 PPC machines made. It wasn't the most successful thing we ever made (the most successful thing was the PCW of which we sold about 1.5m, we also sold about 1m CPC home computers and the sales of 1512 and 1640 combined were probably just short of a million as well.
There weren't that many PPC512s made so you may have a problem finding one of those 12 year old computers second hand. However, if you do find one, expect to pay about £20-30 for one. I don't think there's any chance that you'll find one with a hard disk as I think there was only the one company who offered an HD fitting service and that cost about £500 when the whole PPC only cost £300 new so not many people will have taken them up on the offer. I'd guess there maybe only about 100 hard disk PPCs in the entire world.

Roy Mathur in Slough, UK at 11:0:20 Wednesday September 23 98
Hi Am I the only one who still plays around with CounterPoint? YES This was an early attempt at an Amstrad GUI for DOS. With it you can design menus, shortcuts and run dos commands with icons- there is also and icon editor. It was bundled with the 7(?)0386 25 Mhz 2 Mb RAM PC, circa 1991. Was it ever upgraded? Does anyone out there still use it? Thanks Roy Mathur
Amstrad answers Arrghhh, don't talk to me about Counterpoint. I think it was probably one of the worst pieces of software I have ever come across in all my born days. When we first decided to use it I think I must have found about two or three hundred bugs in it and it took a constant stream of faxes between myself and the American developers over about 9 months to iron them all out. I can't believe that it could ever have gone on to any sort of commercial success and besides which it wasn't long after CP that Windows took off in a big way as the "icon interface to DOS" and it wouldn't have stood a chance against that. I think we only used it because it was a cheap alternative to Windows.

Stephen Nelson in Oxford, UK at 19:7:18 Tuesday September 22 98
I have a ANB386sx40. For reasons probably of my own doing, the floppy drive refuses to work. It is VITAL that I get it to work again, even if it means buying a new drive and cable. I cannot afford a new computer, but I cannot function without my laptop. If anyone can help, please e-mail me, I would be extremely grateful!

Further to my previous question - replacing ANB386SX-40 disk drive, I have another option... Can anyone think of how I can transfer files from my notebook to my PC without the use of the A: drive? Answer: Yes - use a null modem cable.... Problem: I don't have the software on the C: drive of the notebook - how can I get it there? Any ideas, or is this a genuine impossibility? Steve
Amstrad answers: 1) Didn't the machine have Windows installed. If so then there IS some communications software on there that you could use - the TERMINAL.EXE program in \Windows. 2) Failing that I think that the later versions of Laplink were clever enough to be able to install a hook on the distant machine to start transferring stuff (not sure how they do this!!). So it might be worth investigating that.

Glenn Gohr in Springfield, MO at 7:44:43 Tuesday September 22 98
Help! My Amstrad PCW8256 just died after about 10 yrs. of ownership. I have disks of information, but they are not IBM compatible. I'd like to either send the info. to another computer or else print out the info. Would need to use someone else's Amstrad that could handle the size disks that are used or else get my machine fixed. Would still like to transfer the info. to IBM compatible disks as I have a Pentium Computer that uses 3 1/2 in. disks & CD ROM. Any suggestions, anyone?
Amstrad answers: Assuming it is not too many disks I'd suggest that the easiest solution for you would be to send them off to one of the many bureaus that offer a PCW to PC conversion service. There are some linked from my PCW page. Expect to pay about £5-10 per disk.

Grigory at 10:33:53 Monday September 21 98
how find manual for Amstrad SRX200/E
Amstrad answers: All our manuals (well almost all) are available from CPC who can be found at www.cpc.co.uk.

Phil Sherry in UK at 22:54:15 Sunday September 20 98
I'm another collector and have recently been given an Amstrad ALT-286 Laptop, but it has no battery and consequently won't boot. Is there a way to bypass this problem (re-wire?) untill I locate a battery? I'm a computer engineer but have no documentation for this machine.

Re my previous question concerning an ALT-286. I have it powering up now, but on boot it gives a POST error beep (2 beeps then 3). Lights flick on then off, leaving only the power light on, the fan runs but no display. I've changed the memory but feel it may be the h/d. No access to the floppy also. Any ideas?
Amstrad answers: I don't have a list of the beep codes here (normally it's a RAM fault anyway!) but the BIOS in the ALT is by Phoenix so if you track down their web site I'll bet you'll find a generic list of the beep codes produced by their BIOS'

Andy Mclean in Staffs at 18:50:53 Saturday September 19 98
How do I run a games disk I have purchased? I have lost the instructions. I have a PCW 10. Thanks for your help
Amstrad answers: To run any sort of program on a PCW10 you need to start the machine using the CP/M disk rather than the Locoscript disk. When the A> prompt appears remove the CP/M disk and insert the games disk. Type the command DIR. IN amongst all the files you should see one called [something].COM so just type the word [something] at the A> prompt and the game should start.

Anon at 13:11:12 Friday September 18 98

Amstrad answers: Oh, go on - don't be shy - you were so near and yet so far!

Mayling Hargreaves in London, UK at 13:3:51 Friday September 18 98
Reply to Saeid Shenouda, Indexphone question 31 July. Others may be interested. Re your July message re linking the Amstrad Indexphone to a PC. The product needed is Index Link Kit, Part number AMINDXLK0, available from a UK firm called CPC Plc, Faraday Drive, Fulwood, Preston PR2 9PP, UK Sales phone 01772 654455, Fax: 01772 654466 I rang on a Thursday, paid by credit card and the parcel arrived the following day.

They charged me, UK resident, 24.19 pounds + 3.99 pounds handling charge + 4.93 pounds VAT = 33.11pounds.

The package included the software on a 3.5" disk, manual, and cable. The cable is special with a UK phone plug at one end, a 9 pin female serial plug at the other and a sealed box in the middle, about 2"x1"x.5" in size. We think it may have a transformer &/or chips/diodes inside apart from cable connections. The UK phone company, BT, is very careful about what is/can be connected to its system. In the 9 pin plug there are wires to pins 2,3,4,5 and 7. Pins 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the UK phone plug are connected to something except in this case the UK phone plug is not meant to be connected to the phone system.

PS The indexphone is still available from the Telecom Company, Suite 500, 150 Regent St. London W1R 5FA Tel: 07000 004357 Fax: 07000 782414
Amstrad answers: I LOVE this kind of "question" as it saves me having to thnk up an answer and is informative into the bargain - thanks.

M C CAMPBELL at 12:41:41 Friday September 18 98
Have you a Satalite web site.
Amstrad answers: Not as yet but the prospect of a "real" www.amstrad.com is getting closer everyday and we'd certainly plan to include satellite info there as well as computer stuff because these days satellite (especially the new Sky Digital service) is a large part of Amstrad's business. Just keep watching www.amstrad.com over the coming months.

Steven Rutledge in Australia at 12:22:6 Friday September 18 98
I have recently been given an old Amstrad PPC 640 only when it starts up it displays: please wait..... then it shows a small flashing line in the top left corner. Apparently I need a special version of MS DOS 3.3 and some auxilary files. Can you please help me set it up. Maybe you have those files laying around?
Amstrad answers: Lying around on this very site - get ppcdiscs.zip from the download page. In fact you don't need those disc images anyway because the PPC can be started with any floppy disc containing any version of MS-DOS, PC-DOS or DR-DOS as long as it has been formatted as 720K rather than 1.44MB

Nick Creal in Swanwick, England at 10:37:27 Friday September 18 98
Please could you tell me if the following computers are year 2000 compliant.
Amstrad PCW 9512
Amstrad PC1640 HD20
Amstard PC1640 HD30
Also are there any embedded chips in the following printers that may be affected by the millenium bug. Amstrad DMP 3160, Amstard PCW printer
Amstrad answers: Oh my God, Swanwick, don't tell me you are using those 12 year old computers to implement the new national ATC centre!
The PCW does not have a realtime clock so cannot be affected. The 1640's do and are affected and are not compliant but maybe you'll be the soul brave enough to tell me why the hell it matters? So your users will have to use the DATE command on 1-1-00, is that such a hardship?
You'll be pleased to hear that Amstrad have NEVER made a printer with a clock in it so none of our printers are affected.

E. Adan in Bergen op Zoom at 13:59:35 Thursday September 17 98
Wij zouden graag de sateliet frequenties voor de Nederlandse omroepen willen weten.
Amstrad answers: I'm sorry but I don't speak your language and the Babelfish, which is usually so helpful with translations, doesn't have Dutch. If it is a satellite enquiry then I'm afraid you will have to revert to using phone/fax/letter, in English, to the address/number shown here

Andy Holmes at 18:45:31 Wednesday September 16 98
Mouse problem with pc2386:-After encountering bad clusters on a pc2386 hard drive, the drive was formatted and dos 6.02 and windows 3.1 installed. Advice followed re use of mousefix and mousefix8 with no success. The probelem is that initially no response could be obtained from the mouse. I eventually got it to work in dos only by copying the original mouse.com file from the original dos disk and adding the appropriate line to the autoexec.bat file. No joy however with win 3.1. Any suggestions anyone?
Amstrad answers: Are you sure you really mean Windows 3.1 and not Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ? It's a very important difference because MS changed the way the mouse is supported quite dramatically between those two versions of Windows. Assuming it is just 3.1 then the correct procedure should be:
1) Install Win 3.1
2) If it didn't happen during installation use the Microsoft Expand.Exe program to expand the MOUSE.CO_ from the floppies to MOUSE.COM on your hard disk
3) Try running MOUSE.COM - if and only if you see the message "Interrupt jumper missing" have you actually got the problem that my Mousefix program solves. So forget about it if this isn't the case
4) Assuming you see that message then if it is MOUSE 7.04 (as came with Windows 3.1) then use my MOUSEFIX program. If it is MOUSE 8.20 (which came with later versions) then use my MOUSFIX8 program.
5) Try to load MOUSE.COM again. This time it should load without that erorr message.
6) Before trying to start WIN you should first switch to \Windows and delete any MOUSE.INI file you find there (this is VERY important). Failure to do so will leave Windows under the impression that the wrong sort of mouse is being used.
7) Finally start WIN and everything should be hunky-dory.

In the unlikely event that you STILL have problems the most hassle free solution is to get yourself down to PC World and splash the cash (about £5) on a standard serial mouse. Use this on the COM port on the back of the machine and disable everything to do with the Amstrad mouse interface by removing the option link as detailed here

Jim McGoldrick in Doncaster, S. Yorks. at 10:17:56 Wednesday September 16 98
A friend of mine has an Amstrad PC 1640, but has lost the GEM disk (diskette 1) needed to install the programme. I wonder is it possible to obtain a replacement, and who could help me?
Amstrad answers: Salvation is at hand. Complete images of all the 1640 floppies exist on this very site for you to download. Just follow the File Archive link at the top of this page to my file download area and get the 47000x.Zip files.

Richard D Brown in N.S.W. Australia at 22:17:40 Tuesday September 15 98
I found a amstrad PC1640HD30 in a secondhand shop,being a sucker for old computers(collector)I purchased it as is, the trouble is it is password protected I can get into files and programs,but what am I looking for?.Please help.
Amstrad answers: Well I must say that your message is a complete mystery to me as the PC1640 didn't have any way to give it a password so my guess is that the previous user must be loading a program in either Config.Sys or Autoexec.Bat on the hard disc so the extremely simple way around this is to boot the machine using a "fresh" copy of MS-DOS on a floppy in drive A: then when the A:\> prompt appears just switch to C: and rename the existing Config and Autoexec files to some other name so no attempt will be made to load them the next time DOS starts from the hard disc.

Louis WAUTERS in brussels, BELGIUM at 18:20:4 Tuesday September 15 98
I need urgently toner films for an AMSTRAD PPF-1000 fax machine . I cannot find them in Belgium Please help thanks
Amstrad answers: I'm afraid that I only really know about computers so for this kind of question you need to resort to one of the old fashioned communication methods and contact the Fax Support Department at the address/number shown here. One thing I can tell you is that we no longer have offices in any country except England so you probably have to buy them from a UK based supplier.

James Yeomans in College at 17:8:42 Monday September 14 98
Is there any 8-bit games For the PCW16.
Amstrad answers: In a word - no. Or, rather, I am not aware of anyone having written any for it which is a shame because it is a 16MHz Z80 (four times faster than a Spectrum, CPC or original PCW) so it really has the potential to do quite advanced games (compared to those machines). However I guess that if I was a software developer writing games I'd have to make the choice of do I
a) write games for the PcW16 where there is a potential market of only a few tens of thousands of machines, or
b) write games for the Sony Playstation where there is a potential market of tens of millions of machines or
c) write games for the IBM PC where there is a potential market of hundreds of millions of machines.
I know which ones I'd choose!

Den Robinson at 22:55:27 Sunday September 13 98
I have an Integra 486 running W95 which was working perfectly well the last time I shut it down by the proper method. When I powered up again, 45 minutes later, it was as dead as a dodo except for a flickering blue screen...no bios, no A drive, only the D drive showing any signs of life . The Integra boot disk doesn't work, and I seem to have lost the BIOS completely. Er.......any suggestions? Thanks.
Amstrad answers: Unfortunately it could be one of a million things so it's very difficult to diagnose at arms length and probably needs you to take it along to a local computer shop who could repair it but obvious things to look for are: 1) Has the SIMM memory worked loose, if so clean contacts and reseat firmly in sockets. 2) Is the video OK - make sure the card is still firmly seated in its socket and that cables are correctly attached. Because of the TV card in an Integra the output of the video card is then taken into the TV card and then it's output is what finally goes to the monitor part of the system so check all cards and cable connections. 3) Check that the processor is firmly seated in its socket. 4) Make sure that the power supply is providing the correct voltages (but unfortunately from here on you really need a meter or a 'scope to diagnose).

Bob Garrard in Mitcham, Surrey, England at 17:24:59 Sunday September 13 98
My Father has a PCW16 and would like to print the whole of his address book in hardcopy. Every time he tries to do this, he is asked for an entry code. He is not aware of any codes, despite having this machine since new. Any ideas?
Amstrad answers: I haven't got a clue what you mean by "he is asked for an entry code" as the plain fact of the matter is that the PcW16 simply does not have anyway to directly print the contents of the address book. I can think of two ways in which one could achieve the effect though. The first is to make a simple document using mailmerge codes and then print it and it would have the effect of printing the entries from the address book that you choose but the downside is that you could only get one per page. Perhaps a better idea would be to use the feature in the address book to export its contents to a CSV (comma separated values) file and then import this back into the word processor as an ASCII text file. That way you'd get the whole address book contents in a single WP document with each entry on a single line.

Ray in Tandarra, Australia at 10:59:30 Saturday September 12 98
Where can I get Manual, Setup information or any documentation on Amstrad Laptop Computer model ALT-386 SX??
Amstrad answers: The only information about ALT386 on the whole internet (that I know about) is what I have got here. If you want to get hold of a manual I just checked the CPC catalogue and the part number is AMUIALT286/386 but it costs an astronomical £28-80 and that's just for a UK order (reach them at www.cpc.co.uk). I sort of assume that you won't want to pay that as the whole ALT isn't worth much more so if you have specific questions feel free to ask me here.

Cliff says: Guys (and gals), I find funny questions and answers (such as the next two) as amusing as anyone else but for anyone with a real problem I don't want you to be scared off from asking serious questions as that's what this page really exists for.

Enuff said - let the fun continue...

A Un-sure Computer User at 12:54:34 Thursday September 10 98
Is it possible to convert my 286 Amstrad to a laptop computer, a friend said it could be done. I was thinking of making the case for the laptop out of wood. Also what is this year 2000 problem.
Amstrad answers: Apologies if this really was a serious question but it sounds an awful lot like a wind up. Your initials wouldn't be SW by any chance would they Mr Un-Sure?
One thing about your plan to put a portable 286 in a wooden box, there could be major electrical interference problems, I'd suggest the case be cast from lead just to be on the safe side.
As for the year 2000 problem - I've heard that the biggest problem is that there may not be enough champagne to go round!

Raj Gohil in Peckham at 12:31:58 Thursday September 10 98
I want to give my old computer to my grandson, its an old amstrad with a tape drive. In my garage, I have also an old elliot 850 mainframe, with card reader! Is there any way I can connect the two togteher via the internet. I hear BT give good rates
Amstrad answers: Is this the silly season for questions I wonder? However I think the one above out-shines this one.
In case your question was serious: I'd suggest that the best way to link the computers wouldn't involve the internet but, rather, two baked bean cans and a length of good quality string.

Albert Sillwood in Baldock, Herts, England at 0:6:59 Thursday September 10 98
I have an Integra P75, and have just upgraded the memory to 32 meg (2 x 16. At the same time I tried to get the shop to install a higher processor (P133 or P120). Neither of these processors worked (either Cyrix or Pentium). The Integra just 'locks up'. Is it possible to upgrade an Integra from a P75, and to what processor speed, without it 'locking up'. I did read all the previous questions, and could not find one about processor upgrades. Regards, Albert Sillwood.
Amstrad answers I have no personal experience of processor upgrades in Integra so can only suggest that you go by what the manual says in this respect (I haven't got my copy of the manual available right now). However a general point I would make is that you can increase the performance of a computer far far more by fitting even more RAM and faster hard disks than a processor upgrade would ever achieve.

COLIN UNDERHILL in RAMSGATE, KENT at 15:39:3 Wednesday September 9 98
I'M TRYING TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE YEAR 2000 BUG AND IF ANY AMSTRAD HAS A PROBLEM ABOUT IT.
Amstrad answers See answer two below this and also look at the question index for previous correspondence on this painfully boring subject.

Richard Humbles in Islington, London at 15:22:27 Wednesday September 9 98
I have acquired an old Amstrad sound card for my kid(card is stamped with year 1989), that works in Dos on 486(I know this as I've tried it with Dos shareware..it works)I want to get it to work with windows tho'! I cannot find any Amstrad soundcard driver other than zipfile jazz.zip, Help! PS Any Ideas as to what the name of this piece of H/W is called
Amstrad answers AFAIK, Amstrad have only ever produced one soundcard that was included in some 5xxx and 7xxx machines. It is purely an Adlib (not Soundblaster) compatible so you should be able to just set software to "Adlib" and it will work but don't raise your hopes too high as Adlib only provides MIDI FM music, it does not have A/D and D/A to allow the playback and recording of WAV files. Windows only has MIDI support for Adlibs but you can't use that kind of card for WAVs. Considering that these days you can get a wavetable Soundblaster compatible card for under a tenner I'd have said that the most humane thing to do with that card was to take it out and bury it - it's a sound card from about 3 generations back and these days it just deserves a decent burial!

J.Reeves in Broxbourne at 9:57:48 Wednesday September 9 98
Year 2000 compliance. My PC9555i is not complient - how can I obtain a bias upgrade etc. from Amstrad.
Amstrad answers You can't but can you tell me why you think it is important? I've simply no idea why everyone is blowing this Y2K thing out of all proportion. So your computer doesn't pass midnight on 31-12-99 and you have to set it manually - WHY IS THIS SUCH A BIG DEAL?!?!?

P.S. I removed your full address and phone number from the header of this message - I don't think it's ever wise to enter such detail anywhere on the internet except in private/secure forms.

Donna Poirier in Florida, USA at 22:16:12 Tuesday September 8 98
I have a customer with information trapped on a disk from an Amstrad PCW8256/8512 and no working system available. Options please?
Amstrad answers Only one option - read this

Lynne in Glasgow at 12:36:33 Monday September 7 98
I have been considering buying a PcW16, but I am told that they can only be connected to certain printers. Where can I find out what printers are suitable?
Amstrad answers: We tried to make the PcW16s printer support as generic as possible so that quite a lot of printers would work with it. On the laser front we support any printer that is compatible with Hewlett Packards PCL 3.5 (or better). This actually includes the majority of laser printers as they tend to support PCL as a minimum and then have fancier emulations on top.
For Inkjet printers we support Canon BJ30 type printers and compatibles (which includes almost all the Canon BJ printers. We also support the HP Deskjet 500 (and above). The PcW16 can also output in the Epson standard ESC/P2 which a lot of inkjets and 24 pin printers support.
The PcW16 does not support 9 pin dot matrix printers but it does support printing to Epson LQ and X24E type printers which includes the vast majority of 24 pin printers.

Damian Tighe at 11:11:43 Monday September 7 98
Dear sir I have a customer that is looking at purchasing one of our printers. He currently has a Amstrad CPC 6128 amd need to talk to the printer via the PC. What emulations (if any) can we use. IBM Proprinter?/EPSOM LQ860?. He doesnt have a 3.5 disj drive or e mail or internet access. Please help. rgs Damian
Amstrad answers: As I answered via email - the CPC is a 14 year old home computer not a PC so the concept of "drivers" is alien to it. There were some word processor programs written for it and each wil have provided their own limited printer support. It is likely that software of that era probably only knew about the 9 pin standard as used in the Epson FX80 which was the standard setter at that time.

mustafa tahincio�lu in turkey at 11:40:45 Sunday September 6 98
need amstrad dmp 4000 printer driver
Amstrad answers: Your question is answered more than 16 times on this web site - your task, shuld you choose to accept it, is to find the answer yourself. [However here's a clue: THERE ISN'T ONE - USE Epson].

Craig Bainger at 5:6:40 Thursday September 3 98
could someone please send me a copy of an amstrad keyboard driver file? HOw do you get the computer (win 95) to recognise that the keyboard is external. my computer is a laptop. what software se ttings do I need to change?
Amstrad answers: I'm going to take a wild guess that you are talking about an ALT286/386 - you didn't say which laptop. There is no "keyboard driver file" - on those machines a keyboard shoudl just work exactly the same as the in-built one with no other settings to be made - if it doesn't then it's just plain broken.

Warwick Abbott in Merseyside, Great Britain. at 23:44:20 Thursday August 27 98
The Millennium bug: The issue is of compliance and warrenty cover. After the roll-over date of Y 2000. From what period do Amstrad give a warrenty on thier computers. Does this fix or compliance, cover the CMOS as well as the BIOS. I ask this because some compliances only cover the BIOS. This leaves the PC vunerable to any software applications that do not call the BIOS direct for the Date Etc. Therefore this could be seen, as not fully compliant. There is not much information about applications that use CMOS direct, however it will be further developed in the future for many new windows applications etc. Would I also be correct is saying that the BIOS fix only tells the software applications the true time after the CMOS has given the wrong time, therefore only acting as an translator and not fixing the CMOS date. Meaning that only a fully compliant fix which addresses the CMOS and corrects it once and for all is the true solution. Therefore making sure that no applications are exposed in anyway to an i ncorrect date, that can crash, lose data or create PC madness. What PC`s models and ages should seek a fix to address the inbedded chip problem in the hardware. Greeting Warwick
Amstrad answers: OK, your message was the straw that broke the camels back - from now on I'm not even going to bother responding to questions about Y2K - you have been warned! If you want the Amstrad statement on Y2K then send me an email with Y2K in the subject line and my auto-responder will send you a Word for Windows document on the subject.

Johnny �hlund in Skellefte�, Sweden at 0:2:14 Thursday August 27 98
Is it possible to upgrade the BIOS on a Amstrad 9486 to support the year 2000 problem?
Amstrad answers: No, Amstrad will not be supplying BIOS upgrades for any of our computers to overcome any Y2K problems as we like to think that Amstrad customers have an intelligence level a step above the average computer user and actually know how to use the DATE command! (For those who don't, there are any number of rip-off merchants willing to have a few quid off you for a program that will do it for you)

Francis HOSS in Sharjah , U.A.E (a very hot country in the gulf) at 15:56:59 Wednesday August 26 98
We have an Amstrad NC100 Notepad computer and would like to transfer the data (Text) onto a PC. Unfortunately I have been following the manual and I can't seem to get the link (Windows Hypertrmnl using Xmodem) with a Null modem cable Could you help me find a solution (alternative way or other)? Do I need a software? Thanks in advance.
Amstrad answers: Well I couldn't write a better description of how to do serial transfers than that included in the manual - cos I wrote it! It really should work - I've done the very same thing myself using HyperTerminal (rather than Terminal as suggested in the manual) at the PC end. 'Course the cable I used was wired exactly as shown in my diagrams in the manual. If your cable is wired differently that may explain why it doesn't work. Another thing to try would be a different PC program - I only suggested (Hyper)Terminal because I know everyone has a copy but something like the DOS based Telix or Procomm are actually far better communications programs and I'd normally use Telix myself. In fact the other day I was trying to link something to my PC and running HyperTerminal in Windows NT 4 and it would only receive but not send. I then started a Command Prompt and ran Telix and it worked faultlessly so I always have my suspicions about HyperTerminal!

C J Hall in Buckinghamshire at 22:32:20 Tuesday August 25 98
After reading your message archives on this site relating to the ppc640 is my ppc rare as it has a internal hard drive the ide is a seperate pcb below the modem and all the signals are coming through a ribbon cable connected to both exspansion ports if anybody whants any info on this then please email and i will do my best to answer them
Amstrad answers: Indeed you have quite a rarity there. I think there was just the one company who offered a bespoke service for both fitting hard disks AND backlights to PPCs about 7-8 years ago. As I remember it, they charged about £500 for something like a 32MB hard disk (on a £299 computer!) so I don't think many people went for the upgrade.

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