NAME  

PPC 512 / 640

MANUFACTURER  

Amstrad

TYPE  

Transportable

ORIGIN  

United Kingdom

YEAR  

1988

BUILT IN LANGUAGE  

None

KEYBOARD  

complete 102 key QWERTY mechanical keyboard
With numeric keypad, editing block and function keys

CPU  

NEC V30

SPEED  

8 MHz

RAM  

PPC-512 : 512 KB
PPC-640 : 640 KB

ROM  

16 KB

TEXT MODES  

40 or 80 chars x 25 lines

GRAPHIC MODES  

320 or 640 x 200 dots

COLORS  

Monochrome green - 4 or 16 colors with external monitor

SOUND  

beeper

SIZE / WEIGHT  

6 kg

I/O PORTS  

Centronics, RS232, CGA Monitor, Expansion ports A & B

BUILT IN MEDIA  

One or Two 3.5'' floppy-drives (720 KB)

OS  

MS DOS 3.3, GEM

POWER SUPPLY  

10 x C cell batteries

PRICE  

Unknown

 

Amstrad PPC-640

PPC-640


With the Amstrad PPC-512 and 640, Amstrad wanted to make the cheapest portable PC compatible computer, in the same way as the Amstrad PC1512 was for desktop computers. But, despite its pleasant form, this computer suffered due to its poor 9" LCD screen. It had one or two 3.5" 720 KB floppy drives and some versions could also be found with a 10 or 20 MB internal hard disk.

If you were tired of the poor LCD screen, you could connect a monochrome or CGA monitor to the PPC at home. The Amstrad CPC series monitors could be used too.

The differences between the PPC-512 and PPC-640 were a different color case, a built-in modem (v21, v22, v22 bis and v23 protocols) and 640 KB RAM for the PPC-640. Both versions could run with 10 C size batteries (1 hour battery life), or with an external AC adaptor.