Amstrad CPC 464 Check Up and Restoration

Nice to see your CPC tester in action, great work looks really polished!

Nice. I should pull the one i have from the stack, and fix it.

People who wish to use their hardware in mint condition might wish to try out one of these old mini-jack to cassette adapters that used to be sold to connect portable CD players to car stereos that only had cassette players with no aux input. These were especially favoured in countries where FCC-like regulators didn't allow radio transmitters. Maybe testing one of those old compact cassette adapters might be an idea for another video.

Can you repair Amstrad monitors?

To me, it almost seems like more is being done for old systems, as in extras, than were done when they were the in thing. Which is fantastic!

Toothpaste is also good for scratches

Can someone give me an advice? I've got an MSX with a horryble noise in 5v rail that shows in video output. The noise is 21Mhz which is the frequency of one of the oscilators. I've checked some of the caps related to video output and it looks ok.

Hi Noel, thanks for the video, I write down all your maintenance tips. You coment that normally perform a replacement of the scratched tape deck cover. Where could find this kind of spare part?
And also I annotate on my txt some of the games you show, some did not remember them as the Sorcery, others I just discovered them as the Dominator. Thanks!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I miss my old Amstrad 464.. Was the computer I had inbetween the VIC20 and Amiga when I was younger.

What signals are needed from the CPC for the dandanator to work ... Could we emulate them easily?

A touch of very dark-grey, flat enamel paint ought to take care of that nasty scratch there on the Amstrad label. I’d say, probably about 10 parts black to one part white ought to match the color. Probably a good color match for automobile/bicycle/motorcycle tires, too. HTH. 🙂

An excellent bench to test your brand new Amstrad test ROM!. It works like a breeze !!!. And the video ending was a complete deja-vu. Congrats again Noel :-)

I need to look and see if there is a nice emulator for the Amstrad machines for Linux. This machine needs a port of Gorf.

464, my second machine. Still have the Schneider version that belonged to my brother, in mint condition.

I'm so glad you decided to clean the keyboard at the end, my OCD would never have forgiven you if you hadn't lol. Seriously though, if you're going to do something like restore an old computer then you may as well do it properly :-). There were some great looking games at the end of the video. I'll have to give them a go on my 464 and 6128 that I bought on eBay a while ago and totally restored. I fitted a Gotek to the 6128 so that makes things a lot easier :-). Keep up the good work Noel, I susbscribed recently after watching a few of your videos beforehand.

Another great option for screws and bits is a piece of polystyrene.

i really dont like the audio jack mod, you need to modify the case which imo is bad for a retro system...
back in the day when the CPC was my daily... i made my own audio mod...an old cassette tape with the tape replaced with the head from an old tape deck (ya can buy em these days!)... wires running out to a headphone jack..the great thing...it was OUTPUT aswell... could save to digital audio...
sure it wont work for 6128...but for the 464 it works really nicely (doesnt the 6128 have audio in already?!..i seem to remember hooking tapedeck up to a friends 6128 so we could play some of my 464 games on it)

Happy to see Dizzy making an appearance as an example of a great platform game! I think I would have included Mission Genocide as a must-see shoot-em-up, if only to admire its astonishing full-screen hardware scroll (on a system not generally known for its smooth scrolling...)

Just got one of these monsters and fortunately mine worked with the one tape game that I got with it. What an amazing machine, such a shame the software companies didn't give it the love it deserves 😳

I like the fact you're doing Amstrad work. Being a C= guy myself I want to have this second hand experience of other 8 bit systems. And both 646 and 464 were mighty uncommon around my parts. I actually saw only two of them back in a day. And the XT clone but I don't count that.

I use that car dashboard stuff too. I think the shine is given by glycerol, but the plastics definitely get "something else" too.. not sure what!

I do the same thing with the screws. One thing I do is write on the lid where the screws go. I use a Sharpie for that. When I am done, a little IPA takes the Sharpie right off.

I use AL antioxidant stuff from the electrical isle for copper contacts.

I have an Spectrum +2 and this video of yours has encouraged me to do the same with it. The machine will appreciate it. Thanks for the video...

Great video, and wonderful selection of games. Grew up with the 464. I had that version of the 464 and my neighbour had the tall keys version. I preferred my version.

It's like the improved ZX Spectrum :)

Great video as always. Thanks

What a fine selection of games!

Roland in Time has a bug - a disc crack fixes it lol. I would also add Ikari Warriors!

Ah that's my old 464 which I sold on eBay in January. The mysterious connector is a barrel jack to supply 5v to a Bluetooth module which I had inside which was connected to 2 locations for the audio in mod. Worked a treat. I removed it before I sold as buyer may not have known how to use it. I had to power Bluetooth module separately as when I took a 5v from internal it caused interference on the speaker. Mystery solved😊

an exellent job ... as always !!!!!!!!!!

I love your way preserving the Amstrad CPC, as I've also have some of those machines. You've used the car lights polish to remove the scratches from the tape window, but it doesn't remove all of them. The deeper scratches can be removed by first sanding down the plastic with sandpaper and a very high grit like 1000 and higher. So you can first take out the deeper scratches by sanding the surface down and then use the polishing cream to get the plastic transparent again. This works like a charm, mostly after 1-2 passes.

Keep up the good work!

It's always cool to learn how these machines tick, now I wanna tinker with my cpu 464.

A nice easy repair this time, no faults! Some great games, memories!!!

I remember that i used to have a CPC 464 when i was little and we lived in the country side 40 miles from the nearest game shops so i had 1 game, which was Roland in Time. I discovered that pressing H key would pause the game. I was only 6 in 1990 so i was too young to fully appreciate the 464. I never wrote any of my own basic code. I don't play games now (my job is fixing electronics for others and myself) so i probably won't buy a 464 on eBay but i did enjoy this video.

Very nice. Can you make some tutorials for us, how to use the cpc 464 in detail ?
I had it before 35 years an don't remember anything any more.

Nice job Noel!, let's make your diagnostic rom the default one for the CPC Dandanator ;)

Mesmerising as always :)

Hi, my name is Jose, I have an Amstrad 464 and the plastic base of the monitor has white spots because I sanded it with sandpaper back in the day.
with liquid polish and after many months I have managed to recover the color in some areas.
Can I restore the plastic case of the monitor and remove those stains with something effective and fast?

Honestly, I think the Amstrad is my favorite looking micro.

Hi, great video. I just got my first 464 but my tape deck plastic window is in really bad shape and you mentioned you can use a replacement? Is it possible to buy these anywhere?
Thanks

I went for a Ulifac instead of a Dandinator. That is basically the same price, but comes with serial, connectors for bluetooth/wifi, USB drive for quickly loading programs and 512kB of RAM so you can upgrade a 464 to be a 6128 with a virtual floppy drive. The idea is to put it inside, instead of on the cartridge slot. My CPC is a shortboard so plenty of room.