In message , at 11:50:26 on
Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Recliner remarked:

The boss came round to have a look, and decided to buy the whole block
outright (having already ascertained that most of the staff already
lived in Essex and he was looking to replace the Tottenham facility with
one nearer the Shoeburyness factory).

We moved into our 5th floor a couple of day later - the deal being
"deliver the keys tomorrow or it's off". And then we AMSOFT staff
moonlighted as building managers organising the refurbishment of floors
6-9, ahead of the arrival of the Tottenham crew.

Sounds like quite an educational experience! I guess you got to learn
all sorts of unlikely skills working for a 'pioneering' (cowboy?)
outfit like that.

I resent the conflation of pioneering, with cowboy with what our day job
was which was bleeding-edge personal computing. That completely
re-purposed the company from audio to PCs, and incidentally made it
vastly more profitable as well as providing the tools for numerous
customers to kick-start their own careers as programmers or
self-publishers.

Ironically, Amstrad in its entrepreneurial heyday, sounds like a very
different company to the ones that the modern day
sharp-suited/high-heeled Apprentices dream of creating.

We in AMSOFT like to think of ourselves as the original Apprentices
(back in 1984) and learnt an incalculable amount by being parachuted
into the day-to-day sales/marketing business of such a high profile
organisation where the boss had something I've never met before or since
- the ability to make a decision on the spot and stick to it.

It was often very challenging to justify what needed doing (he has the
knack of asking the one question you don't have an answer for), but
having committed to it, the funds were always available - even
six-figure cheques issued minutes later.

Rather mundane, perhaps, but when I joined the company he sent me off to
Vauxhall dealership somewhere in the Tottenham area with instructions to
pick whichever car (within budget) I wanted and drive it back. No
paperwork at all, just his word having phoned ahead that the garage
would get paid.

It worked the other way round too - if, as happened a few times, a
journalist rang saying "please give me the details of your new computer,
I've just been talking to AMS and he said it would be OK", I knew that
the first call after putting the phone down to the journalist would have
been to me, and not having received such a call, it was a scam.
--
Roland Perry

The odd thing about Amstrad was that they only made one product, the eMailer, and it was total and utter garbage!

In message , at
10:38:20 on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Offramp remarked:
The odd thing about Amstrad was that they only made one product, the
eMailer, and it was total and utter garbage!

Huh? Amstrad made scores of audio/tv/ video products, and then the
464/6128 home computers, PCW word processors, 1512/1640 PC clones, about
half a dozen 286/386 AT-clones, the PPC luggable, a clamshell portable,
and several re-launched Sinclair machines. Plus a fax machine and a
couple of printers. That was all in the six years I was there (until
1989).
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
10:38:20 on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Offramp remarked:
The odd thing about Amstrad was that they only made one product, the
eMailer, and it was total and utter garbage!

Huh? Amstrad made scores of audio/tv/ video products, and then the
464/6128 home computers, PCW word processors, 1512/1640 PC clones, about
half a dozen 286/386 AT-clones, the PPC luggable, a clamshell portable,
and several re-launched Sinclair machines. Plus a fax machine and a
couple of printers. That was all in the six years I was there (until 1989).

I think that people who watched early Apprentice series might have got the
impression that the ridiculous eMailer was the only Amstrad product, as it
appeared in as many scenes as possible. It was that sort of product
placement that put me off watching it. In fact Amstrad was almost history
by the time the Apprentice started, and I think Viglen was by then AMS's
only computer product. Wasn't he also into satellite set-top boxes by then?

In message
-septem
ber.org, at 19:04:56 on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Recliner
remarked:
In fact Amstrad was almost history by the time the Apprentice started,

Yes, it had changed a lot.

and I think Viglen was by then AMS's only computer product.

Very likely.

Wasn't he also into satellite set-top boxes by then?

Had been since the beginning, started in about 1989.
--
Roland Perry

On Sun, 5 Apr 2015 19:54:51 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

Huh? Amstrad made scores of audio/tv/ video products, and then the
464/6128 home computers, PCW word processors, 1512/1640 PC clones, about
half a dozen 286/386 AT-clones, the PPC luggable, a clamshell portable,
and several re-launched Sinclair machines. Plus a fax machine and a
couple of printers. That was all in the six years I was there (until
1989).

I remember PC reviewers mocking Amstrad for integrating components on
the motherboard - common practice now.

In message , at 20:43:14 on
Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Peter Johnson
remarked:
I remember PC reviewers mocking Amstrad for integrating components on
the motherboard - common practice now.

What people didn't understand was that we were using the latest silicon
technology to reduce the parts count and make the computers easier to
build and more reliable. As well as lowering the cost. iirc there were
as many chips on IBM's graphics adapter card as in the whole of the
PCW1512, and similarly the parts count inside a contemporary EPSON
matrix printer was higher than the whole PCW - system unit, VDU,
keyboard and printer combined.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 21:39:38 on Sun, 5
Apr 2015, Roland Perry remarked:
In message , at 20:43:14 on
Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Peter Johnson
remarked:
I remember PC reviewers mocking Amstrad for integrating components on
the motherboard - common practice now.

What people didn't understand was that we were using the latest silicon
technology to reduce the parts count and make the computers easier to
build and more reliable. As well as lowering the cost. iirc there were
as many chips on IBM's graphics adapter card as in the whole of the
PCW1512,

Sorry, that's PC1512.

and similarly the parts count inside a contemporary EPSON matrix
printer was higher than the whole PCW - system unit, VDU, keyboard and
printer combined.

--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message ,
at 10:38:20 on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Offramp remarked:
The odd thing about Amstrad was that they only made one product, the
eMailer, and it was total and utter garbage!

Huh? Amstrad made scores of audio/tv/ video products, and then the
464/6128 home computers, PCW word processors, 1512/1640 PC clones,
about half a dozen 286/386 AT-clones, the PPC luggable, a clamshell
portable, and several re-launched Sinclair machines. Plus a fax
machine and a couple of printers. That was all in the six years I was
there (until 1989).


I read Alan as they were good and only the eMailer was garbage. I looked at
the spec when it came out and wondered who on earth would want one.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 16:19:12
on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, remarked:
In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message ,
at 10:38:20 on Sun, 5 Apr 2015, Offramp remarked:
The odd thing about Amstrad was that they only made one product, the
eMailer, and it was total and utter garbage!

Huh? Amstrad made scores of audio/tv/ video products, and then the
464/6128 home computers, PCW word processors, 1512/1640 PC clones,
about half a dozen 286/386 AT-clones, the PPC luggable, a clamshell
portable, and several re-launched Sinclair machines. Plus a fax
machine and a couple of printers. That was all in the six years I was
there (until 1989).

I read Alan as they were good and only the eMailer was garbage. I looked at
the spec when it came out and wondered who on earth would want one.

The eMailer was long after my time, and was trying to appeal to people
who:

Wanted to be able to send and receive a few emails, but without the
expense and complication of a PC.

Where it made sense to integrate the functionality with a phone.

Were happy to have the equipment subsidised by higher cost phone calls.

Didn't mind a few adverts as part of the subsidy.

And in later versions: wanted to be able to video calls to relatives.

This all sounds very much like a landline version of a contract
smartphone with Skype and paid-by-ads apps. But that didn't have a
critical mass of users.

I had some ideas (which I didn't follow through) about generating
affinity groups, larger than families, who might be interested in all
getting a phone to swap diaries, notes and other information. The result
would have been a bit like Facebook Groups (but before Facebook was
started).
--
Roland Perry