Amsoft was a wholly owned subsidiary of Amstrad, PLC, founded in 1984 and re-integrated with its parent company in 1989. Its purpose was to provide an initial infrastructure of software and services for users of Amstrad's range of home computers, the Amstrad CPC and, from 1986, the ZX Spectrum. Many people's first contact with software on an Amstrad home computer would have been an Amsoft title, as several titles were included in the sales bundles.
While developing its first home computer, the Amstrad CPC 464, Amstrad assessed that part of the success of its competitors' machines was the backing of a grown infrastructure of software and services. Being a newcomer to the computer market, Amstrad decided to artificially create this infrastructure for the launch of their own computers. In February 1984, Amstrad founded its Amsoft division headed by Roland Perry and William Poel who at the time were also overseeing the development of the Amstrad CPC 464 itself.
Most prominently, Amsoft acted as the first-party game and business software publisher for Amstrad computers. Most of its software products were licensed from various third-party developers and published under the Amsoft label. This also provided a risk-free means for established software studios to try out their products in the emerging Amstrad CPC market. In addition to publishing software, Amsoft was tasked with press relations and consumer promotion, most notably creating and maintaining the Amstrad User Club and publishing its periodical, the CPC 464 User (later Amstrad Computer User ).
When a reliable third-party support had been established, Amsoft gradually faded out the publishing of software and sold the Amstrad User Club as well as the user magazine. By 1989, Amsoft was fully integrated with the main Amstrad corporation and ceased to exist as a separate entity. [1]
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe.
Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad had a substantial share of the PC market in the UK. Amstrad was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent, but since 2007 has been wholly owned by Sky UK. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business was manufacturing Sky UK interactive boxes. In 2010, Sky integrated Amstrad's satellite division as part of Sky so they could make their own set-top boxes in-house.
The CPC 464 is the first personal home computer built by Amstrad in 1984. It was one of the bestselling and best produced microcomputers, with more than 2 million units sold in Europe. The British microcomputer boom had already peaked before Amstrad announced the CPC 464 which they then released a mere 9 months later.
Locomotive Basic is a proprietary dialect of the BASIC programming language written by Locomotive Software on the Amstrad CPC and the later Locomotive BASIC-2 as a GEM application on the Amstrad PC1512 and 1640. It was the main descendant of Mallard BASIC, the interpreter for CP/M supplied with the Amstrad PCW.
Locomotive Software was a small British software house that did most of its development for Amstrad's home and small business computers of the 1980s. It was founded by Richard Clayton and Chris Hall on 14 February 1983.
Mallard BASIC is a BASIC interpreter for CP/M produced by Locomotive Software and supplied with the Amstrad PCW range of small business computers, the ZX Spectrum +3 version of CP/M Plus, and the Acorn BBC Micro's Zilog Z80 second processor.
The GX4000 is a video game console that was manufactured by Amstrad. It was the company's short-lived attempt to enter the games console market. The console was released in Europe in 1990 and was an upgraded design based on the then still-popular CPC technology. The GX4000 shared hardware architecture with Amstrad's CPC Plus computer line, which was released concurrently. This allowed the system to be compatible with the majority of CPC Plus software.
Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier is a platform game released 1985 by Software Projects as the Amstrad CPC port of Jet Set Willy. It was then rebranded as the sequel and ported other home computers. Jet Set Willy II was developed by Derrick P. Rowson and Steve Wetherill rather than Jet Set Willy programmer Matthew Smith and is an expansion of the original game, rather than an entirely new one.
Trailblazer is a racing video game developed by Mr. Chip Software and published by Gremlin Graphics for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit family, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 16/Plus/4 in 1986. It was ported to the Amiga and Atari ST.
Ghost Hunters is a platform game written by the Oliver twins for the Amstrad CPC and published by Codemasters in January 1987. It was also converted and released for the ZX Spectrum (1987) and Commodore 64 (1989) platforms. The game combines platform-style action with shooting gameplay similar to that found in the game Operation Wolf. It was conceived as a sequel to Super Robin Hood, although it has little to do with this game other than using a modified version of its engine. The twins have credited the film Ghostbusters and the cartoon series Scooby-Doo for influencing the game.
Amstrad Computer User was the official magazine for the Amstrad CPC series of 8-bit home computers. This monthly publication, usually referred to as ACU by its readers, concentrated more on the hardware and technical side of the Amstrad range, although it had a small dedicated games section as well.
Artic Computing was a software development company based in Brandesburton, England from 1980 to 1986. The company's first games were for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer, but they expanded and were also responsible for various ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Amstrad CPC computer games. The company was set up by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton. Charles Cecil, who later founded Revolution Software, joined the company shortly after it was founded, writing Adventures B through D. Developer Jon Ritman produced a number of ZX81 and Spectrum games for Artic before moving to Ocean Software.
Oh Mummy is a video game for the Amstrad CPC models of home computer. It was developed by Gem Software and published by Amsoft in 1984. It was often included in the free bundles of software that came with the computer. The gameplay is similar to that of the 1981 arcade game Amidar.
Barbarian is a 1987 platform game by Psygnosis. It was first developed for the Atari ST, and was ported to the Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. The Amiga port was released in 1987; the others were released in 1988. The cover artwork is by fantasy artist Roger Dean.
Alligata Software Ltd. was a computer games developer and publisher based in Sheffield in the UK in the 1980s.
Batman is a 1986 isometric action-adventure game by Ocean Software for the Amstrad PCW, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and MSX, and the first Batman game developed. The game received favourable reviews. An unrelated Batman game was released two years later, titled Batman: The Caped Crusader.
Fun School is a series of educational packages developed and published in the United Kingdom by Europress Software, initially as Database Educational Software. The original Fun School titles were sold mostly by mail order via off-the-page adverts in the magazines owned by Database Publications. A decision was made to create a new set of programs, call the range Fun School 2, and package them more professionally so they could be sold in computer stores around the UK. Every game comes as a set of three versions, each version set to cater for a specific age range.
Roland was a game character developed in 1984 by Alan Sugar, CEO of Amstrad, and Jose Luis Dominguez, a Spanish game designer. The character was named for Roland Perry, a computer engineer who worked for Amstrad. The idea was to have one recognizable character in a number of different computer games in a bid to have the Amstrad CPC compete with the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.
Roland Goes Digging is a 1984 computer game for the Amstrad CPC series of home computers. It was distributed by Amsoft, on cassette tape for CPC 464 and Amstrad's proprietary 3" disk format, for CPC 664 and CPC 6128 users. The game was developed by regular Amsoft contributors Gem Software and featured Amstrad's CPC mascot Roland, who also appears in other games in the Roland Series, such as Roland in the Caves, Roland in Time and Roland in Space.
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
