PcW16 the 16MHz Z80-based word-processor (and computer) from Amstrad

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1

The PcW16 was a failure in the market - possibly partly because it was late, because the software was late - but what a machine!

Here’s a photo from Frank van Empel’s page PcW16 Rosanne
image

It’s an all-in-one with monochrome screen, a basic GUI, mouse, HD floppy with a degree of PC compatibility, and has a 16MHz Z80 as well as 1Mbyte of RAM, and 1Mbyte of flash - which gave the user a non-volatile RAM disk, with the idea of using floppy for a single-disk full backup. Apparently it booted very fast - as an appliance should.

Screenshot from Mike Saunder’s 16 Storm - PcW 16 Introduction

The machine was code-named Anne - here’s a page from 1997, written at the time(!) by Cliff Lawson, who worked on it. From there:

Rather than just supplying a Word Processing program, like previous models, the new model has Spreadsheet, Address Book, Diary/Alarms/Calendar, Calculator and File Manager included as well. Perhaps the complete “home office”? (which is why we call it Anne, after Queen Anne’s Gate - the location of the Home Office in London)

But also one could run CP/M on it, or perhaps ZP/M. And then, Mallard Basic. See Ron’s Amstrad PCW Page

From the FAQ, shipped on the OS Rescue Disk:

Q: How is the PcW16 better than previous PCWs?

A: The one major reason for changing the PCW design so drastically was to be able to show different sized fonts and styles such as bold and italic on the screen. The way that Locoscript worked with hidden codes was starting to look a bit dated when compared to all the modern WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processors that people have come to expect in systems such as Windows. This meant writing a brand new word processor from scratch to draw characters on screen in graphics mode rather than using just fixed sized, simple text mode characters such as those used in LocoScript.

To do this requires a huge amount of extra computing power compared to the previous PCWs and so the electronic design of PcW16 uses a 16MHz Z80 processor instead of the 4MHz Z80 used in previous models (that’s the very reason it is called PcW16!). Only by using a processor running four times as fast is it possible to do all the extra calculations of working out where variable sized characters should be positioned on the screen as you type and still work at an acceptable speed.

In some ways the PcW16 word processor isn’t quite as powerful as Locoscript (it’s options for headers and footers are certainly more limited) but we hope we have taken the most widely used features of both Locoscript and many other Windows based word processors and made a package that isn’t too daunting in its complexity but, on the other hand, provides sufficient features to keep the majority of customers happy.

Previously:
The PCW word processors from Amstrad

2 Likes
2

Throwing away Locoscript for the PcW16 was a mistake: there were tens of thousands of users who had the the keyboard commands drilled into muscle memory. A little bit faster, a little bit tidier rather than throwing everything out might have meant better sales.

But an 8-bit machine launched that late was a gamble.

3

Yes indeed, too little too late really. Backward compatibility is there, but if the user interface changes, that’s a new product.

I found a couple more pages with info…

4

Oh, for no good reason I just downloaded the 512k ROM file for this system, and saw some credits:

brought to you by the Anne team (alphabetically):
The Programmers:                The Designers:
  Richard Bland                   Steve Gane
  Mike Coombs                     Simon Hargreaves
  Brian Dorricott                 Nik Holmes
  Steve Gane                      Cliff Lawson
  Dave Hampson                    Ahmed Razak
  Simon Hargreaves                Tim Stevens
  Jess Harpur                     Alan Sugar
  Cliff Lawson                    Chi Wan
  Rob Pym
  Tom Richens                   The Management:
  John Robertson                  Bill Edwards
  Don Taylor                      Mike Grange
  Bill Weidenauer                 Ian Saward
  Steve Weir                      Alan Sugar

also, oddly enough,

aka "Anne"
Version of bottom 64K is older than 2.82If you had a later version this would have been a list of the software authors.
Press any key

and

Sorry
The alterations you made have been discarded
because they would leave no room on the page
for normal text

and, not in the ROM but the FAQ (available here) we read

Talking of funny key combinations. There is a very powerful but VERY DANGEROUS key combination which is if you hold down the righthand [Task], [Shift], [Ctrl] and [Red] keys at switch on the machine will automatically go into the process of loading a new operating system from a rescue disc. All files in the cabinet will be lost so you’d be very unwise to experiment with this without at least doing a backup first! For this to work the keys must be held down after the power switch is pressed. It can take about 10 seconds before the total reset is initiated.

5

Not being PCW 8/9xxx compatible, not having locoscript and not having CP/M doomed it. Quite how it didn’t get killed at the drawing board stage I’ve never understood.