ChinnyVision - Ep 163 - The Amstrad NC100 Notepad Computer Review

The Amstrad NC100 was known internally at Amstrad as "Alan's Baby" . Sugar oversaw every part of the design process and even wrote the first chapter in the manual. Is this portable computer a Z88 beater or is it a useless sticky brick like the Amstrad Penpad. ChinnyVision seeks to find out!

[bartman]

best intro on utube...using 8 bit technology by a country mile🖒

[fcf]

Had one for a while; loved the form factor and I wish there were more companies these days that would make this form factor. The keyboard was large enough for long coding sessions, but it was stuck with old tech and with no easy way to put other software on it sadly.
I would really like to see someone making a similar device with a modern LCD screen and a raspberry pi in it. Sadly nobody care about this form factor...

[DaveJeffery]

Not only a complete implementation of BBC Basic, it has a built-in Z80 assembler and you can mix BASIC and assembler very freely if you want to.

[videotosse]

I had two of these back in the day.
Used them at the university for notes. Excellent at that. Still have one around somewhere. Maybe I should put it back into service :-)

[aiherzen]

I had one of these and wrote university essays on it. I transferred the files using a cable attached directly to the serial port (or maybe parallel). I can't remember what type of computer was at the other end of the cable (presumably not my 6128).

[BazzaHSpeccymad]

z88 has BBC basic too, which is also odd given sinclair lost.out in the battle for the BBC license to acorn!!

[elektronkim]

Learning Basic and BBC Basic might have been part of a government program.

[GazzJ]

I remember using this, I didn't have one, I can't even remember who did now. But I definitely remember using one years ago. Can it do the beeb beep with the command "VDU 7"?

[BazzaHSpeccymad]

nice video and nice looking machine. I was going to say similar it looked to the z88 when you mentioned it. I have a z88 and the keyboard, although membrane-y is really quite nice. are you in a position to be able to do a side by side comparison (still watching vid sonic you have done it, sorry!!)

[cali-co]

hi, i have this one too! but the display is so dim, do you have any idea on how to fix it? anything i can try would helps =)

[Crazy_Borg]

Was this video made in 2016? Because you kept saying "you can use it in 2016..."

Is it possible to get software on it via RS232? Although I assume games would be very basic (pun intended).