World Wide Web

• Ron's Amstrad PCW Page is an up-to-date resource for PCW owners. I definitely recommend taking a look at this one.

• PCW Today magazine has carried on where PCW Plus left off. I appear to enjoy an honarary subscription to this title and can tell you that it's well worth the effort. You won't find the glossy paper and colour of PCW Plus, but you will find every bit as much information. Many of the writers are your old favourites and even David Langford has now joined the team. Highly recommended.

• PCW programmer John Elliott's CP/M page. John is the man behind some of the finest PCW freeware around and provides links to many useful CP/M resources. He's also put together exhaustive information on the PCW's XBIOS and FID device drivers, so if you can't find those long out of print Amstrad CP/M books, you can obtain info on the guts of the machine here.

  While you're at it, check out John's long list of PCW software and CP/M software.

  John's latest project is a PCW emulator for MS-DOS (compatible) PCs, called Joyce. You can find out more and download the latest version, but be warned that you'll need a fast Pentium or better to make the most of it.

• Richard Fairhurst has published a very good PCW hardware reference, with lots of information otherwise unavailable on the Net.

• Jacob Nevins has spent many a happy hour researching the PCW's mysterious I/O ports and has published the results of his experiments.

• Creative Technology, makers of the renowned MicroDesign 3 DTP package for the PCW, have put together a page of resources for the underdog amongst underdogs, the PcW16.

• Here's another site devoted to the much maligned PcW16.

• PCW Plus was the longest serving news-stand magazine devoted solely to the Amstrad PCW. Finally cancelled at issue 124, it ran for 10 years, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the machine it covered was itself written off as out of date the moment it appeared. In the hope that someone somewhere may find the information useful, I've converted my run of Comms Corner columns to HTML. These are the unedited originals and as such, most contain information cut from the published versions. The two cover articles I wrote for the magazine will be appearing just as soon as I get around to converting them to HTML.
  
  

  PCW Plus 107, August 1995	PCW Plus 108, September 1995
  PCW Plus 109, October 1995	PCW Plus 110, November 1995
  PCW Plus 111, December 1995	PCW Plus 112, January 1996
  PCW Plus 113, February 1996	PCW Plus 114, March 1996
  PCW Plus 115, April 1996	PCW Plus 116, May 1996
  PCW Plus 118, July 1996	PCW Plus 119, August 1996
  PCW Plus 120, September 1996	PCW Plus 122, November 1996
  PCW Plus 123, December 1996	PCW Plus 124, Christmas 1996

  
  

• LocoScript Software should need no introduction. They produce the ubiquitous LocoScript word-processor, which is now up to version 4 and even supports colour. Now they have their own presence on the Web, including their full catalogue.

• The Joyce Computer Club, The Netherlands' only PCW user group offers some sound advice on conducting hardware modifications. The club's coordinator, Frank van Empel, is always prepared to help out with a nagging hardware problem.

• Representing Amstrad themselves (or whatever they're now called), we have Cliff Lawson's home page, containing a fair amount of information unavailable elsewhere, especially if you're interested in the PcW16.

• Ansible Information, makers of the popular Ansible Index software are now a presence on the Web. Dave Langford has also completed the gargantuan task of converting his entire run of columns for PCW Plus to hypertext, adding salient footnotes where appropriate. Ansible's site provides a very rewarding visit for this reason alone. Well done, Dave!

• MAPEJ Disc Copying Service, for when you find yourself needing to convert between the most absurd disc formats (or even commonplace ones).

• Dave's Disc Doctor Service, for when your floppies give up the ghost or lose a fight against a cup of coffee.

• Pinboard Computers can supply you with everything from a serial interface for communications to a replacement drive belt, power supply, motherboard or drive, etc., should your PCW be feeling its age.

• SD Microsystems have been supporting Amstrad PCWs for over ten years and are currently developing software for the PcW 16. They also supply a 3" drive repair kit, which includes a replacement belt, a head cleaner and technical support.

• Another German language site is that of the German PCW User Group (JOYCE User AG).

• A very welcome presence on the Web is the Unofficial CP/M Web Page. You can also download the CP/M source code from here.

• Here's a mirror from the last days of The Computer Journal's Web site. This American periodical once laughed in the face of progress and supported trailing edge technology. Sadly, it, too, has now gone the way of the old technology it championed.

• Walnut Creek have put together a CD-ROM containing more than 19,000 CP/M related files. All the major FTP collections are here, together with the personal collections of many leading lights in the CP/M community. Whether you need programming tools, text utilities, comms software, games, FAQ files or CP/M emulators for other architecures - it's all here. Unfortuantely, the CD-ROM has been discontinued, but it's legal to make copies of it. One source of such copies is Helmut Jungkunz.

  If you were planning to get around to buying this one day, you should do so sooner rather than later, since it has apparently been discontinued. Once current stocks are depleted, that's it.
  

• The Australian firm HiTech once sold arguably the best C compiler ever made for CP/M. Now they've gone one better and made it available for free. If you've ever wanted to give C a go, now's your chance.

• Zilog are the people who manufacture the now legendary Z80 processor, which is at the heart of every PCW, even the latest model, rthe PcW16.