Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index The Amstrad PCW ('Personal Computer Word Processor') series was a versatile line of microcomputers pitched as a complete, integrated home/ office solution, and came complete with a full-size word processor keyboard, high resolution monochrome monitor, dot matrix printer, three-inch floppy disk drive(s), LocoScript word processing software, and the CP/M operating system, including the Mallard BASIC programming language. Several models were released: The PCW8256 featured 256 kilobytes of RAM and one floppy drive that could store 180 kilobytes on each side of the disk. It had a green screen monitor. The PCW8512 came with 512K RAM and two floppy drives, the second of which could store 720K on a double-density floppy without needing the disk to be turned over. Subsequently, Amstrad released the PCW9512, which featured a white-screen monitor. The machines were built around the Zilog Z80 processor, and managed the relatively large amount of RAM using a technique known as bank switching (allowing access to more than the 8-bit Z80's normal address bus maximum of 64KB). Although not at all designed as games machines, some games were released for the platform, including Batman, Head Over Heels, and Bounder. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.