| 16 Storm - Technical info |
While the '16 was designed to be simple to use, and require little knowledge of computing by the end user, underneath there's a powerful OS and an expandable set of hardware. If you just use your '16 for its normal functions, you don't really need to read this.
The monitor
The PcW 16's VDU has a screen size of about 11", displaying 640x480 pixels in monochrome. Strangley, there's an interface on the motherboard for a color VGA monitor. This is weird because the '16's VDU is inbuilt into the system case, so a colour monitor would have to sit next to the machine rather than in it. There's been some disturbing reports that the '16's monitor can die at switch-on because it overheats. However, this seems extremely rare - if in doubt, turn down the brightness and contrast before switching the machine on.
The motherboard
The mainboard of the '16 holds a Zilog Z80 8-bit CPU, as used in the previous PCWs and many other systems (including the popular ZX Spectrum). This time it's clocked at 16MHz, rather than the 4MHz of the older PCWs. This is backed by 1MB of RAM, which can be expanded by another 1MB. I haven't taken the back off my '16 (too risky!) but apparently a memory expansion would have to be fitted professionally. If anyone's done it, please let me know. Also included is 1MB of Flash RAM, which is the Cabinet, and it stores data even when the machine is not plugged-in. The first 64K holds the BIOS, with exactly half of the rest used to store the OS (Rosanne) and its apps, but a fair bit more is taken up with the fonts and templates. The remainder is user space, divided into 16 renamable folders, and this too can be upgraded by another MB. There's even an interface on the motherboard for a hard drive, but again, it would probably require a lot of work to install one.
External storage here is provided by a standard PC-type 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive, which can also read 720K and CP/M disks. When a disk is formatted in the '16's File Manager, a standard DOS filesystem is created with a special hierarchy of folders. There's one folder on the root, 'PCW', which holds the 16 user folders, and the system folder. Also in the PCW folder is an ASCII file called 'CATALOG.TXT', which contains a list of each file's 8-character name next to its 32-character PcW 16 equivalent.
The OS floppy disk supplied with the system (called the 'Rescue Disk') contains the OS and standard programs (word-processor, spreadsheet etc.), together with 2 fonts (Times and Swiss - standard serif and sans-serif) and a FAQ in the native WP format.
The software
Most of the OS and internal software was created by Creative Technology and written in assembler (more on that soon). Supplied is a word-processor, spreadsheet, file manager, and organiser functions (diary, alarm, calculator), with an extra 2 programs on the Rescue Disk. These are a word-puzzle-solver and no-frills 'needed-items' database.
The 'scratchpad' in the WP and spreadsheet is a clipboard that holds a single item. In the WP and spreadsheet, the calculator program can be called to insert a result at the current cursor position. Using the File Manager, DOS disks can be examined (using TASK+M before a disk-read), but not modified. To import text and RTF files into the WP, the file must be on the root directory of the DOS disk.
The peripherals
Supplied as standard with the '16 are a keyboard and 3-button mouse. The keyboard looks unique because of its '16-specific colour-scheme, but it's really just a standard PS/2. I've tested another PS/2 keyboard on the '16 and it works fine (but a bit hard to navigate without the extra text and colours!). The mouse is a standard serial type.
Other peripherals can be connected using the expansion ports on the back of the machine. Aside from the keyboard and mouse connectors, there's a parallel port for printer connectivity and a serial port. The latter could be used for adding a modem to the system, should anyone make any comms software. The final port is on the underside of the box, and is used for reprogramming the BIOS.
Software engineering
The '16's software was written using the PSY-Q development system (from game-producer Psygnosis) on a PC, with all sorts of expensive cables and bits of kit going into different parts of a standard '16. For anyone who hasn't won the lottery, writing '16 software is a bit harder. There's no hosted assembler as yet, let alone a C compiler, so everything has to be done using a cross-assembler on a different machine. The ROSANDOC.ZIP file on Amstrad hardware-man Cliff Lawson's pages (see the links below) has information on the OS calls, together with include files to make development easier.
As an example, PCW coder John Elliott used the Z80ASM cross-assembler on Linux, together with the files from Cliff Lawson's pages, to write CP/M for the '16. I've done a bit of coding using the same tools myself, and the assembler and OS docs are excellent, but every time a program is built it has to be put on floppy and taken across to the '16 (in other words, really tedious). Three cheers for John, then, for having plenty of patience.
A much easier way to write software for the '16 is to use the CP/M emulator. There's plenty of documentation on CP/M available, and there are many compilers and interpreters (most famously Mallard BASIC), so it's simpler here. However, you'll have to limit yourself to text-mode programs, as the emulator doesn't support graphics. You can make Rosanne calls from the CP/M emulator though (as John's CALLANNE.COM program demonstrates), so you could use Rosanne-style dialogs in your software.
Links to useful resources
Here's some sites that have other technical info on the '16:
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