Amstrad

Amstrad is a company manufacturing electronics and was founded in 1968 by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK. It is based in Brentwood in Essex, England and manufactures Sky Digital interactive boxes. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1980, and the name of the company was derived from its founder. In 1984, the company began marketing its own computers with the Amstrad CPC range. The CPC 464 was the first product that was launched in France, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy and Spain. Later the CPC 6128 and CPC 664 models followed. The company later released a game console known as GX4000 which was based on the CPC Plus hardware.

The business-oriented Amstrad PCW range was launched by Amstrad in 1985. The company later manufactured Windows-based and MS-DOS-based personal computers in 1986. The company started producing portable computers in the early 1990s. The Amstrad Mega PC was launched in 1993 and was followed by the PenPad, a PDA similar to the Apple Newton. In the early 1990s, the company purchased a number of telecommunication businesses including Dancall Telecom, Dataflex Design Communications, Betacom and Viglen Computers. The product line of Amstrad includes home computers, word processors, notepad computers, PC compatibles and PC accessories.