My Amstrad Notepad Computers: Part 1
6I was going to continue work on my Moldovan BYTE computer tonight but discussion about Amstrad NCs came up.
I got an Amstrad NC100 and NC200 sometime around 2010.
They're both neat little Z80 machines - they can run ZPN (a flavour of CP/M) and can have up to 1MB of storage on a removable SRAM card. The NC200 is more computer notebook-like with a flip-up screen and an additional 3.5" floppy drive.
Actually ... the NC200 came out around the same time as the Moldovan BYTE was made ...
I initially tried to replace the 3.5" drive in the NC200 with a Gotek but, as this was before FlashFloppy, I never got far. The floppy drive uses a flex cable which is probably what stalled me ... need to get one.
Discussion came up tonight (Aug 2022) about these machines and their ROMs, accessible via a small door. I had never considered replacing the ROM before, so this has renewed my interest in these machines.
Luckily ... because it turns out I'd left batteries in the NC100 ... duh!