PPC 512

The Amstrad PPC512 and Amstrad PPC640 were the first portable IBM PC compatible computers made by Amstrad. Released in 1988, they were a development of the desktop PC-1512 and PC-1640 models. As portable computers, they contained all the elements necessary to perform computing on the move. They had a keyboard and a monochrome LCD display built in and also had space for disposable batteries to power the PC where a suitable alternative power source (i.e. mains or 12 volt vehicle power) was not available. The PCs came with either one or two double density double side floppy disc drives and the PPC640 model also featured a modem. Both models were supplied with 'PPC Organiser' software and the PPC640 was additionally supplied with the 'Mirror II' communications software.

The two computers had very similar specifications. The PPC512 had an NEC V30 processor running at 8 MHz, 512 KiB of memory, a full-size 102-key keyboard with a numeric keypad, a built-in liquid crystal display (not backlit) that could emulate the CGA or MDA and either one or two 720k 3.5" floppy drives (the model was either the PPC512S or PPC512D depending on the number of drives it had). The PPC640 was otherwise identical except that it had 640 KiB of memory, a built-in 1200 baud modem (unusually fast for its day), and its case was a darker shade of grey. Both versions of the machine had an empty socket on the main circuit board so that an Intel 8087 coprocessor could be installed to permit hardware processing of floating point arithmetic.

The PPC included standard connectors for RS-232, Centronics and CGA/MDA video, allowing existing peripherals to be used. All the signals used by the 8-bit ISA bus were also available through an expansion connector. There was available an external card cage for expansion cards.

Four possible power sources could be used:

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