It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum; it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe, and also Canada.

Their computer-in-a-keyboard design prominently features an integrated storage device, either a compact cassette deck or 3-inch floppy disk drive.

[3] The philosophy behind the CPC series was twofold, firstly the concept was of an "all-in-one", where the computer, keyboard and its data storage device were combined in a single unit and sold with its own dedicated display monitor.

Most home computers at that time such as ZX Spectrum series, Commodore 64, and BBC Micro relied on the use of the domestic television set and a separately connected tape recorder or disk drive.

Touted as "ergonomic" by Amstrad's promotional material, the keyboard is noticeably tilted to the front with MSX-style cursor keys above the numeric keypad.

[7] Imported and distributed by Indescomp, Inc. of Chicago, it was the first Amstrad product to be sold in the United States, a market that at the time was traditionally hostile towards European computer manufacturers.

The main goals were numerous enhancements to the existing CPC hardware platform, to restyle the casework to provide a contemporary appearance, and to add native support of cartridge media.

Its enhanced features are only available after a deliberately obscure unlocking mechanism has been triggered, thus preventing existing CPC software from accidentally invoking them.

[12] Despite the significant hardware enhancements, many viewed it as outdated, being based on an 8-bit CPU, and it failed to attract both customers and software producers who were moving towards systems such as the Amiga and Mega Drive which was launched a few short months after the plus range.

Instead, Amstrad provided the firmware for both models via the ROM extension facility, contained on the included Burnin' Rubber and Locomotive BASIC cartridge.

Some months later, Spain joined the European Communities by the Treaty of Accession 1985 and the import tax was suppressed, so Amstrad added the ñ key for the 464 and production of the CPC 472 was discontinued.

[21] In 1993, Omsk, Russia based company Patisonic released the Aleste 520EX, a computer highly compatible with the Amstrad CPC 6128.

Your Computer concluded that the CPC 464 had "Superior graphics and sound, an excellent Basic coupled with a flexible operating system" and that Amstrad's target sales of 200,000 by the end of 1984 were realistic.

[25] A BYTE columnist in January 1985 called the CPC 464 "the closest yet to filling" his criteria for a useful home computer, including good keyboard, 80-column text, inexpensive disk drive, and support for a mainstream operating system like CP/M.

[12] With the exception of the GX4000, all CPC models lack an RF television or composite video output and instead shipped with a 6-pin RGB DIN connector, also used by Acorn computers, to connect the supplied Amstrad monitor.

The CPC uses the General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip,[27] providing three channels, each configurable to generate square waves, white noise or both.

[26] The chosen drive (built-in for later models) is a single-sided 40-track unit that requires the user to remove and flip the disk to access the other side.

Programs such as ROMDOS and ParaDOS extend the standard AMSDOS system to provide support for double-sided, 80-track formats, enabling up to 800 KB to be stored on a single disk.

Popular applications were marketed on ROM, particularly word processing and programming utility software (examples are Protext and Brunword of the former, and the MAXAM assembler of the latter type).

[27] Amstrad issued two RS-232-C D25 serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector on the rear of the machine, with a through-connector for the CPC 464 disk drive or other peripherals.

The original interface came with a Book of Spells for facilitating data transfer between other systems using a proprietary protocol in the device's own ROM, as well as terminal software to connect to British Telecom's Prestel service.

It is particularly notable for providing easy access to the machine's video and audio resources in contrast to the POKE commands required on generic Microsoft implementations.

Much public domain CP/M software was made available for the CPC, from word-processors such as VDE to complete bulletin board systems such as ROS.

Although it was possible to obtain compilers for Locomotive BASIC, C and Pascal, the majority of the CPC's software was written in native Z80 assembly language.

Disk-based CPC (not Plus) systems shipped with an interpreter for the educational language LOGO, booted from CP/M 2.2 but largely CPC-specific with much code resident in the AMSDOS ROM; 6128 machines also include a CP/M 3.1, non-ROM version.

In an attempt to give the CPC a recognisable mascot, a number of games by Amstrad's in-house software publisher Amsoft have been tagged with the Roland name.

[31] In order to conform with stricter German EMC regulations, the complete Schneider CPC line-up is equipped with an internal metal shielding.

Dedicated programmers continued working on the CPC range, even producing graphical user interface (GUI) operating systems such as SymbOS.

Internet sites devoted to the CPC have appeared from around the world featuring forums, news, hardware, software, programming and games.

CPC Magazines appeared during the 1980s including publications in countries such as Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Australia, and Greece.