[1] Their consumer electronic sales were starting to plateau and owner and founder Alan Sugar stated "We needed to move on and find another sector or product to bring us back to profit growth".

[3] Bill Poel, General Manager of Amsoft (Amstrad's software division), said during the launch press release that if the computers were not on the shelves by the end of June, "I will be prepared to sit down and eat one in Trafalgar Square.

The unit includes a built-in tape drive and the choice of a colour or green monochrome monitor.

[6] The graphics, which uses a Motorola 6845 chip for timing and address generation, provides 3 standard display modes, each using colours chosen from a palette of 27.

Aside from the joystick port, the computer, keyboard, and tape deck were all combined into one unit that attached to the monitor via two cables.