Editing Amstrad CPC (section)

=== CPC 664 ===
[[File:Schneider 664 en.jpg|thumb|A ''CPC 664'' main unit (German Schneider-brand variant)]]

The CPC 664 features 64&nbsp;KB RAM and an internal 3-inch floppy disk drive. It was introduced on 25 April 1985 in the UK.<ref name="Special Feature: Happy Birthday!">{{cite magazine |title=Special Feature: Happy Birthday! |magazine=[[Popular Computing Weekly]] |date=1 May 1987 |pages=14–18 (18) |url=https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1987-05-01/page/n17}}</ref> Initial suggested retail prices for the CPC 664 were £339.00/DM1198.00 with a green screen and £449.00/DM1998.00 with a colour monitor.

After the successful release of the CPC 464, consumers were constantly asking for two improvements: more memory and an internal disk drive. For Amstrad, the latter was easier to realise. At the deliberately low-key introduction of the CPC 664, the machine was positioned not only as the lowest-cost disk system but even the lowest-cost CP/M 2.2 machine. In the Amstrad CPC product range the CPC 664 complemented the CPC 464 which was neither discontinued nor reduced in price.<ref>The CPC664, ''Amstrad Computer User'' May 1985, P. 42-46.</ref>

Compared to the CPC 464, the CPC 664's main unit has been significantly redesigned, not only to accommodate the floppy disk drive but also with a redesigned keyboard area. 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. Compared to the CPC 464's multicoloured keyboard, the CPC 664's keys are kept in a much quieter grey and pale blue colour scheme.

The back of the CPC 664 main unit features the same connectors as the CPC 464, with the exception of an additional 12V power lead. Unlike the CPC 464's cassette tape drive that could be powered off the main unit's 5V voltage, the CPC 664's floppy disk drive requires an additional 12V voltage. This voltage had to be separately supplied by an updated version of the bundled green screen/colour monitor (GT-65 and CTM-644 respectively).

The CPC 664 was only produced for approximately six months. In late 1985, when the CPC 6128 was introduced in Europe, Amstrad decided not to keep three models in the line-up, and production of the CPC 664 was discontinued.<ref name="InterviewPerry">{{cite web|title=Interview de M. Roland Perry |lang=fr|publisher=Amstrad Forever|url=http://amstrad.cpc.free.fr/article.php?sid=38|access-date=2 April 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720221414/http://amstrad.cpc.free.fr/article.php?sid=38|archive-date=20 July 2011}}</ref>