Amstrad Mega PC

Initially released in PAL areas such as Europe and Australia in 1993, its success was short-lived due to its high price of £999.99 (later reduced to £599) and a CPU that was outdated by the time of its release. It was slightly easier to acquire an Amstrad Mega PC than the Sega TeraDrive system due to higher manufacturing volumes. Both systems have become collector's items.

• Name — Amstrad Mega PC • Developer — Amstrad • Manufacturer — Amstrad (licensed by Sega) • Type — Video game console / Personal computer • Generation — Fourth generation (16-bit era) • Release Date — 1993 • Lifespan — Europe 1993 Australia 1993 • Discontinued — 1994 • Media — Cartridge, Diskette • Os — MS-DOS 5.0 with Amstrad Desktop and Counterpoint • Power — ≈50W • Cpu — 32-bit Intel 80386SX @ 25 MHz Motorola 68000 @ 7.14 MHz • Memory — 1MB 30-pin SIMM RAM (expandable to 16MB) • Storage — 40MB Hard Drive, 3.5" Floppy Disk • Graphics — SVGA Graphics with 256KB RAM • Dimensions — 325 mm(w) x 78 mm(h) x 292 mm(d)

• Illustration — Advert promoting the Amstrad Mega PC The Mega PC was as a more robust unit than Sega's TeraDrive and had more efficient air circulation. The Mega PC was IBM-compatible and had a Mega Drive ISA card, a Mega Drive controller, keyboard, mouse, monitor, joystick and internal speakers. • Illustration — Mega PC motherboard, code VSC386SXD The machine shipped with 1MB of RAM, provided by 4× 256KB 30-pin SIMM sticks. This was expandable to 16MB by using 4× 4MB memory modules. Although it boasted a higher specification than the Sega TeraDrive (having more RAM and a faster processor), the specification of the Mega PC's CPU was a generation old. The newer Intel 80486 was on the market and the first Pentium processors were released the same year as the Mega PC. The system was unable to act as a Software Development Kit due to its inability to simultaneously use the PC and the Mega Drive hardware. A cover on the front of the unit prevented the insertion of a Mega Drive game cartridge while using the PC hardware.

The system shipped with an Amstrad-branded controller that is internally identical to Sega's, allowing the controllers to be used on either system.

Amstrad bundled several peripherals with its Mega PC, including: • Dual-sync 15 kHz/31 kHz Amstrad-branded 14" white monitor with internal speakers • Mega Drive white control pad with Amstrad branding and Amstrad white joystick • Standard Amstrad keyboard and mouse using PS/2 interface

The machine launched in 1993, selling in Australia with a retail price in February of AU$1999, although small discounts were offered and had fallen to AU$1499 by June. In the United Kingdom, the unit was selling for between £550 and £600, with variable pricing depending upon what came bundled.

Amstrad advertised, but never released, a successor to the Mega PC named the Amstrad Mega Plus. It boasted slightly higher specifications, with the processor upgraded to a Cyrix Cx486SLC running at 33 MHz and a RAM upgrade of 4× 1MB SIMM modules (4MB).