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AMSTRAD
DISC DRIVE & INTERFACE
DDI-1
Congratulations on becoming the proud owner of the Amstrad
DDI-1. You will soon discover the wisdom of your choice, and what
a worthwhile investment your unit is.
Its speed will allow you to load and save files in seconds which would take several
minutes using cassette. Furthermore, each disc allows you to store up to 180k Bytes of
program on a single disc surface (360k on both sides). In other words, all your utilities
on a disc, 10 or so games on a disc, all your standard letter files on a disc, the database
from your indexing system on a disc - and so on.
Moreover, you can access files at random - which means that you don't have to pass
laboriously through unwanted program files to get to the one that you want to use.
Disc operation comes into its own when you want to write any sort of program. When
developing any software, it's very reassuring to take a copy every now and again in
case you happen to attempt to run it, and then discover that you've left an 'ON BREAK
GOSUB' lurking to prevent you from ever escaping back to direct mode; and if you
can do this in 5 seconds rather than 5 minutes, you will obviously get a lot more done!
When developing assembler programs, the convenience of being able to assemble
from disc and then test within seconds rather than minutes will be a boon to both the
seasoned programmer, and the novice feeling his way through machine code for the
first time.
The inclusion of CP/M opens a vast wealth of programming experience to the user.
The 80 column mode ensures that programs will require minimal modification to run
on the CPC464 - and the number of books written on the subject of CP/M and its use
runs well into three figures.
In short, you have made exactly the right decision to upgrade to disc based operation.
It will help and speed up your understanding and appreciation of computing in a way
that is simply not comparable with cassette-only systems.
Furthermore, the 3 inch compact floppy disc format, in its tough plastic casing (with a
protective shutter covering the head area) prevents accidental damage and provides a
positive and rigid location in the drive mechanism.