The Amstrad CPC Reference Guide

The title is not wrong, this is a reference.However it is one that is barely useful. If you own the original manual you will have like 70% of this book anyway. The next 25% then are a standard Z80 command reference that is not even covering CPC specifics. Leaving you with only around 5% that have added value over the CPCs manual and a standard Z80 reference.So many things are completely missing. A list of Z80 opcodes adds little to no value but a reference to all the ICs and how to use them properly would be amazing.The best part about this book is probably the appendix, which combines a couple of references that are otherwise spread across the original manual. But that's not enough to justify the expense for this book, especially since they did not bother to check if the information is understandable or correct.In the end it's like this: For BASIC the original manual is better as it contains more than just the pure reference. For everything else this reference is not sufficient and you will end up using other books or online resources anyway.Quick overview of what you will find in this book:220 pages BASIC commands - very close to what you can find in the original manual, however slightly enhanced in some cases, not necessarily better.15 pages AMSDOS commands - nothing new, mostly useless examples - and for each command the note that the command requires AMSDOS ;-)30 pages about printing - this might be the most useful part as printing is not well documented in the original CPCs manual and the stuff you can find in this book is not easy to find online (not sure though if it's maybe in the DMP manual). However it only covers the original Amstrad DMP printers - without even mentioning the EPSON emulation (de facto standard) which has been used by most printer manufacturers.5 pages for memory mapping - this covers RAM banking and unfortunately not that well explained. I am developing stuff for the Amstrad CPC and I know how to deal with RAM banking but this here wasn't easy to understand. Online resources are much easier to follow. Also I would have expected to see memory mapping in terms of system variables, however that is completely missing.90 pages of CP/M command reference - similar to BASIC you will have all of it also in the manual with limited additional benefit in this book.205 pages of Z80 command reference - probably the most useless part of the book. Obviously just copied from a reference. No examples. And what bugs me most is that it doesn't mention when commands cannot be used in the CPC like OTIR, OUT (n),A, OUTI or others like EX and EXX that have to be used very carefully.240 pages of Firmware/BIOS reference. Again, no examples, just a pure reference which you can find easily online. If there would be good examples, that would be great, but without examples, you barely have any benefit.60 pages Appendices:Useful:- Quick reference / overview of all BASIC and AMSDOS commands- Joystick and Keyboard overview (all 3 models!)- power socketMore or less identical to original manual (however often better formatted)- Control Codes- original character set- sound values- Basic error messages- AMSDOS and disc error messages- colour chart and default colours- I/O ports / expansion port (1:1 copied, although much better references are available online)Not clear:- CP/M control character summary (not sure if it's in the original manual)- Z80 Command table (probably similar or better in Z80 literature)