Beginning in 1985, Amstrad marketed the PCW line as a much lower cost alternative to the IBM PC. Similar to its
CPC line the PCW was sold as a complete computer with processor, memory, disk drive, and power supply all packed into the display with an attached keyboard. Most models were also sold with a printer. Due to its low cost, the PCW was very popular in the UK and Europe.
While incompatible, the PCW was similar to the CPC in that it was based around a Zilog Z80 chip and initially used a uncommon 3" disc format for storage. The PCW was heavily marketed as a word processing solution and either booted directly into the included Locoscript word processor or more generally run CP/M as its operating system. From a graphics points of view, the PCW was a poor candidate for a game machine as it only had monochrome graphics and the system was highly optimized for 80 column text display. The PCW also offered limited sound with only a simple 1 channel beeper for audio.
Despite the PCW seemingly poor fit as a game machine, the line's vast popularity resulted in a number of games being developed for the system. While some were primarily text based, enterprising programmers were able to work around the systems limitations both in the display being relatively memory intensive and the Z-80 limiting access to only 64k of main memory at a time to produce more graphic intensive games.
PCW models after 1990 switched to using the more standard 3.5" disk format, and care should be taken in identifying the media for PCW titles. However by the early 90s, the PCW also began to lose popularity to more capable PC clones. In 1995 the PCW was mostly replaced by a similarly named unit called the PcW16 which was incompatible with earlier PCW computers, the system was also much more closed and sold as a complete software and hardware solution for small and home businesses. By 1998, Amstrad had abandoned the PCW line completely, ending the run of one of the very last 8-bit computers on the market.