Amstrad was founded in 1968 by Sir Alan Sugar, focusing on Hi-Fi's, televisions and car stereos. In 1984 Amstrad released the Amstrad CPC464, a home computer that featured a proper keyboard and built-in cassette recorder.

Later releases included the CPC664 and CPC6128 featuring enhanced features and more memory. 1985 saw the release of the PCW range of Amstrads. Aimed specifically at the business end of the market, they were basically word processors, bundled with a monitor, disk drive and printer.

In 1986 Amstrad bought from Sinclair Research the "the worldwide rights to sell and manufacture all existing and future Sinclair computers and computer products, together with the Sinclair brand name and those intellectual property rights where they relate to computers and computer related products." for £5 million.

There soon followed updated releases of the ZX Spectrum computer - the 128+2 with built-in tape deck similar to the Amstrad CPC464, and the Spectrum +3 with built in 3" disk drive, similar to the CPC128.

Amstrad also released a number of PC-based computers, running MS-DOS and Windows operating systems in the late 1980's.

In the early 1990's Amstrad released the GX4000 computer games console, to try and compete with the other consoles on the market at the time. Unfortunately it was released too late and could not compete with the superior technology present in the Mega-Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

The year 2000 saw Amstrad release the E-m@iler, a combined telephone and e-mail device. You could also, for a price, download Spectrum games to play on the little monochrome screen.

2007 saw BSkyB take over Amstrad for £125 million. Sir Alan Sugar stepped down as chairman in 2008. He can now be seen on the Apprentice BBC series.