en:companias:the_electric_studio []

THE ELECTRIC
STUDIO

TECHNICAL DATA

NAME:The Electric Studio (A brand of Cascade Games Ltd.)

ORIGIN:Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England (UK)

FOUNDED:c. 1987

.pcw-index-tree

STATUS:Historical (Inactive / Dissolved alongside parent company)

SPECIALITY:Input Peripherals, Expansion Hardware, and Utility Software

OFFICIAL WEB:Does not exist

Description

The Electric Studio was an influential commercial label and specialized peripheral hardware division founded by the management of Cascade Games Ltd. in Harrogate around 1987. The birth of this brand responded to a corporate diversification strategy: separating Cascade's identity (purely associated with 8-bit entertainment software) to create an advanced line of control hardware and professional suites aimed at computer-aided design and desktop publishing on the Amstrad PCW. Through this hybridization, the brand successfully positioned itself as the most significant direct competitor to Kempston and Trojan within the British professional market.

Developed Hardware & Interfaces

The Electric Studio Mouse An optomechanical mouse system featuring two high-precision commercial buttons, released in late 1987 at a retail price of £29.95. It interfaced with the computer mainboard via a proprietary bus controller card connected to the rear edge expansion bus slot. This hardware was specifically engineered to streamline geometric layout drafting, allowing fluid X/Y tracking across the native monitor's 32 text lines without relying on cursor keys. It was distributed in a large-format "Studio Pack" bundling their custom drawing suite. The Electric Studio Light Pen A light pen originally commercialized at a highly competitive retail price of £19.95. It was equipped with a highly sensitive receiving phototransistor that detected the electron beam generated by the raster scan of the PCW's cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor, sending an interrupt signal to calculate the exact coordinate pointed to by the user. It became one of the most popular direct on-screen drawing tools of the late 1980s, competing head-to-head with Trojan/Amsoft's LP-1. The Electric Studio Joyce-Stick Interface An electronic hardware adapter continuing the original product line of parent company Cascade. Featuring an Atari-specification DE-9 9-pin controller port, it decoded the logical switch status by mapping signals directly onto Input/Output port 0E0h (&HE0) of the Z80 microprocessor, enabling the use of standard sticks and arcade controllers in patched software.

Support Software & Graphic Integration

Design Master (1987) The central graphics suite of the label and the foundational pillar that justified their hardware peripheral developments. It was natively programmed to provide immediate and simultaneous support for both The Electric Studio Mouse and Light Pen. It offered advanced technical drafting tools for rendering pixel-perfect geometric shapes, designing matrix-based custom typographic fonts, and importing graphical blocks directly into professional LocoScript documents. Disc Master / Disc Master II A low-level system utility for sector-based bit-by-bit maintenance and backup duplication of 3-inch floppy disks. It stood out technically for incorporating critical routines capable of directly intercepting the command registers of the native NEC µPD765A floppy disk controller chip, allowing it to bypass physical copy-protection schemes to safeguard damaged business disks by manipulating track sectors using custom CP/M commands.

Known Addresses (England, UK)

Commercial Offices and Distribution (Cascade Headquarters) Suite 4, 1-3 Haywra Crescent, Harrogate, North Yorkshire (Postcode: HG1 5BG, England) Original verified technical support contact: Telephone (0423) 504663 Mail order tracking descriptor: The Electric Studio, Dept PCW, Harrogate.