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| SINCLAIRWATCH | ||
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Hotfoot after publicity, Sir
Clive Sinclair continues to try
wooing the more unfriendly
(honest?) of the micro mags -
giving his own mini-impression
of Walter Mondale on the
Presidential trail. And who can
say it isn't working? One
worthy publication has already
managed to print a full colour
picture of Clive on the front
cover - heralding an interview
that answers such weighty
questions as why you can't buy
posters of the great man in high
street shops. And I thought
there was an Obscene
Publications Act! Actually, it's
rumoured that homes up and
down the country are now
displaying his holy image on
walls and doors - only thing is,
for some reason many of the
pictures are covered with tiny
holes. Actually, apart from defacing pictures, there are, of course, other ways of venting annoyance. Rumour reaches us that some dissatisfied customers have taken to sending a brick in brown paper |
to Freepost, Camberley.
Wonder if they'll get enough to
build an extension? Hands up all those who saw Sir Clive receiving the ultimate accolade of satirisation on the wickedly funny Spitting Image TV programme. The gist of it seemed to revolve around a product that takes 28 days to come - I can't imagine what it was all about. Many were surprised to hear of Imagine's recent demise, following acute financial problems. One of the largest Spectrum software houses, it was always thought to be very successful, despite the constant rumour of non-payment of bills. The company certainly knew how to write and market good games - and also how to be extravagant. Declared assets are rumoured to include a BMW, Porsche and XR3, presumably acquired to help give the programmers an ego trip. Ex-director, Colin Stokes, is now probably very glad he |
got sacked earlier this year -
following the phone tapping
episode; he's currently working
for Jet Set Willy company,
Software Projects. Doesn't Sinclair Research realise the only way it's likely to get Microdrive acceptance from a still suspicious public is by making the blank cartridges far more widely available. But, I hear you say, they're already widely available in the shops - at £4.95! For many potential punters I believe the price still remains an insurmountable stumbling block. Of course, Sinclair Research would reply that no way could they match normal audio cassette prices and still keep the beasts profitable - after all, we're talking about different orders of manufacture quality. But the fact is, Sinclair Research may just have to bite the bullet to a greater cause. It could be the only way the company will ever fully succeed with its controversial system of storage. By Guttersnipe. |
| QL AFFAIRS Presented by Leon Heller, Acting Chairman of the Independent QL Users' Group (IQLUG). | ||||||||
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GST is negotiating with Sinclair Research for the rights to sell the QL as a single board computer (minus case, keyboard, Microdrives and power supply) with the 68K/OS operating system to OEMs who wish to use it for such application areas as computer aided design, terminal emulation, data acquisition, point of sale, etc. Features offered by 68K/OS include: single-user, multi-tasking; multiple screen windows; highly optimised disk filing system; device independent I/O; Unix-like 'pipes' for communication |
between programs; built-in
menu and form handling;
command or menu-driven
'shell'; integral graphics
functions; and ROM resident
(32K). Many of these features
were in the original
specification for the QL, but
have since been left out of the
machines that Sinclair
Research is currently
'shipping'. GST is negotiating too with several other software houses for the provision of the following languages: Basic, 'C', Pascal, Fortran 77 and MC68000 assembler. It's also planned to make available business software similar to the bundled Psion packages. GST intends making 68K/OS available to QL users (no comment as to the likely cost), and has promised evaluation copies some time in August. These will take the form of a couple of EPROMs that replace those in the machine - with some additional code on a Microdrive cartridge. It'll be interesting to see how 68K/OS fares against QDOS. Certainly, although punters will be forking out monies over and above the cost of the basic QL system, they'll get some very attractive features. It all boils down to how much it costs, and how long it takes for the additional programming languages to become available. |
It might be that 68K/OS will
be bought by people who are
writing QL software, which is
then sold to the ordinary user
to run under QDOS.
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| IQLUG is a non-profit making independent QL users' group. Further details on the organisation are available from: Brian Pain, Acting Secretary, IQLUG, 24 Oxford Street, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes, Bucks. Tel: 0908 564271. | ||||||||
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