' ^hJ^^^^I^^-^ Oiily40p. Uiuiuulinff 27 SeptembeF— 3 October 1984 Vol 3 No 39 Smclair US marl in Uie lachntrfogy was used by Time;! profits also lost a possible £9m plus in lum-over. judging torn 1983 let-down fignies. Howevec, Ihe QL ts due to be launctied in the US before the only by a disappointing end of 1984 on mail order, and leyear Sinclair; ending March 19B4, longly. Turn-over rose over the Sinclair is apparently relying same period bom £54 .Em To on high OL sales to increase £77.7m, according to Sinclair's prorns prior to the company's planned flotation next year. published lasl weak. Expenditure on raw materials !n the leporl, Su Clive Sin- and consumables rose sharply THE seventh PerBonal Compntet Woild Show was held ovai clair accounts for the relatively from £33.7rn to £54.9m, im- four dayv at Olympia Jaat week. Acam previewed its new small increase plying a much heavier le- biuiness compalera, and the new lange ot Ret Apticol [ rise by saying L arch commilment. and compntezB were on pntabc display for the fini time. Full show "the pocket televunan and the ^ cks of hardware now stand tepoit inside on page 13, l7.3i!i as against £3.Bm. The I company's net profil lell from 26% ottum-overin 1983 to 16% MSX launch ittntmTed to continuing de- unfinished Imagine 'mega- THE MSX compuler sysl lE for the ZX Speclnim, its was officially launched week by Ihe seven Japan (I (pnn Woiking Group — Canon, Hi- early ISBS); tachi. JVC. Milsobialu, Sanyo, models) M1^F48, SBK, £249,00 Sony and Toshiba. and ML-F30, 64K, £290.00, both Allof Ih available in November (discs sed e MSX d available in 1985); Sanyo dard incoipocating ihe Z80 MCPIOO. 64K E299,9S. available processor and use a veision o[ mid-Oolobei: Sony HB-7EB Baaio develt^ed by Microsoft. (Hil-Bil). B4IC plus additional The models and prices are 16E Rom for simple data han- Hs foUows: Canon V-20, 64K. dling (the UK version, unlike its pan, has a Hhac B-HBO, 64K, price ai dKpaoeBk ACORN'S ABC PREVIEWED INSIDE ) PCW SHOW ) AMSTRAD PAGE ) PSION ORGANISER ) CURRAH /^SPEECH J Speech Synthesiser for ZX Spectrum '>*snit*a'';sf. Ilie CURRAH jtSPEECH is :e^<iy lo lalk uiitned lately on //SPEECH is available from/V i®R*S". WH SMITH, powef-up. has an infinire vocabulary and outpuK speech WOOLWDRTHS, GREEI*. -|Boi5. JOHNMENZIES, and ZXSpearum sound through your TV speaker. There SPEiTTRUfWl STORES and good dealers ngiionv/iOe - li no sofiwace to lo^id wih /iSPEECH — sophisucaied or use the form to ofder the CURRAH /(SPEECH - Gaie Arr^y technology means you can just plug in and winner of the CTA 'Product of the Veai' award 198' 5iart conSEfUclirig wo'ds and sentences like ifiis; LETSS = "spfeefk (nn)(oo) (ee|vH" will %ay "speak no evil"! Furtner commands control the "voicing" of keys as they are pressed, andanlnionaiion facility allows you to add expression to the speech. ^SPEECH is fully compatible wirti ZX Interface 1 and may be used with the CURRAH fiSLOT Expandat)le Motherboard, allowing easy expansion of your ZX system SPEECH and /(SLOT will also be compaiible MkmS.SurMUIaTEII.MQcnintlV^Tll'SI' with the CURRAH ^uSOURCE unit when it arrives later M^^^l tbis year, allowing you to write Asjeinbler and FORTH stdtemenis directly into your BASIC progtamsl PI Top selling games like ULTfMATE'S Lunar Jetnian feature /(SPEECH voice output ^ waich out for other lrnc««-iO.<^HfiO(»yal*lli'M«J<«(«chOI(«>«l.-t ._ . titles from Bug-Byte, CDS. Ocean, Qutcksilva and PSS. I^Hi SHUiMthcPCWSni>wStandJ» I . }View No 39 ^Compulei World Show * has come and gone and Ihis yeai il left me feeling rather Clal. now very rueeiy predictable. new Apncols and Acorns, ave- lythuig lemams m ila proper place and under conffoL ) Presents... only a few years ago could only have been News > Amstiad disc drive > new games hambles. Yet il for ultimate Star Game^ Build a wall between yourself and ceitain | "|| death in Wall ofDoom for Commodore 64 * thai the seven NBX companiea Show Report > Chrisiina Erskine reviews the highlights of this decided against eslUbiting at the show because they wanted year's Personal Computer World Show 1 £* to distance themselves from Software reviews > Database's Mini Office aims to provide ^ w (he 'hobbyist' industry. The business applications at a low cost > show isn't llfee thai anymore — the dedicated 'hobbyist' is Fast Hardware Preview > First impressions of Acorn's new 20 becoming an endangered spe- business computer range by Jeff Naylor cies — iBlher like the unfortu- Hardware Reviews > Barbara Conway n ^ tries out the Organiser, Psion's pocket ^^J computer > being lost. Not that a hand-bmll Spectmin > New keyboards for Interface C colour board lor the ZX81 O shottid 1 from Bany Lowry fciW Amstrad Amstrad on the move — ^? screen animation fromGraham Paterson 'J" The QL Page > User-defined characters in E Snowdon's program 35 The business is now ruled by The Big Licencing Agreemenl Conumodore 64 > Simon Wallace sets up an automatic error — Danger Mouse, The Magic recovery routine 41 Roundaboul. Eddie Kidd. BBC & Election > Andrew Heptonstall's priogram helps to Ghostbaslcrs. Daley Thompson. teach young children to tell the time 45 Best of the Rest The acluaJ quality of the Letters Tape Offer 7. Competition — final week 14, Open Forum SO, Art:ade ptogtam itself is now almost ineievant with the magnitude Avenue 50, Microradio 51, Baud Walk 32, Adventure Comer 54, Peek & Poke 58, Qf the deal being of pararnoimt Diary 66, Top Ten, This Week 67, New Releases 68, Ziggurat, Puzzle, Hackers 70 importance. And that is to be n the IT from hobby to big busi )Futu]:es... Brother printer review . Star Game is Helicopter Fury foi the Amstrad . and a mysterious adventure on the BBC lahlng dinclar Jemy Inalen . fmi7bJypaa byTiw An* on Papei LiO PrlnUd by Eral Ision. Pfltfitbflfougfi P£2 90F nit artfclea Arlicles whicn are submlltBd lor publlcallon ^auld not be mote Ihar 2000 wotds lotui The any accompanying programs, should be original. It la brealung the law Ol copyright to copy ptogiams ABC magazines and submit them here — so please do not he lempted. Accuracy Popular Compuling lOl accept any responsibility lor any errors in progtants we publish, although ne will always Ity our best B programs woik. Computer Trade AMociellon Mogailna o( We Yeac 27SEPTEMeEB-30CTOBER19M Watch out for Wally in a dream of a Program, Pyjamarama. Join the dots and complete „ the picture of ». 3 a right.... WALLY Sensational Soltwar The Broadway, Bracknell. "°"ca]M«>®ii]r^(0344)427317 POPULAR COMPUTING W MSX New year machines Disc unit for Cvitinoed&om page 1 ATflEI US has ai theCPC64 professional' quality key- Sam Tramiel son of Atari announced board), £299, available Oclo- — AMSTRAD has It chairman Jack Tramiel—said it DDI-1 disc unit and interface ber (also available in October would cost less than £1,000 Uie Sony MBD-SO 360K capacity [or the CPC464 micro. The IS-bi machine, TUan (around ESOO-ESSO), If true, the The drive is based on the Sl^dnch disc drive)^ Toshiba, Corp i presu machine could start another HX-10, eiK. msas. availaWe 3inch Hilachi standard and is Traniiel said in an computer price-cutting war in W-track double-side end Seplember (also a printer/ 169K Taiwan, will be launched in the US. BWs and Apple's nea- plotlei, £249.95, and a dol- January 1935. and be non-IBM rest competitors both cost over matrix printer, E349.9E, both compatible. He claimed the S3,000. available in Oclober). machine had already been de- Atari has set a production Commenting on the MSX signed by Alari engineets. target for 1985 for these ma- system, Chris McLaughlin for The 32-bil micro will be a chines of between three and Digital Research standard CF.' development from thai oornpu- five nuUion at sites in Ireland led, "We may either love MSX ter. and be introduced nexl and the Far EasL compatible with the single- or hate it as a standard but it's a sided formal used oi £nal solution to the problem of by CP/M the IBM PC. compatibility — achieved by Ghosting for December," said Activision's consensus wilhui the majority. Activision UK managing director, Geoff "Nobody is standing up and Heath, "it features both charac- GHOSTBUSTEHS, the sayiug Dial the ZSO is knife- ters and music inun the film, edge stale of the art stuff. It's and will be a mix of ar[:ade and not necessarily the best — but strategy aciiorL" it's workable — and we can build app]icaii< home banking ar ping around it. 'The pricing side w The CP/M disc is bundled bylh -- free with the Amstrad disc nies together but originally system. As well as the CP/M they were hoping to produce disc each drive is bundled? them at around £2S0 — but the Dr Logo on disc, the Digital vjay the going yen has been Hesearch version of Logo. against the pound has meant The drive, plus interface. the cost has had to go up." CP/M and Ds Logo is priced at Over fifty UK software £199.95, The system can ; support a second disc drive lor software aisc develop based Crane, who which an additional interface is Alilgata, Andromeda. Artie. lall. PitfaU II and DecalAJoji. h required. The additJOTial Bug-Byte, DKTroniCB, Hewson. which is cunenlly riding high will be simultaneously relea- it E1S9.« Hi-soh. Uamasoft. Maslemo- in the British lop ten.