The Chairman’s Bit

Back again, and may I apologise in advance for the length that this piece will run to. There are a number of things to report, so sit back and please try not to go to sleep through the boring bits.

When we added, somewhat facetiously, the words ‘And don’t expect another for a considerable time’, below the ‘Biggest Issue Yet’ caption on the front page of the last issue we thought very little about it. Since then events have taught us to be more careful about such utterances. I have had a number of phone calls and people remarking, that we didn’t really mean it, did we? And shades of gloom at the prospect of having to wait until Christmas NEXT year for the next issue seemed to abound. Well, sorry, all we meant was that we are variously off on holiday and things, and we knew we wouldn’t get down to preparing the next issue before September. It’s nice to know we are that appreciated, and very flattering too.

When I wrote the last Chairman’s Bit I had just come back from the inaugural dealer meeting of Nascom under it’s new masters, Lucas Logic. Now three months have passed, and wearing my dealer’s hat for a moment, I can report that Nascom is slowly recovering ground lost over the past year. Low volume products that haven’t seen the light of day in twelve months (buffer boards for instance) have re-appeared on dealers shelves along with I/O boards and the like. Nascoms (both 1 and 2) are readily available and the range of Nascom products available now is very much the same as when Nascom went into recievership. A noble effort on the part of Lucas to re-introduce so much so quickly. Unfortunately, things haven’t picked up as quickly as was hoped, but I think the general economic climate may be blamed for that rather than any lack of effort on the part of Lucas or the dealers.

Anyway, Lucas have had another dealer meeting, to tell us what they are up to, and what is coming soon. (“Meeting last time, meeting this time, and I bet he doesn’t only sell Nascoms either.”, I hear you think. This makes my life sound like one continuous round of being wined and dined by various computer companies, sadly it’s not true, and to cap it all, these meetings always seem to be on what would otherwise be my day off. People wishing to treat me to dinner are always welcome, but remember, Thursdays are out. Computer companies please note.) Firstly the new products due out about the time you see this issue. There’s a case at long last, and it’s not ‘Son of System 80’ either. It’s designed to take the Nascom with two other boards and the Nascom power supply. It’s tidy, coloured a sort of mushroom colour with a slightly textured finish, and looks a cross between an Apple and a Sorcerer case. Its made out of high density polyurethane foam (which sounds like the brittle stuff they make plastic ceiling tiles out of, but believe me, it’s tough and resilient). From what I remember of this type of plastic, it has one snag. For the first week or two after moulding it has the most God awful pong as the resin catalyst evaporates. Something like overpowering cat’s p**. This shouldn’t worry you the end user, as the cases are bound to be a few weeks old by the time they see the shops. But I pity the guy who has to move them around in Lucas’s stores. The case {s provided with a metal backplate which mounts the power supply heatsink externally to reduce the dissipation within the case. The backplate also has enough prepunched holes to keep most people happy. The case costs about 36.00 and the internal frame kit to mount three cards costs about 23.00.