INMC 80 News

Nevertheless, when the future of Nascom seemed so uncertain and many of us might have ended up with some un-repairable and certainly un-expandable white elephants on our hands, the product was kept alive by the small group of dealers and manufacturers who gave service and assistance as well as developing compatible products. INMC80 must continue to support these as well. I don’t think Mr. Deane has anything to fear from this, in fact I doubt if his company buys many components which are not “second sourced” to use the jargon; and as long as you don’t start publishing information for users of American white-boxes and Japanese copies thereof, I see no need to rename the magazine “Practical Computing” or somesuch.

Yours sincerely,
Robin Luxford

The following is an extract from a long and detailed letter from David Bryden of Scarborough.

I am concerned that the club and the manufacturers might make the mistake, as I see it, of making and supporting only complete systems. By all means do that, but please don’t forget that a lot of us started off as primarily constructors. Having said that, it would be of tremendous interest to me if the system could develop to a stage where I could have a homebrew system compatible with a commercial system at work.

I feel that in the current situation you have to support the bus rather than the manufacturers, because in the period of limbo so much time and effort has been put in by the dealers developing products. If we had had to wait for the outcome of receivership then I think many of us would have changed to other systems. Further, I feel that whatever Lucas say, if the subsidiary, Lucas Logic looses money, then we could be back in the familiar situation.

I see the club’s role as that of a co-ordinator and projector of hobbyists such as myself, whose interests won’t always coincide with those of the manufacturers, who sees himself selling large volumes of unsocketed boards and packaged software. Please don’t let us get into the Pet/​Tandy position.

Etc.

Beddau
Mid Glamorgan

Now that the Nascom ship has been salvaged and appears to have a promising captain at the helm, perhaps some of the deserters will return to the fold.

Subscription to INMC80 seems pretty good and I suspect that most subscribers own or plan to own a Nascom. On these grounds I think INMC80 should remain Nascom oriented since there is only one other Nascom oriented publication available. Naturally Nasbus is important to Nascom users, but how many will be interested in the purchase of another Nasbus computer? When the other computer is more established, it may be worth broadening the INMC80 coverage to cater for the common units which may be used with Nascom. Till then the magazine should be consolidating itself and not losing touch with owners of Nascom 1 and 2 machines.

Etc.

Yours faithfully,
Dave Lorde

Greenock
Renfrewshire

Dear Sir,

I Wish to advise you that I am in favour of our mag supporting ‘Nascom only’. However, General articles on, say, the Z80 and how to interface IBM