Nascom News­let­ter

A V C

AVC’s (Advanced Video Controller cards – the high resolution colour graphics card, if anyone hasn’t yet heard of it) are now in the shops, although demand far exceeds supply. Those of you who already have one deserve an apology for the extremely preliminary documentation. The documentation is now almost complete, and both you and new buyers will now recieve what is, bar some colour illustrations, the final documentation.

The results are really fantastic, and the software support from BASIC is, we think, going to be at least as much of a selling point as the hardware performance. The PAL encoder has been removed from the AVC board itself, as we were not satisfied with the quality of result that can be obtained from a simple on-board modulator. It will, unfortunately, be a few weeks before the seperate PAL encoder board appears. Users intending to use a normal colour television should bear in mind that, however good the AVC and PAL encoder, the bandwidth of colour televisions is restricted and resolution will therefore be affected.

Come and see the AVC at the exhibition. If you have technical queries, look out for Peter Horton who has done nearly all the hardware and software.

NAS-NET

Nas-Net is a very low-cost networking system which allows up to 32 Nascoms to share a disc under Nas-Dos. The satellites have access to all the facilities of the Nas-Dos disc operating system, including data file handling. Messages and programs can he broadcast from the ‘master’ station to the satellites and the ‘master’ can inspect the memory and screen contents of any satellite. A parallel printer can be connected to the ‘master’ and the satellites can make use of this via a spooling system.

The satellites are connected to the ‘master’ via a multiplexing unit, although, if you just want to link two Nascoms, the multiplexor is not necessary. The UART on each satellite and the ‘master’ is used for the communication system, but, by suitable switching arrangements, the tape cassette facilities of any of the machines can still be used in a local mode.

Nas-Net is an exceptionally powerful system for a very low cost. If you are looking for a networking system you need look no further.

Well, that’s the first contribution to the magazine from Nascom themselves. Because of the copy deadlines for the magazine (yes we do have them) this contribution is a repeat of the latest Nas-Dos news so some readers may have already seen it. Sorry. The next issue should have something better organised in it, wait and see.IJC