No part of this issue may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of the publisher except short excerpts quoted for the purpose of review and duly credited. The publishers do not necessarily agree with the views expressed by contributors and assume no responsibility for errors in reproduction or interpretation in the subject matter of this publication or from any results arising therefrom. The Editor welcomes articles and listings submitted for publication. Editor: P.A. Greenhalgh. Published by Scorpio Systems of Aylesbury. Copyright © Scorpio Systems 1987.

Editorial

Nascom – 10 Years On

Thank you to everyone who wrote in about the proposed Nascom – 10 Years On event. There was an avalanche of mail on the topic, and you have given us a lot to consider. Whatever we do I am sure that it will be an event to remember. In due course we will be writing directly to all of you who have been in touch with us, it still isn’t too late.

To re-cap, this November will be the 10th anniversary of the launch of Nascom 1, the machine that started (well, almost) the 80-BUS that we all know and love today. We are going to arrange a “happening” and have asked readers to write in and let us know what they would like the event to be (see last issue’s Editorial). We are then going to take an “average” of the suggestion. So, if you too are interested, the please let us know soon (in writing).

What’s New

Ever so often sometime will say to me – “It’s pity that 80-BUS is dying out – I think it’s great. Why are there no new developments taking place?” Well, maybe Gemini’s laid-back policy to publicity (i.e. they really don’t tend to do very much) is the reason, but there has never been a let-up in 80-BUS developments, and I think that this issue of Scorpio News shows that there is still much going on.

In the following pages you will find details of THREE new 80-BUS CPU boards. As I write, none of the boards are actually here yet (what’s new?), but they all exist in pre-production form and so should be with us RSN (Real Soon Now). I was going to offer some advice on how to choose between the 64180 and the Z280 based boards but I haven’t really had chance to way up the pros-and-cons myself yet. Please do read my notes on page 53.

You will also find a brief technical specification of Gemini’s 80286 CPU/​RAM board. Now do you see another reason why we thought that it was becoming appropriate to include some coverage on MS-DOS in Scorpio News? And there may be yet another purpose soon!