A recent comment by Amstrad director, Alan Sugar, sort of “ruffled my feathers” a bit…and I’d be curious to get your reaction as well. To paraphrase, he stated that Sinclair computers were very games orientated, and that his own Amstrad models were for more “serious” applications. If you’ve been a Sinclair “addict” for a few years, as I have been, you might not have swallowed that line.
Have you also heard what they have planned for this coming fall? Amstrad has designed a games cartridge player based on Spectrum Z80 technology, but no keyboard or programming ability, and will be sold as a Sinclair product. I also understand that Activision (remember the cartridges for the Atari 2600, that ended up selling for $5 each in shopping malls?), will be jumping on the band wagon.
It’s just sad to see our powerful little computers being panned as merely game playing devices, when there is so much more potential to be explored.
There does appear to be a striking difference between computing interests here and abroad. Games do make up about 90% of software sales in Great Britain, and if you’ve glanced through the top selling U.K. Sinclair magazines, you would understand where Mr. Sugar is coming from. About every other page has a full color advertisement for some new “mega hit”.
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy computer games very much. I just slapped down $48 hard-earned dollars for some more Spectrum games. The animation and graphics on some of them are extremely brilliant and a real treat to watch. Time Designs accepts and will print game listings of all types.
Over the past few years, our community of Sinclair users have struggled along with very little “outside” support. We have banded together, and have figured out ways of doing things that no one would have imagined possible with such “low-end” microcomputers. We have squeezed out every little bit of value that we could. There are now full-blown CP/M options available and with the appropriate interface, virtually any type of external peripheral can be added. Most of us continue to learn as much as we can from the examples that our fellow computerists have to offer.
Mr. Sugar…welcome to the “serious” side.
Tim Woods
“the editor”