January was very much Atari`s month
for hitting the headlines, largely for
the wrong reasons. Buyers of ST's
were finding not the STFM they had
expected but an upgraded STE, with
enhanced sound and graphics. This
would have been great, except the STE
didn`t run many existing ST games.
Atari put the blame firmly on the
games writers for breaking the rules -
cold comfort for the buyers. On a brighter note the Lynx colour
hand-held finally arrived in Britain,
to a rapturous welcome. January also saw the first news break
of the Amiga-based CD-ROM computer-
come home entertainment centre the
CDTV - Although the name was still not
known then. Two machines which did see the light
of day (although yet to be officially
imported) were the Turbo Express and
the Super Grafx. The first was a
hand-held version of NEC`s PC Engine
console, playing the same cartridges
as it's house-bound brother; the Turbo
Grafx was an upgrade of the PC Engine
offering more colours, more sprites
and more exciting gameplay.
February was Amstrad`s month for making the front page. One week New Computer Express was exclusively revealing the imminent launch of a new range of PC-compatible portables and the PC3000 series, and only seven days later their front page screamed: "EXCLUSIVE: Autumn launch for CPC trio", heralding the CPC plus range and the GX4000 games console. A spokesman said: "I haven`t heard of any of these machines" but come the autumn they turned up on schedule.
Commodore wasn`t idle in the winter either; the Amiga 3000 got it's first outing at the Paris Holiday Inn, being billed as the "Multimedia Amiga". It's 25mhz 68030 chip left the competition standing.
On a smaller scale the Cam Coupe finally became a functioning computer with the overdue arrival of the floppy disk drive - but it didn`t have a working DOS; unfortunately it had already missed the boat.
Politics seized the computing headlines for a while in February as two Tory MP's fought it out over the wording of anti-hacking legislation. Michael Colvin wanted his bill to be sure of passing the commons, so he rejected Emma Nicholson`s more hard- line ideas. The computer misuse act was passed in the summer.
Atari came to the fore in a series of
stories concerning new products and,
more worryingly, staff redundancies.
Atari lost one in seven of it's US
employees, despite predicting a good
year for profits. The firm`s boss Sam
Trameil suggested a hand-held ST was
on the cards, but the idea sank
without trace. Rumours of a CD-ST
picked up, but Atari didn`t seem sure
on the possibility of a machine to
rival the CDTV. Atari did score one notable success in
march - the launch of it's still-
current bundles, including the cheap
stfm discovery pack, which went on to
be huge sellers. Also bundling away
were Commodore with the short-lived
flights of fancy pack. Hand-helds were the order of the month
in Japan where Sony showed a hand-held
electronic book called the Palmtop,
and Sega`s Gamegear colour games
console. On the home front the Sam Coupe`s DOS
finally was sent out and Miles Gordon
put up a 20,000 prize for the best use
of it's problem-plagued baby.
A quiet month for news with no major
launches - although rumours of an
Amiga portable were rife. Education
took centre stage as Commodore and
Acorn produced bundles aimed at
parents looking for a computer to help
their children learn. Both the Amiga
class of the `90s and Archimedes
Learning Curve packs met with
considerable success. Less fortunate was the Sam Coupe; they
got the completed machine into the
shops only to find a bug in the ROM's,
which forced the recall of all Coupe's
to have their chips replaced. Also
getting some negative press was Atari,
whose Taiwanese branch was accused of
software piracy - Jack Trameil
complained of "Time and effort being
wasted" in investigating his firm.
The major arrival was Locoscript PC,
the IBM-compatible version of the
PCW`s word processor. It's repeated
delays had become something of an
industry joke, but the program clocked
up some serious sales. The Neo-Geo
super console took a step closer to
Britain as the newly-appointed UK
distributor began to look at possible
rental schemes for it's potential
product.
The future of computing took a step
towards reality as Philips CD-I
machine was unveiled. This remarkable
machine combined an interactive CD
player with a computer, to make a
multimedia machine capable of superb
graphics and sound. The example
Philips showed was a golf game where
the player and backdrops were real
photographs rather than drawings. The
truly amazing thing about the CD-I
system however was the price - 700
when it arrived in the UK in 1991. Another futuristic unit to surface was
the Cannon all-in-one business
machine, the S-2000, which combined a
PC, printer, fax machine, answering
machine and telephone in one small
Rumours began of a Notebook Macintosh
- An idea which has come closer to
fruition since. Another Apple story
was the launch of the low-cost Macs -
we predicted a modular colour mac with
built-in video, sound input, an Apple
II emulator card and a 68020 chip at
under 2,000; the LC to a T! The Sam Coupe made the headlines again
when MGT decided to get the users to
change the faulty ROM chips rather
than doing factory recall.
Commodore`s CDTV finally surfaced in
the summer - but not before a Sanyo CD
Amiga prototype had been revealed in
Japan. The big news was miles Gordon
Technology, maker of the Sam Coupe,
going into receivership. The firm was
bullish about it's chances of selling
the Sam, but no buyer was found. Sony took miniaturisation to new
extremes with the CD-I entertainment
station - A ghetto-blaster style
machine with a colour screen and a CD
drive. The CD ROM discman was even
smaller, fitting comfortably in the
palm of your hand. The end of the
paper book? In the PC world Microsoft
launched it's revolutionary windows
III, finally removing the 640k memory
limit of PC's and allowing it's
version of multi-tasking. It sold by
the thousand. Atari got itself into a
muddle with president Sam Trameil
announcing a CD-ST for 1991 at the
same time as Atari`s UK boss was
dismissing the technology as
"immature" and denying a CD-ST would
ever exist, h was right! Meanwhile a
UK importer began to bring in
Fujitsu`s FM towns PC with it's built-
in CD-ROM drives.
IBM took the plunge and launched a
truly personal computer - the PS-1.
IBM has a dodgy record when it comes
to low-cost machines and the machine
was soon slammed for it's low- tech
specification. In Japan details of Nintendo`s 16-bit
Super Famicom leaked - It looks like
the console to watch. Atari overtook
Commodore in the high tech stakes when
it announced a 32mhz version of it's
TT workstation; not to be outdone
Commodore hit back with a 68040 card
for the Amiga 3000. The 3000 also
took a 90-degree turn to become the
Tower 3500.
Apple set up spin-off firm general
magic to work on computers with
intuitive interfaces. The first
product was expected to be the
Macslate; a smart keyboard which could
be used as a portable. A machine
called the portable intelligent
communicator was also forecast.
The month for consoles with Commodore
releasing it's GS C64 console and
Amstrad launching the GX4000. Both
machines were pitching for the
lucrative Christmas market, and both
seem to have met with some success. Also on the scene were the revamped
Amstrad CPC range. The 464 plus and
6128 plus were hailed as showing 8-bit
computers didn`t have to be old
fashioned and featured improved
graphics and a cartridge port.
Commodore unveiled it's Amiga package
for Christmas; Screen Gems was
originally going to contain the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game from
Mirrorsoft, but rumour had it that
Nintendo put a stop to that to protect
it's own Turtles bundle with the
entertainment system. A bunch of
American protesters marched on Lotus
to protest at the "look-and-feel"
copyright action. Their chant:
September saw a sad loss for the
computing community; the Sinclair
Spectrum Plus 3 breathed its last. An
equally sad loss was the demise of
Popular Computing Weekly magazine. Amstrad launched new machines at the
other end of the market; the PC3000
series. The metal-boxed machines were
designed to give Amstrad credibility
in the PC world. An Atari console began to take shape;
called the Panther it was predicted to
be 16-bit affair rivalling the Sega
Megadrive. Another hot rumour - an
upgrade to the Amiga 500 - was fuelled
by the quiet launch in the states of
the Amiga 500 professional, a 1MB
machine with an upgraded chip set and
workbench 2. On the software side, one of the most
eagerly awaited products finally
surfaced: Deluxe Paint ST set the
standard for Atari graphics.
The big news of the autumn had our
tongues hanging out: The launch of
the colour NExT machines. with both
68040 and I860 processors, built in
laser disks and 16 million colours on
the screen, the next machine was truly
gobsmacking - and relatively
affordable for such an over the top
machine. Much more affordable, but equally
desirable in their own way, were the
three new Mac's. The classic came in
at a fraction under £600, finally
bringing the Mac to the masses, the
LLSI knocked a grand off the price of
a Mac II, but the one their all saving
up for was the LC - a colour Macintosh
for around £1,500. Commodore launched the Amiga 1500; a
half-way house between the gamesy A500
and the expensive A2000 aimed at the
home business user with a penchant for
quality games. It was an A2000 in
disguise! Someone who was definitely working on
such a machine was Sir Clive Sinclair,
whose latest project involved a PC-
compatible hand-held. Also on the PC
side, Sega was expected to come out
with plans for a PC which could also
run Megadrive cartridges!
Atari set about producing a major set
of upgrades for models in the ST range
which had escaped the previous year.
The mega range got a smart new box and
a doubled clock speed, while the STACY
portable got the same upgrades as it's
stationary brother the STE. Telly addicts got a boost as Sharp and
Nintendo combined to produce a TV with
the Super Famicom console built in.
Philips launched the first of it's CD-
I range; the consumer models were put
back to 1992. More CD delays from Commodore, whose
CDTV had been slipping down the
release schedule for months. The US
protesters lost out. Paperback
settled out of court and agreed to
stop making VP planner, a spreadsheet
Lotus claimed looked and felt like 1-
2-3. After the demise of the Plus 3,
Spectrum owners got a boost from the
news that a Spectrum console was in
development; trouble was it was in
Russia! On the games front, Gazza`s
long overdue return to the computer
scene was made with Gazza!, which was
falsely rumoured to have a Lindisfarne
soundtrack!
Raised eyebrows all round as Acorn and
Apple tied up a deal to market Acorn`s
arm Risc chip which powers the
Archimedes. The low power
consumption, high performance chip
would be ideal to power the new
general magic computer, but no comment
from Apple. Queues formed in the
states to buy the low-cost Mac
Classic. The colour LC was shipped ahead of
schedule too. Intel announced a
computer made up of thousands of it's
I860 processors which was breaking all
speed records - and a few price
barriers as well. A single I860 was enough to give the
next a stunning turn of speed, so
2,048 in the Sigma should be something
special. Computer gaming in Virtual Reality was
science fiction until Battle Tech came
along - and the walk-through video
game came to Britain in 1991!