G.T.Klement
____________ ___
____ Wien
Austria

It was recently announced that Nascom has been bought by Lucas Logic (pity no-one remembered to invite me to the celebration), and this started my mind thinking about all the benefits that such a giant could offer Nascom. For instance, have you ever had trouble connecting things to all those tiny little pins scattered all over the N2 board? Perhaps we’ll now see these changed for nice sensible quarter inch Lucar connectors!

From the advance copy I’ve seen of this issue of the newsletter, it seems that Gemini gets more than it’s fair share of space. Well, we all know from our basic astrology that Gemini is (are?) the ‘twins’. But do you know the twin’s names? Yes of course, it’s Castor and Pollox. So, from now on you know that Gemini is Castor and Pollox. Please make sure you’ve got the right teeth in if you’re going to say that quickly. (Reminds me of all the permutations of the Accles and Pollock ads we used to have on the London tube.) Any (printable) suggestions please?

On the subject of Gemini, did you know that a soon to be announced Hewlett Packard computer (using twin 16 bit processors) has been dubbed with the ‘in-house’ name of ‘The Gemini Computer’. Reports suggest that Gemini aren’t pleased, and will be even less pleased if the advertising copywriters latch onto the name. Me? I didn’t say a word, did I?

We hear reports of Nascom power supplies starting to get embarrassed by the ever increasing loads being imposed by the endless goodies users will insist on fitting to their toys. There are red faces in the Henry’s camp, because the genius who designed their interpretation of the theme included a spurious 0.68R resistor in the unregulated 5V rail (to limit regulator dissipation when lightly loaded, they say), which means that their PSU exhibits spectacular hum bars on the display when pushed. Answer, take it out. Anyway, to overcome the shortage of juice, there’s always Nascom’s 8 amp PSU, assuming you can afford a second mortgage ..... or Aztec do a very small neat switch mode 6 amp PSU at the 100 off price of 52.00. Now that price is interesting when you consider Tangerine (you know, those bright orange things) are offering a switch mode 6 amp PSU with Aztec written all over it, for the one off retail price of 49.00. Makes you wonder what sort of deal they came too.

Overheard in a shop recently, the remark made by a cash paying customer buying a disk system. In reply to his wife’s comment that 700 quid was a lot to shell out for such a small box, he said, “I know dear, but it’ll make a lovely bookend!”.

And in conclusion, the postscript to a letter from a member suggests that if your Nascom is poorly, then you should try Lucas-aid!!