As I write this, I have had the Portuguese disk drive system for about 6 weeks. My experience with the system continues to be very positive. The only recurring problem has been a cable that sometimes does not make connection (as in TS-1000 to 16K ram pack problems).
Meanwhile, I am now saving all my Tasword files on disk, and boot Tasword up from it. So far, I have not lost a single file nor has any failed to load. It is truly a hassle-free system in this way. I have not yet tried some of the more advanced features of the operating system since I am not much of a programmer, more of a user of what others do.
Complaints? A few. The power supply can get very hot and definitely must be kept in a well ventilated area. The interface which plugs into the back of my computer and the cable that plugs into the interface add 6″ to the depth my computer occupies on my desk. I would much prefer a Tasman or Aerco type interface box and cable connection. And speaking of interfaces, there is no way to hook my Aerco or Tasman interface up without using a rear edge connector extension and a Currah “Micro-Slot” which provides two edge connectors mounted in parallel. Not that these are insurmountable since this issue of SUM is being saved and loaded off the disk drive and printed using a Tasman interface driving our parallel daisy wheel printer.
Here are some more pluses. I have had the chance to test an Amdek 3″ disk drive often advertised in computer magazines for the Tandy color computer. It works just like the Hitachi unit which comes with the Portuguese drive system. I am confident that 3 1/2″ Sony, 5 1/4″ Shugart SA-400 compatible, and even 8″ drives can be operated on this system. They are all equipped with the same connector and use the same formatting scheme. Thus a second drive could be added in a more common size with diskettes available everywhere. One could even replace the single drive with a more common size once you found a way to transfer a copy of the operating system to the new diskette.
I understand that the English Micro Connection is accepting orders on the systems. Contact them for more information. SUM Magazine would welcome reviews of the systems being offered by Ramex and Aerco. Anyone owning one of these systems who is willing to provide any kind of review at all may contact SUM.