Congratulations to the 60+ contestants who submitted over 80 programs to the Big Contest. It turned out to be bigger than we thought it would! We are truly impressed, as are the judges from 3 separate user groups, at the quality of so many works of art. The judging has indeed been tough. It has been so tough that as of this writing, 6/24/85, the finalists have not been indentified, let alone the winners. With so many enthusiastic entries, we feel that (there can be only one winner from each machine) there should be more prizes to give out. We’re sure that you agree. We have not decided what or how many, but rest assured there will be more than four. We will announce the winners in the next issue. Thank YOU for your support.
Timex Disk Drives
The Timex 2068 disk drive has been submitted to the FCC for approval. We won’t know how long it will be before these devices are available until they are actually legalized. The operating system is fully implemented and the disk is a 3″ (not 3 1/2″) drive. We will have more details in the next issue. It comes with two RS 232 interfaces, a Spectrum emulator and 16K of Ram/Rom in the interface with its own CPU. The ROSCS line (cartridge chip select) is not present at the expansion port.
Syntax Error
We have received several letters asking about the status of the publication, Syntax. Although it may be no surprise to many of you, Kirt Olsen of Syntax has stated that he will not take on any new subscribers. He has also said that he would fulfill his obligations. This remains to be seen. If you would like to correspond with Kirt, then drop him a SASE at, The Harvard Group, RD 2, Box 457, Harvard, MA 01451.
The QL Comes of Age
The QL is out of the FCC (after one year) and is available by mail order and through American Express. We have more details inside. Presently, the only Sinclair peripherals that will be available for it are a near letter quality printer and a hi-res monitor. Jerry Chamkis of Aerco is planning a 512K byte ram board (fits inside) and Ray Kingsley is tinkering with the idea of Hot QL, so there will be American support. Several add-ons, such as disk interfaces, are available in England. A Technical Manual is available from Sinclair Research for $20.00.