Proof reading is never done. Ten seconds after I glanced at the last issue after sending it out, I spotted two misprints. One was in my own name too.
This issue is technically the first in a new volume. It is the December issue, the first of Volume 12. Unfortunately this is being written in April. Fortunately you have already received the QZX calendar for 1994.
Obviously I am back in the USA, having returned from Ghana in the middle of April. The trip was quite successful. At least quite a few people learned something about nuclear electronics. Nuclear electronics is just like ham radio electronics with a slightly different emphasis. With the advent of packet, one cannot even say that there is more of an emphasis on digital electronics. There is a little more emphasis on analog to digital converters however.
The interesting thing is that I found a Spectrum computer in the lab with which I was working. I was working for the International Atomic Energy Agency on assignment to teach a course for the Ghana Atomic Energy Agency. The lab I was connected with was charged with computer interfacing and instrument repair. As such it was well supplied with computers. There were about five MSDOS 386 computers connected to an HP laser printer by a local area network. There was also an uninterruptable power supply in use. A wise precaution because the power went off a couple of times while I was there.
The interesting part for the readers of this magazine is that I found back in the corner a complete Spectrum computer. It had been sent to Ghana some years before by the IAEA to serve as the main computer for the laboratory. Unfortunately nobody there knew how to use it now. The power supply was lost and nobody could find the instruction manual. That was too bad because our computers have what is still a good BASIC interpreter and people needed practice in using a computer language.
I wish I could say that the laboratory would have been better equipped at a lower price if it had been using Sinclair computers, but I could not. Cheaper, perhaps; but better, no. There is no Sinclair computer which would have run the spectral analysis program which the IAEA supplied.
The big hit of the course was the program Electronics Workbench which I had brought along. It will run on an MSDOS or windows computer. It will run on a Macintosh, but it will not run on a Sinclair. One of the features of this program is its ability to draw circuit diagrams easily. Some programs for the Sinclair can do this too (see the May 1988 issue), but this program will tell you what the circuit will do too. For more details see the complete review inside this issue.