We lead off this issue with a note of optimism. The following is a news squib we received from Mark Fendrick who got it from a news publication in the U.K. It is dated April 29th so it is reasonably current.
Last Monday saw several ex-members of Sinclair Research starting work at Amstrad’s HQ at Brentwood, near London.
Little is know about how many of the Sinclair staffers have actually transferred to the Amstrad payroll, but details of exactly what Sinclair projects have gone with them are beginning to leak out. Two main projects look like continuing under the Amstrad banner. One will be the repackaging of the Sinclair Spectrum 128K which currently retails at around $270. Amstrad have revealed they intend to repackage the machine with a tape recorder to sell at $200. At that price, it may yet sell in the quantity to assure the Spectrum’s future – for the time being at least.
The other Sinclair stayer is the QL. Sources close to ex-Sinclair (and Amstrad) staff reveal that Amstrad’s Alan Sugar is secretly planning to completely revamp the QL under the Amstrad logo, add disc drives to the 68000 processor, increase memory from the current paltry 128K, and possibly throw in a monitor.