Taking the good news first, the RISC OS upgrade sets, complete with manuals and ROMs have begun to come through from Acorn, as of early April. The not-so-good news is that the rate of supply is considerably less than the overwhelming demand for the product. This means that if you did not order your upgrade early, it will be well into May, and maybe even beyond until you receive your upgrade.
Acorn are using three Japanese suppliers, including Fujitsu and Hitachi, with a combined rate of delivery of around 4000 per month. The accompanying discs and manuals are all ready to go, and Acorn are shipping the upgrade sets as soon as they receive each ROM delivery.
As you may have gathered from recent assertions in the computer press (including RISC User), and counter denials from Acorn, something is brewing at the Cambridge Technopark. And announcements about a new RISC machine are expected shortly, though we are not permitted to disclose any details about it at this stage. Associated with this new development, Acorn are releasing a revamped 400 series Archimedes with a much lower entry price.
The 400/1 series will have two models, the 410 and the 420. Both will run 10% faster than previous machines, and will be supplied with 4 internal podule sockets. The 410 will have 1 Mbyte of RAM upgradable to 2 or 4 Mbytes, and will have a hard disc interface. The 420 will have 2 Mbytes of RAM upgradable to 4 Mbytes, and will be supplied with an internal 20 Mbyte hard disc. The ex VAT prices for the two machines will be £1199 and £1699 respectively.
Finally to much more mundane matters. This issue of RISC User sees a new Technical Queries page carrying answers to selected postal queries. If you find this worthwhile, please let us know.
This month's telesoftware password is commando
(See BEEBUG pages on Micronet)