| Gremlin |
SIR CLIVE is to get the wax treatment at long last from Madame Tussauds. For once, however, he will have to share the limelight. The great man's noble effigy will, apparently, be part of a tableau with Breakfast TV's Selina Scott. While Clive holds one of the pocket TVs as only he knows how, sultry Selina will stare over his shoulder. "I think he will take it in his stride," says a spokesman for the micro magnate, enigmatically ...
Professional Australian Rolf Harris, presenting the prizes in a Save The Children Fund painting contest, learns how to improve his music by using the Spectrum's awesome BEEP command. Julian Goldsmith of Sinclair Research grins and bears it. |
News too of the Clivemobile, still shrouded in secrecy but due for a full sales launch in the spring. The Mail on Sunday recently published photographs of the vehicle, obtained by infiltrating the morning shift, climbing onto the roof and peering through a skylight. "The story was speculative throughout and grossly inaccurate in parts," says Sinclair Research. "Now you're going to ask what the truth is and we're not going to tell you." Thanks, boys ...
Others who hide their proverbials under a bushel include Virgin Games. That masterpiece of flicker, Sorcery, surely one of the 50 best arcade-adventures from early 1984, contained a mystery competition. The first person to telephone a number on a hidden screen of the game was to win a trip to New York, doubtless on one of 'Biggles' Branson's cheapo flights. Trouble was, nobody knew about the competition. Not to be outdone, Gremlin offers £1 million-worth of remaindered copies of Sheepwalk to the first person to spot the mystery competition concealed on this page ...
The further activities of St Bruce Everiss, the former Diaghilev of Liverpool software, attract comment. The holy one has made a pact with Oric to distribute hardware from his new base at Cambridge, Tansoft, which specialises in Oric programs. Born-again Bruce intends to "establish the Oric Atmos in its rightful market position". Shouldn't be too difficult; after all, it worked for Imagine ...
The alternative society is still throbbing at Micro Arts, the magazine Gremlin discovered in January. The high priests of pretension have now released Micro Arts 2, Various Unusual Events, a selection of programs on cassette. The events include the dire Minimal, which fills up the screen with dots very, very slowly, and Dada, which makes up words at random. Pride of place goes to The MoneyWork System based on The Scum Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. Gremlin regards this as essential viewing for all neo-patriarchal non-feeling fascists, i.e. men, especially ones who cannot win at Hampstead. Buy the program, and learn why only "very young or very sick women" will endure male company without being "coerced or bribed" ...
Tony Martinez, chairman of Microvitec, demonstrates the latest QL monitor at his new Bradford factory. |
Coercion and bribery have certainly got nothing to do with the latest oddity from Personal Computer News. It was strange, all the same, to see Ghostbusters from Activision turning up on the PCN Spectrum Charts at number four more than a fortnight before the game was actually launched. Perhaps the Soho hacks get their news from the astral plane ...
Not that it matters much, now that Cheetah has, in its own words, "completely destroyed the existing home computer software market". How was the feat accomplished? Surely not even CheetahSoft would dare to nuke David Ward of Ocean? No. The crafty cats simply lowered the price of 3D Bat Attack and other ancient and generally unwanted games to £2.50. Cheetah claims it has always believed its products should be sold cheap, but nasty American companies had contracts to forbid it ...
The spotty ones must be disappointed, however, to discover that Domark, publisher of the grossly overhyped Eureka, and winner of the brazen backslappers of the month award, has promptly gone and resurrected the beast.
"The software industry is alive and kicking," says Domark, and all because it has sold 'thousands' of copies in the first few days of release to punters anxious to grab a piece of the £25,000 prize money. If Domark's sales projections are correct, and if nobody solves the devious puzzle, as seems likely, purchasers should receive the princely sum of 10p. About what the game is worth, says Gremlin ...
Congratulations to dk'tronics, runners-up in the great Spectrum+ compatibility race. "Was the new Spectrum+ designed with our peripherals in mind?" ask the black box specialists. "All our peripherals are fully compatible with the new Spectrum+". The answer is "No" ...
Finally, Sinclair User was delighted to receive news of a new range of health foods from Only Natural, namely a Muesli Bar and a 'nourishing' Sesame Snack. Why our magazine was singled out for such attention is a mystery, but the accompanying samples were duly consumed and evaluated. "It tastes like budgie seed," said Clare Edgeley. John Gilbert's reaction was unprintable, but he is, even at this moment, attempting to calculate his notorious factor for the confectionery section of Software Directory ...