January was very much Atari`s month for hitting the headlines, largely for the wrong reasons. Buyers of ST's were finding not the STFM they had expected but an upgraded STE, with enhanced sound and graphics. This would have been great, except the STE didn`t run many existing ST games. Atari put the blame firmly on the games writers for breaking the rules - cold comfort for the buyers.
On a brighter note the Lynx colour hand-held finally arrived in Britain, to a rapturous welcome.
January also saw the first news break of the Amiga-based CD-ROM computer- come home entertainment centre the CDTV - Although the name was still not known then.
Two machines which did see the light of day (although yet to be officially imported) were the Turbo Express and the Super Grafx. The first was a hand-held version of NEC`s PC Engine console, playing the same cartridges as it's house-bound brother; the Turbo Grafx was an upgrade of the PC Engine offering more colours, more sprites and more exciting gameplay.
February was Amstrad`s month for making the front page. One week New Computer Express was exclusively revealing the imminent launch of a new range of PC-compatible portables and the PC3000 series, and only seven days later their front page screamed: "EXCLUSIVE: Autumn launch for CPC trio", heralding the CPC plus range and the GX4000 games console. A spokesman said: "I haven`t heard of any of these machines" but come the autumn they turned up on schedule.
Commodore wasn`t idle in the winter either; the Amiga 3000 got it's first outing at the Paris Holiday Inn, being billed as the "Multimedia Amiga". It's 25mhz 68030 chip left the competition standing.
On a smaller scale the Cam Coupe finally became a functioning computer with the overdue arrival of the floppy disk drive - but it didn`t have a working DOS; unfortunately it had already missed the boat.
Politics seized the computing headlines for a while in February as two Tory MP's fought it out over the wording of anti-hacking legislation. Michael Colvin wanted his bill to be sure of passing the commons, so he rejected Emma Nicholson`s more hard- line ideas. The computer misuse act was passed in the summer.
Atari came to the fore in a series of stories concerning new products and, more worryingly, staff redundancies. Atari lost one in seven of it's US employees, despite predicting a good year for profits. The firm`s boss Sam Trameil suggested a hand-held ST was on the cards, but the idea sank without trace. Rumours of a CD-ST picked up, but Atari didn`t seem sure on the possibility of a machine to rival the CDTV.
Atari did score one notable success in march - the launch of it's still- current bundles, including the cheap stfm discovery pack, which went on to be huge sellers. Also bundling away were Commodore with the short-lived flights of fancy pack.
Hand-helds were the order of the month in Japan where Sony showed a hand-held electronic book called the Palmtop, and Sega`s Gamegear colour games console.
On the home front the Sam Coupe`s DOS finally was sent out and Miles Gordon put up a 20,000 prize for the best use of it's problem-plagued baby.
A quiet month for news with no major launches - although rumours of an Amiga portable were rife. Education took centre stage as Commodore and Acorn produced bundles aimed at parents looking for a computer to help their children learn. Both the Amiga class of the `90s and Archimedes Learning Curve packs met with considerable success.
Less fortunate was the Sam Coupe; they got the completed machine into the shops only to find a bug in the ROM's, which forced the recall of all Coupe's to have their chips replaced. Also getting some negative press was Atari, whose Taiwanese branch was accused of software piracy - Jack Trameil complained of "Time and effort being wasted" in investigating his firm. The major arrival was Locoscript PC, the IBM-compatible version of the PCW`s word processor. It's repeated delays had become something of an industry joke, but the program clocked up some serious sales. The Neo-Geo super console took a step closer to Britain as the newly-appointed UK distributor began to look at possible rental schemes for it's potential product.
The future of computing took a step towards reality as Philips CD-I machine was unveiled. This remarkable machine combined an interactive CD player with a computer, to make a multimedia machine capable of superb graphics and sound. The example Philips showed was a golf game where the player and backdrops were real photographs rather than drawings. The truly amazing thing about the CD-I system however was the price - 700 when it arrived in the UK in 1991.
Another futuristic unit to surface was the Cannon all-in-one business machine, the S-2000, which combined a PC, printer, fax machine, answering machine and telephone in one small Rumours began of a Notebook Macintosh - An idea which has come closer to fruition since. Another Apple story was the launch of the low-cost Macs - we predicted a modular colour mac with built-in video, sound input, an Apple II emulator card and a 68020 chip at under 2,000; the LC to a T!
The Sam Coupe made the headlines again when MGT decided to get the users to change the faulty ROM chips rather than doing factory recall.
Commodore`s CDTV finally surfaced in the summer - but not before a Sanyo CD Amiga prototype had been revealed in Japan. The big news was miles Gordon Technology, maker of the Sam Coupe, going into receivership. The firm was bullish about it's chances of selling the Sam, but no buyer was found.
Sony took miniaturisation to new extremes with the CD-I entertainment station - A ghetto-blaster style machine with a colour screen and a CD drive. The CD ROM discman was even smaller, fitting comfortably in the palm of your hand. The end of the paper book? In the PC world Microsoft launched it's revolutionary windows III, finally removing the 640k memory limit of PC's and allowing it's version of multi-tasking. It sold by the thousand. Atari got itself into a muddle with president Sam Trameil announcing a CD-ST for 1991 at the same time as Atari`s UK boss was dismissing the technology as "immature" and denying a CD-ST would ever exist, h was right! Meanwhile a UK importer began to bring in Fujitsu`s FM towns PC with it's built- in CD-ROM drives.
IBM took the plunge and launched a truly personal computer - the PS-1. IBM has a dodgy record when it comes to low-cost machines and the machine was soon slammed for it's low- tech specification.
In Japan details of Nintendo`s 16-bit Super Famicom leaked - It looks like the console to watch. Atari overtook Commodore in the high tech stakes when it announced a 32mhz version of it's TT workstation; not to be outdone Commodore hit back with a 68040 card for the Amiga 3000. The 3000 also took a 90-degree turn to become the Tower 3500.
Apple set up spin-off firm general magic to work on computers with intuitive interfaces. The first product was expected to be the Macslate; a smart keyboard which could be used as a portable. A machine called the portable intelligent communicator was also forecast.
The month for consoles with Commodore releasing it's GS C64 console and Amstrad launching the GX4000. Both machines were pitching for the lucrative Christmas market, and both seem to have met with some success.
Also on the scene were the revamped Amstrad CPC range. The 464 plus and 6128 plus were hailed as showing 8-bit computers didn`t have to be old fashioned and featured improved graphics and a cartridge port. Commodore unveiled it's Amiga package for Christmas; Screen Gems was originally going to contain the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game from Mirrorsoft, but rumour had it that Nintendo put a stop to that to protect it's own Turtles bundle with the entertainment system. A bunch of American protesters marched on Lotus to protest at the "look-and-feel" copyright action. Their chant:
September saw a sad loss for the computing community; the Sinclair Spectrum Plus 3 breathed its last. An equally sad loss was the demise of Popular Computing Weekly magazine.
Amstrad launched new machines at the other end of the market; the PC3000 series. The metal-boxed machines were designed to give Amstrad credibility in the PC world.
An Atari console began to take shape; called the Panther it was predicted to be 16-bit affair rivalling the Sega Megadrive. Another hot rumour - an upgrade to the Amiga 500 - was fuelled by the quiet launch in the states of the Amiga 500 professional, a 1MB machine with an upgraded chip set and workbench 2.
On the software side, one of the most eagerly awaited products finally surfaced: Deluxe Paint ST set the standard for Atari graphics.
The big news of the autumn had our tongues hanging out: The launch of the colour NExT machines. with both 68040 and I860 processors, built in laser disks and 16 million colours on the screen, the next machine was truly gobsmacking - and relatively affordable for such an over the top machine.
Much more affordable, but equally desirable in their own way, were the three new Mac's. The classic came in at a fraction under �600, finally bringing the Mac to the masses, the LLSI knocked a grand off the price of a Mac II, but the one their all saving up for was the LC - a colour Macintosh for around �1,500.
Commodore launched the Amiga 1500; a half-way house between the gamesy A500 and the expensive A2000 aimed at the home business user with a penchant for quality games. It was an A2000 in disguise!
Someone who was definitely working on such a machine was Sir Clive Sinclair, whose latest project involved a PC- compatible hand-held. Also on the PC side, Sega was expected to come out with plans for a PC which could also run Megadrive cartridges!
Atari set about producing a major set of upgrades for models in the ST range which had escaped the previous year. The mega range got a smart new box and a doubled clock speed, while the STACY portable got the same upgrades as it's stationary brother the STE.
Telly addicts got a boost as Sharp and Nintendo combined to produce a TV with the Super Famicom console built in. Philips launched the first of it's CD- I range; the consumer models were put back to 1992.
More CD delays from Commodore, whose CDTV had been slipping down the release schedule for months. The US protesters lost out. Paperback settled out of court and agreed to stop making VP planner, a spreadsheet Lotus claimed looked and felt like 1- 2-3.
After the demise of the Plus 3, Spectrum owners got a boost from the news that a Spectrum console was in development; trouble was it was in Russia! On the games front, Gazza`s long overdue return to the computer scene was made with Gazza!, which was falsely rumoured to have a Lindisfarne soundtrack!
Raised eyebrows all round as Acorn and Apple tied up a deal to market Acorn`s arm Risc chip which powers the Archimedes. The low power consumption, high performance chip would be ideal to power the new general magic computer, but no comment from Apple. Queues formed in the states to buy the low-cost Mac Classic.
The colour LC was shipped ahead of schedule too. Intel announced a computer made up of thousands of it's I860 processors which was breaking all speed records - and a few price barriers as well.
A single I860 was enough to give the next a stunning turn of speed, so 2,048 in the Sigma should be something special.
Computer gaming in Virtual Reality was science fiction until Battle Tech came along - and the walk-through video game came to Britain in 1991!