★ PEOPLES ★ THE AMSTRAD ARRIVES ★ |
| The Amstrad Arrives (Computing Today) |
The first supplies of the Amstrad CPC464 were on sale on June 21st — keeping Alan Sugar's promise made when he launched the home computer product range in mid-April The Rumbelow's chain, one of the nominated stockists, has received its first consignment and the other retailers — Dixons, Boots, Comet and the major mail order houses — will be taking delivery of their supplies on a weekly basis, as the container ships reach the UK. Sales director Dickie Mould says he has been overwhelmed by the intensity of the retailer demand: "The initial interest, at the time of the launch, was perhaps predictable, but this level has been maintained and I am called every day by retailers who want to be supplied. Our initial run of 200,000 units for 1984 is already underwritten by our nominated stockists and we are urgently reassessing our budgets for 1985, when we anticipate bringing in 600,000 units." Rumbellows' Marketing Director, Peter Jackson, said" We are naturally delighted to be the first in the High Street with this important new introduction in the microcomputer market Bearing in mind the enormous interest the public have shown in the new product I am also very pleased to see that Amstrad are keeping to their promised delivery schedule." Meanwhile the independent software houses are dong their bit for the machine. Kuma Computers have announced the first program in their software library for the Amstrad CPC464, this being their ZEN Z80 Assembly Language Programming System consisting of a Editor/ Assembler/Disassemblei/Debugger. ZEN is a complete system for the generation and analysis of Z80 assembly language programs. Included are a symbolic assembler and disassembler, a text editor, machine code monitor and a debugger. The complete source code of ZEN itself is supplied to every user; this provides a valuable introduction to Z80 programming for the beginner while allowing the expert to customise it if desired. ZEN will be invaluable to users wishing to write and debug efficient assembly code programs. ZEN has been tried, tested and enhanced over a considerable period of time, having been implemented on practically all Z80- based home micros to date. John Day, Sales Manager of Kuma said: "Although ZEN takes up only 6.4 K of RAM, it is a complete assembly code system with the benefit of a greatly extended manual, setting an industry standard that will be very hard to beat" ZEN for the Amstrad is available from Kuma Computers; dealer and distributor enquiries are welcome. ZEN is the first in what is planned to be a comprehensive range of Kuma products for the CPC464. The retail price of ZEN is £19.95 including VAT. For further details regarding Amstrad hardware and software contact Kuma Computers Ltd, 12 Horseshoe Park, Pangbourne, RG8 7JW(phone 070357 ****). Computing Today
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