On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Bill Waugh wrote:
> Yep I spoke to Arnie once or twice, I think the Italian keyboard was
> SPEM, they flogged them off eventually as they fitted straight into the
> QL connector and I bought one it was pretty good.
> IIRC Arnie bemoaned the fact that Tony kept changing the spec and I do
> recall him (Arnie) telling me that the Italian parent company had pulled
> the plug ( can't recall the Italian companies name, definitely was not
> Sandy )
SPEM sounds about right. They were making a low cost memory that we used
to sell. It involved unplugging an IC, inserting the board into the IC
socket then inserting the IC into the board. I didn't like the design at
all - it was mechanically unsound and slow. The expanderam 512K was
measurably faster.
Afterwards, when the QL market started to shrink, they moved from Manton
Heights to Stanley St, and rebranded themselves as "Power Computing"
making floppies for amigas and ataris.
Arnie was very much the thoughtful engineer. He knew his subject well, and
was often the calm one at Sandy. Tony was, well, imagine an Italian
version of Bob Hoskins...
Enjoy!
Dave
(Is there a FAQ? Or is the answer to this question in the FAQ I should
*obviously* have read? ;)
