A grim spectre haunts the micro industry - the spectre of humourless and trigger-happy micro manufacturers. The long hot summer now drawing to a close could end with a low-key catfight between Acorn and Future Computers.

The controversy in question is roughly as follows:

1. First, Future Computers advertises its new system as the only micro system with built-in networking.
2. Then Acorn contacts the Advertising Standards Authority, the magazines the advertisements appeared in, and Future Computers to dispute a number of points made in the ad, and hints to the magazines in question that they might like to avoid printing it again. Acorn, it should be noted, has taken on a micro magazine in the past (issue 42).
3. Future Computers turns pale (We don't know this for certain, but it adds a certain amount of colour to the story) and makes a few amendments to the ad.
4. The Advertising Standards Authority tells Future it's OK to carry on running the ad pending the results of its investigation.
5. Acorn doesn't like the new-look ad either.
6. Future holds a press conference, inviting Acorn, explaining that the BBC doesn't have built-in networking, and saying that it's a bit out of order demanding cave-ins of magazines when there's an ASA case pending. Acorn doesn't turn up.
7. Acorn issues a press release disputing Future's claims, and complains about the press conference.

When asked about the affair, an Acorn spokesman whimpers gently and puts the company's case for the ninth time. Acorn's pitch is that cheap networking is possible on the BBC B, so it's wrong for Future to say methods of networking prior to its own cost "several tens of thousands of pounds", and that "now you can afford to benefit from a Future network at a fraction of anything else on the market."

Future's pitch meanwhile is that the BBC B isn't comparable with the sort of heavy-duty office system it's peddling, and anyway the BBC Micro doesn't have networking built in. But what seems to hurt most is Acorn's apparent campaign against the papers it's advertising in.

"Acorn consider it essential that these publishers are kept fully informed, because of their associated liability," says Acorn blandly, and the company makes it quite clear that it reserves the right to take legal action should it feel it is necessary. The spokesman further explains that a paper knowingly publishing a faulty ad could find itself in just as hot water as the advertiser.

PCN's Glass Houses Department feels, like John Motson on Grandstand (August 25 1984), that it's too early to reserve judgement.