British hi-fi manufacturer Amstrad is to launch a direct competitor to the Elan Enterprise in April or May this year.

Like the Enterprise, Amstrad's micro is said to have 64K of RAM and to be Z80-based, costing about £200. Its expansion capabilities should be similar to the Enterprise, which grows to 3.9Mb, and its graphics will be similar to the BBC's.

The Amstrad micro has a separate numeric pad plus built-in colour monitor and cassette deck, and three-channel, six octave sound capacity.

It comes with Centronics interface and provision for an add-on disk interface, but no RS232, whereas the Enterprise has twin cassette ports, the latter providing a networking facility.

Made in Japan, Amstrad's micro should sell through high street stores.

Malcolm Miller, Amstrad's marketing director, was keeping quiet about the micro. He did, however, confirm its launch time.

Meanwhile, disk drives for the Enterprise should be out at the end of August. There will be a choice of single or double 3.5" Sony-type microfloppies giving up to 4Mb.