There is no shortage of rumours, gossip and wishful thinking about what's coming in 1985. Acorn, Commodore and Sinclair are all said to have upgraded old favourites ready for imminent launch.

Front runner in the hot rumour department is the BBC B Plus, otherwise known as the BBC B. Acorn flatly denies that there is any plan for a BBC B - which, of course, only helps fan the flames.

In reality, there will be not one new machine but two. Apart from the Communicator (issue 93) the second machine, due out this month, is the previously announced Acorn Business Machine, based on the BBC board.

Harmless pleas for a look inside the ABC machines at the PCW Show back in September were met with a point-blank refusal.

What is known is that it will feature the ADFS double density disk filing system that has appeared in the Plus 3 add-on for the Electron.

And if Acorn felt it necessary to tamper with part of the BBC board to make it suitable for business use, why not the rest of it?

Informed gossip suggests that Acorn has reconfigured the memory arrangement in a manner similar to that done on the add-on memory boards from Aries and others. As a result, it will have 64K of usable memory - compared to the miserly 32K in the BBC board.

Other changes are rumoured to include extra sideways ROM sockets and a reduced chip count by use of custom-made ULA chips.

A redesigned board to power the ABC range is one thing; a new Beeb is something else.

Acorn may have no plans to package the new board in a BBC box, but that doesn't stop others from suggesting that it would be a good marketing ploy. After all, a BBC B Plus selling at the current price of £399, with the existing BBC B priced somewhere nearer £200, could only be good news for everyone.

Don't expect too much from Acorn in this area, however. The BBC B is still a nice little earner at its current price, and Acorn does not see itself under any pressure to cut prices.

A more positive rumour is a 128K version of the Commodore 64. The product does exist in the US, and it is highly likely that it will make its first appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Of course, the machine that Commodore watchers are really waiting for is the Amiga 16-bitter with its 256 spectacular colours, but this is unlikely to be seen in this country before the end of the year.

Development work is still incomplete, and Commodore UK is basing its plans this year on the launch of an IBM-compatible in the spring, followed by the Z8000 Unix machine in the summer; it is therefore improbably that the Amiga will arrive in time to fill Christmas stockings.

The same is the case with the portable Spectrum from Sinclair. Uncle Sir Clive has heavily hinted to anyone who cares to listen that he thinks it would be a good idea. It is suggested that it would incorporate a Sinclair flat-screen monitor, Microdrive(s) and integral modem, for around £250.

Suggestions that such a machine is very close to being unveiled may again be wishful thinking.