The Fuller keyboard lives. A new company, Nordic keyboards, has bought the rights to manufacture and distribute the controversial keyboard in the wake of Fuller's crash (issue 76).

But Nordic will not be takiing on Fuller's debts, wihch is bad news for the estimated 230 customers whose cheques were cashed by Fuller but who never received a keyboard.

With the change of owner comes an improved design for the FDS. This aims to overcome problems with the keyboard crashing programs and it alters the layout of some keys.

Nordic is a sister company to the firm that manufactured the keyboards for Fuller and it is keen to avoid the mistakes that Fuller made.

Firstly, it aims to produce sufficient keyboads to meet demand. "We are satisfied that we can meet the heavy demand that we expect in the run up to Christmas," says John Gray, Nordic's managing director.

Secondly, it will not be handling mail-order sales, but will distribute directly to dealers. "We have 80 at the moment and the list is expanding," said Mr. Gray.

Although Nordic has bought the trading name, tooling, stock and copyright from Fuller's liquidator, it was reluctant to take the debts.

"We lost money ourselves," said Mr. Gray. "And we can't afford £13,000 owed to customers."