Imagine angels dancing on the head of a pin - that's how the computer market appears according to a survey from the National Computing Centre in Manchester.

There were 434 single user systems and 252 multi-user machines fighting for a share of the market in November. And in terms of add-ons users definitely wouldn't be starved of choice with 314 monitors, 205 matrix printers, 86 daisywheels and 109 others to choose from.

When it comes to single-user software competition, isn't so stiff. There were 1,545 packages available under CP/M-80, 1,006 for CP/M-86, 1,372 for MSDOS and 1,010 for PCDOS.

In comparison, the multi-user software market was empty. Only 317 packages were marketed in the UK under Unix, 324 under MP/M-80 and 258 under MP/M-86.

The NCC's census also took in training courses - there were a mere 1,353 short courses on offer at the beginning of November.