This year promises to be a watershed for Commodore. New machines are being introduced but at least one is delayed, a new network service is starting up, and back at the US head office a prolonged management re-shuffle is still in progress.

At the Commodore User Show at London's Novotel Hotel it was business as usual on most of the stands, but the behind-the-scenes activity at Commodore was reflected elsewhere. Quicksilva, soon to become the property of a publishing company, was there; Oxford Computer Systems had branched out into games; and Audiogenic has finally brought Alice in Videoland to market.

There was so much Soccer being played around the halls of the Novotel that you might have thought you'd wandered into an FA training session, but the games are a reminder that corporate wheeling and dealing filters through to the high streets sooner or later. One illustration of this is that the shiny new machines introduced at the show will not run Commodore 64 software.

They are the Commodore 16 and the Plus/4 (Issue 64). These systems were accompanied by several new peripherals but not by the Commodore PC (alias the Bytec Hyperion) which is currently being 'restyled' with a larger screen and, ominously, a redesigned processor.

The C16 closely resembles existing Commodore systems with its beached-whale outer casing, but the Plus/4 looks more like an MSX machine. The C16 (16K RAM, Basic 3.5, full-size keyboard, 121 colours) will be sold in a starter pack with a cassette, recreational programs, and Introduction to Basic for £129.99 - exactly the price of the current Vic 20 starter pack. The Plus/4 (64K RAM, screen windows, and four applications) will cost £249.

To accompany the new systems Commodore demonstrated the 1531 cassette unit (£44.95), but the other new peripherals will run with the Vic-20, C64 and SX-64 models as well. The MCS 801 is a 38cps dot-matrix colour printer (£399.99); the DPS 1101, at the same price, is a bi-directional daisy-wheel unit that rattles along at 18cps; the MCS 802 is another dot-matrix device, capable of 60cps (£345); and the 1542 single disk drive (£229) is intended to replace the 1541.

Elsewhere in the hall Compunet boasted a separate stand, presumably to emphasise its status as a joint venture company that links Commodore to ADP Network Services. This network, which is widely expected to punch a hole in Micronet's market, aims to bring software sales, mailboxes, retail services, financial transactions and various information and advice into one box.

"The possibilities are endless," says the Compunet brochure, but it adds: "It will take time to develop a full range." You have been warned.

The plans for Compunet don't end at the range of services - Commodore and ADP are working on interfaces to make it available to micro users outside the Commodore hold. This will also take time, but an immediately useful development would be the production of a simple price guide.

Annual subscription is £30 but it comes free to buyers of the Commodore Communications Modem. Connection charges vary according to the time of day and the line speed. Storage charges are computed by 'frames' of information or 1024 bytes of a program. Either way, it costs 1p per unit, with a minimum charge of 5p.

Then there are commission charges on software and information, mailbox charges, and the usual British Telecom charges for the user's call from your micro to the Compunet access point dialled - these are in Andover, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, two in London, Luton, Newcastle, Shepshed (Leicester), and Warrington.

But not Milton Keynes. However, citizens of MK can claim local access to a facility of a different kind in the shape of Milton Keynes Music. This organisation (mysteriously based in Leighton Buzzard) was driving enormous keyboard instructions off an SX-64 through a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) device.

The box in question, built in Italy, costs £29.95, and will also expand the musical range of Spectrum owners.

Oxford Computer Systems (OCS) is usually associated with systems software, utilities, and the black art of compiler generation (issue 64). But at the show it was as proud of Turbo-64, a racing game, as of any cross-compiler. The game grew out of a training program for OCS's machine code programmers and the company now feels that it has on its hands a product that will sell in the US as well as in this country.

OCS, justifiably proud of the 3D features of the game, will sell a tape version for £7.95 through UK chain stores; a disk version to come later may also be sold in the US.

Elsewhere in the games software business there are upheavals that contrast sharply with OCS's cheerful optimism. There wasn't much evidence at the show of the recent trend towards 'pocket-money' software but Quicksilva's move into the arms of Argus Specialist Publications for a reputed £1.8 million must be interpreted in part as a response to the prices spiral. ASP represents security to at least some Quicksilva staff, who said at the show that the company and its day-to-day running aren't expected to change much.

To look around the hall you'd think that nothing changed much anyway - but the shape of next year's Commodore show will be determined by events that are taking place now, and who knows, perhaps Jack Tramiel's new company will be holding a user show in competition next June.

Mr. Tramiel left Commodore in January having taken it to the peak of the US and international micro market.

Since then the company has lost a number of senior executives and the conviction has grown that it was floundering, if only temporarily.

Mr. Tramiel's new company, according to US reports, will design and manufacture desk-top machines, but these will not necessarily compete with Commodore head-on.

History may well be repeating itself: when Chuck Peddle left Commodore it wasn't long before he was back on the scene with a desk-top micro, the Victor/Sirius which has outlasted its parent company.

How many more such people can Commodore afford to lose?