Poritco is struggling to find a future for its Miracle portable micro.

A severe cash crisis has forced the company to try to re-structure its financial arrangements, and at the same time it has left its South London offices. But a company spokesman said that a miracle along the lines of the raising of Lazarus wouldn't be necessary - Portico wasn't dead yet.

"It isn't a simple future, but it doesn't look irredeemable at the moment," he said. Portico is looking for a refinancing arrangement, and at the same time is moving to new premises, the spokesman added.

It has left its London SE11 premises without leaving a forwarding address which has led to rumours that it had gone out of business. The spokesman commented: "If you leave without giving a forwarding address you immediately draw all sorts of remarks."

He could not comment on Portico's immediate prospects but acknowledged that the company has faced a severe cash flow problem. Rade Systems, the company that supplies the Miracle's processor board, said that it had taken no new orders from Portico for over a month - previously it had averaged 30 to 40 units a month.

The Miracle was launched in autumn of last year and attracted some very complimentary reviews. Costing £1,795, it has 64K of RAM, 64K of cache memory, twin 386K floppies and a swathe of free software, PCN (Issue 29) said: "The Portico Miracle may seem a little like a hopeful latecomer. But this particular Z80, CP/M plus free software in a portable box offering is a little bit special."

Ironically PCN's reviewer compared the Miracle to the Osborne, another machine with a considerable shadow over its future - but in Osborne's case this could be settled at a major meeting next week.