With most people buying directly connected modems it seems ambitious to bring out a new acoustically coupled modem.

Protek Computing takes a different view. Its 1200 modem is, at £59.95, the cheapest Telecom-approved modem on the market.

Also, it thinks there are large numbers of parents out there who would be horrified at the thought of their son or daughter plugging directly into the telephone line.

Protek is likely to find a market too among the growing band of lap-held micro users who want a modem they can carry around with them.

As the name suggests, the 1200 modem is designed to operate at 1200/75 baud, full duplex for connection to Prestel and other computers and for user-to-user communications.

Along with the modem, Protek is selling a range of interface packs for popular micros. These include the software to allow you to access Prestel and to communicate directly with other micro users

Interface packs for the BBC and the Commodore 64 will cost £14.95, and £24.95 for the Spectrum.

These will be available along with the modems from around the middle of September in branches of Menzies, WHSmith and Boots.

Additional interface packs for the Atmos, Electron, QL, Amstrad and MSX machines should start appearing by the end of October.

Protek has no plans to release interface packs for the lap-held micros. So users of the NEC8201A, Tandy Model 100 and the Olivetti M10 will have to rely on the terminal software that comes with the machine.

This means they will not be able to use the modem at 1200/75 baud.