The famous jousting knight Sir Clive Sinclair is about to receive another major honour: Madame Tussauds, the wax dummy specialist, has prepared a waxwork model of computing's most celebrated knight to go on show some time this year. Sir Clive, it can be exclusively revealed, is being modelled at the same time as Joan Collins - it's to be hoped that Madame Tussauds' modellers don't mix the pair of them up...

Another year opens, but old habits die hard, and Microsoft is up to its tricks again in its promotion of Microsoft Networks. Eleven major manufacturers have signed up for Microsoft Networks, it trumpets in a press hand-out issued just before Christmas. You may remember the launch of MS-Windows in late 1983, when Microsoft conjured-up a list of about 384 major manufacturers who had all signed up to use the miraculous new software.

With a name like windows, we should all have seen through it, but the first signs looked good and the product was actually glimpsed in action on an Olivetti M24.

But the months dragged on, and MS-Windows was seen no more.

Meanwhile, radical changes are in the wind in the Soviet Union (according to a report in the International Herald Tribune). Brushing the snow off his boots, Anatoli Alexandrov, president of the Academy of Sciences, reckons that training in computers must become a national priority.

The main micro in Russia is apparently called the Agat, and it is modelled on the Apple II. The Agat, if reported production figures are reliable, must be a collector's item in Russia - they're turning the machines out at a rate of 'tens a year'.

"Consumers do not see any need for personal computers," says another worthy from the Academy of Sciences, "and producers do not produce them."

In the decadent West one answer to low demand has been to make computers more 'user-friendly'; in Russia the problem is rather more complicated. Information technology is all very well, but can a society that controls information as a matter of policy afford it? The answer, according to the US newspaper, is to make Soviet society more 'computer friendly'.

...of all those of you who've often wondered what a hard disk looks like, here's a picture to set your minds at rest. It comes by courtesy of the kind gentlemen at Seagate, bless their little cotton socks, and you'll be surprised to note its close resemblance to an ordinary record player of the cheapest sort (a handle to crank the turntable up wouldn't be out of place). Is this the technology we shell out thousands of pounds for?!

C3 PTO
Robots have landed on the cover - turn inside for a look at the latest DIY models from Fischer-Technik and Colne Robotics.

Sideways Glance
We compare two approaches to sideways ROMs on the BBC: the piggy-back technique and the slot-machine method

Spectrum Tools
Forget the Christmas Black and Deckers; get stuck into some software craftsmanship with this bunch of utilities

QLity Street
This batch of gift-wrapped tools for your QL is guaranteed to grow on you

Sparking C64
Put a twinkle in your Commodore 64's eye with our sprite graphics listing

Amstrad Scroll
Sideways scrolling on the CPC464 is on offer

The Beeb Has Landed
We present a souped-up 'moon lander' game