I agree with your outline of the Memotech machine in PCN's hardware buyers' guide (issue 89). Memotech is its own worst enemy. Its hardware is outstanding in construction and capabilities but the documentation, while attractively produced, is notable for its omissions rather than content or clarity. Many useful features have become apparent only be accident, or by reading Ian Sinclair's Memotech Computing.
As a beginner, attempting to learn enough programming to write my own accounts program, I have encountered a number of snags with no answer in either the manual or Memotech Computing. I know nobody else with a Memotech or even another Z80-based computer (plenty of Beebs and Sinclairs). I wrote to Memotech on a number of occasions which problems which were probably quite elementary, but which I could not solve any other way, and I regret to say that I have had either no reply or an incomplete reply to each letter.
In the same issue, J. Fuller seeks advice about a printer for a Memotech. The DMX80 price includes a cable, and installation is simply a matter of plugging into the computer, plugging into the mains and switching on. There is still the problem of sorting out all the printer control codes, but that all adds to the fun.
15th December 1984
