Can I say how much I agree with the comments made by L. Rumens (issue 70) concerning the way so many magazines concentrate on so few machines?

Presumably, the volume of sales for general interest magazines isn't all that high. And while I'm posing a few questions: why do so many magazines feature so many listings? Is it that too few people are getting to grips with the effort and thrill of writing their own programs?

Obviously, there are *some* programmers out there, but I wonder what proportion of home micro owners are content to run or type in other peoples' programs?

Why do so few magazines feature really good, long term series about the skills and possibilities of programming?

Encouragingly, the recent Yorkshire TV series, Me And My Micro may have initiated this type of development.

How about you giving us *your* view? Are we, your readership, really that unwilling to read anything that is not aimed fairly and squarely at the machines we already own? Are we really only interested in game-playing?

You provide a fair spread of reviews, articles and listings. Do *you* find that the pressure is upon you to feature only the most popular machines? What future do you see for, say, Amstrad or Memotech as regards magazine support? Are owners going to have to hope that enough people buy the machines to make it viable for a publisher to bring out a dedicated magazine?

Alan Sturgess
Keighley Yorks

Yes, listings are extremely popular, and obviously we have to cater for the most popular machines. But we do also try to cater for minority tastes like Amstrad, Memotech, Colour Genie - and even Epson HX20 - Ed