The "Human" Elk

By Vernon Cowdy

Originally published in EUG #07

I have had a Master 128 for some time but still relate closely to the Electron because over the years I have found articles and discussion about the latter to have what I can only describe as a human quality - or do I mean that my feelings of inadequacy are better catered for by the Elk fraternity?!

Before I get too deep into this line of thought and raise the prospect of insulted Elk owners hunting me down for political incorrectness, let me be serious and say that almost everything offered for the Electron has worked very well on the Master, and very often the reverse is true as well.

The two machines sit naturally side by side (in my case that is physically the case) and you can even pop cartridges back and forth between them. Assuming you have a disk drive for each, they can literally back each other up when you have one of those days when you feel that two computers are better than one. (e.g. One prints a long document while you start drafting the next).

Personally, I feel that the next logical step (for anyone who manages to carry off a bank raid) is to get an A5000 or at least an A4000 - anything less and they are back on the old frontier trail of searching for gadgets to add hard disks, extra memory, expansion modules, ARM3 upgrades, RISC OP upgrades - all reminiscent of the wild Eighties when we gleefully stumbled around Acorn expos doing wonderful deals to get Plus this and Plus that to rev up our favourite computer.

On the other hand, and back to the real world, it would be a bit of a nuisance if W. Watts was promoted to the dizzy heights of several million colours on screen and PC emulators, because we do need our EUG fix now and then.

V. Cowdy

There's very little chance of me being promoted to anything (apart from the "Chamber of Horrors"!), so future 'fixes' are assured for the time being!