Cycling UK Forum

It was only briefly mentioned on this evening's Alan Sugar programme (on TV), but his new passion is cycling. Even better than flying, it seems. Looking this up, I see it also on the BBC website.

He's quite right this time !

[ of course a cynic might suggest that this has something to do with his unfortunate landing incident at Barton last July ].

Nick

I can do without all the furrowed brow stuff in that silly telly programme, but I have a soft spot for the great man because of the Amstrad 8256 computer. In these days of universally available computers, word-processing is taken for granted but it was not always so.

I bought mine almost 25 years ago, in fact a colleague bought one at the same time and we negotiated a discount for a bulk purchase - something else that was rare in those far off days. It was about £500 complete with printer, compared with the IBM offering for almost three grand and printer still to buy.

That was in my mature student days and I'm sure I got extra marks just for submitting legible essays etc. In due course it saved £££ in not having to have the dissertation professionally typed-up. My wife used it for all her nurse training and I did a lot of typing-up for one of her fellow students who was profoundly deaf and could not hear a typewriter bell. She went on to use it for a B.Ed. (I think altogether its qualifications were BA, B.Ed., MSc., and RNMH x 2)

I upgraded mine with a dual external drive and 256k of extra memory

Although it took up quite a bit of room I was reluctant to throw it away which was a good thing. My last big job as a CTC Right to Ride rep was a public enquiry into a road scheme. The hard drive on my relatively new PC crashed part way through so I prepared all the CTC evidence on the Amstrad. The big drag was the slow rate of printing - something like five minutes a page. I was up most of the night watching the grass grow, but the evidence was properly presented. (Not that it made any difference.)

It was with a heavy heart that I chucked the 8256 away shortly afterwards.

He's a strange character, the 'great man'. I don't know whether I like him or not. I remember the Amstrad 8256 computer well, but never owned one.

The TV programme briefly showed him cycling in the Spanish hills, and for his age (born 1947) he looked the part in bib shorts etc. Mind you, he was riding downhill. And he goes to Spain only when it's hot and sunny. To enjoy his new passion in the UK he would probably need to wear a disguise or stick to remote areas.

A little bit of history.

When Desktop Computers were rare, I started work on a mainframe with BT in 1986. After about 6 months I was seconded to the Union Branch Secretary duty (full time, over 400 members) where I was my own governor. I bought a Sinclair QL Computer for use on the job. When Clive Sinclair sold out to Alan Sugar there was no further support for the QL. We had started a Computer User Group (local branch of a National Group). Amongst our members we had several of Sinclair's research staff, the chief of whom had written the operating system. They started to rewrite the system and as Alan now owned the rights to the QL, he was approached for permission to produce the new eprom. His answer was that he would not give official permission but that he was not interested in prosecuting us if we did sell it. The eprom was produced and sold many thousands, the three involved in it went on to greater things in the computer industry. Our group which started with around thirty members is now down to six who still meet monthly. We have moved on to PC's and laptops, mostly on Windows but Ubuntu/Linux is also in use on three machines.