Scor­pio News

may go there and rent time on any of the equipment, or may send disk files in, for processing by Arctic to the desired form of output. Arctic will also supply any of the relevant equipment.

The Company and its Market

From the above it is fairly obvious that Io doesn’t sell just to the enthusiastic amateur any more, although some still buy Pluto 1A 1A, which you will now all agree IS at give-away prices!

As I said earlier, Io sell to OEMs who often produce their own software, and until relatively recently Io did not really bother with software. However, they now realise that many totally diverse applications have many common requirements, and they have a number of programmers who specialise in producing customised versions of Designer for these different markets.

Italy has seen the light, and have 300-400 Pluto 2 installations in the textile industry. Here they ere supplied, for example, by a knitting machine manufacturer to design stockings, tights and socks. By connecting the Pluto/​host computer directly to the knitting machine, once a design is completed a sample sock can appear in 7 Seconds! Alternatively, the pattern can be dumped to cassettes, which can then be placed into the other knitting machines on the shop floor.

Another use is in carpet design. The complete Pluto system/​software in this application is about £20,000. An American competitor offers a similar product for £120,000. You see, Io are cheap!

Further systems are in use in floor tile, wallpaper, and kitchen unit design. Io have also recently become involved in a major publishing project.

The Future

Io have certainly come a long way since their original Nascom add-ons. And as to the future? Well, they say that they have defined 16 specific market areas (e.g. video, textiles, etc) and will be pursuing most of these. And their hardware and software products will continue to move up-market, to provide higher resolutions and higher performance.

Listing continued from page 36.

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