Lastly, is my favourite for upsetting people who think their disk drives actually perform to the manufacturers spec. I haven’t found a drive yet which will actually do what the spec says. Coretest by Core International only works on hard disks but it’s fun and you can really hear the disk drive working as it does its thing.

Armed with these programs, I can walk into a customers premises and sit down in front of a brand X computer and get a very thorough idea of what the thing capable of, and get my ball park figures for the timing within minutes. The programs are also fun when trotting round a computer manufacturer’s facility. Just pop a disk in the hole, run a couple of tests, nod sadly and say, “Hmmm, I thought so.” It’s very effective on persistent ‘know-nothing’ salesmen who immediately say they’ll go and find someone technical for me to talk to. Come to think of it, I’ll try it on that national High Street photographic and computer store, you know the one – the one where Jasper Carrot reckons the staff have a combined IQ of 4. Should produce some interesting results.

Still I think I’d better stop here. I’ll visit Paul this evening and give him a disk with this on it. It should take him a while to sort out the screen dumps!! ●

Next Issue

The dates for Scorpio News Volume 2, Issue 2 – April-June 1988 – are as follows: Letters & articles in by 2/3/88, adverts in by 9/3/88, posted to you by 1/4/88. ●