On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Bill Waugh wrote:
> Ok Dave here's a starter, I was one of the folks that ordered a Futura,
> possibly it might have been a dead end job considering the hardware that
> come since but my question is this -
> Who was Maria Futura ( I may have the name a bit wrong ) she seemed to
> be in charge of the admin side of things, I thought the name being
> similar or the same as the computer was a bit funny.
My boss was Tony Ianiri, and his partner was Maria. There was also a man
whos name I just can't remember. He was about 45 and raced motorcycles. I
remember the Futura project too. Nothing was actually designed in the UK.
Tony was italian, and closely related to an italian company that was
making budget memory for the QL (I think it was SPED but I'm not sure) and
they seem to have been doing the actual design work. Occasionally,
Italians with very little English would come and do some PCB design or
prototyping for it.
I remember the big day when the case and keyboard came in. There was also
an unpopulated board I saw which was definitely a 680X0-based design.
They decided not to proceed with the Futura because the risk was too great
- the market was too small and the costs too high.
Hope this helps...
Dave
PS: The name just came to me. Arnie Gardner was Tony's business partner.
