The first benefits for the computer industry are just starting to be felt from the UK Department of Trade and Industry’s Enterprise Initiative announced ealier this month, and Compaq Computer, IBM and Research Machines Ltd have been approved to supply Further Education Colleges with anything up to 200 CAD systems. Applications have to be in from the colleges by the end of this month, and the Department will approve spending up to ?2m across the three approved systems. The main criterion for selection was that the suppliers should offer a completely configured CAD/CAM system for under ?10,000. At that price the Department could afford up to 200 systems if it spends all the cash. All the systems chosen are based on Intel 80386 processors. To qualify, colleges must be offering courses at the Higher National level. Compaq had its system on show at the Which Computer? Show in Birmingham last week, consisting of a Deskpro 386 with 40Mb of disk; high resolution VGA monitor; CalComp digitiser and plotter and a Fujitsu needle printer.
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