Ambitious German retail chain Escom were crowing about their success this week, claiming that their conquering of the UK computer marketplace was very similar to the way the pioneering settlers had claimed America. "There were a lot of Indians but no organised armies to resist," bragged Escom Director Reiner Marquart. The retailers continued their expansion program by opening more stores and giving notice that they expected to sell 80,000 PCs in the last quarter of the year.

All this was when Escom were hoping that the UK's independent retailers - the Indians - would support the re-release of the Amiga, which Escom had bought from Commodore's liquidator before chucking it in a box with a few items of software, christened it the Amiga Magic Pack and slapped a hefty £499 price tag on it. Not surprisingly, the UK's retailers blanched at the price, bristled at the insulting inference that Escom would soon own the market and then collectively turned their backs on the Amiga - not least because the profit made by Escom on each sale would be funding their biggest competitor's plans to wipe them out. This was a view shared by every other retailer of electrical goods and, Escom apart, the new Amiga had no major High Street presence, and consequently no chance of ever regaining even a fraction of the market share it had once enjoyed, even if it had functioned correctly. Which it didn't.