ALMOST two months after the launch in a blaze of publicity at the Earls Court Computer Fair in April, Spectrums at last were being delivered in June. The delivery dates being quoted at the launch were a confident two weeks for the first orders. According to Sinclair Research, the initial delay was caused by the time needed to have production running smoothly.

When the first batch of 16K machines was ready eventually for despatch at about the beginning of June, a design fault was discovered. No-one is saying what the fault was but Bill Nichols, Sinclair Research public relations officer, said: "It was a very obscure fault which would not have shown up 80 or 90 percent of the time."

Once that had been dealt with, there was a distribution dispute at Timex. Nichols added that delays of between six and eight weeks were likely for people who had ordered by the first week in June. After that, delivery should be down to the standard 28 days.