QUANTA Magazine

On 12th January 1984, approximately one month after the announcement of the manufacture of the millionth Spectrum on December 9th 1983, Sir Clive Sinclair (who had been a ‘Sir’ since 1983!) presented the QL computer to assembled media and the world at the Intercontinental Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London, and the rest (as they say) is history.

Quickly recognising the need for a QL user group, Leon Heller and Brian Pain (who already had experience of running NATGUG, the National Tandy and Genie User Group) decide to set up an Independent QL Users Group (IQLUG). Personal Computer World at the time reported: “Fascinating to see how quickly they have become enthusiastic about the Sinclair QL. The first newsletter, Quanta, landed on my desk a week after the launch.”

That first newsletter was a 20-page A5 magazine, cover-dated February 1984 and called “Quanta”. It consisted of information about the group, an Editorial column, proposed IQLUG constitution, article about “Interesting SuperBASIC Features” (where Leon describes SuperBASIC thus: “This is probably the best BASIC available on ANY computer!”, a “What Is C” article and an introduction to the 68008 processor. Presumably much of this was based on pre-release documentation as we know that the first customer orders were sent out from Sinclair’s warehouse in Camberley on Monday April 30th 1984.

In 1985, it was decided to change the group’s name: “Since a large proportion of members seem to have difficulty with the pronunciation of IQLUG, we have decided to change the name of the group to Quanta, which has always been the name of the group newsletter. Quanta stands for QL Users And Tinkerers Association, which is a somewhat contrived acronym but no more so than many others.” That name change has stuck to the present day.

Quanta advertised in the computer monthlies of the time and the membership grew fairly rapidly – issue 2 reported “we have well over 100 members now.” Issue 6 later reported “around 500 members.” Here is a sample advert from Personal Computer World at the time. After the sixth issue, the original £4.25 six-monthly subscription went up to £6.00.

The group set up a member’s software library which continues to this day! The first librarian was Rob Sherratt, who started the library with 4 programs of his own, Spirograph, File Copy, List and Boot.

IQLUG (as it was known at the time) ran joint workshops with NATGUG and was recognised by the Association Of Computer Clubs, thus allowing it cheaper stands at computer shows, for example.

The first QL workshop was held at Milton Keynes, England, in July 1984, where the inaugural General Meeting was held. Before that, some QL activity had taken place at NATGUG meetings such as the one in Swindon earlier in 1984. Leon Heller and Brian Pain were elected unopposed to run the group.

Leon and Brian remained at the helm until a stormy AGM in Swindon in 1988. Brian Pain resigned as treasurer a little while later and Roy Barber took over from Leon as editor, with Leon staying on for some time as a committee member.

Alex Tegg came on board as Chairman, Alex Waye as treasurer, Syd Day as Librarian and Phil Borman as Membership Secretary. Some changes to the constitution were proposed at that AGM – the proposed new constitution was published in the March 1988 newsletter. That year also saw a move to the now familiar colour covers of the newsletter.

Although the group has been through many changes and some rocky periods since those early days, it has continued to be one of the main forces in the QL scene to this day and continued to be the main QL user group providing support, software, newsletters and workshops to QL users worldwide throughout the lifetime of the QL!