Editing Konix Multisystem (section)

==Background==
The '''Konix Multisystem''' began life in 1988 as an advanced Konix peripheral design intended to build on the success of the company's range of joysticks. The design, codenamed Slipstream,  resembled a dashboard-style games controller, and could be configured with a steering wheel, a flight yoke, and motorbike handles.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.denofgeek.com/games/konix-multisystem-the-british-console-that-never-was/|title = Konix Multisystem: The British console that never was|date = 23 February 2018}}</ref> It promised advanced features such as [[force feedback]], hitherto unheard of in home gaming.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://kotaku.com/the-video-game-console-that-never-was-452568184|title=The Video Game Console That Never Was|date=11 April 2011 }}</ref>

However, it soon became apparent that the Slipstream project had the potential to be much more than a peripheral. Konix turned to their sister company Creative Devices Ltd, a computer hardware developer, to design a gaming computer to be put inside the controller to make it a stand-alone console in its own right. It was shortly after this development began that Konix founder and chairman Wyn Holloway came across a magazine article that described the work of a British group of computer hardware designers whose latest design was looking for a home.<ref name="hist">{{citation|author=Graeme Kidd & Simon Goodwin|title=February 1989 issue of ACE Magazine|publisher=[[Future Publishing]]}}</ref>

The article in question, published in issue 10 of ''[[ACE (games magazine)|ACE]]'' magazine in July 1988, featured [[Flare Technology]], a group of computer hardware designers who, having split from [[Sinclair Research]] (creators of the [[ZX81]] and [[ZX Spectrum]] home computers), had built on their work on Sinclair's aborted [[Loki (computer)|Loki]] project to create a system known as Flare One.<ref name="ace1988082">{{cite news |last1=Wilton |first1=Andy |date=August 1988 |title=Flare |pages=30–33 |work=Advanced Computer Entertainment |url=https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-11/page/n29/mode/1up |access-date=26 November 2020}}</ref>

Flare's [[prototype]] system was [[Zilog Z80|Z80]] based but featured four custom [[Integrated circuit|chips]] to give it the power to compete with peers such as the [[Amiga]] and [[Atari ST]].  The 1MB machine (128k of [[Read-only memory|ROM]], 128k of [[video RAM]], 768k of system [[RAM]]) promised graphics with [[256 colours]] on-screen simultaneously, could handle 3 million pixels per second, output 8 channel stereo sound and had a [[blitter]] chip that allowed vertical and horizontal [[hardware scrolling]].<ref>{{citation|author=Steve Cooke|title=July 1988 issue of ACE Magazine|publisher=Future Publishing}}</ref>

Flare were specifically aiming their machine at the gaming market, eschewing such features as [[80 column]] text display (considered the requisite for business applications such as [[word processing]]) in favour of faster graphics handling. This meant that in spite of its modest [[8-bit]] [[CPU]] the system compared well against the [[16-bit]] machines in the market at the time. It could move [[Sprite (computer graphics)|sprite]]s and block graphics faster than an Atari ST, and in 256 colours under conditions when the ST would only show 16 colours. It could also draw lines 3 times faster than an Amiga and even handle the maths of [[3D model]]s faster than the [[32-bit]] [[Acorn Archimedes]].

In spite of these specifications and bearing in mind their target gaming market, Flare aimed to retail their machine for around {{Inflation|UK|200|1988|fmt=eq|orig=yes|cursign=£|r=-1}},{{Inflation/fn|UK}} half of what the Amiga and ST were selling for. Ultimately, Flare's resources to put it into mass production were limited.<ref name="ace198808">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-11/page/n29/mode/1up | title=Flare | work=Advanced Computer Entertainment | last1=Wilton | first1=Andy | date=August 1988 | access-date=26 November 2020 | pages=30–33 }}</ref>