Readers' Feedback

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The Editors and Readers of COMPUTE!

Dateline Zimbabwe
In the November 1986 installment of "Readers' Feedback" you asked for the experiences of readers who have used their computers overseas. I have lived in Harare, Zimbabwe since May 1985. When we came to this country, I brought from the States a Commodore 64, 1541 disk drive, 1702 monitor, and Star SG-10 printer. Because the power supply in Zimbabwe is 220 volts/50 Hertz, I invested about $50 in a good transformer. I can report that I have had no problems in using my system here in Africa. In fact, I'm glad that I have an American system. I don't know about Poland [see M. H. Trenker's letter in the November issue], but most of the world doesn't seem to share the mania for wall outlets that we have in the United States. It isn't unusual for a room to have only one outlet which accepts only one plug. Finding an adapter that would accept the four plugs required by my system would have been no small problem. Fortunately, I brought over a strip surge processor that solved two problems at one stroke.
    I have been told that any software I might purchase overseas would not run properly if I bring it back to the United States. Since I didn't have problems running U.S. software in Africa, it doesn't seem there should be a problem going the other way. Do you have any information about this?

We've never seen any software produced in Africa, but we have successfully run many programs that were written overseas, including commercial software and submissions from COMPUTE! readers around the world. Many German programs are available for the Atari ST, in particular, since that computer was introduced in Europe several months before it appeared in the United States.