Golden oldies

CHOOSING software is increasingly difficult, whether you are looking for games or serious applications. There is so much on the market that new users, in particular, may often miss the best buys altogether. If you read magazines such as Sinclair User regularly you can keep up with the new releases, but what about all the old stuff which was reviewed long before you bought a micro?

The Which? Software Guide, published by Hodder and Stoughton with the prestigious Consumers' Association, attempts to remedy the situation with reviews and ratings of more than 1000 programs. The software is for the BBC, Spectrum and Commodore computers, and grouped in categories by alphabetical order.

Written by John Walker, the reviews tend to be on the kind side, and you will probably spot many favourite turkeys among them. As a comparative guide to the quality of programs the ratings are generally acceptable, but although the book refers to the launch of the Spectrum Plus in October 1984, most of the software released after May of that year does not appear.

The bulk of reviews are for games, with the Spectrum badly represented in the business sections. The style is solid and readable. Walker has clearly played some games rather more thoroughly than others, and a few inconsistencies emerge. There seem to be remarkably few errors of fact for so many reviews, and those we spotted are fairly trivial.

Walker says he has not included products from 'firms which may only be in business a month or so'. Oddly enough, he includes several games from Imagine and Rabbit, companies no longer in business at all and which went down long before the book was published.

For Spectrum owners a more serious factor is the inclusion of games for more than one machine. The rating may well reflect the quality of graphics or sound on the Commodore version with the Spectrum game much less impressive. Occasionally that is pointed out; more often than not it is ignored. It would help if the book pointed out which version was the original.

On the plus side, there are a number of illuminating paragraphs on the origins of various types of game. A list of software houses and their addresses is an extra bonus.

At £7.95, the Guide is expensive. The introduction snipes at magazine reviewers for giving little detail about games; we disagree, naturally, but do not believe you will get a great deal more information from the reviews in the book. As a means of obtaining reliable information on what has already been published, however, the book can be recommended. It is certainly the sort of publication that newcomers will want if they intend to build up a library of commercial games software.

Chris Bourne

The mighty QL at play

TIM Hartnell is one of the grand old men of letters in the world of Sinclair books, having produced a prolific supply since the early days of the ZX-81. QL Games Compendium is a collection of fairly standard entertainments, more suited to those for whom the QL is their first computer.

The book contains 25 programs of varying length. Among old standards like Eliza - where the computer plays psychiatrist - Simon and Reversi you will find a couple of original adventures, a poetry generator, Draughts, and Stockbroker.

Although none of the games make any startling use of the QL facilities, and seem to have been adapted in the main from earlier programs for the Spectrum, they are good examples of simple programming which should appeal to novices. Hartnell also includes a chapter on other games, giving brief summaries of the rules as suggestions for readers' own programs.

The listings are reproduced from printer output, but are clear and easy to follow. There are few, if any bugs, although Eliza started to behave strangely after a while. Perhaps that was due to perverse inputs rather than the programming itself.

Although Hartnell's collection is the best we have yet seen for the QL, there is room for programs of a much higher quality. It really is about time programmers turned their attention to games a little more original than Othello.

Chris Bourne

Home hints save time?

WANT to know what you have in your freezer? No longer do you have to get up, open the freezer, and have a look. All you have to do is type in a simple five and a half page program - originally written for the Dragon 32 - and then, every time you freeze another batch of leftover spinach you can enter it into your freezer file.

You don't own a freezer? Well, there are a lot more exciting things to do with your micro explained in Practical Uses for the Microcomputer in the Home by David Hole. David has written 14 staggering programs for bored technophiles seeking a more credible way of justifying their computer

How about a television directory? Enter in the times and channels of your favourite television programmes. There are some excellent magazines such as Radio Times and TV Times which print those. Buy the magazines, type in the data, and then whenever you want to know when Wogan is on the box you can turn off the telly, plug in your Spectrum and find out, liberating the magazines you bought for use as cat litter.

On the other hand, you might want to use the book for cat litter and keep the magazines.

Chris Bourne

Sinclair User
April 1985