There has been a proliferation of listing books for the BBC Micro over the past year or so, many of which have been of very poor quality both in what they offer and the programming style they adopt. This book, despite its awesome title, is different, though, and stands head-and-shoulders above its contemporaries.

The hundred programs are grouped into ten sections: Introduction, Games, Business, At Home, Painting on the Screen, Data Handling, Recreation, The Science Lab, Mathematics, and Programs For The School. The programs are laid out in similar fashion, with an introduction and program description, the commands and responses required to get the program running, the listing itself, and in many instances a diagram or flowchart helps you to grasp the operation of the programs.

The listings look like printout reproductions but the quality is so good it is hard to tell. The programs are written to a very high standard and are good examples of how programs should be constructed, as they use the Beeb's facilities to the full. I mention two picked at random as a sample: the Conversion program (program 34) shows how versatile a single program can be, allowing any one of seventeen conversions to be performed (for example, inches to centimetres and atmospheres to cm Hg); and Spelling (program 99), which shows how a general database can be built up to test and correct children's (or adults') spelling, either in sentences or as part of a general tutorial.

A cassette tape of the same name has been produced with the book, on which all programs are included. Accompanying the tape package is a 32-page booklet with brief details on each program, so the tape can be bought as a free-standing item.

If you want to learn how to program correctly from program examples you could do no better than buy either the book or the cassette.

Model A owners will be interested to learn that all but eight of the programs will run on their machine.