As the title suggests, Beeb-Art is designed for artwork and particularly for artists using joysticks.

For speedy colour painting it is easier to use than some graphics programs, but as a general graphics package for users requiring a wide range of graphical effects, its options are very limited.

Impressive pictures can be painted but it is time-consuming and difficult without joysticks. The ability to erase and change colour by one key entry gives an advantage over brush and paint, but lack of tone and shade give finished paintings and a 'painting by numbers' appearance and the cursor is difficult to position without joysticks.

Fixed width brush, single cursor speed, only one mode, no text and poor use of function keys make it an unimaginative package.

In fact, apart from the circle drawing option, the keys f0 to f8 give options which are rather pointless and are far too inflexible to be of much use except for filling large areas with colour.

The presentation of the tape is excellent, but the instrucion book could have been better structured.

J.D.