Until recently there has been a dearth of good disc database programs for this machine but now the DFS is in good supply and understood, they are being produced by the dozen.

This is a very capable database, flexible enough for most uses, yet simple for the beginner. The use of menus makes life easy and the well-written 54-page handbook complements the program.

BetaBase supports up to 200 fields in each record with maximum length of 2,048 bytes. The number of records depends upon the specification you give and the capacity of your disc; a blank disc gives 1K less than its capacity for storage.

Search facilities are comprehensive with eight types, although the use of wild cards is not fully supported. Features of the system are 'Redefine' and 'Transfer' routines, offering powerful manipulation of data. The print routines are quiet comprehensive but not easy to use and there is no flexibility of screen display.

Overall I think anyone could use this database with excellent results, especially as there is a demo file.

D.C.