As zapping aliens seems to be the "in thing" these days, I certainly found it a pleasure to use a piece of software that enables aliens to be created rather than killed.

Char-Gen does not restrict you to aliens though - animals, foreign alphabets, various scientific notations or technical symbols; all these and many more are within your scope with this program.

The Colour Genie can support up to 128 user-definable graphic characters. Char-Gen allows you to design almost any shape and then "lock" them into memory. At your request, DATA statements containing the codes for these shapes are displayed for use inyour own Basic programs - system tapes of characters can also be produced.

After loading Char-Gen, it will run automatically. The screen display comprises a large "Edit Screen" on which you design and edit characters. This screen is made up of six large character editing squares which enable multiple character shapes to be created.

Arrow keys move the cursor in any of eight different directions around the editing screen. Large pixels are set in the current cursor position by pressing the Space bar, and there are two speeds for the cursor movement.

After characters have been drawn, they can be saved to memory (press S and enter CHR$ code). You then have the option of writing a system tape containing the character set or producing a set of DATA statements.

Char-Gen makes 25 commands available; all commands are single key or shifted key inputs. Commands are as follows:

CLEAR .. Resets all pixels in current cursor square
S/CLEAR ... Resets all pixels in current Edit square
F1 - F4 ... Move
S/F1 ... Flip
I ... Invert all current cursor square
S/I ... Invert all edit screen
R ... Rotate
S/R ... Either cols 0 and 1 or cols 2 and 3
K ... Copy
Q ... Query
D ... Display
S ... Save
W ... Write
L ... Load
V ... Verify
CTRL/B ... Blanks character set in memory
CTRL/E ... Exits from Char-Gen and leaves behind a set of DATA statements containing codes of characters

The cassette comes complete with a five page A4 booklet which explains very clearly how the program is to be used. It also explains, for the less experienced of us, how to incorporate DATA statements into Basic programs, etc.

Char-Gen is the first program in the "Concept Software" range and costs a reasonable £5.50. On the reverse side of the tape is a good arcade game Space Attack in Machine Code illustrating the use of UDGs, created using Char-Gen.

I enjoyed using Char-Gen very much and feel it will be a useful tape for many readers as it effectively and speedily achieves what it sets out to do. I also look forward to further utilities of this quality from Concept Software.

Roger Crossley