Get to know the lie of the land

Two related programs provide a useful aid to familiarisation with local geography. For this review just County (SM) will be described. Its companion program, County (SW) deals with the south west peninsula of England.

County (SM) covers the counties of Dorset, Hampshire, West Sussex, Surrey, London, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Avon. There are two options on the menu - identifying towns, and identifying rivers or counties.

The first option displays an attractive four-colour map with the locations of 20 different towns marked on the map by a cross.

The user is prompted to find, for example, Lyme Regis. This is done by flying a small aeroplane over the map, using the cursor keys, until it is over the cross which you think marks the town you are looking for.

If the location you choose is not the correct one, then the computer responds with "That's Dorchester" or whichever town it is.

When you do get the location right, it plays a little tune and responds with "Good - you found it". After two questions you're told how long you took to correctly locate the two towns.

This part ofthe program is good. The aeroplane doesn't move all that fast and tends to leave a smudge when you stop over a town, but the graphics are colourful and the controls easy to use.

The second part of the program, identifying rivers and counties, covers the rivers Frome, Stour, Avon, Wylye, Yeo, Cherwell, Thames, Wye, Test, Itchen, Rother, Arun and Wey.

The map display has the counties shown as before, but this time they are each numbered, as are the rivers. To help you a little adjoining counties are named to provide a few ideas of scale and reference.

The user is prompted to name, for example, river R12 or county C5. If the input is wrong then the computer beeps and gives the right answer, but if it is correct then it responds with "Correct - well done!".

Every now and then you are told how long it took you to answer the last question, which helps keep you on your toes a bit, and after 10 questions you go back to the menu.

There really ought to be a scoreboard to tell you how many answers you got right, and whether you were better at the rivers or at the counties. But there isn't, so you would have to note this for yourself if you wanted to know which to practice on to improve your answers.

Overall, though, this is quite a nice and useful program. It doesn't come with any documentation, which could be useful, and isn't quite as polished as it could be, but probably represents good value for money nevertheless.

Jane Jackson