My copy of Acornsoft's Desk Diary arrived without any documentation. This was however quickly rectified by a telephone call to Acornsoft, and the very next day a fairly comprehensive pamphlet arrived on my doorstep.

The cassette consists of two different programs. One, Address book, and the other Planner.

Address book loads in a very short time compared with some programs, and when loaded presents the user with a file maintenance display allowing four options, from create new file, load existing file, save file. or return to file already in store. Once the file maintenance is complete, you go to a neat main menu, displaying the possible options.

Entry to the new entry mode is simply by depressing one key, the screen then changes to display an index card type display. with name, address. telephone printed by boxes where the text is written. There is also a useful 'Extra info' box for those personal notes, although if the space allocated for it had been greater I would have undoubtedly used it more than I did.

Other features of this program include a 'find' function, very normal in operation, it need only look at the first few characters to enable it to locate the required file. A very good feature is that of the 'Retrieve on special key', where by adding a code in the 'extra info' box of all the required entries, they may all be called. I can see its practicalities for use in, say, a computer club, to determine members with different type of machine.

The print or display function allows entries to be part printed, or all information of a few, or all entries to be output to a printer.

The Planner program is basically a planner diary with built in real time clock. It allows you to make entries in the diary. and enables you to stop other conflicting appointments. It also boasts an alarm clock, but the practicality of having the computer on for the vast majority of the time is unrealistic for most of us.

Selection to the displays is via the keyboard, where day to day entries are made and can be viewed by calling up that particular date. There is also 'Plan ahead' which allows you access to a particular month showing you a calendar of the month together with a text display of all the reminders listed out underneath.

There is also a coming soon function which displays up to thirty days in advance showing up all dates with any appointments or reminders. or days that you've made yourself unavailable.

All in all a good package from Acornsoft, that is if you want this sort of utility, but it comes in very useful as the address book, especially at around Christmas time when you can never remember auntie Flo's address in Bognor!

Dave Reeder