Ever been frustrated with sluggish BASIC - fed up waiting for your program to catch up?

Although the Electron uses BBC BASIC, arguably the best and fastest around, it's not much good for smooth animation effects or efficient utilities as it's too slow and it occupies too much memory.

The simple answer is machine code, the language of the micro's processor. Unlike BASIC, it doesn't have to be translated by the micro as it runs.

However machine code is just a series of meaningless numbers, so the simple answer is assembly language.

As the Electron already has an assembler on-board, all you need is a fair knowledge of BASIC - and Ian Sinclair's book.

The text deals with everything from ROM and RAM to bits and bytes. It assumes no prior knowledge of assembly language, and explains the inner workings of the micro and the possibilities of assembly.

The later chapters cover the methods and principles involved in an example assembly listing, with all mathematical processes being kept in separate appendices at the back where they are easily found - or ignored.

Also included is a major section on debugging assembly programs, as well as several pages about a machine code monitor - perhaps a little premature for beginners.

The book is well thought out and, apart from a few mistakes, well written.

I have one minor complaint about the layout. A vital section on saving and loading programs was placed in the middle of another chapter about data in assembly programs. Surely this would have been better as a separate appendix?

However, this is an excellent and easy to understand introduction to the art of machine code programming which will open up whole new fields of program writing.

Andrew Oldham