One of the nice things about the C64 is that with a printer and disc drive it can make a useful business machine at a relatively cheap price. Firstword is a word processor for such a set-up.

It's worth mentioning that the program isn't suitable for editing sequential files created by other programs. Firstword stores data as program files and can only read files created and stored by itself.

The software is supplied on disc and will only work with a disc drive - the tape is not supported. Serial printers connected via a suitable interface (C64 printer /RS232) work, although I was unable to find out whether parallel printers connected to the user port will.

The comprehensive 6O-page manual comes as a set of loose sheets held together in a hard-backed ring binder. One problem is that pages can easily get missed out - mint came without pages 39 and 43.

When entering text any leading spaces/blank lines will be ignored. These are put in using special control characters. It soon becomes apparent that the whole program is parameter driven. You can set the system to your own requirements and use it in a very flexible way.

All text editing and disc/output commands are entered using menu options which appear at the bottom of the screen. Selecting an option takes you on to a sub-menu: this may seem long-winded if you know what you are doing but if you don't have the manual handy then it can be a great help.

Insertion and deletion of single characters and lines is available directly. In block mode you may delete, copy, transfer and save blocks of text after you have specified the range of lines. Find and replace is available as a menu option. This can work with either single words or a string of up to 38 characters.

Mail merge is available, and there is a built-in calculator - very useful. You place the cursor over the various numeric sections in the text, perform the basic mathematical functions and the answer is shown somewhere else on the page. Ideal if you are preparing a bill or totalling up numbers.

When you print out your document you can specify header/footer messages, automatic page counting, right justification of text, left and right margins, print type, etc. The flexibility and versatility means that large changes in the output are very simple to achieve.

My only grumble is that the price is slightly too high for what is only a word processor. Some other packages may also be used as a text file editor; from a programmer's point of view it would be useful to be able to do this as well.

K.I.