Forecaster is one in a series of serious tutorial software written by Tryptych software for a number of home computers and marketed for the BBC by Collinsoft. It's an interesting and ambitious brand of software. It takes a complex and specialist subject and makes use of some very well written and presented tutorial in conjunction with demonstration and self-test software. It's a sort of Teach Yourself pack. What you get at the end of the day, in theory, is a set of programs which can be used to forecast, let's say, future sales results, and, if you have completed the tutorial, the knowledge to get the best from the programs and the ability to interpret the results.

The links between the written material and software are well designed but there's no problem if you wish to take the manual away to read it. The software at this stage is mainly reinforcing the message, demonstrating the mathematics of regression, of Time Series, Moving Averages, Exponential smoothing and Holt's method.

The programs themselves are no great shakes in the display department but I suppose much of the code is devoted to the calculations involved. It is interesting to note however that no real attempt has been made to make good use of the BBC's graphics despite the use of disc-based software in this package. This can be contrasted with other similar training packages originated on the BBC.

Because the BBC is the micro for education and training, there are a number of similar aboriginal packages available which cover the ground more comprehensively. However, for the individual wishing to tackle this subject for study or for background on the forecasting techniques used for business, Forecaster is a very clearly presented introduction and there is no chance of you getting lost in a mass of incomprehensible equations. It's not exactly what I would call a hobby but if the bug gets you, Forecaster will provide the means of learning.