This double bill is one of the first educational cassettes from this company. Both attempt to teach mental arithmetic while providing entertainment. One succeeds admirably and one is a tragic failure.

Firstly, Marathon. This is a thoroughly enjoyable program which allows the user to test his or her speed of mental arithmetic.

It offers questions on the common arithmetic functions, i.e. add, subtract, divide and multiply along with an unusual mode called multiples.

To answer, you move the joystick assigned by the computer to the specific answer in a grid displayed on the screen and hit the fire button. If you are correct, your colour of runner at the top of the screen moves forward towards the winning post; if wrong the other runner moves. The game is over when one runner reaches the end of the track.

The program appears to be totally bug-free although there is a rather long pause after RUN is typed before the computer responds; otherwise this is very well put together which meets its aim admirably.

Overall, this is a poor shadow of a program compared to the masterpiece of Marathon.

D.R.