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In the beginning, there was Omnicalc. But now, fresh from Microsphere, is son of Omnicalc... yes, you guessed it, Omnicalc 2. It's difficult to review spreadsheets as it's not *what* they do; it's more that they will let you do. If you have never seen a spreadsheet before and you are in business, it's worth looking at one, especially if you have to do a lot of calculations. The best way of explaining it to you is by asking you to imagine a large sheet of paper with lines running vertically and horizontally across it to form hundreds of small boxes. Across the top of the page, they are numbered from 1 to 100 and down the side from A to Z. So each box has a co-ordinate, i.e.: A1 or F4. Now, let's imagine that you were, say, buying and selling. You can enter your sales in one box (A1), then your cost in another box (A2) and have your profit appear in another box (A3). The idea is it will take data stored in one box and use it to perform calculations with data stored in another box and give you the answer in yet another box.

Your screen acts as a small window which can be moved up and down the spreadsheet to cover all the boxes available.

Imagine several of these boxes holding data and all interacting with each other, it would take hours to write a program in Basic to handle things the spreadsheet can be set up to do in minutes. Now this can be used in all sorts of applications from manufacturing to sales figures.

The Omnicalc 2 program is one of the better spreadsheets I have seen, for it has the ability of giving you a histogram and can also be used with microdrive and interface 1. It has 99 columns across and 250 rows deep, and will use all the mathematical functions that the Spectrum can offer. One of its features is that it can repeat equations down any column instead of having to key them in one by one.

All the actions on the spreadsheet are carried out by a series of one letter prompts, such as I-(input) which then gives the opportunity to Equate, or put in a value, or blank and write text.

Other prompts include C(calculate), D(decode), G(goto), K(copy), T(sub-total) and a host of others which the 31-page instruction manual can best explain. In fact, Omnicalc 2 has four programs, OM2, om64000, omniconvert and omdelete. The last two have only relevance to those who own the original Omnicalc. Om2 occupies the very top of the Spectrum memory, whereas om64000 leaves the bytes between 64000 and 65535 for any complex printer interface.

Results can be printed out on a ZX printer and to a full size printer connected to a suitable interface.

If you think you need a spreadsheet for your business needs then I think you won't go far wrong with this one.