Amaze your friends...

Previous Next

From the first day that I got my BBC Micro, I have always thought that it was magic. But I never imagined that my silicon buddy would be applying to join the Magic Circle.

With the help of The Paul Daniels Magic Show from Acornsoft, you can amaze your friends with stunning feats of magic, assuming that they stay awake long enough.

For one of the tricks, you will have to provide a pack of playing cards - otherwise everything you require is contained in the package. The cassette consists of a suite of ten short programs. Each one is either a complete trick, or is used as an aid in your performance.

It is advisable that you read the accompanying manual thoroughly before performing the tricks. It provides back ground information that is necessary for a successful performance and gives each of the tricks a star rating to indicate its difficulty.

Normally the one-star tricks are performed completely by the computer. One such trick is called Book.

The computer displays a series of random numbers in response to the user pressing the space bar. These numbers correspond to any page, line and word, contained in the BBC User Guide. Having got to this randomly-selected position, the computer will tell you the actual word that you have selected.

When I first ran the program I was impressed. How on earth could it memorise the entire user guide! What superior algorithm was involved? Calling the wife in from the kitchen, I proceeded to show her the trick.

Surprise, surprise, the electronic magician came up with the same page number, line number, and even the same word.

A quick look in the manual revealed a warning that the trick should not be repeated more than once in any one performance.

Some of the more complex tricks required the user to secretly indicate to the computer the details of the punter's card.

Very little effort has been put into the on-screen presentation of the tricks and I would be surprised if anyone could amuse themselves for more than half an hour with this package.

Magic on a computer just doesn't seem to work. In the words of Mr Daniels, you'll like this - but not a lot.

Jon Revis