Not exactly a hardware projects book, not exactly a programming guide, this is a very valiant attempt but with distinct signs of being a rush job. The author has tried to combine an introduction to both Z80 and 6502, to Basic, assembler and machine code, utilities and general procedures, and elementary hardware interfacing, all in just over 160 pages. The result is rather like the curate's egg: good in parts.

The listings are straight dumps throughout, and many (particularly the Spectrum) are almost unreadable, due either to bad layout or bad reproduction or both. Seeing that more than half the book is devoted to listings, I think that more care could have been taken. The problem is supposed to be covered by an accompanying cassette.

The hardware section is scrappy and leaves many important details unexplained. There are also some naughtly implementations which could educate the beginner into bad habits; things like unregulated reference voltages on A/D and D/A converters, and no information on calibration procedures (or the need for them!).

The author is fairly obviously more at home with the Spectrum than the Acorn micros, and there is a good appendix of Spectrum-only school physics routines (why not BBC as well?) but there is no excuse for annoying inconsistencies like Z80 ops in numerical order only and 6502 ops in alpha order only.

On the positive side, this is one of the few projects books which carries adequate warnings about messing about with the mains electricity supply. I suspect that Mr Bishop is one of the few teachers who likes kids. The software routines are imaginative, too, including such things as graphic plots of magnetic fields and optical ray diagrams as well as simple data processing such as sort and text justify.

On the whole, it's a bit pricey at £8.95, but not to be ignored by the beginner as a backup to other material.