A very well-organised package containing a cartridge and an extensive manual. The cartridge contains its own chip, and only uses about 32 bytes of memory at the top of RAM, leaving ample room for your own programs.

It generates three channels of sound thus enabling you to create chords and harmonies. There are also many predefined sound effects (e.g. a machine gun or car starting). All of these are accessed by a new basic command, Music, which makes the process quite easy for non-musicians.

There is a 3.5mm jack socket on the cartridge for connecting up to an external amplifier which, when I tried it on my old Leak system, worked a treat! A further two 8-bit input.output ports are available as an added bonus which could be used to control external devices.

The manual deals with the machine code aspects in great detail and enable you to change the notes, providing your skills in machine code programming are up to it. A further section of the manual gives you examples to type in with simple graphic routines demonstrating that the sound does not adversely affect the display.

M.P.