It you mention the Dragon to anyone who 'thinks' they know about computers they will probably laugh at you. Comments such as "it's got no sprites" or "the sound is lousy" will probably abound. These facts may be true but the Dragon does have a very good version of Basic with some very powerful graphics facilities.

With Sprite Magic, Knight Software have tried to put right some of the so-called 'flaws' of the Dragon and have done an excellent job.

Sprite Magic gives the owner of the 32 the ability to have up to 128 sprites, an auto-repeat keyboard, text in all graphics modes, enhanced sound facilities and much, much more.

Three new commands are given for sound. AUTOBEEP will output a specified sound if a sprite goes off the edge of the screen or collides with some other object. BEEP has two different forms. With a number between 0 and 15 after it one of Sprite Magic's pre-programmed sound effects is heard. Alternatively, you can put a series of parameters after BEEP which will allow you to devise new sound effects by denoting a rate of change of volume etc.

For anyone who doesn't know, a sprite is a large graphics character that can be placed at any position on the screen, moved about smoothly and controlled if it hits the edge of the screen or another object. With Sprite Magic, you can enter up to 128 different sprites. ANIMATE allows sprites 0 to 7 to be animated automatically. i.e. they will follow a sequence of drawings. This means that you can have a man running across the screen or the blades of a helicopter spinning etc.

Probably the best way to see what a program such as Sprite Magic can do is see some examples. Knight Software kindly include six 'free' demonstration programs. Programs range from a maze game to a utility that allows you to redefine the character set. If you really want to know how to use a program like this to its full then read the examples very carefully.

There are many more commands and features to Sprite Magic than have been mentioned. Put the power of these new commands together with the existing Basic commands and the Dragon turns into a very powerful machine.

If you would like to write games programs then ignore the expensive price tag of this package - go out and buy it, it's worth every penny.