Just occasionally, you come across a book which communicates such enthusiasm for its topic that you cannot wait to get involved yourself. It seemed unlikely that such a book could ever be written about a computer system, yet Peter Brown has succeeded in making Unix compulsive.

Many Acorn users might well ask what relevance Unix has to them. Few will own a Torch Unicorn system or have access ot Unix at all. To teachers suffering the frustrations of cassette-based machines, it is a pertinent question. But Unix is a frequent topic in the current trade press, and for a brief description of what it is and what it can do I would point readers to the review of the Torch system by Andrew Cummings and Peter Voke in the September 1984 Acorn User. Cummings and Voke suggest that: "In ten years' time, the megabyte micros we all hope to have will almost certainly provide Unix, or a descendant of it."

If they are right, then anyone wishing to keep up to date and prepare for the future ought to know about Unix.

In Starting With Unix, a number of amusing themes run through the book. For example, editing is illustrated by manipulating text from the author's new novel in which the hero, Greg Daimler, later renamed Cyril, finds ten (or is it seventeen?) bodies stuck to the ceiling. The mail system is used to send invitations to fellow Unix-user Anne, but she callously erases our advances while saying those from another user, Dudley Detail, in a file called 'treasure'. We get our own back by fixing Dudley's directory to give the impression that all his files have been deleted, and we are able to do this because of our expert understanding of the Unix system structure. Dudley Detail is, in fact, the villain of the book who frequently interrupts to remind the author that he has omitted to mention the further 17 options to such and such a command, but fortunately Dudley is silenced before he can list them.

Unix of course is not a computer game, and Starting With Unix is not a frivolous book. It's well written and its level is just right for the beginnner, covering all one needs to know without going into too much detail. Part 1 gives a grounding in the concepts and ideas behind Unix in terms that can be understood by anyone with only the briefest experience of computers. In part 2, these ideas are applied, and chapters include the shell commands, editing the C language, documentation and communication; in fact, everything one needs to get started. I found this an informative, readable book and a very enjoyable way to learn Unix.