Acorn's Master 128 has attracted much attention from the faithful, the industry watchers and the knockers. Acorn, on their own admission, haven't been able to keep up with supply, and that bodes well for High Flyers, the new book about the Master from Prentice Hall. Although compatible with a high percentage of existing software, the Master 128 is 100% compatible with existing books. Neither software or books exploit the new features.

High Flyers does. There are special chapters on ADFS and graphics extensions to the operating system. The ADFS is looked at in great detail and there are examples of programming with the filing system in BASIC and machine code. Pretty high brow stuff too. This is not investigative but full scale surgery.

The treatment of graphics is not on the same scale. The graphics extensions to the operating system are nicely explained and the chapter goes on to "hi-res" graphics routines. There's quite a bit of maths to take in here but you can always type them in and see the results without having to understand it!

For serious High Flyers there are chapters on View and Viewsheet and a programming chapter on writing a database (the one 'big three' application missing from the Master). I was a bit disappointed with the View and Viewsheet chapters. The Welcome manual leaves so much unsaid about the packages that an alternative manual would be appreciated by new users. High Flyers doesn't really fill all the gaps but it does fill two very well, macros in View and data tables in Viewsheet. The Database software looks effective if you fancy a bit of typing. It's also a good way of learning the filing system ropes.

Back to the beginning and Chapter One is an introduction to the series of Master computers. If you want to be up to date then read A&B. Naturally a book prepared well in advance has only the details provided by the manufacturer at the launch of the series.

Chapter 2 is a pretty complete treatment of music. Nothing new for anyone upgrading of course but to the new Master 128 owner interested in the sound facilities, a big advance on the Welcome manual. There's music, sound effects and sound from machine code.

There's a fairly massive chapter on animation. This takes in character definitions, and moving single characters and larger sprites around the screen under keyboard control. Within a dozen pages of typing in examples, you have multicoloured bats, butterflies and flying saucers motoring around the screen!

The authors explain the VDU and then assembly language equivalents of the movement routines making this a painless introduction to how commands are channeled through the operating system. Direct poking to the screen follows and there's an example taken from another Prentice Hall book Applied Assembly Language. If assembly language is your interest then that book is a recommended follow-up. It's all machine code animation to the end of the chapter.

So High Flyers is an introduction to the Master as a computer but also an introduction to the nuts and bolts of proven interest on the BBC Microcomputer in the past. There's still much new ground to cover, not only with the 128 but also the 512.

There are lots of examples and lots of diagrams to accompany the excellently-written guide around the Master. For the experienced user it may appear to skim the surface a bit, diving deeper only with the ADFS chapters. However, as an introductory book with a bit of technical tinkering for the enthusiast, High Flyers seems ideal for the new owner of a Master 128.