These books are exactly as their titles suggest, a very simple introduction to the art of programming in BASIC. They make no assumptions about you having read the computer manual or how to get into the extended mode. Being specifically designed for the Spectrum + they even show you the position of the relevant key on the keyboard using a diagram. This is a consistent feature of both books.

After each instruction, a diagram shows you what you should see on the screen, down to the error messages and the appropriate cursor. Handy hints are given in each section, questions are asked and a space provided for the answer to be written in, there are exercises to do, and in the best school-book tradition, the answers are given at the back!

The first volume covers PRINT, SHIFT, DELETE, ENTER, CLS, BORDER, PAPER, INK, strings, sums, editing, simple programming using GOTO, NEW, RUN, BEEP, PRINT AT, LIST, on board graphics symbols, error messages, and important punctuation.

Volume 2 carries on with looping, assigning values to variables, FOR-NEXT, STEP, CHR$, BREAK, using a series of graphic displays on the screen coordinates.

The best thing about these books is their simplicity and clarity. There really is no point in a teach yourself book which needs a reading age of 96 to comprehend it. With these, you don't get very far in each volume, but you do stand a chance of understanding, even if you can't program your video recorder.

D.M.