This book provides an introduction to 6502 assembler programming on the BBC micro. Some knowledge and experience of programming in Basic is assumed but otherwise the book is clearly intended for the newcomer to this form of programming. The text is enlivened by many diagrams and cartoons in an obvious attempt to popularise what has often been considered a difficult subject. However, a lot of detailed information is presented very quickly, perhaps too quickly - the book quite rapidly introduces subroutines, use of the stack, parameter passing - and this before all but the simplest of addressing modes has been covered.

The presentation of information on the page is not as attractive as it might be. The book is printed on poor quality paper such that the printing on the reverse side of the page shows through and distracts from the current page. Some of the diagrams appear very black and heavy, and off-putting to the reader. There are many programs listed by way of example. Unfortunately, these are all reproduced from dot matrix printer originals and reproduction is sometimes less than clear.

The book is excellent in showing how assembler programs are integrated and used within the framework of BBC Basic and there is adequate coverage of operating system calls and other features of the BBC micro such as events and interrupts. Indeed the more advanced sections, shorn of the excesses of the early chapters, are very informative. There are various appendices including a systematic listing of all the assembler mnemonic codes.

This is basically a good book with much useful information, which is somewhat spoilt by poor quality presentation and printing. The attempt to produce a popular beginners book on machine code programming does not seem to have been wholly successful, but nevertheless this is a useful addition to the books on this subject.