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Whenever I feel an urge for some rather gristly meat shelled in stale pastry, complemented with some grease-soaked lumps of potato (commonly known as "pie 'n chips") I pop into my local chippy. Once I've gorged myself on this coronary-inducing fare, I tend to stick my loose tens in the resident fruit machine. Those 'loose' tens soon become loose fifties and then in turn become 'odd' pounds, until the point arrives when I am no longer in possession of my train fare home!

So it's no wonder I look upon this as a remedial and morally sound piece of software, as just what Gamblers' Anonymous ordered.

I assume that every reader's wordly knowledge extends to what a fruit machine is. You don't? Oh dear! Well, every time you insert 10p the three (or four) reels spin around, and if the symbols (usually fruits) on the reels, land in one of the winning combinations, a sum of money (between 10p and £150) will fall around your feet. You can also gamble what you have won in an attempt to enlarge the sum.

This program aims to be the most realistic fruit machine game ever written. Well, perhaps. Certainly on the C64 it doesn't have much competition.

This game is of the four reel fruit machine variety. Spin the reels and we shall begin... the primary way of winning on one of these contraptions is to simply hope for the reels to land in one of the many winning combinations (unfortunately I can't tell you any of these as the instructions neglect to tell you!). Once the reels have spun you may get offered a 'Hold' feature, which allows you to hold any of the reels and spin the rest (particularly useful after a win!).

In this fruit machine readies are substituted the pale imitation of a points system. Each win awards you with a particular number of points, ranging from about two to a hundred.

Another way of winning is by some ridiculous and totally incomprehensible way, even to the hardened fruity addict (such as I). Every now and again out of the blue you are awarded two points. After making a break to Monaco with your princely sum of two points you have the opportunity to gamble and hopefully increase your earnings (or compensate yourself for your losses). You may choose one of five fruits, each will give you the opportunity to multiply your money by amounts between 1.5 and 6. The bigger the multiplication factor on the symbol, the smaller the probability of you winning. The gamble wheel then spins round and if it lands on your chosen fruit... *You're a winner*!

This may be the most realistic fruit machine game on the C64 at present, but that's 'cause to my knowledge there are no others. And I must state that, although I am a hardened money-waster, I have yet to see a machine this tedious, confusing or lame in the highways and byways. But if such a fruit machine does exist I strongly suspect it can be found in a greasy, Chinese chip shop, on the Holloway Road. Oh, and whatever happened to nudges...?