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The Electron Graphics System from Salamander Software is a flexible and powerful piece of software that allows you to create our own screen images in any of the 20K modes (i.e. modes 0, 1 and 2), and to store and later recall them from tape. The cassette is attractively packaged, complete with a well-printed manual. A similar package launched some time ago for the BBC Micro, has already proved very popular, and this Electron program is based on that version.

Loading the system is very easy; being accomplished by the almost mandatory CHAIN"" (RETURN) and the two parts of the program load fairly quickly. Also provided on the tape are some example screens, which show 'mountain drawing', apparent motion by means of colour redefinition, and 'tree drawing'. These are produced in Modes 2, 1 and 0 respectively (Personally, I found the tree a little strange).

When the program is running, the screen is split into two parts. The top, and larger part, contains the drawing which is being produced, with the lower section displaying various prompts and other information. The sequence of commands used to generate any picture is remembered by the program as the picture is built up, and there are facilities to erase the effects of the last command, and to redisplay the picture in the state that it was in before the last command was executed. This allows for any mistakes to be corrected.

The commands available are both powerful and comprehensive. The cursor keys are used to position the cursor (a flashing set of cross-hairs), and the Space Bar is used to 'fix' a point. For example, the command for a line is 'L', and the system then prompts for the 'start' of the line. The user moves the cursor to the desired start point, and then presses the Space Bar. The system then prompts for the 'next' point, and this is indicated in the same manner. As the cursor is moved to the next point, a flashing line is displayed to indicate where the final line would be if drawn in the current position. This 'elastic banding' facility is a very useful feature, allowing you to see the result of drawing a line before it is finally fixed.

Other facilities available include parallelogram drawing from any three points, circle and arc drawing, physical and logical colour changes, text displays from any position on the screen, filling of any shape, and pattern repetition.

The shape filling is achieved by using the built-in PLOT extension, and so does not cope completely with complex shapes, small areas often being left unfilled. A more flexible routine could have been written to do this, but this would have used more memory, and hence reduced the complexity of picture that can be produced. Indeed, apart from the slightly 'sluggish' handling that results from a Basic program running in the high resolution modes, this is probably my only other criticism of the package. Whilst reading the manual, I spotted a number of errors, but a conversation with Salamander Software revealed that a new manual will be produced to correct these.

The package is well produced and allows for some quite effective pictures to be created and saved to tape. I would recommend this package to any Electron owner interested in experimenting with graphics.