From an external point of view the computer appears square-ish, a far cry from the skinny QL and Amstrad, with the keyboard taking up most of the room on the front of the case. To the right is the built in joystick that gives the case its 'melted' look, this feature is one that will interest the games player most as it obviates the need for a costly add on extra. The feel of this joystick is very good, considering its use, and the construction is adequate to last a while, although I don't think that I would use it on a long term basis and I don't know what you would do if you wanted to replace it.

On either side of the rear section of the computer is the expansion slot (sensibly covered with a slide off plastic cover), and the cartridge port. The cartridge slot is quite good quality, as well it must be able to stand up to all the use it will be getting as the Basic is supplied on cartridge. Nowadays no computer can afford to be released without a cartridge port.

The rear of the machine is covered with copious interfaces, most of them with non-standard connections. From right to left there is the power input, similar to a Spectrum's, the RF output, the monitor connection, a non-standard edge connector, the tape I/O system, one out, one in, and two remote controllers. The LAN/serial connector. Centronics printer port, and both joystick ports are also edge connectors and require special connections and leads. This is not very good. There is an industry standard for joysticks, the nine pin 'D' type, hundreds of sticks are now closed to the Enterprise owner. The best thing about the BBC is that all its interfaces are standard - likewise the connectors. This typifies the impression that the Enterprise gave me - but more of that later.

The keyboard is multi-coloured, with white on dark grey alpha-numeric keys, eight blue function keys, 12 green control keys, and a large red 'stop' button. There is also a red reset button at the rear that will reset the machine back to Basic or the built in word processor or, with two presses into the self test mode of the operating system.

The feel of the keyboard is atrocious - truly bad. It is a long way above the Spectrum, but surprisingly similar to the dreadfulness of the Speccy+ or the Quantum Lurch. It's not too bad for programming but writing this review on the built in word processor was a bit difficult.

Now onto the inbuilt hardware. Much has been made of the custom graphics and sound chips 'Nick' and 'Dave'. Both of these chips were meant to make everything else look like ancient relics. I shall start with the sound chip as this represents a bit disappointment but some surprises.

'Dave' is housed in a flat pack, a particularly efficient method of housing a chip. This type of chip was first developed by the military forces, as it is you could probably drive a tank across it. The sound generator has 22 registers, however only 16 of these registers are to do with sound generation. The rest are to control the main function of the chip - memory management and processor management. This single chip handles a lot of the Z80's upkeep functions such as memory decoding, interrupt handling, and I/O functions. This is very efficient use of hardware and enables the Enterprise to use access the huge amounts of memory that it can.

This means that the 64K of RAM advertised is a true amount, minus memory for the screen and system you get around 50K left - about the same as the Commodore Plus/4 that has a similar memory management system, but unlike the MSX computer which has only 28K left for use after starting off with the same or greater initial RAM size. This allows EXOS, the operating system, Basic, and the text editor/word processor all to reside on the address bus at the same time - yet take up no valuable memory space at all! It also allows you to access up to 4M RAM (apparently) as straight forwardly accessible memory.

However impressive the memory management system of the computer is, this is not reflected in the sound output functions of the chip. The sound output is four channels of sound. Sound output is limited to a square wave, with programmable distortion with a simple filter and a certain amount of ring modulation. This is quite crude but the system comes into its own when you realise that there is true stereo sound output through the (non-standard again) video output connector.

Ignoring the poor potential of the sound hardware for a minute, the software to drive it is excellent. Independent envelopes for left and right channels with differing styles (distortion) and the sound queueing is wonderful. I must make a point here that the sound is true stereo. The Amstrad has three sound channels. One can be the left channel, one the right, and the remaining one is fed to both. On the Enterprise all four channels go to each side with amplitude and envelope control independent, only pitch filtering, and modulation is global.

It is a pity that no synthesis is possible, as on the Commodore 64. The music demo is quite impressive, but the sound produced is very 'computery'. Another point to mention is the inbuilt sound output. It comes through a single Spectrum-like speaker mounted under the keyboard. This gives a very 'tinny' sound to the music, although, unlike the Spectrum, it can be very, very, loud. This is yet another example of the "spoiled for hap'ath of tar" impression that the computer gives me.

'Nick', the graphics chip lives up to all my expectations. Disregarding sprites, it can do anything that any other computer on the market can do - and a whole lot more. Programmers are goings to have a lot of fun programming this beast here is a list of some of the functions:

The whole graphics screen is reprogrammable in any way, so that each different scan line can be a different mode if need be. There is 256 scan lines on the screen with interlace separately controlled for another 256.

With careful programming it is possible to get a 672 horizontal graphics resolution with 512 vertical lines. There is a software driver on the demo tape to give 640 by 360 graphics 80 x 50 text and a number of text lines on the bottom of the screen and the status line at the top. The screen flickers a lot, and you need a very good monitor to see the characters (a TV set will just display a series of blobs), but it is possible. The catch comes when you type INFO to see how much memory is left. The answer - 6990 out of around 50000 to start with - such is the penalty of hi-res, as BBC users will testify.

Text can be displayed at up to 80 characters per line and 256 colours, each character may be user definable and be composed of 1 to 256 scan lines each.

Attribute mode gives a programmable resolution with two colours selected for each square - like a Spectrum - out of the 256 available.

The hi-res and lo-res graphic screens give a very BBC like 2, 4, or 16 colour palette selected from the 256 available, also if you are willing to accept a dreadful resolution, you can have the full 256 on the screen at the one time.

Sprites are not supported. This is more of a damnation of the video system than may at first be realised. For the game player and the game writer the absence of an ability to manipulate hi-res objects on the screen with very high speed. Very high resolution is all quite nice, but one of the main reasons why the Commodore 64 has knocked the Spectrum off the number one spot as the most popular machine. Also the Atari 800XL, the original design was finalised in 1979 - six years ago, has remained on the top partly due to its sprite graphics. The other reason that the screens look so good on the Atari is that each raster line is programmable - this gives infinite flexibility to the graphics displays - up until now only the C64 and Atari have this horizontally reprogrammable display - now the Enterprise has the most impressive of them all - a pity about the sprites though.

The inbuilt software is EXOS, an excellent operating system that can handle almost anything, and a word processor. The word processor isn't up to the standard of most WP programs but what can you expect for a freebee?

It is more of a text editor than a true word processor. Entry to the processor is direct without Basic plugged in and by inputting 'TYPE' or function 8 from Basic. All of the functions are WYSIWYG with 80 or 40 columns selectable. Swopping from Basic to the WP destroys memory contents, as does switching display modes in the WP - which is a real shame. A very thoughtful feature is the label that goes over the function keys. Normally, it displays what the keys do from Basic. But once in the word processor you can turn it over and it gives you the WP functions.

The Basic is quite comprehensive. Full graphics handling is supported - except really advanced object handling or shape manipulation - such as software sprites or shape tables. There is an animation demo on the introductory tape, but animation on a large scale using their method may be impractical.

A unique function of this Basic is the ability to have more than one program in memory at any one time. Each program can have a name and control can be passed between them.

I have few complaints about the Basic; it performs its task admirably - though it seems to be going out of fashion to give the games programmer any special facilities.

To conclude. This is quite an excellent machine. I would, however, re-evaluate my opinions about the machine after a long enough period of use.