Commodore is set to aim its Plus/4 at first-time buyers for serious home and introductory business use. Barry Miles reports on the moves behind this release.

Offering fundamentally the same operating system as the Commodore 16 (recently reviewed in PCN), the Plus/4 is aimed at the first-time buyer, for serious home use and introductory business use. Priced at £299.95, it competes on price with the Commodore 64 (£199 in most places), MSX machines at around £200 and the Sinclair QL at £400.

The Commodore 16, which has the same operating system, but one quarter of the memory, is bundled with a cassette unit (retail £44), Introduction To Basic Part 1 (£13.95) and four games.

For serious use, you need at least the cassette unit, making the Plus/4 look rather expensive at £350. Clearly Commodore is following its usual pattern of high prices to begin with, and progressive reductions over time.

This is a marketing method proven by its profits and the worldwide sales, currently said to be two million Vics, already; a similar number of C64s is expected to be sold by the end of 1984.

A design approach, similarly tried and tested by Commodore, is to say in effect: "We are the volumne producers, so our design is the standard." Accordingly we have non-standard joystick connections, and serial disk connection.

A whole range of peripherals, including a fast disk drive and a new monitor is planned for the machine, all in the same tasteful shade of charcoal grey, and rather attractive too, according to the photographs.

So will it sell, at the price quoted? I think so. The sales of the Vic are against the natural law of the market. It is astounding that a machine with under 4K of memory has continued to sell, against a market background of 16-bit, and perhaps 32-bit machines, with memories of 128K and 256K becoming commonplace. But is it so strange really? Now salesmen are told, 'sell benefits, not features'.

Persistent but unconfirmed rumours allege that a 128K version of the C64, capable of full C64 emulation, and with 128K addressable from Basic, with switching between 40 and 80 columns is on the way but the Commodore maintains a dignified silence. If this machine really is planned then it will hit the Plus/4 market hard.

So what is the 'unique selling point' of the Plus/4? Is it the integral software which gives the machine its character. A word processor, spreadsheet, filing system, and graphics package are available on power-up. Known as 3 Plus 1 (four packages), this selection offers windows, and genuine integration and a form of multi-tasking.

You can transfer figures from your spreadsheet directly to your word processor, in RAM, immediately, with the window (split screen) showing both documents at once!

The Plus/4's appearance is definitely in its favour. It resembles the lap portables in size and shape, and the keyboard slopes pleasantly down to a low profile nose. The function keys have a positive 'click-feel', which tells you very effectively when the keys have registered. The Help key, which takes the place of F8, is a great added convenience.

The keyboard is noisier than on the 64, but more gently sprung. It is very pleasant to use, and lacks only the shift-lock warning light to be as attractive as the portable C64's. The cursor control keys, four of them, are attractive and large. It is a little frustrating to have no numeric keypad, especially since the 364 alternative model, with such a pad, is to be marketed elsewhere.

The power connection has at last been removed to the back out of the machine out of harm's way. Typically with Commodore, the plug is of a new design. Also the cartridge or memory expansion slot is just slightly narrower.

The joystick ports are different again. The Atari-type D-connector has given way to a new Commodore design. However, Commodore's own joystick will be analog.

The connection of disk drive to the computer is through the hated slow serial port. The effect is as before - user frustration. We can only hope that the 'fast-drive drive' turns out to be really fast. Connection to a television or monitor is provided for.

The new reset button is on the side of the machine and reasonably out of the way of accidental resetting.

Commodore's new Basic 3.5 has taken account of all the criticisms previously aimed at Commodore machines.

Structured programming is available and proper control of sound and graphics is provided by now, and self-expanatory keywords. A good machine code monitor is provided, including the display of the ASCII equivalents.

The trade-off for all these extras is that sound has been cut to two voices compared with three on the C64, while the main reason for the 'serious home user' tag would appear to be the absence of sprites. Presumably writing games is not 'serious'.

On the Plus/4, hitting F1 followed by the return key gets you immediately operational in the word processor.

Commodore has paid attention to the statistical law about 80 per cent of the value being in 20 per cent of the items. This implies that most people use only a fraction of the facilities to be found in these common packages.

Thus the field was wide open for packages which, while not providing all the bells and whistles of the fully-fledged software, would nevertheless offer mots of what most people needed. Approaching all four packages in this way enabled them to fit into the 32K ROM.

The word processor has a good range of commands. It works with the 40-column screen acting as a window onto a document which is a maximum of 77 characters wide. The major limitation is that the maximum length of a document is 99 lines - 22 lines appear on the screen at any one time. Unfortunately, you cannot quickly change to 40 characters width for rapid editing of the document, as you can in Vizawrite on the Commodore 64 for example. You can of course change the document width to suit you, and reset it for printing.

Word wrapping does not take place on the screen, although it does when you print the document.

For the first time, Commodore has recognised that people may use non-Commodore printers with a Commodore computer. Accordingly you can send reverse field control codes from within your text, so as to take advantage of your printers' most esoteric capabilities, like elite, or italic compressed or double-width characters.

Also a special command, 'other', reverses the character set to standard ASCII, which should solve many interfacing problems. Some of the facilities in the word processor are very impressive.

Mail-merge can take place, and there's text movement and copying. Most of the instructions will be pretty easy to remember. All of these instructions are inserted into text in reverse video (obtained by hitting Control-9), following by the appropriate mnemonic code and Control-0.

Pressing Return takes you to a new paragraph. It also deletes the remainder of the line beyond the cursor. This is bad news for experienced users of Commodore's screen-editor in Basic, who are accustomed to using Return anywhere in a line, to enter it as a Basic line. They will, on occasion accidentally delete lines which they wish to retain. However, help is at hand! There is what in trans-Atlantic parlance would no doubt be called an 'Oops' buffer.

Putting the cursor at the point where the accidental deletion occurred, and hitting the Commodore logo key followed by @, will restore the missing line!

Block insertion, deletion and movement are available. Blocks of text can be up to 16 lines long. This is not a major constraint, bearing in mind that the maximum document length is 99 lines. For insertion, you set a pointer at the end of the text already typed in, using the SP (Set Pointers) command. Then you move the cursor above this point and type in your block of text for insertion. You now have the end of the block indicated, but not the beginning.

To define this, you position the cursor at the start of the block and use the Create Block command. You then move the cursor to the place where the block is to be inserted, and use the Insert Block command followed by Return. The insertion occurs above the current cursor line, but not at the current cursor position in the line.

Although easier to do than to describe, this is pretty clumsy compared with the Insert mode of operation common to other word processors, which open-up the text, and creates space bar for inserted text automatically and apparently effortlessly! Deleting the block which has been identified is accomplished by the DB command.

For moving a block, having identified - by Setting a Pointer, and Creating a Block, you use Insert Block (IB) to make your move.

The small maximum document length - 99 lines - means that linking files will be essential for work of any magnitude. The Linkfile command is put at the end of any document, to enable the next part to be loaded in, and so on.

The Merge command is a disappointment. Simple enough to use, it appends the incoming text at the foot of the document. Of course you can then move it about, but that is a rather clumsy way of doing things. If you give the command PR, your document will be saved to disk automatically, before printing takes place, using a special file, 'tw' - temporary workspace.

As soon as this has been done you can load any file you wish, and start work on it. You can set up a continuous printing operation, using a whole disk-full of linked files. A pause instruction at the end of the last file enables you to switch disks and carry on!

You may also be given an instructrion that the printing should pause after printing of each page.

Free Cursor movement is a feature of this package. F1 Function Key takes you to the left margin, F2 to column 41, Home to the top line of text, and Shifted "=" acts as a TAB key. There are no commands for emboldening, double strike, underline, or similar special printer activities. For these you will have to use the ASCII function, which will send out the appropriate control codes to your particular printer.

On the spreadsheet, the cell locations are described by two numbers rather than by the almost universal combination of letters and numbers for rows and columns. This is a pity, because it leaves the way open for you to forget which comes first - row or column - when you are giving cell references. When you are copying formulae into cells, this is particularly dangerous. You cannot point to cells by means of cursor movements, when making up formulae, but on the other hand, you can use labels for data instead of cell-references, which is a very good feature.

Function keys F1 and F2 are used to move from cell to cell, leftwards, and rightwards and you can edit any cell-contents, using the left and right arrow keys.

The command to get to the top lefthand corner of your sheet is achieved in a roundabout way. You hold down the CBM logo key, and press 'C' followed by typing 'home'. I would have been much happier with the user of a Function key for this very frequent activity. Similarly the GOTO command must be typed out in full too.

The spreadsheet is comparatively small - 50 rows by 17 columns. You can move about the sheet by using the cursor up and down keys. The spreadsheet is not intelligent in deciding whether you are typing in numbers, text or formulae; you must tell it.

For copying the contents of a cell, hold down the CBM key, hit c, then type 'copy', followed by the cell whose contents you want to copy, into the cell where the cursor is. The repeat command, done by holding down the CBM/ key and hitting Q, will enable you to copy the same data into a number of cells, such as with underlines.

Replicating formulae relatively is given the unusual name "fit". To copy a formula into a number of cells, you must use the repeat command, CBM Q).

Commodore offers windowing for the various elements in this set of packages. However, the window turns out to be a horizontally-split screen, with the ability to pass data from the spreadsheet or graphics package to the wordprocessor. You use the block map command to pass data from spreadsheet to word processor, setting a rectangle to be transferred. The amount transferred is 11 characters per cell. Up to 36 characters per cell can be transferred by using the Map command. This will also enable you to transfer the formulae themselves into the word processor, so that they can be printed out. This latter is a slower process, because you must proceed row by row.

The usual variety of formats is available for your number cell by cell. You cannot give a command to format globally throughout the sheet in integers for example.

The sum command works on rows and columns of data. Formulae are evaluated from left to right. This is common on spreadsheets, but some prefer the correct use of the hierarchy, as in Basic. But if you inset columns or rows, the formulae require adjustments.

It is possible to copy rows or columns. This is not as helpful as we might hope: data only is copied, not formulae.

You can label a cell, and refer to it by label. This is a big advantage since the numeric system is capable of causing confusion. The use of IF True, with a number of operators, enables you to proceed conditionally. This feature will permit you to modify the order of calculation.

You can freeze and unfreeze values in cells, which is all to the good. You can also left-justify numbers in a cell.

Numeric constants must be preceded by a hash sign. This comes more naturally to Americans than to us.

The spreadsheet requires rather more work, and alertness to use than more sophisticated ones. However, it has many useful features. The graphics are merely low resolution bar graphs and point graphs of any row of data on your spreadsheet. However, the graphs will print on any Commodore printer.

Graphs can be transferred into the word processor for labelling and printing. The graphs are scaled automatically, which avoids the most tedious aspect of graphing. But the point graphs are created by eliminating all but the highest point in each bar of the bar graph.

Although the graphics are primitive, they serve a useful purpose. The whole package, word processor, spreadsheet, graphics and file manager are in a single 32K block of memory! So it is absurd to expect too much in the way of facilities.

The File Manager is also the sort of cut-down version which you would reasonably expect. Nonetheless, you can have records containing up to 17 fields, with up to 38 characters in each field. A separate disk must be maintained for your data, because the Filer does not use the Commodore relative file system.

Random access to a record is not by key. You must either know the record number of the record (bad news!) or use a searching process, whereby your string of characters is looked for in any field of any record. This is not the fastest of processes. The maximum number of records on a disk is 999.

A faster Review command enables you to scan through the records more quickly, starting with any record you choose (by number). Reporting is done from within the word processor, using special commands. An EOF command enables you to continue the report through the file, or the selected section of it which you have selected by your own criteria.

The Pick command carries out your selection of records, matching up to 38 characters. The Picked file can then be used for sorts or reports. You can use a delimiter of the Highrc Highrecord command. This enables you to specify the record at which the Sort, Pick, Search, Review or Reporting function is to stop.

The file manager will serve as a useful introduction to this type of operation.

The Plus/4 is an interesting machine with a lot of good features. As with all designs, there are compromises. However, there are compromises. However, there is enough of everything to keep most purchasers very happy. Perhaps it is a little pricey. Time will tell.