I have recently purchased a copy of Hi-text from Microvision. I was amazed by the speed at which this program prints characters on a TV screen.

Hi-text offers a 64 x 21 display. Unlike many other hi-text displays which define characters on a 4 x 6 matrix (giving illegible 64 column text), Hi-text defines characters on a 3 x 8 matrix (with the last row of the matrix left for decenders), giving crystal clear display even on an ordinary black and white TV with contrast and brightness properly tuned up. In fact, a 1mm gap is measurable between two 'H's on a 14" TV.

Hi-text offers a screen printing speed matchable to that of the Amstrad CPC Masterfile when used from within Dragon Basic.

Other features of Hi-text include user-definable character facilities, A formula has been included for this purpose. There are four control codes which may be sent to the driver using the PRINT CHR$(Z) command. The effects generated are as follows:

Being in 64 columns, the PRINT@ command has to be replaced by PRINT X,Y, where X has a value ranging from 0-63 and Y, 0-191. The CLS command when used with any number will clear the screen (except with values greater than 8 which produce the normal copyright message). Full Autorepeat of keys has been implemented. You may have black text against white or green background. Machine code users may use any of the Basic ROM routines to output text such as $B54A or $90E5. The program takes up only about 2.5K when installed, which is a relatively low figure.

The only drawback of Hi-text is that you cannot use it in the 64K mode if you have a Dragon 64.

Many serious business software packages such as wordprocessors, report generators and bank accounts can be written with the aid of this program. The first advantage is that you now have a screen which displays information two and a half times more than before. Secondly, 64 characters per line of text comfortably matches the width of an A4 size paper. This means that many programs can now be designed on a What You See Is What You Get basis. In fact, the popular Tasword and The Writer for the Spectrum are two such programs which take advantage of 64 characters.

Those of you have a Dragon 64 may in corporate those Auto-repeat POKE statements (given in Dragon's Supplementary Manual) into Hi-text (to do this you must first install Hi-text). The result is that you have a fast response keyboard in addition to a fast screen. Words will not be left out when you type fast, the 'smoothness' of the Auto-repeat action is however affected, because of the already built in Auto-repeat routine in Hi-text. Microvision should consider adding a fast keyboard routine to Hi-text, such as those found in Microdeals Telemod.

At a cost of £5.00, Hi-text gives your Dragon a fast, business-usable kind of screen; this represents good value for money.

Finally. I would appreciate if Microvision would consider producing a 64 characters display wordprocessor which offers facilities and standards similar to those found in Tasword or The Writer, such as complete on-screen formatting (this includes justification of text, word wrapping, automatic page breaks, centring line and sideways scrolling 128 column text) and others like header, footer and a second character set for the printer.