Both of these programs have been devised to enable children (seven- to 12-year-olds, according to the instructions) to test their knowledge of simple arithmetic and spelling of English words. As such they fall firmly into the "Educational type" of program packages.

The packaging in this case is an ordinary cassette box with a typewritten instruction sheet. The instructions provided both on the sheet and on the program are clear and easy-to-use; however, if children are to use the programs an adult would probably have to read them first and then explain how to use them. I found, however, that my seven- to 12-year-olds were able to work out how to use the programs even without the instruction sheet. Now to the programs themselves.

Spell Box is the weaker of the two programs. The screen display appears to be designed to represent a television set production line with a supply of suitably animated working parts. To the accompaniment of suitable noises a placard is lowered on to the "line" on to which either a word or an arithmetic expression is written. The player has a limited length of time to express the view whether the said display is correct or not by depressing the "W" or "X" keys for an incorrect spelling or sum while the "R" or "C" key needs to be pressed if they are considered to be correct.

If a set of five questions are answered correctly then the game will proceed to the next level of difficulty. There are six levels in all and it is possible to start a game at any of the levels. This works quite well for the arithmetic problems but falls down on the spelling one in that I found that my children were finding difficulty in deciding what word they were attempting to spell in some cases, as they only had an incorrect rendering of the word as a guide to what it was. There were no pictures to help. However, if a word was incorrectly spelt and the player answered that it was correct, the correct spelling was given.

In the spelling test version of Maze Race, the player is given a simple picture together with a maze which contains a number of mobile letters which are "fetched" by a little man who is himself moved around the maze by means of the cursor keys. When he reaches the desired letter the player must press the spacebar and the letter is entered in the first blank available on the bottom line of the screen. The correct number of blanks are given to spell the required word. More letters are provided than are required to spell the word.

Similarly in the arithmetic version of the program, the player is given a specific task to perform given a number of digits and operators which are to be found in the maze. They are assembled to give the required expression in the same way as the spelling program. In both case the player is corrected upon giving the incorrect answer.

This is quite a good program in that the graphics and sound are attractive and my children enjoyed playing with it but it falls down in that it does not give the child any indication of how well, or how badly, he or she is doing. In other words it does not keep a score. This is a great pity as it spoils an otherwise good program.

Both of these programs have been written in Basic, and it is a tribute to Dragon Basic that such graphics can be written using this version on the language. Full use has been made of the colour in PMODE3 and sound facilities. There is little doubt that any child (or even a few adults) could benefit from these programs in order to improve their spelling in particular.

However, sooner or later the child is going to learn all the problems set in the program and there will be no more of a challenge. An educational program of this type these days does need the facility to be able to enter a new set of words to be used. These could either be entered by the teacher or parent, or as a separate data file.