It isn't often these days that a book on computers - especially one on their insides - can rekindle the joy the earliest hackers found in machines.

Don Lancaster has made a career out of doing impossible things with next-to-nothing and an old TV, then writing books about it. But with Enhancing Your Apple, he has excelled himself.

The lucid way he described the method for completely dismantling any piece of machine code is worth the price of the book alone, but on top of this there are some very special special effects.

He gives the humble, elderly, prosaic Apple 121 low-resolution colours plus the ability to mix text and graphics *anywhere*, at minimal cost. The only possible reaction is glee.

When so many authors seem afraid to trumpet the virtues of a machine, it is refreshing to find that Mr. Lancaster makes no secret of his admiration for the Apple.

But he sensibly qualifies that by stating that you can control a machine as complex as a computer only by understanding its innermost workings properly, and that means machine code.

The book puts its case forcefully, but in a readable way. Mr. Lancaster suggests several improvements which will make using the machine fun once more.

But it's only when you've finished these that you realise you've learned plenty too.

Enhancing Your Apple II is an essential addition to the library of any Apple-owner who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. It is also worthwhile reading to learn about some of the things that computers can do, but usually don't, or about the way that creative engineering can be applied to a real machine.