A committed user with a journalist's training should be an ideal choice to write something that is intended to go with an official User Guide. With this book you might find it replacing the User Guide rather than sitting alongside it on your shelf.

Rightly deciding that there is no point covering BBC Basic with the thoroughness of Acorn's publication, Mr. Williamson concentrates on the subjects that the BBC User Guide leaves alone.

The book makes a stuttering start; there is some lip service to The People's Friend, Sir Clive, and a series of drawings to show you what you've bought and how it fits together. The first notes on programming aren't encouraging either - if anybody ever patented the flowcharts for making a cup of tea of starting a car they'd have made a fortune by now.

But at least it offers more on programming than merely listing and explaining the commands. The book also delves inside the machine to explain exactly what it is doing, laying the groundwork for later chapters on advanced techniques.

From this point, Mr. Williamson assumes more computer expertise than you'll have picked up from the opening chapters - not that his writing is jargon-ridden or obscure, but the concepts introduced could easily deter anyone not fully committed to making the most of their BBC Micro.

David Guest