Five IBM-compatible tomes are weighed up by Gill Esson in PCN's regular look at the new books

It can only be a matter of time before somebody realises the IBM-compatible bookcases are the commodity to be in. Here is another bunch of five books for PC users.

There's no beating about the bush from Mr. Schneider; you only have to turn the front cover to start getting value for your £17.95. The inside cover lists important numbers, useful ASCII values, a mode guide and a space to enter your favourite colour combinations.

Without further ado the book moves into a run-down on the nature of variables, file types and the like, and then gets stuck into Basic. Very much a reference book rather than a primer, it takes the expressions in alphabetical order 0 if you try to read it sequentially instead of by random access you'll find yourself tangling with arctangents, double precision constants and trapped communications events before such elementary features as the DATA statement.

Each expression is dealt with separately, but through sub-headings it is shown in context and related to other Basic keywords.

But different aspects of programming - editing and debugging, for example - only surface in piecemeal fashion and the index doesn't guide you to them.

The other side of the coin is that the book is very strong on illustrations, program examples and appendices. Overall it is brisk, businesslike and to the point. It assumes some preliminary knowledge of Basic but should be lucid enough for most users.

This book, by contrast, is for the beginner and the inside front cover is reassuringly blank. But the reason becomes quickly apparent. Messrs Payne and Beck have nothing new to say.

Worse still, what they do say approaches English only tentatively. "Doing Basic," we learn, "is a skill, not a recall task." And: "As you can consider learning Basic, you may be wondering what a computer language is like."

Banish your wonderings, the answer is at hand. "A computer language is similar to a natural language in many ways," they begin helpfully. But don't get overexcited - "On the other hand, computer languages are also very different from natural languages."

The book abruptly becomes appealing by introducing DRAW at an early stage, using playful example programs, graphics and colour. It deals with expressions according to the type of function they perform, and the standard chapter format - aims, means, problems and solutions - is unoriginal but useful. The authors eventually gain confidence; from being careful not to intimidate those with 'weak math skill' they gradually realise that their readership might not, after all, be stuck at the intellectual level of the slow loris.

But there are other weaknesses, particularly with appendices - there isn't even a presentation of the IBM character set.

Buy half a dozen Len Deightons instead.

There used to be a book for DIY motor mechanics, the superb Car Doctor A-Z. This PC manual might be as close an equivalent as you will find for IBM micro owners.

It is an aggressive introduction to running a micro. If at times it seems too uncompromising, this is because the authors apparently regard operating a micro as no less serious a business as keeping a car roadworthy. They are not the kind of people to use a pair of tights as a temporary replacement for a fan belt.

The only relaxation in this discipline comes when they speak in hushed tones of IBM itself. Their awe is understandable - IBM and its PC must be one of the world's most successful job creation schemes.

Other criticisms of the book are minor, and verge on carping. It can surely not be necessary to repeat at the foot of each page the information that underlined words are defined in the glossary. Nor does their assertion "This is a doing book" hold much water - it is a common feature of micro books that they are intended to be used in conjunction with the micro itself.

That apart, it is a well-written, well-constructed companion to the PC and XT documentation.

With a sinking feeling you find from Mr. Norton the same reverential attitude towards IBM that draws some of the sting of the previous book. However, knowing your subject is more important than loving it, as long as you can separate the two, and Mr. Norton can. He writes about the PC with enthusiasm, confidence and verve.

It is primarily a volume for programmers, and fairly ambitious programmers at that. The two disks that add almost £50 to the price hold more than 120 programming tools, and they come with their own documentation. As with the body of the book, they claim to be pitched at users of intermediate prowess but look a rung or two higher on the sophistication ladder.

Inside The IBM PC warms up over the first five chapters - introduction, hardware, memory, DOS and diskettes - and steps up the pace from chapter 6, 'Access To ROM'.

The book generally looks dull and authoritative but it is in fact lively and authoritative. The index is more than adequate and the appendices are the best of those to be found in this crop.

Another book for programmers, this might almost have been entitled 'What do you say after you've said Hello to the IBM PC'.

Mr. Goldstein gets a disingenuous reference to one of his earlier books out of the way in the opening chapter and sets off in pursuit of that elusive quarry, sound programming practice.

His approach is to take a leisurely stroll through various aspects of programming with the order determined largely by the type of input/output devices you might be using. This is novel, but sensible, as long as the application being developed demands a particular type of peripheral. At any rate is is an improvement on the alphabetical-order approach.

It covers a lot of ground rarely noticed by many general books; there are sections that relate the IBM PC to specific peripherals, frequent little wrinkles to take some of the donkey work out of programming, and a variety of sample programs with different styles to make different points.

Some of the illustrations seem to be included to break the text up rather than to enhance it, and the drawing of two light pens is particularly fatuous. Interruptions to test your understanding are frequent but you can always ignore them. All in all, this is a doing book or a not doing book, as you see fit.