Although MSDOS and CP/M are still favourites other operating systems are making their mark, notably Unix and the UCSD p-system.

The latter was developed in the past decade at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), for use as a friendly computer environment within the university. However, word spread and the system is now available for more 16-bit computers.

Which is where this book comes in. It's an excellent guide to the Operating System, explaining in detail how to use it. Fully illustrated tutorials include how to use the text editor, the file handling and how to cope with Fortran or Pascal. But for the languages alone you'd be better with a book dedicated to it. The UCSD p-system was designed around Pascal - still its primary language.

Little experience is assumed, and because of the fluid writing style, most features of the p-system are well explained.

This is a thorough and well-produced reference guide, though quite expensive. If you want to find out more about the p-system this is a good place to start.

Piers Letcher