It really gets up my nose when people talk about Micronet when they mean Prestel. This book compounds the error by lumping in teletext (Ceefax, Oracle, etc) under the Micronet name as though everything else involved with videotex was merely peripheral to it.

Micronet is only a small part of the wide and wonderful world of Prestel and it is not the only information service on Prestel that caters for micro users.

Indeed, one of the deficiencies of this book is the omission of any reference whatsoever to Viewfax, another database on Prestel Microcomputing that in some respects is considered as good as or better than Micronet.

The author does offer a quick overview of the rest of Prestel but it is a cursory examination that does not do justice to the variety of services that are available and may not be of interest to someone with a micro and appropriate modem.

Perhaps one should not complain too much of the bias in the book as the author wrote it with the cooperation of the Micronet staff who have an obvious axe to grind.

David Babsky, Micronet's Editor, warns in a foreword to the book that some of the information on Prestel page numbers and services offered may be out of date. Unfortunately, he is right. Information is out of date and hopelessly so in some cases.

At £6.95 for 105 pages this book is grossly overpriced for what is little more than a publicity bookley for Micronet.

It is difficult to see who the book is aimed at unless, of course, the book will be given away free to everyone who parts with good money to become a subscriber to Micronet.

Ralph Bancroft