Q. Fine Art for the Spectrum, in PCN issue 97, was a very promising program, but after going through the listing for the umpteenth time and running the program all I get is:

2, Variable not found:9520:2

The program will only run if I delete line 9520.

The other problem I encountered was not being able to enter some of the program lines, i.e. PRINT £0;AT 0,0: statement on lines 550, 710, 810, 860, etc. These wouldn't enter without enclosing the £0 in colons, resulting in these objects appearing on screen in the program. Are they superfluous? The other puzzle is why I cannot enter into the listing lines 4090 and 4220 without omitting the vertical symbol just before POINT.

N. D. Reid
London E10

A. 'Variable not found' means exactly what it says. You've got a variable in line 9520 that you haven't defeined. As the error is in the second statement of the line it's READ j that's at fault, and the only way you can have a variable not found in this one is if you have a letter rather than a number in a DATA statement. Check through lines 9530 and 9540 and make sure they're all numbers.

Next problem. As far as most computers are concerned, pound signs and hash signs are interchangeable. The Spectrum is an exception, and unfortunately our printer was set to produce pound signs from hashes. Swap them round and you should have no problem.

Finally, the vertical bar - this was a consequence of a glitch in our printer interface, which gets glitchier as time goes by. Just miss them out.