Sherlock is not, as the name might suggest, an adventure game by the redoubtable occupant of 221B Baker Street, but a complete disc 'detective' written by K. Hunter which operates under FLEX. It operates by using its own sector buffer which is read from the FLEX sector buffer, and if required written back to disc after editing. Changes to the shown buffer will not affect the disc unless the Write command isused. This buffer is read from disc by the displayed track and sector. All other programs use track and sector but not all of them update the Sften to crfr buffer so certain of the Sherlock programs and recovery from disc errors may leave information in the displayed buffer that does not match the shown track and sector.

This sounds very confusing on paper (You don't say!) but isn't when actually in use. If however there is any doubt, use the Read command to update the buffer shown on the screen. There are five main functions.

Sherlock will allow you to permanently customise it to your printer, although by use of the LC7 command, it will allow you to change formatting to enlarged print or to condensed print.

Overall this disc investigation system compares with such programs as Disk Doctor, and can be used to rebuild directories, to recover files and discs, to edit programs still on disc, to change text within machine code programs, to bypass bad sectors to recover text files, and verify sectors on disc or even to undelete files. Altogether, the package is very well put together, the instructions are clear, comprehensible and comprehensive, and I feel sure that it will save many hours of work for those that use it, and once again compared with prices of almost £20 for similar programs under DragonDOS, this program offers real value at £5.99 (plus 50p postage and packing).