This is a utility program which has been written to enable the Dragon user to obtain more information about what has been recorded on tape by the Dragon and also to be able to salvage programs off tapes that have been damaged in some way.

How many times have you tried to load a program only to find that the header block has been corrupted in some way? Well this cassette contains the answer to your problems. It also enables the merging of different Basic programs, a facility which is sadly missing on the basic Dragon.

The copy which I received gave quite a few problems with loading. This is very unusual with the recorder I have and therefore I feel inclined to believe that the quality of the recording leaves something to be desired. However, by using the "Doctor" program I was able to find out where the program was stored in memory and was then able to CSAVEM a copy of it on to another cassette. Ever since I have done this I have had no trouble at all with the program.

The cassette, packed in an ordinary cassette box, comes with an 18-page manual on how-to-use the program. This is well written and if followed no difficulty should be experienced in learning how to use this facility. Some useful information is given on how the Dragon stores files on tape. Also on the tape is a Basic program which prepares shopping lists, supplied in ordinary form, ASCII form and in a couple of damaged versions so that program repair can be practised. Following these there are three short Basic programs for learning how to merge or append programs.

If you have a printer The Tape Doctor also enables you to dump the contents of files (in blocks of hexadecimal numbers) on to paper as well as printing out catalogues of cassette contents, with useful details such as the length of a file and memory locations associated with Machine Code files. It also identifies whether files are Basic, ASCII, machine code or DATA types. This is formatted to tit on 89mm wide self-adhesive labels; just the job for sticking on to cassette boxes. This information can also be obtained without a printer of course.

Once loaded normal Basic programs can be loaded into the computer and The Tape Doctor called upon at any time simply by entering EXEC.

All in all, this is a very good package and I give it a top rating for anyone who does a lot of programming, and could well need all its facilities. My only moan is that the manual is written in American and not in English.