Using The 64 was written by Pete Gerrard, former editor of a rival magazine (But I'll not hold that against him). And it is a very readable book, which starts off for complete beginners and finishes at quite an advanced level. He writes in a friendly manner, though this style means he sometimes glosses over topics with a touch less detail than is really required.

A very good feature of the book is the use of substitute codes in all of the Basic programs: [REV OFF] is much easier to pick up than the usual reverse bar. I only wish all magazines and books would standardise on substitute codes.

This is a book which moves into machine code at an early level (Chapter three), and includes a listing of EXTRAMON in one of the appendices so that the diligent reader can try out all of the examples. There are many people I know who have mastered Basic to a competent level and would like to learn machine code. Using The 64 is a good book for that, but I would like to see some of the sections expanded upon with more explanations. It's not cheap and it's not the only book covering this area; but if you like a great deal of useful information in a large volume then save up and buy it. There is a lot that I have not seen printed anywhere else, for instance timings of Basic statements and a full list of Basic and Kernal ROM addresses (three pages).

I would have no hesitation in claiming that this is one of the better C64 books around... were it not for the silly mistakes which pop up now and then. Too much haste in bringing out this book has led to too many mistakes slipping past the proof reader.

Most of the mistakes are a bit silly, like a utility program which lets you examine the status of both the IEEE and the disk processor in a 1541 disk unit - Commodore would be very interested to know this as they only build one processor into 1541s! I trust that the second edition will have all the mistakes corrected. Nevertheless, all in all it's a very good book marred by small mistakes.