Using Your Home Computer

ZX Computing

Patrick Cain

PATRICK CAIN GIVES US HIS THOUGHTS ON SOME OF THE LATEST BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR THE SINCLAIR USER. It was an enquiry from a reader that brought this book to my attention: there aren't many books available for practical computer applications in the home. A short time later I came across Using Your Home Computer: the subtitle, Practical Projects for the Micro Owner, suggested that this might be a book that could fill the gap. Both Mr Davies and the publishers, MacMillan Press, might well be on to a good thing here, I couldn't wait to find out what uses all we frustrated serious applications people could be putting our minds to around the home. On the principle that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day but teach a man to fish and you feed him forever - Garth Davies goes further than the titles suggest and attempts to lay guidelines and establish a good working procedure for designing a variety of practical projects. To do this he can draw on his extensive commercial background in systems analysis. In fact, if this book teaches anything then it is how to set about analysing problems. The theory then is that having acquired a method of breaking down possible tasks to identify the requirements, the solving will be so much simpler and all that really is needed to make full use of your home computer is a handful of clever ideas. Without any doubt this analytical approach has proved itself well in business. Fortunately, the text does not burden readers with theoretical planning models or jargon terms of business use, but discusses each topic with reference to realistic home examples. By adopting this method the author is able to explain the logic and highlight pitfalls with tangible examples. The result is a well written text that clearly explains the technique. Although I do not think a Christmas card list compiler (the example used in the discussion) is a terrific idea, it is an effective example. Later chapters offer a further selection of projects, in fact, a total of 23 topics range from a diet plan, recipes and menus, football pools forecasting to examination questions and mortgage repayments. Each project specification follows the theory already discussed. Readers who closely follow the specifications in their own projects will find themselves with the largest part of the work already done and well on the way to completing the rest. At no point in Using Your Home Computer does any computer code appear: all project suggested could be applied to any machine, given that sufficient memory is available. It follows then that readers are expected to be capable of coding from the specifications arrived at, but that should not prove too difficult. The main difficulty will lie in finding worthwhile uses for your home computer. I am not entirely convinced that many of the twenty four examples included within the paperback's eighty pages fall into that category. Whether this book will be a real aid to you will depend on the ideas you have for using your computer around the home. There is little doubt that a practical method for examining your ideas and analysing the problem to produce a workable project specification can be learned, professional systems analysts will confirm that, this book can teach these things well. Perhaps some further examination would show that few things in the domestic environment require such effort. Using Your Home Computer is written by Garth WP Davies and published by MacMillan Press. ISB 0 333 352173.

Sinclair User

John Gilbert

PROBING THE PUZZLES IN THE BOOKCASE John Gilbert investigates some of the latest computer and programming publications. If you have recovered from the excitement of a computer for a Christmas present and feel you have exploited it to the full, you may like to solve a crime of two using it. Input an Investigation, by Lois and Floyd McCoy, provides a series of classic mysteries featuring those American computer whizz-kids, the Bytes Brothers, pictured below. Those brain boxes work their way through five mysteries and always get the correct solution using their home computer called Nibble. As with any good detective story all the clues for the solution have been incorporated in the plot. The computer programs used to solve the crimes are also included, along with a full explanation of their structure and creation. The book is for children but adults will be equally enthralled. It provides excellent entertainment and value for money. The good news is that the authors are writing a series of these entertaining books and the second, Program a Problem, is on the way. Input an Investigation can be obtained from Fontana Armada originals for £1.25. Continuing with the entertainment theme, Pan Books, in association with Personal Computer News, has produced a hook of Micro Puzzles. Most of the questions set in the book can be solved using your computer. Micro Puzzles is split into three sections, each of which has a different type of conundrum. The first section is made up of three prize problems. They are very complex and if you can solve all three you can enter a competition to win an ACT Apricot computer. The next section contains some quickies which could be solved without the aid of a computer. Most of the puzzles require logical thought but some are included for a joke. The final section is called Micro-puzzles and includes some very tough quizzes. You will need your microcomputer for most of them, although the main problem will he trying to find a program to produce the solutions. Much thought has gone into the production of Micro Puzzles and the result is a challenge to your ability to solve problems in programs. The book costs £2.95. A mixture of congratulations and criticism goes to Penguin for its publication of The Penguin Computing Book, by Susan Curran and Ray Curnow. Congratulations are due because the company has managed to publish a book which contains a step-by-step guide to computers and electronics. The criticism is that there is nothing new in the format, although the authors have tried to provide a simple and concise explanation of almost everything relating to digital electronics, analogue electronics and computers. Reading the book it appears that the authors have tried to cram too much information into a small space. Any difficulty in following arguments will not be because of any complexity in the text but because so much information is covered in a few pages. The structure of the book suggests that it should be read from cover to cover, like War and Peace, but it serves better as a handbook to be dipped into when necessary. The index is just adequate for such a purpose. The glossary and bibliography are also useful. The book costs £5.95. On a slightly simpler level, Using Your Home Computer by Garth Davies provides a series of software projects for the owner of any microcomputer. Only brief details of the example protects are given, there are no Basic programs to type-in, and the computer owner is left to do the difficult research. That may sound like hard work but the author is trying to make the reader think about writing software. Part of the book explains system design and provides examples of computer applications. It shows how to work through a protect, from the initial ideas to the rough design and, finally, the coding. The sample projects include an address book, diary and family tree. All of them involve producing databases with similar structures and the author talks in some detail about the techniques which can be used. It is a delight to see such a book on the market. It costs £3.50 and can be obtained from Macmillan Press. One for the beginner is Machine Code for Beginners, from Usbourne Books. The title may deter you and you may think it is just another machine code book but it is the easiest book on the subject on the market. Using it, a child at junior school could learn the basic techniques of both Z-80 and 6502 programming. The way the subject is tackled is nothing short of brilliant. That both major types of microchip are covered is an extra bonus. The cartoon characters, such as robots and bugs, which are included teach machine code in a subtle manner. It is possible to read the book as a comic strip, taking little account of the main text and still derive a knowledge of assembly and machine language. It is reasonably priced at £1.99. Still staying with children but moving into secondary education, Shiva has produced Spectrum in Education, by Eric Deeson. The book is part of its friendly micro series and endeavours to show how a computer can be programmed and for what it can be used. The structure of the book shows that Deeson is a teacher. It has been carefully produced and structured in such a manner that the reader is unlikely to lose has way reading through the sections on general usage to drawing bar charts, discussing computer-aided design and producting high-resolution graphics. It costs £6.50. Armada, Fontana Paper-backs, [redacted]. Pan Books Ltd, [redacted]. Penguin Books Ltd, [redacted]. Macmillan Press, [redacted]. Usbourne Publishing Ltd, [redacted]. Shiva Publishing, [redacted].

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