Address Manager

Personal Computer News

Overall Value 4/5

NAME: Address Manager APPLICATION: Computerised address book SYSTEM: ZX Spectrum PRICE: £8.95 PUBLISHER: OCP, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Machine code. ZX COMPRESSES ADDRESSES Address Manager is primarily for home use, allowing you to keep your address book on cassette and use your Spectrum to find and update addresses. FEATURES The program is menu-driven, the menu coming tip on the screen when you load the tape and after you have finished each operation. The options available are Locate Entry, Add Entry, Amend Entry, Delete Entry, Select Entries, Display Entries, Print Entries, and Maintain File. The Select Entries option is a multiple indexing facility. When you enter a name and address into a file you can specify three index keys, of three characters each, and you can ask the program to search for combinations of index keys and print out the entries that match. As well as the program there is a simple file of names and addresses on the tape, which you can use to learn the controls and editing methods. PRESENTATION Address Manager comes in a colourfully printed box which contains the program cassette and instruction leaflet, and there is space provided in the box for you to keep your address file tape. The leaflet is nicely printed, with explanations and examples of the program's features, and illustrations to show the screen layout for all of the menu options. IN USE Address Manager is generally quite easy to use, allowing you to select options and move around the different fields of an entry by pressing the cursor control keys. There are, however, some features that are a little more complicated and confusing than they need to be. The editor, which you use when entering or altering names and addresses, can work in several different modes, where you have different ways of getting upper and lower case letters, or numbers and cursor movement. As you will probably use the editor only occasionally, having all these different modes is more likely to be confusing than helpful. I was unable to crash the program, even when it was loading, saving, and printing, and the program performed correctly, doing everything exactly as described in the instructions. The only problem I had was with the tape, which has the program on both sides, but one side would not load correctly. Faulty tapes may not be common, but it is important, and if anything goes wrong with the tape you will not be able to get at your address file until you can get another copy. VERDICT Address Manager is a well-designed program, and the multiple indexing facility is a sufficient advantage to compensate for the extra trouble involved in loading a tape instead of using an old-fashioned address book.