Telling the Time + Money

ZX Computing

Overall 7/10

Peter Shaw 7/10

EDUCATING, PETER? Peter Shaw takes a look at some educational software packages for the Spectrum. TELLING THE TIME & MONEY 16K Spectrum PRICE: £5.50 COMPANY: Poppry Programs Address: c/o Vera Sampson, [redacted] In 'Telling The Time', you have to write the time displayed in words, ie ten past six or twenty to five. Unfortunately, the program is painfully slow, and even Time (Stell) is faster. 'Money' fairs better. You are shown the coins you can choose from and you are told to give the computer a certain amount. Pressing the corresponding keys will make the coins (or notes) appear further down the screen, and are added to your running total. If you give the computer the right money the sums seem to get harder. I liked Money', but I must say that 'Telling the time' was a bit of a disappointment.

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 3/5

Playability 1/5

Use Of Machine 3/5

Value For Money 1/5

A.L. Quelch

NAME: Telling The Time/Money SYSTEM: ZX Spectrum, 16K PRICE: £5.50 PUBLISHER: Poppy Programs [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Basic OUTLETS: Mail Order CLOCKS AND COINAGE Telling the Time and Money are two new educational programs for young children and both come on a single cassette. I thought I'd try the programs out, then try them on my five-year-old son and his six-year-old friend. Finally I unleashed them on three children aged six, seven and eight who go to a nearby school. OBJECTIVE In Money, several coins are drawn on the screen in various colours, with letters in lower case above them. Then an amount, say £1.58, is written beneath them. The child then has to make up the money by choosing the coins by letter. As coins are chosen different tones sound, pitched according to the coins' values. Different coloured screens also show the child's score for a set of games, from a black up to a gold screen. Telling the Time asks the player to spell out the time shown on a clock face in words, and words only. IN PLAY I tried out Money first. The coins appeared on the screen, and the amount which I had to make up showed up underneath. So far, so good. Unfortunately, I could not recognise the coins, which were unnumbered, and so I got my sums wrong. Neither my son nor his friend could do it, except for low amounts like 39p or 65p. Of the other three children, the seven- and eight-year-olds had problems recognising the coins. The youngest, like my son, could do the simpler ones, but was completely foxed by larger sums. Telling the Time got much the same results. I tried i, I got it wrong. For this lesson, there must be absolutely no use of numbers when spelling out the time, and apparently it's wrong to say 'A quarter to nine'. I should write 'Quarter to nine', or so the computer informed me. The youngest of my school trio could read, and got some of the words right with his older sister's help, though she got some of the times wrong. The eight-year-old, like me, failed on the computer 'grammar'. The graphics for Telling the Time were good, but a clock is a clock is a clock, and there's not a lot you can do with it. Maybe it would be better depicted as a cuckoo-clock or Big Ben? VERDICT Both could do with a number of different levels of play, to suit a wider range of ages and abilities. These two 'lessons' are not very good value for money at present. But if they were upgraded to 48K with more varied tests, they could make a first-rate teaching aid for junior schools.