| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ BUREAUTIQUE ★ FIRST CALC ★ |
FIRST CALC (Amstrad Action) | FIRST CALC (8000Plus) |
The idea of a spreadsheet is simple. So why is that few spreadsheets are simple to use? First Calc is another program in the Minerva 'Learner Friendly' series of programs, which aims to provide the most popular and useful PCW programs in an easily digestable form. With First Calc, they have tried to achieve a fast well designed spreadsheet that is adequate for most needs but still simple enough to be mastered in a short time. While they have limited their ambitions for the program they have still managed to produce a perfectly workable program. This not just a beginner's program -it contains enough sophisticated features to suit the needs of most people. First of all it is not really small. With a capacity of more than 5000 cells (52 columns by 99 rows) it should cater for most normal applications. It can handle numbers as large as 10^ and calculations can be performed to 14 significant figures. It can do all the basic things you would reasonably expect of a spreadsheet. You can insert, delete or blank columns and adjust the width of columns at any time. You have a Goto facility for jumping around the sheet, you can toggle the direction of the calculation (so that it calculates horizontally or vertically) and you can define the automatic cursor direction (so that the cursor moves sideways, up or down after each entry). You can even indulge in the mystical art of replicating, a handy facility to copy formulae from one cell to another -with all the references suitably changed* You can save any part of the sheet you want and print out selected parts. You can also export data to other programs such as LocoScript. Setting up the spreadsheet is made easy with the toggle between formulae and values. When you want to add up the figures in a column you write in a simple formula in a cell to tell the program what to do. You can set up the sheet using the 'formulae-on' mode until you see you have it right and then toggle on to Values' and the machine works out the figures you want. Is it friendly? So if there not much argument with what it can do, is there an argument with how it does it? Here there is more room for doubt. It is debatable whether First Calc is really more 'user friendly' than other more complex programs. The commands are logical and being more limited in range are perhaps easier to remember. The manual is taken up with a couple of good tutorials based on a demo file - by far the best way of explaining the use of a spreadsheet. Like virtually every spreadsheet with a wide variety of functions the program relies on mnemonic letters (keys chosen to be easy to remember) to pick the facility you want. Unfortunately the mnemonics in this case are not always logical. For instance why [ALT] O for "Insert a number of rows/columns”, especially when 'T for Insert wasn't used? There is also a sad lack of on-screen prompting. Even a list of the mnemonics available would have been an advantage. There is of course a HELP facility but to consult this is time consuming and it is perhaps not ideally set-up to be easy to extract the information you want. This does not make it more difficult to use than the average spreadsheet program but it may not fully meet the makers claim to be considerably easier to use. In the manual the program points out that it does not have the search/find features, the graphics 6r the virtual database facilities of some spreadsheets but then nor does SuperCalc2. You have to decide whether you are buying a spreadsheet or a general utilities program. Most people will be very happy with this reasonably priced package that is quick and efficient and easy to master. 8000PLUS |
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