★ LITTÉRATURE ★ ENGLISH ★ Mastering the Amstrad PCW 8256/8512 ★ |
| Mastering the Amstrad Pcw 8256 - 8512 (Amstrad Computer User) | Littérature English |
It took longer than many of us thought, but John Hughes has produced the first of the PCW8256 books, and thus heads the list of those authors eternally grateful to the shortcomings of the original manuals. John Hughes approaches the subject from scratch and it is soon obvious that the 8512 on the cover was a piece of last minute opportunism that failed to influence the content. Full marks for speed - and what a good job that the PCW8512 is really only a fattened PCW8256 with nothing likely to affect the relevance of a book based squarely on its predecessor. The book launches into Locoscript using the same screen dump techniques that adom the original manual. The latest version of Locoscript I could find mentioned was 1.04 (in the context of describing the infamous page numbering bug), and there appears to be nothing too "version sensitive" about this treatise to confuse the reader, although some of the Locoscript 1.2 features have consequently been overlooked. Some of the typography used to differentiate between text typed at the keyboard and the general narrative gets a little woolly here and there. The SET24X80 instructions got garbled on page 130. It does no harm for the beginner to be introduced to the user-friendliness of CP/M in such an innocuous way. The book begins to sparkle when it comes to the brief overviews of CP/M applications software. The author lets his hair down and drops the rather coy style adopted for the complete beginner, and consequently the CP/M applications sections flow well. Supercalc2, Cambase, Camsoft Payroll, Flexifile, Cracker, NewWord and Sage are explored and presented in a factual manner to enlighten the owner. The style of the book should suit the novice very well. Most of you reading ACU may well be beyond this simplistic style, but you may find that a dose of John Hughes will keep your newly computerised friends and relations off your back - for a while!
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