Ultrabase loads all the records on your file into memory when you start to use it. and holds them here until you resave the file at the end of the session. This system has the advantage of making searches ana sorts faster than with disc-based programs, but also restricts the amount of data you can hold. Ultrabase doesn't make use of the banked memory on the 6128, either, so the extra 64K goes to waste. To set up an Ultrabase file you specify the type, length and title of each field in your record A field can be of String Integer or Numeric type as with variables ir; BASIC, and the length should be generous Don't forget 'Peregrine Smythe-Winter bottom' when choosing the length of a name field' Once you've defined the fields on your record you can enter the data The Ultrabase record card is in a fixed format with all the field titles down the left-hand side of :he screen and their contents down the right. This makes it easier for the program, but doesn't aid readability much You can search and sort your file by selecting options from Ultrabase's main menu, but the program can't hold subsets of the complete file : you can only print them out. You can print lists of records, and specify which fields from each record will be included, or print screen copies. Ultrabase is a conversion of an earlier Beebugsoft program, written for the BBC Micro several years ago. Home computer programs have advanced some way since then, and this one shows its age The manual doesn't tie up with what you see on the screen either For example, two fields in the demonstration file should be titled No of Child and Hi (m) but on the screen they appear as 'Number of and Height (in). Presumably the boys at Beebugsoft know some very short people! 
AMSTRAD ACTION #6 | 
