NEW HORIZONS SEEN BY PSION

Horizons is the new software cassette from Psion which is to be included in all orders of the Spectrum from now. It consists of a series of programs which will help the beginner master the machine. It is a welcome companion to the manuals.

The programs on side A include a description of the hardware architecture of the Spectrum, a keyboard trainer which explains the various functions and takes the learner around the keyboard, and a dictionary of the keywords on the keyboard. The dictionary is particularly useful to the beginner who is just learning about the version of Basic used on the Spectrum, pressing any key on which brings up the definition of the corresponding keyword on to the screen.

Side B includes several games, a program to design graphics characters and a program which is used to draw high-resolution graphics pictures.

The games on side B are very colourful and use user-definable and high-resolution graphics wherever possible. There is a good version of Breakout, which is very addictive.

Also included on side B are a sophisticated version of Life, a Bubblesort routine, and Monte Carlo.

The presentation cassette is very good. It should keep Spectrum users happy for hours and is well worth waiting for.