RAGE HARD!

Another load of babble from our resident technobore Phil Snout with Flexipage authoring system, plus news of the new Sinclair Magnum Lightgun.

CONTACT
Product: Flexibase 200
Contact: David Wornham, Flexibase Software, 20 The Parklands, Droitwicch Spa, Worcs. WR9 7DG
Price: £10.50 (disk)/£12.50 (cassette)

The nice thing about the wonderful world of Speccy software is that it has moved away from the big corporations into smaller one-man set-ups. A lot of very useful and well-wacky software is being written independently now. I like this trend a lot, the sense of community - a load of like-minded folks, all beavering away out of sight of the great computer public, only surfacing in the Speccy press. Ah, those photocopied manuals and hand written disk labels... It all brings back the excitement of the early days of computing. (You doddering pensioner! Ed)

So now we get things like the Disciple/Plus D phenomenon, where the independent software for the machine outnumbers the major releases by about ten to one. We've covered a lot of these things in past Rage Hards, but you can bet your bottom dollar nothing as unusual as Flexipage 200 has ever come to light.

It's an oddball program, described by its author as an "exercise display authoring system" which sounds a bit of a mouthful. What it actually does is to format viewdata type displays which link together 'pages' (the viewdata term for a screen) of information for business display and educational usage.

The system gives you the benefits of using a programming language like Basic or Machine Code without having to learn it. Everything's done for you, so you can build your connected screens with the minimum of fuss and bother. The program has been out in a small way since February and has received very favourable reviews not only in Spectrum fanzines but also in posh educational computing magazines. The review sample, I've been told, is an early version, but new ones are on the way as the writer of the program, David Wornham, is slugging his li'l ol' heart out to update the package all the time. For details of the latest configurations you should apply with sae to the address at the end of this review.

WHAT YOU GET

The Flexibase program is available on cassette, +3 disk and Opus Discovery disk. As well as the main editor program you also have a tutorial program and example 'exercises' (see below). Flexibase is written for those lesser beings for whom the Speccy is a mystery. It leads you by the nose through its many levels, instructing you as it goes in the methods you should use in your own programs written using the system. Once you've authored your own Flexibase 'exercise', you can distribute it with a special 'read-only' driver program which you can then copy and pass on with the permission of Flexibase Software. (Details of obtaining written permission are included in the handbook.)

The program is written mostly in Basic, with a few subroutines for text rendering written in Machine Code. The reason for the Basic is that the program can be customised by the user to suit his own environment. The finished page sequences are called 'exercises', and the manual contains tutorial matter on how to load and alter the example sequences and how to create your own from scratch. The manuals are very clearly written, and although they are photocopied sheets folded together, their content is clearly set out and easy to follow. Included in the book are instructions on how to construct an 'exercise' in a business environment, demonstrating just how serious you can get about this program. All the controls for making your 'exercises' are single key presses, and prompts are supplied for your text and page routing. Altogether, a clever package and well presented for all its cottage industry good looks. And once you've made some useful 'exercises' you are asked to present them to Flexibase for marketing. Oh the fame and fortune!

Flexibase is interesting on several levels. As an educational tool it can be programmed by a computer novice to instruct on any subject matter. As a business tool, it can provide clearly structured business presentations and rolling shop window adverts.

For the Apple Macintosh, there is a revolutionary program called HyperCard, a state of the art authoring system that uses a simple interface to allow users to build their own programs. Knowing that, you'll understand what I mean when I say Flexibase 200 is the nearest thing yet to HyperCard on the Spectrum. Frankly, I'm WELL impressed.