Richard Altwasser's Cambridge Colour Collection costs £9.90 for a book of 64 pages and a cassette. Though some of the programs are original, in that they use specific features of the Spectrum, many are not: Maze is marred by a poor algorithm. There is also Breakout, Nim, and most others, including a version of King called Kingdom. The cassette was unfortunately unloadable - the company has had to replace many of the cassettes.

SPECTRUM RULES THE WAVES

Every publisher in the UK seems to have discovered the Spectrum, so there is sure to be a bumper crop of reading matter for Spectrum owners in the coming months.

Our review panel have been looking at a selection of the Spectrum books and finds that the standard is uniformly high (both in terms of content and presentation), with each book representing value for money in its own way.

There are four books we'll look at which are collections of programs for the Spectrum.

The first, 'The Cambridge Colour Collection' is by Richard Altwasser, the designer of the Spectrum. The book costs £6.95 and contains just 20 programs. The games include 'Maze', 'Lunar Landing' and 'Android Nim', with more serious programs including 'Home Accounts' and 'Calendar'.

Andrew Hewson (who answers reader's problems in Sinclair User) has '20 Best Programs for the ZX Spectrum' for £7.95. The 'best programs' include 'Machine code editor', 'Index File' and 'Duckshoot'.

Shiva has the cheapest book, the £2.50 'Computer Puzzles for Spectrum and ZX81', from the Stewart/Jones PEEK, POKE team. The many entertaining 'puzzles' include 'The wolf, the goat and the cabbage', 'Queens dominant' and 'The Magic Forest'.

David Harwood (who writes the 'Young Stuff' column in the users' club magazine Interface) has produced 'The Spectrum Software Library - 60 Games and Applications for the ZX Spectrum' for £4.95.

Although the emphasis is on games (including 'Checkers', 'Zap' and 'Galaxy Patrol'), the 'applications' include a 'Renumber' in BASIC and 'Chequebook'.