INSIDE THE ART STUDIO

After much eager waiting, ART STUDIO has arrived at CRASH Towers. Franco Frey got his hands on it first, and as a result, was told to write the review. Here it is...

Product: ART STUDIO
Producer: Rainbird Software
Programmer: James Hutchby

EXTENDED ART STUDIO available by mail order from:
Rainbird Software
New Information Services
Wellington House
Upper St. Martins Lane
London WC2H 9DL

HARD COPIES available from:
Dimension Graphics Ltd.
PO BOX 444
Buckingham MK18 5LN

Having ART STUDIO personally demonstrated by Supremo Without Portfolio, Bruce Everiss, at the last PCW show, everybody at CRASH towers was eagerly awaiting the review copy from OCP. Little was it known that the final copy was to come from RAINBIRD SOFTWARE, a new subsidiary of British Telecom and part of the New Information Services, who have now taken over the marketing of the product. The packaging has not been finalised, so the comments are directed entirely to the program content, which is after all of more importance...

ART STUDIO follows the popular trend, commercially introduced by APPLE, of basing the program on a windows icons mouse pointing-device concept. The main aim behind this concept is to provide a program which is easily operated by the first time user with all relevant information on the screen and no complicated keyboard sequences needed to access commands. Commands are issued by simply pointing at options contained in screen menus. The pointing device, the icon, indicates by its shape the current instrument or mode.

A menu bar at the top of the screen contains the major headings. Pointing at any of these causes a sub-menu to be pulled down (a window is overlayed). This contains a number of options, which may lead to further sub-menus, or cause certain commands to be executed. An option is chosen by moving the cursor down the list and the options which highlight may be accessed and chosen by pressing the select button ('clicking' an option). If the option is a command, the pull-down menu disappears and the arrow cursor changes into an icon indicating the present status. Whenever it is moved back into the heading area, the cursor reverts back to an arrow. To remove a menu pulled down by mistake, the cursor is moved outside the submenu box and the select switch pressed.

Some menu options are neither commands nor submenus, but are flags or switches. These can be toggled on or off to modify the behaviour of other options. The on state is represented by a tick, the off state by a cross.

The full Spectrum screen occupies 24 lines, but the menu bar occupies 3 lines. Two boxes are provided in the menu bar containing arrows, which if accessed by the cursor, will scroll the screen up or down by up to three lines to make the hidden portion of the screen visible.

ART STUDIO comes supplied as a master tape configured to produce a 'personalised' copy of ART STUDIO, which allows you to produce a customised version ready to run under your particular hardware environment. To install ART STUDIO, the master copy is loaded and run. Following prompts, you enter all the required hardware data, and the installing program then saves the 'personalised' copy of ART STUDIO. The data to be supplied for configuring defines the input device, the printer interface and printer details regarding graphics printing mode. The flexibility of ART STUDIO allows any dot matrix printer to be accommodated and if the user should not have any of the listed Centronics devices, details are given in the concise manual on the three required machine code routines to control the particular interface.

Despite the fact that ART STUDIO is configured to be run by first time users without the need to delve into long-winded manuals, RAINBIRD provide an excellent and easily digestible reference work, which at the time of the review is still in draft form.

RAINBIRD make available to microdrive and Kempston interface owners an extended OCP ART STUDIO at £24.95 (mail order only), which includes Microdrive and Kempston Operating Systems, a screen compression facility and four extra text fonts. Owing to the fact that some lesser-used functions are stored on cartridge or disk as 'Overlays', the program has the ability to maintain a RAM based catalogue, which is displayed within the menu environment of EXTENDED ART STUDIO and includes an extra shape, Arc, which is a fractional part of a circle defined by three points. EXTENDED ART STUDIO is also available as an upgrade for £12 inc. P&P by mail order.

ART STUDIO is an excellent state-of-the-art graphics package and must be the best available for Spectrum owners. Despite the fact that the very structure of the program is based on a mouse operated system, the intelligent cursor, pack which speeds up the longer it is moved in the same direction, together with a sensitive microswitch joystick such as the Flightlink or Voltmace provide an excellent low cost replacement for this expensive controlling device.

The only criticism that could be found, if one tended to be finnicky, is that the spray patterns should also have been user-definable, especially as the existing patterns are very inked and don't allow for a fine regulation. At £14.95 ART STUDIO is an excellent buy. For the more pecunious, the pack includes a mouse offer from OCP and a hard copy offer from DIMENSION, who will immortalise your favourite screen creations on a £16,000 ink-jet printer: A4 size at £4.95 and ink-jet (320mm x 250mm) card mounted and gloss laminated at £7.95.

PRINT

PRINT provides facilities for hardcopy on a dot matrix printer. Five sizes dictated by number of dots on paper to one dot or pixel on screen. Height to width scale depends on resolution of printer selected, ie number of dots per inch on a line to line spacing pitch. Two resolutions can be accessed within ART STUDIO, single density and double density. No colour information is used unless grey scale dump is used Here the different colours are represented with stipples of varying density. Grey scale dumps are always in a 3 x 3 size. The picture can be printed sideways allowing bigger dumps, or from top to bottom, and can be situated left, right or in the centre. If an 80 column printer isn't available, the screen can be dumped to the ZX or ALPHACOM 32-column printer.

ATTRIBUTES

ATTRIBUTES deals with the colour control. The attributes once set apply to all painting and drawing that is done via shapes pens, brushes, fills and text. All ink and paper colours may be set including transparent. OVER and INVERSE can be toggled on or off, transparent sets all attributes to transparent and STANDARD sets the attributes back to their default values.

FILL

Apart from the usual solid fill, ART STUDIO provides a TEXTURED FILL which displays a menu containing the 32 textures available, from which a choice has to be made. All fills are done in the current attribute settings (INVERSE and OVER does not apply) and can be aborted with CAPS SHIFT and SPACE. The texture at the end of the Nat row is a null texture and is useful for setting the attributes within a section of the screen without altering any pixel states.

WASH TEXTURE maps a chosen texture onto any pixels on the screen that have been charged by a previous operation. This provides the facility of texturing outlines or even text.

Each of the 32 textures can be edited by mating it the current texture and calling the EDIT TEXTURE window. The new texture can be used by clicking its normal sized image.

FILE

FILE features all the commands for saving, loading and verifying screen files to and from tape. The files must be either SCREEN files or CODE files not longer than six and three quarter kilobytes. Saving will prompt for a file name. For loading verifying and merging a file name can be specified or ART STUDIO can be instructed to load, verify or merge the next file on tape A tape file can be merged with a current screen file either on an OR basis (if the OVER switch is off) or on an XOR basis (if the OVER switch is on).

PAINT

PAINT provides access to the various drawing tools.

Selecting PEN displays the sixteen pens available. The pen sets pixels by pressing select or if the INVERSE switch is on, resets pixels (erasing function).

8 SPRAY CANS of varying diameters spray a random pattern of dots on the screen. If the spray can is held in place, the dots build up to a solid disc.

16 BRUSHES are available of various sizes and designs and each brush has an associated mask with it. When a brush is used to paint on the screen, first the pixels corresponding to the mask are reset, then the pixels corresponding to the brush itself are set. The first brush in the menu is a null brush and can be used to colour an existing picture with new attribute settings without upsetting the screen pixels.

Each of the 16 brushes can be edited. To edit a particular brush, it must be made the current brush. The newly edited brush can be used by simply pointing the cursor at it's normal size image in the BRUSH EDIT window and pressing select.

MAGNIFY

Three levels of magnification are available with facilities to edit pixels, pan and zoom the current screen part. Selecting a magnification converts the arrow cursor into s magnifying glass which can be positioned over the required screen area. Three modes of editing are provided under magnification, SET, RESET and TOGGLE. The ATTRIBUTE menu is available directly from the menu bar. The area magnified can be scrolled over the entire screen area by clicking the boxes with arrows in them, or homed by clicking the box containing the linked squares. White bars between the pairs of arrow boxes indicate the relative position of the magnifying window to the whole screen. The magnification can be changed at any time by clicking the appropriate magnification box. A grid is available in the x8 magnification mode with one square in the grid representing one pixel on the screen. This grid can be switched on or off from the initial Magnify menu.

WINDOWS

WINDOWS sets up a rectangular section of the screen marked by a dotted outline, upon which certain functions can be performed.

CUT & PASTE copies the window to another area of the screen by displaying a duplicate dotted outline which can be moved around and set. Similarly CUT, CLEAR & PASTE copies the window but clears the source window. Multiple copies of a window can be made with the MULTIPLE switch on MERGE combines the copied window with the existing screen contents on an OR or XOR basis depending on the state of the OVER switch.

A window can be enlarged, reduced, squashed or stretched by using the RESCALE option, which works similarly to the normal window copy command, but allows the destination window to be redefined in size. This function is extremely useful and provides a replacement for the missing elipce function in SHAPES. Windows can be inverted, flipped, mirrored and rotated or just simply cleared.

SHAPES

SHAPES provides up to seven different drawing routines, namely single point, lines, a continuous line, rectangles, triangles, circles and rays. All shapes are drawn (in current ink and paper colours) by moving the cursor about the screen and pressing select to define the vertices. Shapes can be drawn elastically by setting the corresponding switch. The shape can be expanded or contracted on screen until it is the right size and then fixed with the select switch. Again similar to text, the vertices of shapes can be snapped in two directions to come within attribute boundaries.

TEXT

TEXT can be printed in two directions, left to right end top to bottom, in normal or sideways orientation. Three character widths and three character heights provide up to nine different sizes. A bold switch is provided which prints characters twice with a one-pixel shift. All characters are printed in the current ink and paper settings (Inverse and Over apply), and provision is made to SNAP characters into attribute squares in both directions, horizontal and vertical so that they occupy an exact amount of attribute characters.

The FONT EDITOR enables the editing of character sets (fonts). There are 96 char eaters in a font. Whole new fonts can be created and stored on cassette, and loaded into memory as required. The 96 characters are displayed at the bottom of the screen, with the current character marked in vertical brackets. The current character and the characters immediately to its left and right are shown in enlarged form above the font. Pointing to any character in the font and pressing select makes it the current character. Alternatively, the current character can be scrolled through the entire font by clicking the boxes with arrows. The character may then be edited by toggling the pixels on or off.

Special operations can b& performed by pulling down the CHARACTER box. This includes clear, invert, flip horizontal, nip vertical, rotate, scroll right and scroll down. The same set of operations can be performed upon the font as a whole by pulling down the FONT menu. The character set contained in the Spectrum's ROM can be loaded into ART STUDIO's font.

CAPTURE FONT copies blocks of pixels from a defined window on the screen in the font and can easily be used to create user defined graphics. Fonts can be saved and loaded from cassette. Character sets created with ART STUDIO can be used in the user's own program with a simple BASIC routine.

MISCELLANEOUS

VIEW SCREEN removes the menu bar to display the entire screen.

Both grids use alternate bright and normal squares and can be used to position details within the attribute grid to cause minimum clash of colours. CHANGE COLOUR works in conjunction with a defined WINDOW and changes one colour into another as specified in the ATTRIBUTE menu. Paper is the source colour and ink is defined as the destination colour. The option then converts all occurrences of the source colour to the destination colour.

ART ATTACK

All artists should be hung - and Peter Shaw is no exception! His pictures may not make it to the Tatejust yet but with the help of Rainbird's Art Studio he reckons he's on his way.

FAX BOX
Name: Art Studio
Publisher: Rainbird
Price: £14.95

Now I know what you're going to say 'cos I said it myself. What? Another art package? Well, it's gonna have to come up with something a bit special if it's going to drag me away from Melbourne Draw/PaintPlus/The Artist* (*delete as applicable). Well, prepare for a surprise.

Art Studio, the new package written by OCP but marketed under BT's Rainbird label, has more than a few features to recommend it. The first thing you'll notice is the 'pull-down menu system' and it's not just a gimmick but the basis of all that makes this program so user-friendly. Yes, I know that word's overworked but you'll find you hardly need to refer to the manual.

So, how does it work? Well, it prints a menu bar across the top of the screen from which you can choose a comprehensive second menu that gives you access to the feature you want. Just move the cursor to your chosen option and press fire. If a feature has even more on offer, then you'll be presented with a third and sometimes a fourth menu on-screen. If you choose a joystick or even a mouse, you never need touch the keyboard at all!

But all this is still not the be-all and end-all of an excellent art package. To challenge the current competition a new package must offer a wider range of features than the rest - and be able to perform them quickly. Art Studio comes out shining on both counts. In fact, it works on the Spectrum with all the charm of a program like MacPaint on the Macintosh. Not altogether surprising as that program was obviously the main source of inspiration for Art Studio - the same pull-down menus, many of the same features and all of the flexibility.

Plus both programs can be operated with a mouse. More than likely you'll have come across the mouse before - it's similar to an upturned trackerball that you roll around the table top to move the on-screen cursor. The combination of Art Studio and a mouse will make, it nigh on untouchable - and even without, the competition's gonna have to go a long way to beat such an excellent package.

Publisher: OCP
Price: £12.95 (cassette version. Opus disc/microdrive); £19.95 (cassette/disc version)
Memory: 48K

Last month I reviewed The Artist, from Softechnics, and said there was nothing which could beat it.

I was proved wrong. Art Studio, from OCP, outclasses it in speed and style. Once loaded from disc or tape, the program display is set to white with a blue double-decked bar menu across the top of the screen. Near that is an arrow cursor which can be manipulated using the keyboard, joystick, or Kempston mouse.

To select an option on the menu, the cursor must be moved over it and the fire button pushed.

As well as being able to draw single lines, by placing two points on the screen with the cursor, you can extend lines to create shapes such as triangles and elastic banded lines. Elastic banding starts from a specified point. The potential line is then dragged across the screen by the cursor and set in position by pressing the fire key.

Once you have produced your drawing you can start to fill it in with solid colour or one of the textures provided on the FILL menu. Those include roof slates, brick structures, lines and dots.

To produce a fill effect, all you have to do is put the cursor inside the shape, and press the fire button. The shape is first filled with a backdrop of colour and the texture is then dropped in.

The most impressive part of the package is its ability to cut and paste parts of screen pictures. That process is accomplished using windows. You must first put a window around the shape which is to be transferred to another part of the screen. Then choose one of two options. The first allows you to do a straight copy of a shape, the original remaining on the screen. The second performs nearly the same operation but the original is cut out and a hole left on the screen.

While the cut and paste up operation is taking place it is possible to change the scale of the shape along the X and Y axes. To do that, open a window using the cursor, set it to the position in which you want the new shape to appear and make that window larger or smaller.

The only problem when using windows to achieve those results is that a rectangular patch is left in place of the shape. The screen then has to be retouched with the package's pen.

Apart from that one flaw, the package outperforms The Artist in almost every way. It has superior speed to the Softechnics package and the menus are easier to use. It can be used with disc, tape or microdrive and contains a printer driver which handles most compatible Spectrum printers. It is an extremely powerful utility which should be of use to professional artists and designers as well as the home user.

Label: Rainbird
Author: James Hutchby
Price: £24.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 128K Only
Reviewer: John Gilbert

Just as Art Studio had to compete with The Artist from Softechnics so, inevitably, Advanced Art Studio will be compared with Artist II.

Unlike Artist II, (given a Classic in November's SU), Rainbird's advanced graphics extensions are built around the core of the old program. It includes standard design features, such as varying widths of brush and pen, different airbrush density, a wide variety of shape designs, together with a large number of block colour or pattern fills. You can also type text over your graphics, in any direction, and create character sets - there are five included in the package.

Most of the advanced features involve the 128's extra 59K of memory which is split into a 43K Ramdisc and a 16K graphics scrapbook.

The Ramdisc is accessed through the Files menu. Select the Microdrive control menu and click the R option. You can then get a list of Ram-stored files, or Save, Load and Erase files. Graphics screens can be merged together by loading in one and overlaying another using the Merge option. The program can store at least two of these screens and more using the screen shrinking option, which takes all the unnecessary bytes out of a screen file.

Pictures can also be compiled from the Studio's internal scrapbook which comprises a library of images snatched from any drawings you have made. For instance, the program contains a scrapbook file called Logical Pad which has a series of circuit diagram components. You can search for the component your diagram needs and switch to the main screen which holds your work. That screen now contains an outline window, the size of the' component. You can move it into position, press Fire, and the image is dropped into your schematic.

You can create a scrapbook file just as easily. Draw your image on the main screen, position a window around it and switch to the scrapbook mode. When you click the insert option the image within, the window appears on the Insert option the image within the window appears in the scrapbook and can be stored on Microdrive or tape.

Advanced Art Studio is compatible with most dot- matrix printers - you'd be safe with Epson compatible but with a little help from the manual you should be able to convert the software to run most printers under the sun.

Unfortunately, the initial printer/mass storage setup takes place during loading so you have to sit by the Spectrum for ten minutes, stopping and starting the tape when told and entering printer options and codes when necessary. At the end of the Load when you've tailored AAS to your hardware set-up you can save the new version of the program.

Although Advanced Art Studio is an extension of it's 'little' brother it is a real step forward which makes the best use of the 128K+2 machine.

It provides a professional environment which, no doubt, graphics artists and designers could just about use.

Spectrum
Rainbird
Graphics Utility
£14.95

With its first two programs, British Telecom's new software label, Rainbird, has got off to a cracking good start. The Music System, which was originally released by Island Logic, is generally acknowledged to be the best music program around; and Rainbird's other re-release, OCP's The Art Studio, can likewise claim to be the best paint and draw program.

The Art Studio relies entirely on pull-down menus and icons. There's no need to flip through the manual for the right key combination. You simply move the pointer to the menu bar at the top, pull down a list of options, and highlight your choice.

If, for example, you select Fill, you have a choice of solid, textured, and wash textured fills; or you can create your own texture. Pick the textured fill option and there is a further menu with 32 available textures. Then it is just a matter of moving a paint roller icon into the shape you want filled.

It is just as well that the program uses pull-down menus, since it offers an exceptionally wide range of features: most of the features, in fact, that you would find in programs for 16-bit micros, like MacPaint - including a spray can, a brush, and a magnify options.

Best of all perhaps, is the Window facility. With this you open a window on any section of the screen. You can then cut and paste, rotate, invert, copy, and flip the window; or even re-scale it so that the contents are compressed or enlarged in any direction.

Both powerful and easy to use, the Art Studio is an exceptional product. Too bad that it is only available, as yet, on the Spectrum. By the standards of the Amstrad, the machine's pixel resolution is limited, and its colour resolution even more so. But then the great thing about the Art Studio is that it pretty soon makes you forget you are working on a Spectrum.

QUICK DRAW

Computer Graphic Designer, Neil Strudwick, explores the capabilities of Rainbird's Art Studio.

Now there's a piece of software that boosts the graphic potential of the Spectrum and is great fun to use.

The Art Studio (£14.95) is an exciting new graphics package which uses the WIMP environment (windows/icons/mouse/pulldown menus) to create professional looking graphics, and does it as well as the bigger and more expensive micros. The WIMP environment is easy for even a first time operator to use, and has no complicated keyboard sequences to learn. It is also smooth and fast in operation.

By now you may be familiar with all the commands available but may not realise that by using a combination of commands you can create some great effects. So here are some suggestions for getting the most out of the Art Studio.

Start with a simple outline shape, such as a letter or symbol. If you are not artistic, then trace around your image from a photograph or something already drawn, onto a piece of clear acetate. Draw the image as large as possible, but so that it fits in the screen of your tv/monitor. Trace round the image using the "Shapes' commands (ie Elastic on/Cont. Lines).

The reason for doing the shape large is so that you have the option of rescaling it smaller (smaller images enlarged become distorted).

Having completed your shape, save it to tape, or microdrive if you have the extended Art Studio. Now you can begin to experiment on it. If there is room on the screen make two copies on it, in case you make a mistake, that way you won't have to reload your original.

You can now fill your shape with various textures, using 'Undo' to experiment, or try out the drop shadow effect mentioned at the back of the manual.

The drop shadow effect uses the 'Windows' commands quite extensively, firstly fill your shape in solid, then copy it using "Cut & paste window'. Immediately after you have positioned and printed the copy, select a wash texture (halftone) and the shape becomes a halftone. You can then copy and merge your solid shape on top and off centre to give the shadow effect.

You can then put a window around the whole image, clear it using Clear window' and then immediately select a further wash texture. You could go on selecting wash texture until your image eventually disappears.

This technique of clearing a shape and washing texture can be applied to the commands 'Cut, clear & paste' and 'Clear & re-scale', indeed any command that erases a shape.

Try 'Clear & re-scale' without 'merge' and print the rescaled shape over the original, then apply a wash texture. The original shape reappears behind the second shape. Now if you have 'Over' switched on from the 'Attrs' menu, your first image will blend with the second if you merge them. If the 'Over' switch is off pixels merged are unchanged ie black pixel + black pixel = black pixel, but if 'Over' is switched on then the combination is on an XOR basis, this would mean black pixel + black pixel = white space.

The best use of Over (other than a special effect) is when you would like to turn a solid shape into an outlined shape. A simple example would be if you wanted an outline of a square from a solid square. With 'Merge' and 'Over' switched on put a window around the solid square, select 'Re-scale window' and print the re-scaled window directly over the solid square but one pixel smaller all round.

If your shape is a solid and you wish only part of it to be textured, select a brush, pen, or airbrush from the 'Paint' menu with the 'Inverse' switched on, erase part of your shape that you wish textured, then immediately after select a wash texture. The removed part will reappear in the chosen texture. This technique also applies if you use commands from the 'Shapes' menu and 'Text' menu!

Remember that 'Inverse' also has an effect on the 32 textures, with 'Inverse' on you have 32 inverse textures giving access to 64 textures. This 'Inverse' also applies to the 'Text' menu and the 'Paint' menu when using the 'Brush' command. Depending on whether you have inverse on or off it will give the effect of having a solid or outline brush shape.

Returning to 'Windows' I have quite often used this menu if I wanted a larger brush. For example if you wanted to draw a shape made up of large circles, first draw a circle from the 'Shapes' menu, put a window around it, with 'Merge' and 'Multiple' switched on. and then by repeatedly moving and pressing the fire button, you can draw with that shape. Try this technique using the 'Over' switched on, and see what happens.

Finally I will mention the use of colour. I cannot go into great detail about it because of the nature of the Spectrum attribute screen, but a good way to reduce colour attribute problems is to use 'Windows' to reposition areas of your picture. One way to colour areas of the screen easily is having selected your appropriate colours, go to the 'Paint' menu selecting Brush'. Choose a 'null' brush (ie a blank brush that changes attribute colours, not pixels). Quite simply you then brush colour onto the relevant areas of your picture. For large areas choose a 'null' texture that will rapidly colour areas of the screen.

BOTH THE ARTIST AND ART STUDIO ARE RE-RELEASED THIS MONTH IN ENHANCED VERSIONS, BUT ARE THE IMPROVEMENTS WORTH HAVING?

Rainbird
£24.95

It arrived too late for a Christmas review, but the new Advanced Art Studio should have gotten into the shops in time to make a nice little prezzie for anyone who was lucky enough to get a 128 from Santa.

This enhanced version of OCP's Art Studio (which is specifically for the 128 and won't run on any of the 48K versions of the Spectrum) uses the 128's additional memory mainly for storage purposes, giving you a 42K RAM Disc facility as well as a 16K 'Scrapbook' which, between them, allows you to store a number of screens, character sets, Fill patterns and so on. and to call them back from memory instantly - so saving you all the fuss of Saving and Loading to and from tape all the time.

RAM WHAT?

In case you're not familiar with that bit of jargon, a RAM Disc is an area of memory that is set aside purely for storage of programs, data, or, in this case, screen pictures and patterns. Anything stored in this area simply sits there until you need it and can then be summoned up instantly with just the press of a button.

The new storage facilities are implemented by adding a new sub-menu to some of the existing command menus and treating the RAM Disc almost as if it were a microdrive. Suppose that you're halfway through designing the loading screen for the latest mega-game when you decide that you want to call up a new character set for printing the name of the game. You push the cursor over to the 'File' window as you normally would, but when the menu appears asking whether you want to save your picture to tape or microdrive you choose the microdrive option. This leads you to a new sub-menu which allows all the usual options for dealing with microdrives, but also has a new option for the RAM Disc, as well as a catalogue listing all the files on RAM Disc or microdrive.

So, you simply give your picture a name and instantly save it onto the RAM Disc. The saved picture is automatically verified at the same time, eliminating the business of saving and verifying onto tape. Next, you choose the 'Text' menu and select the new command, 'File Menu", which leads once more to the cassette/microdrive choice. A quick look at the catalogue shows you that Rainbird have thoughtfully included a few alternative character sets which are tucked neatly away on the RAM Disc. You select whichever set you think is suitable (if you want to create a typeface of your own there's a 'blank' character set which can be edited, allowing you to do this), call back your picture and get back to work. This whole process takes just a few seconds whereas if could take minutes if you were relying purely on tape storage.

As well as these alternative character sets Rainbird have also included a couple of sets of 'Brush' and 'Fill' patterns to give you a bit of extra variety, or you can always create your own and file them away on RAM Disc. With over 40K of RAM Disc to play with there's plenty of room for all sorts of bits and pieces, and if you use that up you can always save the RAM onto tape and start on a new 'disc'.

The Scrapbook facility is a sort of souped up 'cut and paste' option in that it gives you 16K worth of memory to store small sections of larger pictures, so that you can use these same sections over and over, quickly transferring them from one picture to another.

As far as the business of drawing pictures is concerned there's hardly anything that could be created with the enhanced Art Studio that couldn't be created on the original 48K version (although the 128 version does include a new 'arc' command), however the new fast storage offered by this version is almost as good as fitting your Spectrum with a disc drive.

I suppose it's a tribute to the quality of the original program that it can't be much improved upon even with an additional 80K to play with, and owners of mere 48K machines aren't going to be left too far behind (neither, I imagine, will they be too envious of the enhanced version's enhanced price). But at least it shows that some companies are finally starting to produce software that really makes use of the 128's full potential.

USER-DEFINED POSSIBILITIES

John Gilbert says: Why not stop playing games and do something useful instead?

The definition of a utility in computer parlance has widened in the past year. In the early days of the industry it meant a program which aided the machine code programmer to accomplish a task. Now it can have five meanings.

The first category takes in the graphics and sound toolkits. Those expand the Basic command set, adding instructions which create shapes, fill them in, and save pictures to tape or microdrive. The sound generators sometimes included within those packages can make music or even create a voice for your computer.

Machine code utilities include assemblers, disassemblers and monitors, all of which are designed to help you write your own machine code routines. If you are not up to that sort of exercise you may like to acquire a new operating system or high level language such as Pascal, Forth or C.

General utilities which will teach you the highway code, help you with car maintenance or show you how to diet efficiently are also available.

Graphics packages have the most visible effect on a Spectrum or QL, and they have proved popular this year even with people who would not normally program a computer. Light Magic, from New Generation, started the interest in all things graphical during 1985. It carried on where Melbourne Draw, from Melbourne House, and Paintbox, from Print 'n' Plotter, left off.

The program is totally menu driven and can be operated either under keyboard or joystick control. There are five modes of display. The first is pen mode in which, you can draw on the screen using an electronic nib.

Circle and Fill mode will allow you to produce circles and arcs which can then be filled in with colour. Brush mode is similar to Pen mode but you can use 10 types of brush.

The block mode operates in parts, or blocks, of the screen. It allows you to rotate and mirror blocks on pictures, saving time if you need to draw an object which is symmetrical.

Finally, the Text mode enables you to write on the screen. User-defined graphics can also be produced as a UDG generator is included in the package.

If Light Magic does not impress you then The Artist, from Softechnics surely will. It is one of the most powerful packages on the market.

The Artist can be used to take one section of a picture and reproduce it on another part of the screen, where it can be enlarged or reduced. The package will also allow you to produce UDGs and a animator utility is included within the program. Not satisfied with that the author has also included a simple routine which will take a screen display and reduce the number of RAM bytes required to store it.

Art Studio, from OCP outperforms The Artist in almost every way. It has superior speed to the Softechnics package and the pull down menus are easy to use. It can be used with disc, tape or microdrive and contains a printer driver which handles most Spectrum compatible printers. It should be of use to professional artists and designers as well as to the home user.

A similar package came onto the market for the QL. GraphiQL marked the entry of quality software house Talent onto the QL scene. Not only can the package produce every conceivable type of line, circle, are and angle, but it can also be used to define textures, using form and colour. Those can then be used with Fill routines.

The program allows you to enlarge shapes on the screen. That facility enables you to ensure that Fill texture does not leak out of a shape which has a hole in its border.

QL Art, from Eidersoft, has the same sort of facilities as GraphiQL but does not have the same professional edge to it. Unlike the Talent package it is fully menu driven. One of the faults with GraphiQL is that you must rely on the instruction manual or special help option for information about user commands.

Illustrator, from Gilsoft, is the long awaited adventure graphics designer for the Spectrum. It is no ordinary package as it produces graphic screens which can be put into adventures designed by Gilsoft's adventure design program The Quill. Although the routine can only produce static screen pictures it brightens up the adventures written by its sister program and gives adventure programmers more scope for invention.

White Lightning, from Ocean, is one of the most exciting advances in graphics design packages for the Spectrum that I have seen in the last year. Its aim is to allow you to produce high standard arcade game graphics and, in order to do that, you must use its special Forth-type language. The package combines a sprite generator with a screen layout designer. It is great fun to use and its limitations are only in the mind of the beholder.

A similar package has been produced for the QL, although Super Sprite Generator, from Digital Integration, will produce and animate only sprites and not full screen game backdrops.

The program adds extensions to SuperBasic and is run in two parts. The first is the generator and the second the animation routine. It is an excellent package which has been used by professional programmers to produce arcade games. Night Nurse from Shadow Games is one example of its use.

Only one good example of a sound toolkit came onto the market last year. Varitalk produces speech through the Spectrum Beep unit. Its performance can be enhanced using a loudspeaker or by putting the sound through a tape recorded output channel.

A large number of phonetic sounds are included in the package. Those can be accessed by using a code made up of the first letter of the type of sound required and the number of that sound from a list which has been provided on the cassette inlay. There are no parameters within the program to allow you to set emotion or inflection into the speech. You cannot even get the package to ask a question properly.

Machine code utilities may only appeal to assembly language programmers but that audience has grown larger during the past year, especially within the ranks of those who own a QL.

No less than four QL assemblers arrived on the market during 1985. The most powerful was from Metacomco. The QL Assembler Development Kit comprises a full screen editor, together with a three-pass compiler.

The editor can input ASCII code files and so can be used with code Basic programs and even word processor files. Once your assembly code listing has been entered you must save it to microdrive, or disc, and then load it into the assembler program. The package takes approximately two minutes - and three code overlays - to convert the code file into a machine code format.

Also included with the assembler is a library of QDOS calls. Those can be named within you programs. A linker was put into the second version of the assembler package at which time Metacomco dropped the price.

Computer One was also quick to produce an assembler for the QL. The difference between it and the Metacomco program is that it can be loaded into the machine complete with the source editor. You can, therefore, write your assembly program and then convert it to machine code without having to load any overlays from microdrive.

The Sinclair Research assembler is similar to that from Metacomco, but it is not as powerful. Incidentally, the full screen editor in the package was written for Metacomco. GST, the company which wrote the Sinclair assembler, just does not seem to have the knack of producing editors.

Adder Publishing was not as quick to produce an assembler package as Metacomco and Computer One but it did release one after the launch of its classic QL Advanced User Guide.

The program was similar in structure to the other products on the market but adheres closely to the notation in the User Guide Book.

It was some time before anyone realised that what the QL market was missing was a debugging tool such as a monitor or disassembler. That was soon put right, however, as four companies put monitors onto the market almost simultaneously.

The first program came from Digita1 Integration. QL Super Monitor is an economical package, put out in a cassette format box. It performs its task well and allows to view and alter code in a hexadecimal format.

Computer One was again quick on the scene with a monitor which followed, and was compatible with, its assembler package.

Not to be outdone Hi-Soft also decided that it should bring out a token QL product and opted for Andrew Pennel's QL MON. Unlike the Computer One program it is not automatically invoked when the machine is powered-up. Pennel's monitor is a QDOS job and can be called simply by typing a new SuperBasic command, MON. As it is easy to break out of the package back into SuperBasic the monitor can reside in RAM, be called at any time, and not disrupt any of the other tasks being performed by the QL.

The same technique is used in Tony Tebby's QL Monitor which is produced by Sinclair Research. The package has all the usual debugging facilities, a one line disassembler, and routines which displays the values of the registers or a block of memory in hexadecimal.

Another good feature of the package is that you can set it to run on any channel or in any window. That means that you could set up several versions of the program within the machine, each of which work on different sections of code.

You may prefer, however, not to get tangled up in the web of machine code. That does not mean, however, that you have to stick to SuperBasic, or to buying packages off the shelf. You can still experiment with QDOS and machine code by buying one of the toolkits or SuperBasic extension packages which have just become available.

The most famous toolkit, of course, was written by Tony Tebby and can be obtained for the QL from Sinclair Research. It provides a whole spectrum of new SuperBasic commands and run-alone programs which show the power of the QL multi-tasking operating system.

The main body of QL Toolkit comprises SuperBasic extensions which control jobs, allocate or clear memory, and display the status of the system.

A series of separate programs, some in SuperBasic, some machine code, are also included in the package. They provide a user-defined graphics generator, an exceptionally fast back-up utility, and a multi-tasked digital clock which can be run while the package is in operation.

One task which the toolkit will not do is to check microdrives for errors or repair files which have become corrupt. Those sort of occurrences may be well known to you. They are unfortunate but fairly regular and if you do not have a back-up copy of a file you will usually be in trouble.

The Cartridge Doctor, from Talent, does away with many of the problems posed by the microdrives. It checks every sector on a cartridge to see it any errors have occurred and informs you if files have been corrupted.

Once you know about an error you can set up the Cartridge Doctor to deal with it. The most usual way is to read the file in and display it in ASCII format. A cursor is then provided by the program and you can rewrite any parts of the file which have been damaged. You can even repair the headers of files if necessary.

Machine code is a low level language because you cannot understand it but the computer finds it easy to understand. A high level language, such as Basic, is easy to understand from your point of view - as a user - but needs some translation before the computer can understand it. There are several types of high level language for both the Spectrum and QL.

Although Sinclair Basic, for the Spectrum, is highly respected it does have some faults and one software house, Betasoft has brought out a new version of structured Basic. Many of the additions provided by Beta Basic can also be found on machines such as the BBC Microcomputer, Amstrad and QL. They include WHEN and WHILE loops, a real time clock, new graphics commands and instructions to make Interface 1 and microdrives easier to use.

The Betasoft version of Basic is one of the best on the market for any machine. It has undergone several transformations during its relatively short three-year life span.

Pascal is another popular language and can often be found in schools. Indeed it is on the curriculum of some O and A level examination boards.

The first company onto the market with a full version of the language was Hi-Soft. Although it does not have an ISO standard of certification, which most full versions of the language have, it does run many times faster than Sinclair Basic and includes Logo turtle graphics.

The big Pascal launch of the year, however, was for the QL, from Metacomco. The QL Pascal Development Kit did receive ISO standard certification - an award which is to Pascal what a BSA certificate is to car safety seats.

The Metacomco package provides a full version of the language with extensions for QL graphics and sound. The source code is taken from a full screen editor and compiled into true 68000 code.

It was the first QL product to receive a Sinclair User Classic and, indeed, it was the first utility to receive that award for software excellence.

Computer One brought out a version of Pascal which while not up to the standard of the compiler from Metacomco comes a very close second. The first version of the package compiles the source into P-code which, although faster than SuperBasic, requires the Pascal operating system to be in memory. Computer One later amended the program so that code could either be translated into P-code or compiled to form a job which would run without the operating system being present.

The compiler is more user friendly than the Metacomco package - all sections of the screen editor and compiler can be accessed through a menu based program - but the QL Pascal Development Kit wins hands down in the features race.

Metacomco and Computer One both brought out versions of the popular artificial intelligence list processing language LISP. The Computer One program is less expensive than the one from Metacomco. Both versions can deal with the QL graphics commands and both are interpreted.

The medium level language C also proved popular with QL software houses during 1985. The first company to bring out a version was GST, which is famous for the 68K/OS alternative QL operating system. Unfortunately the product is a version of public domain RATC, a scaled down version of the original with additions to allow the use of QL graphics and QDOS traps. It is, of course, a compiler but the source must first be typed into a screen editor, run through a compiler which produces assembly language source, and put through an assembler to produce 68008 code. It is an unnecessarily complex operation and the code could be compiled in one go if GST had produced a machine code compiler.

GST also ranks among the companies which brought out QL operating systems in 1985. Its 68K/OS was originally intended to be the QL operating system. The package consists of as ROM board, slotted into the expansion slot at the side of the QL, and several microdrive cartridges.

As operating systems are usually judged on the amount of software available for them 68K/OS is a dismal failure. So far GST has only produced an assembler and word processor for its baby. One wonders what would have happened if Sir Clive had decided to use the GST operating system.

The C/PM-68K operating system from disc drive manufacturer Quest Automation did little better than the GST product. A few business packages are available for it but, despite the fact that it uses discs or microdrives, few software houses have taken up the challenge to produce anything of note for it.

A large variety of DIY utilities came onto the market in 1985. They teach everything from garden design to touch typing and computer athletics.

Sinclair Research wins our first Most Useless Utility Award for 1985 with QL Gardener. While it is obvious to see the benefits of a plant dictionary and garden design package for those who like gardening, and own a QL, with the dearth of QL software the company must be green behind the ears to bring out such a product. Where are all the fantastic business and educational programs which will show off the true power of the 16-bit - or is it 32-bit - machine?

Our second MUU of 1985 award goes to Car Cure, a program which aims to diagnose the problems which you may encounter with your car. All you have to do is type in the symptoms of your vehicle's illness and the program will come up with an answer to your problems - maybe. Most of the time it just recommends that you contact a qualified mechanic immediately.

Another car-orientated program which is marginally more useful than Car Cure is Highway Code. Through a series of multi-choice questions it will teach you about the signs and situations which you may encounter on the road. The graphics are simple, but effective, and the program has been checked by a qualified driving instructor.

If you want to stay fit then Microfitness from VO2 is for you. It will take you through a series of carefully graded exercises culminating in - I hope for your sake - physical fitness. When it was reviewed early in 1985 our own Clare Edgeley found out how unfit she was!

Finally, touch typing programs for beginners came from QL software houses during the past year. Two were produced, one from Computer One and the other four months later, from Sinclair Research. Touch 'n' Go from Sinclair Research provides more in the way of graded exercises and a more complex results table.

The utility market is the area in which the QL has done best. There are many languages available for it and a host of machine code utilities which allow the use of the power of the 68008 processor and QDOS.

It is a pity that the same cannot be said of the Spectrum. Very few utilities were produced for the machine and most software houses have moved to other machines. That is unfortunate as the Spectrum still has a lot of power within it which lies untapped because people like you cannot get at it.

While Art Studio provides all the facilities of Softechnics' Artist, it is controlled by a series of pull down menus, operated using an arrow cursor. It will only draw in black and white although the fill textures, of which there are more pre-defined than The Artist, can have colours attributed to them.

The package is very versatile in terms of storage and control. The cursor can be moved using a joystick or a Kempston mouse which turns the Spectrum into an Apple Mackintosh. It can be purchased on disc and will run with most combinations of tape, microdrive and disc.