Program: Leonardo
Producer: Creative Sparks
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £9.95

Franco Frey gets to grips with one of the biggest graphics utilities this side of the Pre- Raphaelites.

It seems a long time since we introduced the Leonardo competition and here we are finally reviewing the instrument of all creations. Creative Sparks has not been sleeping since, but have been suffering from the bug common to all creative sparks of never being pleased of their product, changing it here and there until finally an outside force intervened and separated the masterpiece from its creator. Thank God for the financial men as the public would be suffering even now....

Leonardo enters the world as an instrument which 'enables you to create complex pictures and graphic elements using the full capabilities of the Spectrum computer'. This means the creation of complete pictures, User-defined graphics and complete alternative character sets and picture elements which may range in size from a single pixel to a full size picture.

As a result of the long incubation, Leonardo has become a heavyweight of a utility and to do it full justice CRASH is forced to extend the review over two issues. This first pan will deal with the basic drawing facilities and the second with programmed drawing, windowing and texture. Let's take a closer look and put pen to paper....

LENNY'S BASICS

Unlike Leonardo da Vinci the user gets a choice of selecting keyboard control or one of the many joystick interfaces which include Sinclair, Kempston, AGF, Protek and Fuller. This opens up the gateway to the production screen. Surprisingly the screen is void of any status window but the usual information is hidden away craftily to be revealed at a key stroke. Pressing Shift 2 displays the co-ordinates at the top left of the screen, or Shift 3 at the bottom left. Shift 4 undoes the damage. If you've digested that, pressing 1 will reveal the full screen INFORMATION WINDOW as long as the key is pressed. This shows the current status of the program and includes all kinds of information about current mode, cursor, line, brush and picture details which will all make sense once you have studied the manual carefully.

Coming back to the basics, the pen or brush is controlled by selecting one of several keys. Key P puts you into plot mode and lets you draw to your heart's content, key 0 (or the fire button) into cursor mode and lets you skip over the paper. Key 0 enables you to undo any harm done (Unplot mode) and Shift 0 gets you into Invert mode, which obviously inverts the pixels' status. Your 'pen' may be converted into a brush by setting the brush size, key M. As usual, calling a function requiring input parameters, will replace the bottom third of the screen with the Input Window, with instructions on the information you have to key in. The brush size may be varied in x and y direction independently, a very good feature this, which enables some crafty design work. The pen and cursor default speed may prove to be too slow, so key I will let you select the x and y increments, which will allow you to draw fast chunky graphics. There is no pen speed control as such, only the definition or increments will be changed, so if you require pixel resolution, you're stuck with the one speed.

Dotted lines may be drawn with the key F function which lets you select a mark/space ratio of any size (integer values).

ON THE LINE

A host of options are provided for drawing straight lines. As usual line drawing requires a second variable to the cursor, the Last Plot. At the beginning this is set to the middle of the screen. Shift Z positions Last Plot to the current cursor position. After moving the cursor to the new position, a line can be drawn using Shift Q. The Last Plot position is not updated however so that if the cursor is repositioned all lines will originate from the same Last Plot position. Drawing a line with key Q sets the Last Plot to the cursor position after each line draw and the lines are linked to each other. More sophisticated lines can be drawn with the use of Boundary and Direction settings. If the boundary is on, the program detects any set pixel intersection and the line will be plotted up to or from this point onwards depending on the setting of Direction. Keys R and Shift R will set Boundary and Direction. This function is very useful for hidden line drawings and also for guaranteeing airtight shapes for later filling. Horizontal and vertical lines may be drawn through the cursor with the W and Shift W keys and the line limits are set with the first encounter of a set pixel.

Curved lines are amply catered for with the normal circle function (key A with the radius as variable) and arc using cursor and Last Plot positioning and Arc angle variable (key S). The jewel of the curved line functions is the Ellipse function. Any type of ellipse may be drawn with the use of up to five variables: Vertical radius, Horizontal radius, Rotation, Stan angle and Turn angle. The use of start angle and turn angle allows any part of an ellipse to be drawn, and if there is a criticism it is whether the user will be able to cope with the wealth of these variables and put the ellipse to screen which he actually requires.

FITTING FILLINGS

Shift U fills the area indicated by the cursor and operates at a fairly rapid pace. Should you be worried that your precious drawing may be obliterated by an unsuccessful (or too successful) fill, have no fear, key Y will restore the previous condition. Y will operate with almost any function other than Cover and provides a useful error protection.

ADDING COLOUR

So far the work carried out was purely setting and resetting pixels in all kinds of order on the screen. For colour work the attribute mode is entered by pressing key B. The flashing Pixel Cursor is replaced with the Character Cursor. As with a paint brush the colour pots have to be selected and this is done using key Q. The program prompts for Ink, Paper, Bright and Flash. Putting the colour brush to paper is accomplished with key W and moving around the cursor will leave the required colours in the attribute characters. The brush may be lifted with key 0 (Cursor mode). There is a special Character Information Window on call up which displays all the current colour settings. The position of the cursor is shown in character spaces from the top left of the screen together with the colour of the screen in the cursor position. The character step increment settings and the current colour settings are also displayed.

When changing the colour settings there is an option of inputting n as an entry for the settings which require no change. This allows only one attribute to be changed and speeds up the process immensely. Special colouring functions include the change of colour of the whole screen or window with key A and Colour swap, which will exchange any attribute characters on the screen of given colour settings with the new settings. The function prompts for the old and new colour settings and changes any attribute characters that match with the new colours.

Last but not least colour patterns can be created on the screen by using the window facility which will be explained in the next issue. A window is created on the screen and filled with the required colour pattern. By setting the step size of the brush to be similar to the size of the window and entering the key F function, the brush may be positioned at the desired place and the 0 key or fire button toggled. The window will be copied into the new position and the entire screen may be covered with the pattern if so required.

In the next issue Leonardo will display its special features which include the Windowing technique providing magnification and repositioning of part of your picture, the UDG creation, the creation of tenure using the COVER facility and the very versatile and powerful Programmed Drawing facility which provides routine drawing of figures and patterns.

Franco Frey, now fast becoming a leading authority on how to draw things on a computer screen, concludes his review of the Creative Sparks utility that aims to turn you into an artistic genius....

Program: Leonardo
Producer: Creative Sparks
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £9.95

LEONARDO PART 2

Having got rid of the general drawing facilities of LEONARDO in the last issue of Crash several of the more exotic routines such as windowing and the programmed drawing facility can be examined. Leonardo must be the most comprehensive drawing utility for the Spectrum, offering a multitude of options which might or might not prove useful to the user. Careful examination should avoid any disappointment as to how useful all the various functions are and should also provide some help in assessing the performance of the competition.

WINDOWING AND PICTURE ELEMENTS

A window may be defined in the picture by setting the two opposing corner points of the frame. The lower left corner is set in cursor mode by pressing key 2 with the cursor in the desired position, the top right corner with key 3. To display the edge of the window key 4 will provide a black frame. Key G will save the window element into the computer memory as picture number 1. To recall at a later stage the stored picture, key 4 will reveal the window. Key N is pressed and the desired picture number entered. The program then prompts for the display mode. This can be either print, add, common or difference, executing either replace, logic or, logic and exclusive or operations with the existing pixels within the window. The different modes provide interesting effects and these can be used to advantage. For example logic and (common) can be used to fill solid objects on the screen with any pattern created and saved as a window. The picture element can be used as a brush by setting the x and y steps to the same width and height of the picture element and after having pressed L and toggled the joystick button or 0 the pattern can be painted by moving the cursor over the screen.

MAGNIFYING PARTS OTHER UTILITIES CANNOT REACH.

Magnifying makes use of the windowing technique. Only a small area of the screen can be magnified. The program will warn the artist if the area selected is too big. Placing the cursor at the lower left corner and pressing D, moving to the upper right corner and pressing D again will locate the area to be magnified. The cursor is positioned in the receiver area and shift D will initiate proceedings. Prompts for x and y magnification factors must be answered and the program will copy the designated window in magnified form. By magnifying onto the original window area the process can be repeated several times.

UDGS AND PRINTING CHARACTERS

UDGs are created in pixel cursor mode with the use of the plotting or drawing techniques described in part one. Once the graphics have been created, the cursor is positioned at the top left corner of the area to be stored and the cursor step is set to 8 wide by 8 deep. After pressing key T the program prompts for the memory location of the UDGs. This can be either in the Spectrum's usual UDG area A - U, or into the main store which can hold up to 774 characters (select any of 1 - 774 start positions). X and Y block size is asked for and the graphics are copied into memory. To display the UDGs character cursor mode must be selected and characters printed in graphics mode. This can be done with key P, which sets a line of text or UDGs that is repeatedly printed at the cursor position, or key L which prints a block of UDGs in various ways on the screen. The function prompts for the UDG memory area (A-U or 1-774) and the block size. The block can be inverted horizontally, vertically or not at all by answering prompts and similarly rotated 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees clockwise. In fact by combined use of Save UDG and Print Block any area of the screen may be inverted and or rotated.

PROGRAMMED DRAWING

Leonardo provides a routine drawing of figures and patterns. This programmable feature provides the facility for drawing patterns and shapes, singly or repetitive at linear or non-linear scale expansion, translation and rotation. Key E displays the Draw Table. The Table displays all the parameters which can be set and is also a menu of available options within Programmed Draw. Each parameter can be set in turn or skipped with Enter. Scale sets the initial scale factor for the first drawing operation with the beginning point as origin. Scale increment is the amount added to the X and Y scale factors after each drawing operation. Start gives the relative position to the beginning point of the start of the next drawing process. Link is the from relative to the start point from which successive drawing operations take their beginning point. Displacement is the absolute displacement for each successive drawing operation. Rotation is the initial rotation in degrees of the first drawing operation clockwise about the beginning point. Rotation increment is the additional amount of rotation to successive drawing operations. Cycles is the number of drawing operations to occur automatically. Three different brush modes may be used. A (Picture) is used for picture mode and the picture element together with the mode of drawing (print, add, common or difference) has to be entered. B (Co-ords) is used for figure mode and the first and last coordinate pairs to be used from the Figure Table for the creation of the figure. The Figure Table contains up to 10 coordinate pairs, so that quite complex base figures may be used. The Figure Table may be called up with I. C (Brush Mode) is the mode in which a rectangular brush is used if Brush is selected. The brush size is determined by the scale factors and the mode can be set independently. This can be Plot, Unplot or Invert. 4 drawing modes may be selected. D (Line) will join each cycle with a line. E (Figure) will draw the defined figure at each cycle of the programmed draw. F (Picture) will deposit the defined picture element at each cycle of the function. G (Brush) will draw the rectangular brush at each cycle of the programmed draw. Last there is a Reset option (H) which will reset the first eight parameters to their initial values. Although complex, the programmed draw option is quite fun to use and easily learned. The complexity will guarantee some rather fancy looking graphics, especially if enough time is spent playing with the various parameters.

SCROLLING

Leonardo provides the facility of scrolling the entire picture or only the part within a window. Scrolling in any direction may be accomplished by scrolling in several steps. Picture and attributes are scrolled individually. Scrolling the entire picture may therefore be useful for settling attribute border problems.

TEXTURE

Cover is a function which generates interesting texture. It uses a scrolling technique. The picture is scrolled a distance and in the direction chosen, and copies itself repeatedly filling to the edge of the screen. The entire screen or only the pixel window is 'covered' upon selection and after giving the direction of the scroll movement the repetition interval must be entered.

IN CONCLUSION

Leonardo has a tremendous amount of functions to offer and anyone with the doodle bug will get lost in the maze of options provided in this package. The Programmed Drawing Feature alone can keep anyone awake for several nights. As a serious screen development tool for professionals the program is too fancy. Here Melbourne Draw with the excellent magnifying option for detailed pixel work is still unbeatable. But Leonardo aims at a very different user. By providing an immense amount of special functions Leonardo can be seen as a game in its own right, where the user takes a very active and creative role. Leonardo is very user friendly with its many menus and tables. Loading, saving and creating pictures, UDGs or non screen graphics is straight forward and there is a prompt round every corner. Leonardo uses a signalling system to inform the user of the program's condition. Whenever operating, the program draws a colour coded strip to indicate the state of affairs. This is especially useful for the programmed Draw mode, leaving no doubt as to whether something awful has occurred or not. The 100 page manual is written as a straightforward introduction to all the operations and functions of Leonardo with extensive examples on the Programmed Draw mode. Now, what about all these competition entries....

PAINTING BY NUMBERS

Forget the pens and paintbrushes - how about painting with pixels? Penny Page has taken a peek at four new graphics packages and Peter Shaw completes the picture.

First off, the sixty-four thousand pixel question - why do you want to draw pretty pictures on the screen? Of course, there's always the art for art's sake answer. After all, why do artists draw pictures anyway? The average artist can fork out quite large portions of his pocket-money on pens and paintbrushes, but at least you won't have to keep replacing your software. But if you're not that arty-farty how does the idea of making money grab you? Thought so. Well , I know of people who have sold their computer masterpieces to software houses who've used them as tide screens for games. You don't have to be a poor artist! But the best reason of all is that drawing with your Speccy can be real fun. And if you don't rate yourself as much of an artist, you'll still be able to knock up some professional looking graphics with your Speccy's help. Beats staring at a blank sheet of paper any day!

ART WORK

Every art form has its limitations and computer art's no exception. Your Speccy hasn't got an infinite number of pixels to draw with and your colour palette's pretty small. You can always mix a hue on screen with the aid of a grid pattern and clever use of colours but this only highlights the problem of the low-resolution attribute grid. All sounds a bit grim, doesn't it? But don't despair, 'cos a quick butchers at Pete's piccies will show you what's possible.

All of the packages Peter picked to produce his piccies (OK, you can untwist your tongues now! Ed.) are new to the market, though Paintplus has arisen from the ashes of P'n'P's previous package, Paintbox. All the software we looked at offers improvements on previous graphics programs but none of them has got it completely right yet. They're either too complicated or they miss out on one important feature or another. Take for an example, the idea of adding colour. A painter would usually draw a rough sketch on the canvas first and then slap on the colour afterwards. But with three of these packages you've got to choose your colours and put them on without any previous drawing. Only The Artist has got it right.

DRAWING THE LINE

One of the major problems about creating pictures on the Speccy is the distance between the screen where the pic appears and the keyboard that creates it. This is pretty unusual - just think, if you're painting, the brushes are at least in direct contact with the canvas and a sculptor chisels and chips at his chunk of rock. Of course, a light pen seems the obvious way round but none of these packages has that facility. And have you ever tried to draw with one of them on the Spectrum - they wouldn't have persuaded Picasso to pack in his painting!

All the programs include a User-Defined Graphics editor and positioner - very useful if you want to store away complex pictures in twenty-one graphics symbols but I find this option a bit of a waste of space. Still, that's only me and if I was asked to pin down the best program on its UDG handling alone, I'd plump for The Artist.

Well, now for the moment you've all been waiting for - which one of the four packages would I go for on overall picture creating ability. As you probably expected I'm going to hedge my bets. My choice lies somewhere between The Artist, PaintPlus and Lightmagic in that order. Leonardo just didn't come into the running. But before you make up your mind, have a look at what Peter made of the packages and see which one would most suit your artistic temperament.

Leonardo's definitely aimed at the novice artist. It includes a 'programmable draw' feature that lets you draw all sorts of shapes. In fact, it's a bit like Squirler which we published in Program Power a couple of months ago! The worst bit's growing old waiting for it to perform even the simplest operations. OK, it's not a crime to write in Basic, but the cursor... well, I mean.

Picture Completion Time 4.5 hours. Rating 1.5/5

Spectrum 48K
Price: £7.95

Thorn-EMI have the "ultimate graphics package" for the Spectrum 48k which has almost everything.

On loading, something I found tricky - but then I find working a phone-box difficult - you are presented with a choice of control. I used a joystick, which is essential for any serious graphics work. Then comes a blank screen with a flashing cursor and you can start to draw.

Using this mode of BRUSH you can change its thickness and whether you want to draw straight lines or arcs or circles. By referring to the information window, you can see what is going on behind the screen. I found this to be a trifle confusing, as you have lots of numbers floating about.

Leonardo has an interesting feature of WINDOWING, with which you can invert, draw and shift the image contained in the WINDOW. You can magnify parts of the picture. This is a very useful piece of graphics as it is difficult, if not impossible, to work on a picture using the clumsy pixels displayed on the screen.

Colouring was fine though I found the Spectrum a hard task master for my puny memory. Which key does what? Luckily, the instruction manual has some keyboard maps to help, but overlays would have been better.

Various other features were Mirror Images, Word Printing, 3-D Drawing and UDGs (User Defined Graphics). You also have an uninspired selection of standard characters in memory to use if, and when, you want them. I didn't.

The manual, although comprehensive, was far too technical for the average user and really you'd need to be a seasoned designer to get instant results.

Powerful and pretentious. But cheap!

I've had to wait a while for my copy of Leonardo so let me record a vote of thanks right away to Creative Sparks for their prompt response to our dear Editor's gentle hint to that effect. Expectations grow with waiting and the usual preliminaries are likely to go by the wayside once you get a chance to get to grips with the thing you have been waiting for.

So, without, as they say further ado, let's see what's offered by this Graphic Utility for the 48K Spectrum. Its claims are considerable, as one might expect from a package bearing the name of someone who might easily be described as one of the most creative sparks of the Italian Renaissance 'simply the most advanced Spectrum graphics package......... in fact the only restriction is your imagination.'

It certainly made an impression on my son. I had to pull rank to use the program myself, but not before he'd had time to produce at least one effective, if simple screen within a very short space of time. I include it if only to show that a quick start can be made with this package.

Keyboard and Joystick control are available and a 98 page manual is waiting to take you through the facilities offered. It's a comprehensive manual and worth noting here that it is written in a very effective and practical style. More like a guide at first, to some pretty heavy stuff which if approached in any other way would have almost certainly put off many a potential user.

The main Menu offers three Options; CREATE GRAPHICS, SAVE GRAPHICS and LOAD GRAPHICS. Starting to draw using the Pixel Cursor, a small flashing black dot on a white screen, is straightforward. This is the pen position which of course can be moved as if the pen were on the paper, or lifted in order to be moved onto another part of the screen. The current mode and the cursor position (measured in pixel units) can be called and displayed in the top left corner of the screen. Brush size - the number of pixels in a stroke - can be changed easily. After some experimentation this facility becomes quite easy to use.

At any time the INFORMATION WINDOW can be called. This gives the user an update on the current state of the program. e.g. Mode, Cursor information, brush size, line information and so on. Curved lines can be drawn allowing some fascinating experiments with ellipses. At any time, those inevitable mistakes can easily be removed or erased from your drawing. There are no problems either adding colour or filling areas indicated by the cursor. The WINDOW facility also allows a great deal of scope for creating colour patterns on the screen. This same facility enables a small rectangular window to be defined in your picture.

Creating colour patterns is just one way of using the window, magnifying is another. Only a small area of the screen can be tackled at a time and the magnified image printed elsewhere. Words and UDGs can be incorporated into pictures and the 'blocks' so created can then be inverted or rotated.

Another feature offered by Leonardo is PROGRAMMED DRAWING, a way of creating and then drawing and repeating complex patterns and shapes. This facility is useful, but requires quite a lot of work and time spent with the manual.

Finally, scrolling can be achieved. Either the whole picture or only part within a window can be scrolled in any direction. Using the scrolling technique further textured patterns can be created.

The whole program has enough prompts and signals for the user to have all the information he or she needs at any given time. Having said all this, and with so many Graphics packages now available for Spectrum users, some perspective is needed in order to assess utilities like Leonardo. I think it may well be time to do so. And I hope to be able to this next issue with special reference to Leonardo.

GRAPHICS '85

A comprehensive review of the state of the art by Colin Christmas.

As we see this old year out and welcome the new one in, it's a better time than most to stand back and take stock. Looking back land leaving the prophecies and predictions to others! It must surely be agreed that for Spectrum users with an eye on Graphics it has been a most exciting year. I can't speak for other departments but for me, it has been Christmas every issue.

In this issue I want to do something special take a look at the goodies that have come our way. Our way? Who are We? We are the Graphics Grabbers, Artwork Addicts, Design Doodlers. For us the screen is a window on a world of colour, images, line, shape, pattern, design, texture, light and shade. And like a window it opens out into an exciting new visual world. For business, for profit, for learning for discovering or for pleasure. From the weekend dabbler or doodler to the serious professional, from the games enthusiast to the educational user, from beginner to experienced programmer and right across the age range, you will find Spectrum owners who are hooked on graphics.

It's fairly formidable task - covering the range of Graphics Hardware and Software now available lo Spectrum owners but let's get started.

LIGHTPENS

I've had most success to date, with the package from Dk'tronics. The pen itself is rather like a biro or felt tip pen. It is attached by a wire to a control interface which of course comes with the package. The interface is plugged into the back of the Spectrum. A program on cassette is included.

The glass screen of your monitor is the working area and drawing surface, so some consideration has to be given as to whether this is the way you want to work. Then there are practical aspects such as the distance of your screen from your keyboard, and the fact that you have to work on a perpendicular 'face'. The height of the screen is therefore important if you do not want to suffer from muscle fatigue in your drawing arm.

Lightpens give you a physical contact and interaction with your drawing surface if that is important. Calibrating the pen each time may prove a chore, but after that it's plainsailing - within the limitations of the power of the program. Again it's a good way of getting started or the very basics of graphics, of getting into the picture as it were. Sensibly introduced in the classroom it could be useful aid and introduction for children in an educational context. It is limited though in its potential for advanced or complex screen designs. Graphics Tablets give you similar physical point of con tact with your drawing-surface. This time it is horizontal and again a 'pen' is used. There's a review of the Saga Graphics Pad in this issue. So when you are ready look it up. They certainly take you further than the lightpen. But then you pay a lot more for the facilities they offer.

Now for something almost completely different, the Sinclair LOGO pack. Another excellent starter, but as I have hinted, quite different.

This pack has very obvious educational applications and for very young children. The founding father of the LOGO language intended it as a language for children which would develop logical thinking, introduce young minds to computer programming and have very definite terms of reference for the teaching and development of mathematical concepts. Drawing is achieved by moving a small graphics 'turtle' - a triangle - around the screen. This is done by sending through the computer commands known as Primitive Procedures (mostly single words and abbreviations of those words). Your sense of direction needs to be accurate and formulated mathematically. Once you have established procedures for drawing, say, a square, this group of procedures can be assigned a single word or name which LOGO will then understand as a command to repeat the whole set of procedures.

The emphasis or bias is fundamentally mathematical, arithmetical or geometric. You do not just learn to draw a square, you also learn what makes a square what it is and from there the difference bet ween a square and a rectangle or a parallelogram.

It is a language itself, apart from BASIC. Hence learning to use it is learning to program a computer in another language. The graphic aspect being displayed on the screen is part of the incentive and motivation for progressing with the new language.

Two fairly weighty and comprehensive books or manuals are part of the pack. The first book deals exclusively with Turtle Graphics and is an absorbing and refreshingly different kind of programming experience. The second book acts as a reference manual for Sinclair LOGO, The growth, use and development of LOGO by Spectrum owners, especially in schools will, I think, be affected by the cost factor.

When DREAM SOFTWARE released Computer Aided Designer, my own children had not had their Spectrum for long. They, like me were exploring the full graphics potential of the machine when C.A.D. turned up and kept us enthralled for days. Now, still an old favourite, I would recommend it as another in the 'Starter' category. With very obvious educational values and as a springboard for more ambitious projects later in Design.

The manual is simple and very straightforward - alphabetically leading you through the twenty seven commands available in the program. Some forty custom shaped graphics, UDGs can be designed. By giving precise measurements most geometric shapes can be drawn, filled and so on. It remains impressive after all this time, and the potential for drawing in 3D is considerable.

Similarly, another old favourite, VU-3D from PSION.
This has the added and appeal of enabling the viewer to move around the object in 3D. Graphics and Design, pure and simple. High resolution colour and an incredible understanding of perspectives are real bonuses with this program.

Future designers in the Aircraft or for that matter almost any other industry, may have started young with something like C.A.D. or VU-3D.

I doubt if they would have been able to afford the RD Digital Tracer, from RD Laboratories. This is closer to an instrument than anything else I've come across in graphics and design hardware and software for the Spectrum.

It comes in two versions, the Standard and the Professional. Both are fairly highly technical and sophisticated tools. The Tracer consists of a short fixed arm and pivot from which extends a drawing arm hinged at the centre with another floating pivot which moves across your drawing surface area.

The arm is connected to the computer by a length of cable via an interface plugged into the rear port of the Spectrum. A cardboard template and transparent grid overlay are included for calibration purposes, the tracer is a precision instrument. The software cassette contains five programs. The usual options are offered in the first, plotting single points, construction of basic geometric figures, filling, hatching, change of ink, border, paper colour, adding text, UDGs and so on.

The display image can be moved up, down, and from side to side, scaled up and down, and reversed. Multiple screen images including images at different scales and at different positions can be achieved. By adding other BASIC routines and software, the Tracer's capabilities can be extended into the field of statistical analysis. This immediately puts the Tracer into a specialist Graphics and Display category. Although the Tracer can be used with the ZX81 and 16K Spectrum, its full potential can only really be developed on the 48K and then only by competent programmers. It's a versatile instrument for the specialist.

It's the season of Good will and all that, so why not give a last mention for all whose speciality is Games Designing. It's been around for a while, but standing the test of time in lots of ways. I'm referring of course to the High level User Friendly Realtime Games Designer from Melbourne House. Or as it is more commonly known, HURG.

Still a powerful program and a very good manual. How did they do it in those all time greats like Pacman, Donkey Kong and Space invaders? H.U.R.G. will tell you how.

It's a pretty good list of graphics goodies and that other seasonal expression comes to mind. 'There's something here for everyone.' You have no excuse for not knowing how and from whom in Spectrum Graphics, just how to enjoy the graphics power behind those buttons.