Although one or two graphics toolkits had appeared before this one was launched, none ever got the widespread publicity of this particular package. Melbourne Draw has now had well over a year to make its mark and it's gained the reputation of being a most effective utility.

LOAD it and the program will auto-RUN and display the main menu. This offers several options enabling you to LOAD previously developed pictures or user-defined graphics (UDGs), edit a picture, and also to SAVE and VERIFY. Select 'edit picture' and you're presented with a black screen area - plus a two-line information window at the bottom of the screen. This tells you the current 'mode' (Skip, Set, Reset, Invert, Scroll or Text); you're also told whether you are editing 'screen' or 'attributes'. Below these are two numbers representing the x and y coordinates of the cursor. The numbering system used is identical to that of the Basic PLOT command, even allowing access to the bottom two lines of the screen (so that the bottom left corner coordinates are x=0, y=-16); should you wish to use these two lines, the information window can be moved to the top of the screen. During a Fill command, the window is removed to allow complete filling of any shapes within the window area. To the right of mode and co-ordinates is a four-character block, indicating the degree of magnification you are using. Finally, to the right of this is the section indicating the current INK, PAPER and attribute information.

The first step is to clear the screen... that way you can see what you're doing! 'Clear' options (Paper, Ink, Both, Screen, All or None) are activated by Shift (either Caps or Symbol) and the 'R' key. Generally Melbourne Draw is pretty user friendly, although initially, with all the commands to remember, it may seem otherwise! But even then there is help because Melbourne has thoughtfully listed all the commands and their actions on the back cover of the instruction booklet... yes, it's definitely user friendly.

Once you've cleared the screen you'll be left with a one-pixel flashing cursor that's roughly in the middle of the work area. This can be moved in any of eight directions using the block of keys under 'Q-W-E'. Pressing Enter will implement the Set mode and if you now move the cursor, a line will be drawn on the screen. Space activates Skip mode - no pixels set; the 'O' key lets you Reset pixels you've Set by mistake. Pressing the 'G' key puts a grid pattern over the screen, enabling you to align any shapes with attribute cells (you may wish to colour consecutive cells differently). The 'M' key magnifies your working image two times, and pressing 'M' again gives you another two-times magnification. This is particularly useful for fine detail and it's also very handy when you're designing UDGs.

Melbourne Draw has the novel facility of allowing you to convert any character square (shown by the 'grid' pattern) to a UDG (normally restricted to the Spectrum allocation of keys 'a' to 'u'). Thus, at maximum magnification you have a display of eight by five cells showing. You can create a picture on it and conconvert 21 cells to UDGs, either for use elsewhere in your picture or for use within other programs. You're also given the data for each, should you want to record it for future use.

The user can scroll the display in any direction and print text to any character square. The direction that the text is printed can be rotated; that means if you want a word reading down the screen with the letters on their sides, there's no awkward positioning to deal with. Just specify the direction in which text is to be written and key in your characters; UDGs can be dealt with in the same way. Finally, the display can be reversed left to right.

Side two of the cassette has several Melbourne House title pages for you to LOAD, alter and otherwise play/learn from.

REMBRANDT & CO

Can't stand the penetrating smell of oil paints and terpentine? Are you drowning in diluted, diffused water colours? Forget about paint brushes, mixing pots and smeary dirty hands. The canvasses of the future are VDU or television screens and the crayons give way to flexible utility programs. Today the applications are limited by the lack of affordable colour screen printouts, but this is bound to change in the near future.

Every artist will confirm that the selection of the right drawing utentils is of prime importance, and we therefore examine four drawing utilities now available to the budding Spectrum artist.

C.A.D. from Dream Software
Dynamic Graphics from Procom
Melbourne Draw from Melbourne House
Paintbox from Print'n'Plotter

Graphical work on the screen may be subdivided into three main activities:

Background and title screen creation
Creation of user definable graphics (UDG)
Handling of moving graphics (Sprites)

The selection of the right utility depends entirely on the specific application. Not all utilities provide facilities for all three disciplines: each one excels in one of the tasks.

SCREEN CREATION

Screen creating can be a very time consuming job. The basics are simple: set or reset the 49'152 pixels which make up the screen and give the 768 attribute positions the required value. If you provide for every pixel a minimum of 10 seconds for setting or resetting, you will have to work non-stop for five days, 16 hours and 32 minutes.

The colouring works out a fraction faster at two hours eight minutes.

Obviously there are alleviating factors which reduce the required time enormously. Not all the screen has to be dealt with on a pixel resolution. Text and fill areas can be handled in character resolution. Nonetheless it is of prime importance that the utility provides an expedient and proficient way of performing screen functions without having to go through any lengthy function select procedures for a simple screen manipulation. Added facilities such as diagonal cursor controls, screen magnification, window creation, scrolling, etc, give the user extra flexibility and can prove a very useful bonus.

Melbourne Draw scores the highest marks in user friendliness. This program provides the clearest logical procedure: screen and attribute handling are completely separated. The screen may at first be edited by positioning the cursor with the eight direction controls and then putting pen to paper for the actual drawing movement. The picture, including the usual edit area, can be created in 'black and white.' When satisfied the attribute edit mode is selected and the identical procedure can take place for the attribute character setting.

Melbourne Draw is the only program which allows the attribute cursor to be moved in a non-destructive (pen up) mode. The colour may be selected by simply pressing the correct colour key (ink and cap shift paper).

Melbourne Draw also provides a screen magnification facility, which can display a portion of the screen four or 16 times enlarged. This proves to be so useful that all the drawing is accomplished on the enlarged scale. The cursor position automatically dictates the screen area displayed and as a further bonus the entire screen may be pixel scrolled to centre the work area. There are no special draw functions such as circle, rectangle, etc, except fill.

The text mode includes the useful option of writing text in any of four orientations (l/r, r/l, u/d, d/u).

The program is aimed at providing a professional drawing board and proves to be a fast and efficient working tool for the serious user.

Dynamic Graphics allows the creation of a window of any size, which may be positioned, edited and copied anywhere on the screen, thus providing for multiple screens or pattern generation within the screen. Further to this there is a rescale option, which will copy any rectangular area of the screen to any other part with different x and y scale. This can prove to be a very potent feature. Special draw commands such as line, circle and edit are also catered for.

Although Dynamic Graphics is first and foremost a moving graphics utility. Its inbuilt screen creator proves to be an exceptionally versatile drawing instrument.

Paintbox offers a Kempston cursor control option with its Precision Plotter screen editor. The inclusion of special draw functions such as fill, erase (last command), circle, radial mode and arc together with the option of including any of the 84 UDGs designed with the UDG editor provide for a useful screen tool. The omission of a paper colour control within the screen editor forces the user to go through the lengthy procedure of returning to the main menu for the sake of changing paper colour.

The list of options in the C.A.D. program suggest a very powerful drawing tool. However the basic command procedure of C.A.D, proves to be a stumbling block. Every function is called by pressing the appropriate command key, upon which the selected command is displayed in the information window. The user must then press enter for execution. This is even required for positioning the cursor. This all makes for a lengthy procedure, which ultimately takes the fun out of drawing. Apart from the usual cursor control there is the option of using memorised headings, but in practice it is very difficult to make good use of it. The shape creation function, which allows the user to stoe and recall a sequence of drawing commands, proves to be very useful for pattern generation or similar applications. C.A.D. has a complete set of special draw commands, which include among other things triangle, 3D cube and 3D rectangle generation.

UDG CREATION

Paintbox offers a complete service for UDG addicts. The program caters for four banks of 21 UDGs which can be called into the UDG area for access. The edit facility is complete and practical to use including inverse, rotating and mirror functions. The UDGs are stored together with a M/C routine for calling the individual banks from Basic into the UDG area. A sketchpad is provided for experimenting with related UDGs (multi-character sprites).

C.A.D. offers a less elaborate UDG facility. Up to 26 UDGs may be edited and stored.

Melbourne Draw has no special editing facility for UDGs but editing is accomplished anywhere on screen using the x16 magnification mode. Any of the 760 character positions on the screen may be assigned as any one of the 22 UDGs. Pixel scrolling may position the required shape within the character grid.

MOVING GRAPHICS

Dynamic Graphics is the only program to actually handle sprites and sprite movement from within a user's Basic program. C.A.D. caters for the creation of up to 40 24x24 pixel sprites (3x3 character), but leaves it to the user to inject any life into the screen. It does not provide any M/C routine for fast pixel to pixel movement.

Dynamic Graphics provides the user with a complete sprite animation facility and must be invaluable for the programmer who doesn't want to delve into the machine code labyrinth but requires smooth animation.

Six sprites of up to 4x4 characters may be generated and edited with the excellent sprite creator. The six graphic characters are treated as individual frames of an animated film and the user may test the resulting motion by selecting the animated display, which sequences the frames on display to create a living object. The character set may then be saved to tape to be called up for later use.

To integrate the moving sprites without any knowledge of M/C, a sprite user subroutine compiler is provided, which creates a sprite positioning subroutine anywhere in normal user memory. This subroutine can be accessed via Randomize User commands from within Basic. Up to 10 different frames may be positioned consecutively on the screen and the result (if handled correctly) is a very smoothly moving object.

CONCLUSION

The four programs under scrutiny all have their individual merits.

Melbourne Draw stands out clearly as a professional tool for title and background screen creations.

Paint box provides the most flexible UDG creator combined with a useful screen editor.

Dynamic Graphics is a must for anybody wishing to create moving graphics within their own programs without bothering about M/C handling.

C.A.D. provides a multitude of different facilities for screen, UDG and sprite editing.

THE PROS AND CONS

C.A.D.
Plus:

- Multitude of special draw functions: Line, rectangle, square, triangle, circle, parallelogram, 3D cube, 3D rectangular box, fill, erase (last command).

- Grid display on edge of screen.

- Assignment of (A-Z) letter labels to 26 points anywhere on screen for 'Draw by letters' facility.

- Shape creation: 26 preprogrammable user commands will perform a series of draw commands (= draw routines).

- Sprite generation: up to 40 3x3 character sprites.

- Sprite generation of up to 40 3x3 character sprites

Minus:
- Complicated and slow drawing procedure (select command and press enter).

- Confusing and unpractical heading facility (cursor or preset heading).

DYNAMIC GRAPHICS
Plus:

- Two cursor speeds.

- Special draw functions: Line, circle, arc, fill.

- Window creation with full edit and positioning facilities.

- Rescale of rectangular area anywhere on screen.

- Excellent sprite creation 4x4 character sprite edit facility including animation experimenting.

- Sprite user subroutine compiler: Creates relocatable M/C routine for handling up to 10 frame 4x4 moving characters from within Basic.

Minus:

- No grid overlay for screen creation.

- Complicated cursor direction controls.

MELBOURNE DRAW
Plus:

- Separate screen and attribute editing.

- Attribute skip (pen up) mode.

- Diagonal cursor movement.

- Magnification x4 and x16 of screen sections.

- Fast screen handling.

- Grid overlay using Bright facility.

- Pixel scrolling of entire screen with wrap around.

- Text can be written in four orientations.

- Reducing and enlarging of entire screen.

- Simple UDG creation of any character on screen.

- Full screen available for drawing (information window relocatable).

Minus:

- Complicated fast cursor movement.

- No special draw commands except fill.

PAINTBOX
Plus:

- Two cursor speeds.

- Kempston cursor control option.

- Special draw facilities: Fill, erase, circle, radial mode arc.

- Excellent UDO creation: four banks of 21 UDGs full UDG edit and handling facility from within Basic.

- Combined screen and UDG facility (Screen Planner).

- Sketchpad for related UDG display during UDG edit.

Minus:

- Long-winded paper colour select.

SCREEN ARTISTS CAN BE FAST ON THE DRAW

Melbourne Drawprogram for the 48K Spectrum gives you a utility which permits the sketching of pictures on the screen using a cursor. The pictures can be saved, loaded and manipulated using this design aid.

The program will also enable you to create graphics and characters in your own programs.

When first loaded the ease of use of the package is not apparent. You are faced with a long menu and, when you select the edit picture mode, you will be faced with a black papered screen and some status worth below.

Before you can start drawing you must clear the screen paper so that it is white. Then, according to the 20-page manual with the cassette, you should see a cursor near the middle of the screen. The manual fails to inform you, however, that the cursor is only one pixel wide and if you wear spectacles you may take some time to hunt for it.

Once you have drawn a picture you will be able to manipulate the result.

You can change attributes, flash various parts of the screen, invert parts of your picture, and scroll parts. Once you have finished you can save the result on to tape.

The impression we gained from looking at the booklet and the material written on the back of the display box was that the fantastic graphics which you can create, if you are clever enough, can be used in your own programs. That produces visions of little animated figures which make up the main part of your games.

The only real benefit we could find was to put SCREENs at the beginning of the games. That could be done just as easily by writing a program to draw a design and then SAVE it directly. Admittedly the magnification, scroll, flash and attribute options are useful but if you are designing a screen you can do without them.

Melbourne Draw may be of interest to artists or professional software houses who want quick graphics results. It can be obtained from Melbourne House, 131 Trafalgar Road, London SE10. It costs £8.95, which is expensive for such a utility.

NO OTHER MICRO HAS THE SOFTWARE BACK-UP OF SINCLAIR'S SPECTRUM. PETE CONNORS PLOUGHS HIS WAY THROUGH SOME OF IT FROM GRAPPLING WITH EVIL MAZIACS TO HELPING CHARLIE THE CHEF.

48K
Melbourne House, 131 Trafalgar Road, London SE10
£8.95

Every software house, from the giants to the leprechauns, seems to have programmers chained to terminals, frantically churning out products for the massive Spectrum market. For Spectrum owners the pot of gold under the rainbow is the now huge variety of software available: their only problem is distinguishing the genuine article from the fake.

One game you certainly will not need to bite into is Zzoom from Imagine. This is the Real McCoy, a quality arcade-style game of skill and destruction in the comfort of your own armchair. The game starts with the Dambusters theme tune, enough on its own to make you start twirling imaginary handlebar moustaches and warn Ginger about the bandits at 4 o'clock. You find yourself in command of an aeroplane whose gunsights appear on the screen; also displayed are a dibar to show your relation to the ground and a long-range scanner.

Before you have time to think, hostile aircraft are approaching from the east; they speed in and suddenly, unexpectedly, wheel 90° towards you, presenting the slightest of targets for your cannon. Those earthbound refuges you are trying to protect do not have much of a chance. Poor blighters, I wish I could have done more to help. After the waves of planes, the landscape changes. Now its the desert, complete with palm trees. Over the horizon come battalions of tanks. More skill is now required, as you have to dive low enough to shoot your earthbound adversaries without crashing to your doom.

After the desert - the sea, with enemy destroyers trying to blast the refugees' lifeboats. The standard of graphic display and excitement combine to make Zzoom a most exciting game, one that has deservedly become a micro-classic.

DK'tronics, though, has produced a game which could rival Zzoom's popularity. Maziacs may seem, initially, to be just another maze-game. In fact, it has subtle qualities which make it one of the best available in this genre. The scenario is familiar: you must get through the maze, collect the treasure and get out. You can ask the way from prisoners, and pick up swords to combat the maziacs.

What lifts Maniacs above the common land is its graphic sophistication. The monsters are the most grotesque I have ever seen on a micro; nightmarish squatting creatures, all legs and jaws who enjoy nothing more than gobbling you up. The prisoners are sad creatures, writhing in their shackles inside blue circles. One feels great pity for them but, sadly, one can do nothing to help. And you, the brave treasure-hunter, are a perky little fellow with a jaunty rhythmic step. You are never downhearted and your jubilation when you have destroyed a marine is quite heart- warming. These qualities give Maniacs that something extra, and make it a very compulsive game.

Best of the other offerings from DK is Hard Cheese, in which you have to eat your way round the board, creating your own maze, in order to get at the cheese in the middle. Naturally, you are pursued by monsters. Naturally you can shoot these monsters, but this is not so easy as they move very quickly and you must replenish your energy. Again the graphics are of a high standard, and Hard Cheese is almost, but not quite, as compulsive as Maziacs.

In comparison, DK's Road Toad and Jawz are rather dull.

The first needs no introduction and is as expected; though the graphics are, perhaps, a little clearer than usual, and the tankers are truly fearsome. Jawz is a disappointment; here you are underwater, firing at Sharks and Jellyfish. It is quite tricky to hit them as you have two cannons converging from either side of your control. Otherwise the game is low on interest.

Ultimate Play the Game has a reputation for quality software, and it does not besmirch it with Cookie and Tranzam. Cookie has one of the wackiest situations for a long time; Charlie Chef's ingredients have escaped from the pantry-yard and he must recapture them by dazing them with flour bombs and knocking them into his mixing bowl. As well as the runaways Crafty Cheese and Colonel Custard there are nasties such as Wally Washer and Terry Tack. Crazy, but true. The graphics are very good and Charlie is a sympathetic little figure in his white chef's hat.

It is very difficult to avoid the nasties; if they get you, you end up in a dustbin. Cookie is a witty and enjoyable game, but one which you might do well to use a joystick for. Tranzam is set in the year 3474; it is your Red Racer versus the Deadly Black Turbos in the search for the Eight Great Cups of Ultimate. The screen displays a barren landscape where the only land-marks are cacti and petrol stations. You guide your car around looking for the cups, while trying to avoid your enemies and the obstacles. This is a tricky business if you are doing 400 mph and steering on the keyboard; again, a joystick would be useful. Tranzam is an exciting game which gives a taste of the Mad Max experience.

GAME OR BLURB?

And so to Quicksilva. Do people buy their programs for the game or the blurb? Aquaplane's scenario begins "The contrasting blues of sea and sky provide a perfect backdrop as I relax with a Pernod and lemonade..." and goes on in the same vein for two sides of packaging. Indeed, Aquaplane's sea and sky are very blue, suggestive of hot Mediterranean summers. And, the game is very good. There you are, out for a bit of water-skiing, when the speedboat goes bananas. You are being pulled away to almost certain death.

Rocks, driftwood, tacking yachts, cruisers piloted by drunken play-boys, snapping sharks; get through all those and you have mastered the game. Aquaplane is made more intriguing because, as the boat accelerates, you are pulled to one side or another, thus increasing the risk of meeting a sticky end on a piece of driftwood. The graphics, too, are very colourful and realistic. Aquaplane is a highly entertaining game - almost as good as the blurb.

On the subject of watery graves, Bug-Byte has Aquarius "an underwater espionage game". As commander of a frogman team you must destroy the bombs planted by an enemy nation. Problems you will encounter are sharks and electrifying jellyfish. Your oxygen will run out and must be replenished by collecting fresh tanks from the sea-floor. While the undersea world is fairly convincing and the sound effects are genuinely squelchy, Aquarius is not a very exciting game, lacking the speed and variety top-class programmes.

ENCOUNTER WITH THE DARK ONE

In Styx, also from Bug-Byte, you are supposed to be battling your way across the mythological river to Hades "towards an encounter with the Dark One himself". In fact, it is a rather boring maze game, where the "deadly spiders" look like bits of dried grass and the Piranhas - did you know there were Piranhas in the Styx? - are most unconvincing. If they have micros in Hades as well they may well be playing Pool, another Bug-Byte game. The graphics are much better than Styx; a bright green for the baize and red for the bolls. Curiously, the object balls are all the same colour. Control is straightforward, using the cursor keys.

But perhaps these denizens of Hades might prefer CDS Micro Systems' Pool. I know I do, if only because the object balls are divided into blue and red. Otherwise, it is much the same as Bug-Byte's version, easy to control and pleasant to look at. Both programs are for one or two players.

Purer pleasures of the mind are entered for by Artic's Chess Tutor. The novelty of this program is that it not only plays chess - at three levels - but takes the beginner through three different opening variations; King's Indian, Ruy Lopez and Sicilian Dragon. There is also a section which demonstrates the moves of each piece.

This is indeed very useful and would be suitable for the absolute beginner. Unfortunately the board is none too clear, as the white pieces do not show up well on the light squares.

As a game chess is not in much danger of being overtaken by any of three new programs consisting of logical board games: Hanoi King from Contrast Software, Lojix from Virgin and 3-D Strategy from Quicksilva.

In the first of them you have three pillars on which are a series of rings. You have to transfer them to the third so that they are in the same order, moving only one ring at a time ind without placing a larger on top of a smaller ring. It sounds easy, and with only three or four rings, it is. More than that and it can become fiendishly difficult.

Lojix is a game in which you have to fit 18 irregularly shaped pieces onto a board. A sort if fiendish jigsaw puzzle, it is difficult and interesting. Virgin is offering a cash prize for the first correct solution.

3-D Strategy is billed as "a multi-dimensional mind game". It is 3-D noughts and crosses on a 4 by 4 by 4 cube. After 3-D chess Mr Spock might not have much trouble with his, but ordinary earthlings will find it very hard to beat. Despite being essentially simple ideas, all three of these games are well produced and will provide hours of entertainment for the puzzle happy.

Perhaps the most interesting new program for the Spectrum is The Forest, from Phipps Associates. This is a complex simulation of orienteering, the sport in which you have to follow a course over difficult terrain using only map and compass. The program comes with a beautifully printed orienteering map ind a long, but clear, explanatory booklet. The screen displays various topographical features and, using the map, you have to negotiate the nurse.

Thus, The Forest is not merely a game, but an help introduce people to map-making and the relation between maps and the physical features they represent. As the program notes say, this program will be of particular interest to students and teachers of geography as well as armchair orienteerers.

Plunder is a strategy game from Cases Computer Simulations. Set in 1587, the year before the Spanish Armada set sail, the game gives you the opportunity to be an English privateer whose task is to prevent gold from the New World getting back to Spain. You must also be more successful than your deadly rival Sir Francis Drake. There is more to this than mere yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum; you must weigh up the chances of success in taking on merchant, troop and warships. Too much damage or too many lost crew and the game is up; it's Davy Jones' locker for you.

Camelot, an adventure-game from the same company, is not quite so good. As Arthur Pendragon you have been banished from Camelot by the Black Knight. Understandably you want to get back; who knows what Lancelot and Guinevere are up to round the Round Table? You have some warriors and money to help you find the necessary seven items. There are graphic displays of landscapes and obstacles, unfortunately rather crude. The "evil magician" looks rather like a conjurer at a children's party.

Those Spectrum owners keen to develop the machine's graphics potential should look at Melbourne House's 48K Melbourne Draw. This program will take you on a tour of the Spectrum's graphics, allowing you to choose colours, draw, and store graphic displays.

Once you have drawn your picture, you might want to make it say something, in which case you are referred to Abbex's Supertalk which, with no extra hardware, will enable your Spectrum to speak. The demo facility lets you hear Supertalk's Dalek-style voice exercising its small vocabulary. To enter your own vocabulary you record the words on tape and then feed them in, afterwards adjusting them to make sentences. First "Jolson Sings!" now "Spectrum Talks".

The title card from The Hobbit appears again to be loaded into and analysed by 48K Melbourne Draw. This is a complex utility, but documentation is very good. I only discovered one omission in its 22 pages of text, and this was solved by reference to the invaluable summary of commands found on its back page.

Drawing, on the full screen, uses eight-direction cursor control via a logical keyboard layout. Lines can be erased and pixels reversed automatically as they are overwritten, There is no circle command but the production of curves is aided by 4X and 16X magnification.

Having produced a line drawing, areas can be filled with shifted 'F' and ink and paper can be changed without problem. Flash and bright attributes are also introduced by single keys.

You can also create UDGs with this program's draw facility, and both they and full-screen displays can be saved to tape. The booklet concludes with details of how to locate these in your own program.

This is a well-implemented utility for those producing their own games or just for doodling. Its great potential means that it needs many control keys, but clear documentation makes experimenting a joy, and it is only limited by imagination and artistic talent!

Melbourne Draw, as the name implies, is a graphics utility for the Spectrum. Its main use, apart from the easy production of User Defined Graphics direct from the keyboard, must be considered to be that of the production of loading screens for games. From examining the loading screens of some of Melbourne House's most popular game (Hobbit, Penetrator, Terror-Dactil), it is easy to see the effectiveness of the Draw program in producing attractive screens.

The program itself is written in BASIC, with some machine code routines for greater speed, particularly in the useful Paint commands which can fill a pre-drawn shape with a given INK colour. Being rather short the program loads very quickly and first offers a main menu, which includes the option to edit (if an already drawn SCREEN$ has been loaded in from tape) or draw a picture, or Save or Load any UDGs. On selecting the mode for editing, one is presented with a clear screen, apart from a single pixel cursor. Below the screen is a two-line information window, which displays several important parameters of the programs operation. On the right-hand side is the current INK, PAPER, BRIGHT and FLASH settings, which can be simple changed at will from the keyboard.

Movement of the cursor is by eight directional keys and can be used to set or reset pixels with ink colour, or, indeed, to skip over pixels to enable rapid movement over the screen without leaving a trace. To aid the latter, the co-ordinates of the moving cursor are displayed in the information window.

Once basic shapes have been drawn on the screen, the colour attributes of the picture may be edited, by a simple switch into the Attributes mode. As a consequence of the poor colour resolution of the Spectrum, in only allowing one INK colour per character square, the cursor grows to a full 8x pixelsquare, and this can be used to 'wash' over coloured shapes to fill them in with a new colour.

During these drawing operations, the input of text on the screen is not catered for, but this is covered by a switch to the text mode. This mode is equally versatile, allowing characters to be produced in any of four directions: left to right, upside down, and sideway (from top to bottom and vice versa), with a large arrow cursor on screen to point to the current print location and the direction of travel.

To aid the drawing of fine details, there is a facility for screen magnification, by a factor of eight or 16. These zoom into your work of art at the pixel level to help produce the subtleties of shading and detail that companies like Ultimate achieve in their loading screens.

These are the major facilities provided by the program, but there are several other options which are very useful. For example, a 760 position grid can be generated on the screen and any of these character positions can be copied simply into the UDG area, and, for reference, the eight bytes of the UDG data are displayed in the information window as the graphic is stored. The screen can be scrolled, pixel by pixel, in any of eight directions and, handily, the information window can be removed, to enable drawing of the picture to be continued on to the bottom two lines of the screen.

Accompanying the program are three of the title screens from Melbourne House games, which can be loaded into the program and edited, re-coloured and magnified to show the fine detail. In fact, any named SCREEN$ can be loaded in (and later Saved again) and altered, and great fun can be had with this option, using commercial games software.

A 16-page booklet is also supplied, an essential adjunct to the program, because of the sheer complexity of the keyboard controls used - 70 all told, excluding the usual text keys, a bewildering number to remember without constant reference of the hand well-written manual.

Overall then, a well thought out package, for the albeit rather limited area of Spectrum on-screen art, providing a few handy routines which are not readily available to the user who is drawing entirely from BASIC. Unfortunately, it does seem rather highly priced for what is not a very involved piece of programming, and the market is still open for a superior piece of software, possibly which can be used in conjunction with a light-pen to provide a package really worth buying.