119 practical problems for the TRS-80 pocket computer. (book reviews) Steve Gray.

119 Practical Problems for the TRS-80 Pocket Computer

Although the front cover says "New techniques for getting the most from your computer's data storage and programming capabilities,' there is only one feature that looks new; the author provides an All-Purpose Driver (he has even trademarked the name), which "acts as an operating system for Basic. By ending your programs with GOTO1, instead of END, and running your programs in the DEF mode, the computer will always return to this operating system at the end of a run, and you can start another program just by typing its label.' The driver consists of two very short lines.

The introduction says the programs "cover a wide range of subjects.

There should be programs of interest for just about everyone.' Well, most of these are programs you could write yourself, if you had a little programming experience and the time to write them. However, for those without the second qualification or without either, this is one of the better collections of short Basic programs, mainly because there are so many, you are bound to find a few you might use now and then.

The 119 programs include six games (Lunar Landing, Deal 'em, Numb), a couple of financial programs (Loan, Checkbook), six electronics (Decibels, Resistor Analysis, Balanced Bridge), statistics (Mean and Standard Deviation, Chi-Square), engineering (Simultaneous Equations, Polygon Area), and others (Bessel Functions, Curve Fit, Distribution, Histogram Bins, Integrals, Logarithms to Any Base, Pi by Dartboard, Random Numbers, Wind Chill Index).

To keep down the size of the book, a bare minimum of text is provided with each listing (usually just a few sentences) and an example. However, for most of the programs, such as Euler Numbers, if you have to ask what they are, you don't need them.

All in all, this is better than any other current collection of TRS-80 Pocket Computer programs, mainly because of the wider choice, and also, 8 cents a program is a lot less than the value of the time it would take you to write one of them.

Review Grade: C+