unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (01/13/84)
<>
OK, likes and dislikes, gripes and kudos. Sure I've
got a few. Who doesn't? One of each for today.
Biggest ripoff: TYPING TEACHER from INSTANT SOFTWARE
$22.95 on a disk for the Mod III and it turns out to
be an old upper-case-only Mod I BASIC program whose "practice
drills to develop dexterity and coordination" which "take you
from typing letters to complete mastery of the keyboard"
consist in displaying lines of letters which you're supposed
to echo from the keyboard and then marking failures to match!
The only thing I couldn't have written myself in an hour or so
were the not-very-helpful graphics (a non-animated picture of
a keyboard). I was hoping that my computer could teach my
kids to type. Not with *this* program! Thinking of writing a
real typing-teacher program myself (machine language, timed
drills, useful feedback on acquired typing speed and
correlative accuracy, maybe even a bit of animation). Think
there might be a market for such an animal out there?
Nicest surprise: TBA (The Basic Answer) from LSI (the LDOS
people up in snowy Wisconsin).
In general, I like everything that comes out of LSI.
LDOS is a *dynamite* OS. TBA sells for $65 and lets you write
BASIC that looks like PASCAL! That is, you write procedures,
give them names, and call them (via GOSUBs) when you need
them. Procedure names and variable names up to 14 characters.
All variables are typed; may declare variables local or
global. Various directives can be embedded in the code to be
executed at "compile time" [conditional directives included,
allowing the resultant BASIC to be different for different
machines]. TBA code--written with your favorite
word-processor--"compiles" to *interpreter* BASIC. It's a
really nice product, letting you think like a programmer and
use all the BASIC goodies at the same time--and cutting you
loose from your BASIC's resident line-editor.
--Jay Rosenberg
{...mcnc!ecsvax!unbent}