Maybe old-stagers among the SYNC readership will recognize the allusion in my title. It refers to a piece of mine published here in the March/April 1982 issue. Called “The Exploding Bookshelf,” the feature listed some 40 books on the ZX81 available in Britain at the end of the machine’s first year of existence.
Now, a year and a half after that piece, I must tell you I have lost count of ZX81 titles. I would not be at all surprised if the length of the list has doubled by now—there is no doubt that the ZX81 is here to stay. Well, for a few years yet.
However, I am now to survey another shelf in the bookcase, that containing the books on ZX81’s younger sibling, the Spectrum. It is now somewhat more than a year since that machine first appeared and, again, the number of books on it is of the order of forty. Before looking at these publications in any detail, I would like to make a few observations.
Observations
1) The books are bulkier now. Many in the ZX81 list had below a hundred pages; hardly any of the Spectrum books are so small.
2) The books are more professional now. Sir Clive Sinclair has created more than a trio of micros, and around them have grown hundreds of companies, many of which are frighteningly well-off. Sinclair converted some tiny publishing houses into comparative giants and caused the actual creation of others whose sales go into hundreds of thousands. The new wave of books are glossy, illustrated with photos and clear listings, and properly proof-read. Yet the price-range has hardly changed, being still £2.50 to £10 ($4.00 to $16.00).
3) Existing publishers have made little impact yet on this market. Their main problem is that they are used to years between commissioning and issuing. The new companies can get a manuscript into the bookshops in weeks. Maybe the big publishers will have to save face with a potentially successful drive into software.
The List of Books
In this survey I shall follow the pattern of “The Exploding Bookshelf.” First comes a list, in publisher order, of all the books I know of. My brief comments follow the book listing; if there are none, it is because I have not seen the book.
Two extra details appear in the list this time. First is the UK price, where known. This is given because I used up SYNC’s fee last time in replying to your queries about prices. Some books are available in North America, and you will have to research that.
However, you can order direct from Britain. I trust no publishers will complain if you send them payments worked out like this. To the quoted price add £1.50 for airmail postage, etc. (£2.00 if the book costs more than £5.50). Remit that amount as a sterling cheque; if you wish to pay in dollars add another £1 before converting because British banks charge outrageously for dealing in dollars!
In case of doubt about prices and shipping costs, contact the publisher directly. Or you can contact a major distributor if you want several books. I recommend these two:
Software Bookshop, 30 Lincoln Road, Solihull, West Midlands, UK.
Mine of Information, 1 Francis Ave., St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.
The second extra data item in the preliminary book listing is a code for type of book. I have identified five classes:
B: Beginner’s introduction; attempts to put the (excellent) Manual into more suitable terms for novices.
P: Program collection; material which does not do more than give superficial notes on listings.
I: Intermediate coverage; more in depth work for those with some knowledge of Sinclair programming; may get into machine code somewhat.
A: Advanced work; for people who have mastered Spectrum Basic (which is not much different from TS1000 Basic).
M: Miscellaneous.
Following the broad shallow listing comes a list of half a dozen books with a paragraph or two discussion that I would recommend as being particularly good values. That is a personal recommendation, but, well, I do reckon to have made a deep study of Sinclair resources in practice. Even so, there may well be omissions, so I would best apologise now to any aggrieved publishers wondering why they have been left out.
The Bird’s Eye View
Addison-Wesley, 53 Bedford Square, London WC1.
M: Logo Challenge, Govier and Neave, 25 pp. £29.95 (incl. workbook and 2 cassettes). A superb package for home and school use on turtle graphics; good, but cramped, pupil work book; excellent teacher is guide; and two nicely packed cassettes. Important.
Altwasser, 22 Foxhollow, Bar Hill, Cambridge 3.
P: Cambridge Colour Collection, Altwasser, 64 pp. £6.95 (cassette available). The first book on the Spectrum. Fair enough: Altwasser designed the Spectrum. 20 good Basic programs with instructions but no notes.
Armada, Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow 64.
B: First Steps with Your Spectrum, Hughes, 128 pp. (due July). Very well illustrated introduction for children.
AVC, PO Box 415, Birmingham 17.
P: Learning with the Spectrum, Deeson, 24 pp. £1.50 (cassette available). The second book(let) on the machine; 10 programs for school and home learning objectives; instructions and programming notes.
Collins Educational, 5 Buckingham Place, London SW1
M: Spectrum Starter Pack 1, McBride, 77 pp. £9.95 (including cassette). An integral cassette/workbook in fine style introducing Spectrum programming.
M: Spectrum Starter Pack 2, McBride, 112 pp. £9.95 (including cassette). Second half of the above.
Duckworth, 43 Gloucester Crescent, London NW1.
I: Spectrum Graphics, Hampshire, 192 pp. £6.95. A hasty non-technical collection of graphics programming tips and listings.
P: Spectrum Programmes, sic, (Hampshire).
Gower, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hampshire.
B: Learning to Use the ZX Spectrum, Bradbeer, 76 pp. £4.95. An amazingly superficial introduction from a usually brilliant writer, who indeed co-authored the Spectrum manual.
Granada, Frogmore, St Albans, Hertfordshire.
B: The ZX Spectrum, Sinclair (no-relation), 130 pp. £5.95. Sometimes superb, sometimes too speedy; overall good.
P: The Spectrum Book of Games, James, £6.95.
B: The Spectrum Programmer, James, £6.95.
Hewson, 60a St Mary’s St., Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
P: 20 Best Programs for the Spectrum, Hewson, 118 pp. £5.95. A well-varied collection, generally of high standard, with often excellent notes. See below.
A: 40 Best Machine Code Routines for the Spectrum, Hardman and Hewson, 144 pp. £5.95. Nicely laid out and fully explained; this is not a collection of routines but a good grounding text with good examples.
Interface, 44 Earls Court Road, London W8.
B: Programming Your ZX Spectrum, Hartnell and Jones, 231 pp. £6.95. Another of the first few before the flood; half written by Tim Hartnell, once the most prolific Sinclair writer (Interface was set up by him); a very thorough book.
P: 60 Games and Applications for the Spectrum, Harwood, 90 pp. £4.95. All kinds of program here, generally short (which is good); supplied with instructions.
Linsac, 68 Barker Road, Middlesborough, Cleveland.
I: The Spectrum Games Companion, Maunder, £5.95. Not seen, but, if it follows the pattern of Maunder’s earlier serious ZX books, this will be good value.
Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire.
A: Advanced Graphics with the Spectrum, Angell and Jones, 254 pp. £9.95 (cassette available). An absolutely marvellous book for really serious programmers. See below.
Melbourne House, Glebe Cottage, Station Road, Cheddington, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
P: Over the Spectrum, various, 164 pp. £6.95 (cassettes available). 300 lengthy programs in good variety; detailed notes; plenty of illustrations.
A: Understanding Your Spectrum, Logan, 192 pp. £7.95. Tough going but super. See below.
A: Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner, Tang, 245 pp. £6.95. Very thorough but rather dry.
M: The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly, Logan and O’Hara, 236 pp. £9.95. For the real specialsist a true goldmine; a superb volume is this.
M: Spectrum Hardware Manual, Dickens, 108 pp. £5.95. How the thing actually works; some nice tweaking ideas; very thorough.
Microscene, Battenhall Road, Harborne, Birmingham.
M: Guide to ZX Spectrum Resources, Deeson, 92 pp. £2.00. Details of over 200 suppliers to this market and their products; illustrations; reviews. I think it is invaluable, but I would, wouldn’t I?
Phipps, 99 East Street, Epsom, Surrey.
I: The Spectrum Pocket-book, Toms, 160 pp. £5.50 (cassette available). Useful programs, lots of tips, and nice introductions to topics like machine coding. See below.
Prentice-Hall, 66 Wood Lane End, Hemel, Hempstead, Hertfordshire.
B: The ZX Spectrum—Your Personal Computer, McLean et al., 220 pp. £5.95. Rather too slow-moving, or very careful—depends on your speed I guess!
Shiva, 4 Church Lane, Nantwich, Cheshire.
B: Easy Programming for the Spectrum, Stewart and Jones, 139 pp. £5.95 (cassette available). Far and away the best introduction to Spectrum programming. See below.
P: Computer Puzzles for Spectrum, Stewart and Jones, 60 pp., £2.50. A wide variety of old and new teasers; good instruction; very well illustrated.
P: Games to Play on Your Spectrum, Wren-Hilton, £1.95. A very pleasant little book; just right for the transition between purchased games and your own.
I: Further Programming for the Spectrum, Stewart and Jones, 162 pp., £5.95. Another brilliant book from Stwart and Jones which I would deal with in depth below except I already have two of their magic spell-binders in that section.
I: Spectrum Machine Code, Stewart and Jones, 103 pp., £5.95. Anyone else’s treatment of this topic would be coded A. Say no more? Well, I do say more! See below.
M: Spectrum in Education, Deeson, 176 pp., £6.50. So far the only coverage of Spectrum usage in a specific applications area; this looks at many kinds of applications in classroom and home learning situations; 50 programs, too. If I were not so scared of the author I would put “see below” now, but I wouldn’t dare do that.
Sigma Technical, 5 Alton Rd., Wilmslow, Cheshire.
B: The Sinclair Spectrum in Focus, Harrison, 190 pp., £6.25. A thorough and thoroughly nice introduction that verges on I category in range of content.
Sinclair-Browne (the Sinclair), 10 Archway Close, London N19.
I: The ZX Spectrum Explored, Hartnell, 218 pp., £5.95. A unique attempt at providing a serious overview of the Spectrum and its uses; a mishmash of programming material, games, and text (illustrated with more listings, on business and education. A mishmash, true, but actually a well-knitted and readable one.
Sunshine Books, 19 Whitcomb St., London WC2.
I: The Working Spectrum, Lawrence, 216 pp., £5.95. Subtitled “A library of practical subroutines and programs”; this is not. It does contain lots of modules, some quite useful, broken carefully out of 19 lengthy programs (in many fields), but you cannot trace them.
Timedata, 16 Hemmells Laindon, Basildon, Essex.
I: Exploring Spectrum Basic, Lord). Lots and lots of great little listings with many new tips and effects; useful appendices, too.
The Worm’s Eye View
Now I will turn to a more detailed consideration of the books I view as the best half dozen! Of course, those by that Deeson chappie are really the best but I shan’t mention them again! Can’t afford accusations, after all.
It seems sensible to begin at the novice end and narrow in to the more specialised staff.
I have absolutely no doubt that the best introduction for beginners to computing is Easy Programming for the ZX Spectrum by Ian Stewart and Robin Jones (Shiva). Ian is a world-renowned expert in catastrophe theory, an abstruse branch of math, but I am sure his bank manager is more delighted at his ability to turn out brilliantly readable programming books with Robin.
This one, accessible to youngsters and enjoyable by adults, is written in a gloriously user-friendly style with lots of good illustrations (even cartoons, another product of the Stewart brain) and gently developed program listings.
The book covers Basic throughly despite its fairly short length and uncramped style, going from square one to graphics, sound and PEEK/POKE. It is no bind to work through at any speed, and, when you reach the end, you will know a lot about programming (concepts as well as techniques) and have some super programs on tape.
As I said above, Tim Hartnell, author with Dilwyn Jones of Programming your ZX Spectrum (Interface), was right up front in the early Sinclair years. He started magazines and a great user group and wrote and wrote and wrote. He is pretty well retired now. This book does not show any of the haste of his original works and attempts to be definitive and comprehensible as well as “all things to all men” (and women). There are millions of program listings, but they do not overshadow the text, which remains fairly thorough and well-graded.
Once one has gone through an introduction to Spectrum Basic it is natural to turn to collections of rather more ambitious—and lengthy—listings. Thus one can learn more and build up a reasonable software library. The dangers with collections are two-fold: (a) inadequate proof-reading, and (b) inadequate commentary.
Andrew Hewson’s 20 Best Programs (Hewson Consultants) suffers from neither fault. Andrew, too, has been well-respected in the British Sinclair field for a long time, and that respect arises from his detailed knowledge and thoughtfulness. Both attributes are apparent in this book, surely the best of the P bunch for people wanting to learn rather than transfer material mindlessly from paper to screen. The 20 programs are fairly lengthy, perhaps 2-3 sides on average, but they range particularly widely in usage and are extremely well backed up in the text. We miss the way Andrew’s earlier books gave lots of little tips, too, but perhaps we will be lucky enough to get a whole book of those sometime. Mike Lord’s Exploring Spectrum Basic (Timedata) was a strong contender for this spot because it does contain tips, but it lost out in being comparatively disjointed.
Trevor Toms is yet another name you might know. His books have always been beautifully presented (even if a bit pedantic, and The Spectrum Pocket-book (Phipps Associates) is no exception. It does contain lots of hints (including the invaluable PAUSE 4E4 from ZX81 days that the Spectrum replaces with PAUSE 0!). However, Trevor’s book mainly consists of programs, all fully annotated and material on programming philosophy. He goes a fair way into machine coding, too, but for the best introduction to that we must return to Ian Stewart and Robin Jones for their Spectrum Machine Code (Shiva). This is identical in style, approach, and outstanding value to their Easy Programming. It is not a heavy text on binary/hex/Z80 this and that; nor is it a dreary collection of ill-connected routines. It is a guide in the real sense of the word, in which the authors take you charmingly by the hand and lead you through machine code thickets in such a way that you do not notice that they are thickets at all. Even 10-year olds can compete in the arcade stakes with this book!
Among the advanced specialist works, we come first to Understanding Your Spectrum by Ian Logan. Ian seems to have dedicated his life to messing around, Tron-style, inside Sinclair chips. Subtitled “Basic and machine coding programming,” this particular book is more accessible than some of the others. It is a treasure trove of hints and tips and useful routines and details a dozen Spectrum bugs, some of which of course have now been splatted.
The Basic material is a minority in Logan’s book; he provides a summary of the keywords and their uses, briefly but always with novel points for consideration. The bulk of the volume is not deep machine code, but a bright and definitive look at ROM routines you can use in Basic programs and such like. The pages still look rather formidable at first sight, but closer examination will trap you into a great deal of midnight oil.
Advanced Graphics with the Spectrum by Ian Angell and Brian Jones (Macmillan) (yet another Ian; yet another Jones) is a quite marvellous book, after the publication of which no one can ever again say that the Spectrum is a toy! To be able to work through it you need good Basic, thorough math (Grade 12, say), and much patience. That is because this field is not a toy one, and the authors do not leave much out even if they write always in a user-friendly way.
The book is well illustrated, as it needs to be in view of its content, and most adequately proof-read. The program material consists of many sub-routines (well-defined modules, which link together to produce the various systems required). In this way the authors take us from character graphics to orthographic projection with hidden line removal. The only area they do not touch is machine-code graphics, but that would be too much to ask for.
The ZX81 is alive and well in its homeland and the number of books on it grows steadily. All the same, after well over a year of the excitement of the Spectrum (an incredibly popular machine), publishing on that is where the action is. My main list is not complete, remember—there has probably been a book a week on the Spectrum since early last summer.
Bookshelf explosions are a real possibility—I now have more computer books on the floor than on the wall rather than risk having the wall come down! Far over a hundred Sinclair-based books do not help at all.