Information

Puzzled about programming?

If so, you can either continue to be bemused, or let Brian Boyde-Shaw take you through a series of graded problems - each concerned with making words, numbers, sounds and pictures on your Acorn Electron.

As you solve each problem (and - yes - solutions are provided) you learn a little bit more about BASIC. Slowly, you build up your programming expertise by success after success in solving these problems.

By the time you've solved the first few problems you'll be confident that you can write programs that will

Display text on the screen, just as you want it to look Carry out any type of calculation Play simple games

After that, the sky's the limit: you'll be able to compose tunes, draw pictures, and really do exactly as you wish.

By solving these problems - whilst learning BASIC - you will also learn to tackle all problems in a logical fashion. Success in solving a problem is used to reinforce what is already known so that the next problem is solved more easily.

So, if you've tired of playing games, here is a well-proven way to learn programming, and still have fun!

Brian Boyde-Shaw is an experienced teacher, and runs the Byte Microcomputer Centre.

He is writing several books for Sigma, including a companion to this book The Commodore 64 Puzzle Book.

First Sentence

Although written primarily for the Acorn Electron computer, the problems in this book can be solved on the BBC computer, but the solutions given, for various reasons, may not work correctly on this machine.