Appendix V

Reference books

This User Guide covers the everyday use of CP/M Plus for running programs and for disc housekeeping, and gives just a brief introduction to the Mallard BASIC interpreter supplied as part of the CP/M system for the Spectrum +3. When you want to use CP/M or Mallard BASIC for more complex tasks you will need access to more technical information.

The books we recommend are as follows:

CP/M Plus

The Digital Research CP/M Plus Manual published by Heinemann (ISBN 0 434 90321 3)

The Digital Research CP/M Plus Manual (which is also known as The CP/M Plus Handbook) gives full details of each of the CP/M commands, together with detailed information on the structure, conventions and facilities of CP/M Plus itself.

In particular, it describes programmer tools such as SID (the Symbolic Instruction Debugger) which are supplied on the CP/M disc for the Spectrum +3 but which are outside the scope of this User Guide.

Note: The CP/M Plus Handbook was written for use with CP/M Plus on the Amstrad CPC6128 and PCW8256 machines, and some of the information it contains is specific to these machines. The corresponding technical information about CP/M on the Spectrum +3 is given in Appendix VI of this User Guide.

Mallard BASIC

Mallard BASIC: Introduction and Reference published by Locomotive Software (ISBN 1 85195 004 4)

Mallard BASIC: Introduction and Reference is the definitive description of Locomotive Software's powerful modern BASIC.

The first 100 pages of this 464-page book are essentially the same as Part II of this User Guide. The rest of the book, however, is a complete and thorough description of Mallard BASIC, which will enable you to make full use of its facilities. It also contains some very valuable appendices, for example on Binary Floating Point arithmetic.

Mallard BASIC is available for a number a different computers including the Amstrad PCW machines and IBM PCs (and compatibles). It can also be used by a number of computers on a network - so-called multi-user access. _Mallard BASIC: Introduction and Reference_ covers all the different versions of Mallard BASIC, explaining where there are differences. This is vital information if you want to be able to run your program on more than one type of computer.

• Both books are available from Locomotive Software, Allen Court, Dorking, Surrey RH4 1YL. You can use the Reply-paid card supplied with your copy of CP/M Plus for the Spectrum +3 to order these.