Get to know the lie of the land
TWO related programs provide a useful aid to familiarisation
with local geography. For this review just County (SM) will be
described. Its companion program, County (SW) deals with the south
west peninsula of England.
County (SM) covers the counties of Dorset, Hampshire, West Sussex,
Surrey, London, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Avon. There are two options
on the menu — identifying towns, and identifying rivers or counties.
The first option displays an attractive four-colour map with
the locations of 20 different towns marked on the map by a cross.
The user is prompted to find, for example, Lyme Regis. This
is done by flying a small aeroplane over the map, using the cursor
keys, until it is over the cross which you think marks the town
you are looking for.
If the location you choose is not the correct one, then the
computer responds with "That's Dorchester" or whichever
town it is.
When you do get the location right, it plays a little tune and
responds with "Good - you found it". After two questions
you're told how long you took to correctly locate the two towns.
This part of the program is good. The aeroplane doesn't move
all that fast and tends to leave a smudge when you stop over a
town, but the graphics are colourful and the controls easy to
use.
The second part of the program, identifying rivers and counties,
covers the rivers Frome, Stour, Avon, Wylye, Yeo, Cherwell, Thames,
Wye, Test, Itchen, Rother, Arun and Wey.
The map display has the counties shown as before, but this time
they are each numbered, as are the rivers. To help you a little
adjoining counties are named to provide a few ideas of scale and
reference.
The user is prompted to name, for example, river R12 or county
C5. If the input is wrong then the computer beeps and gives the
right answer, but if it is correct then it responds with "Correct
-well done!".
Every now and then you are told how long it took you to answer
the last question, which helps keep you on your toes a bit, and
after 10 questions you go back to the menu.
There really ought to be a scoreboard to tell you how many answers
you got right, and whether you were better at the rivers or at
the counties. But there isn't, so you would have to note this
for yourself if you wanted to know which to practice on to improve
your answers.
Overall, though, this is quite a nice and useful program. It
doesn't come with any documentation, which could be useful, and
isn't quite as polished as it could be, but probably represents
good value for money nevertheless.
Jane Jackson
