Book Reviews : Data Plotting Software for Micros B. J. Korites Publisher: Kern Publications,P.O. Box 308,Pembroke,MA 02359 Year of Publication: 1982 Materials;130-page paperback book;one 5-1/4 inch disk (optional) Price: $28.50 book;$21.50 disk Machine Specificity: Apple II series (reviewed here) and mum PC series System Requirements: None special;dot matrix printer recommended Effectiveness: Fair User-Friendliness: Poor Documentation: Excellent

Abstract

Summary: The book and optional disk contain 18 programs to perform various types of data management and plotting. Plotting programs include histograms, pie charts, bar charts, X/Y scatterplots, stock market charts, profit/loss charts, 3-dimensional surfaces, regression line fitting, and a plot labelling program. The major advantage of the collection is that the programs are unprotected, written in BASIC, and fully documented. Therefore, you can rearrange them for your personal use. The major disadvantage is that you would really need to rearrange and improve the programs. Because there is no error-trapping, the programs can stop and possibly lose data. The data entry routines have unnecessary and tedious keystrokes. Plotting the pie and 3D charts is slow. Finally, too often the plots are unattractive. In particular, the labelling on the HiRes screen in unacceptable. (Reviewed by Kenneth E. Hinze, Louisiana State University, Shreveport)