Software Reviews : Brainmaker with Netmaker Reviewed by Staff Publisher: California Scientific Software,Suite E,160 East Montecito Ave.,Sierra Madre,CA 91024 (telephone: [phone]) Year of Publication: 1989 Version Reviewed: 2.0 (Netmaker Version 1.0) Materials: 332-page spiral manual,78-page supplement,255-page book Introduction to Neural Networks by Jeannette Stanley,two 5.25-inch disks Price: $195;Brainmaker Network Tools,$49.95;Brainmaker Accelerator Board,$4,150;Hypersonic Training Program,$149.95;Professional Version,$795;NetPlotter,$79.95 Availability: MD-DOS 3.0 and higher Requirements: 256K RAM,i drive,mouse and hard disk recommended,color monitor recommended Effectiveness: Excellent User-Friendliness: Excellent Documentation: Excellent

Abstract

Brainmaker is an authoring package for neural networks. Programming is not required for this menu-driven program which is accompanied by extensive documentation. Sample programs on disk are tic-tac-toe, optical character recognition, and text-to-speech conversion. A major drawback to this otherwise attractive program is the hefty $1,000/year fee to runtime system licensing needed if one sells systems one has developed.