Changes

Grids, which are white withcolored lines when not being used,turn grey as the cursor moves fromone to another. This lets you knowwhich grid you are working on withouthaving to count rows or columns. When finished with the editingstage-the program will store asmany as 10 sets of designs at a timethetime the user moves the cursor to the rightside of the screen to a list of commands.Moving the cursor off theediting table automatically movesthe program into the commandmode. The Edit command allows the userto call up any of 10 "edit sets" forfurther editing on the editing table.The Print command allows theuser to get a readout on the hexidecimalhexadecimal code of the contents of each ofthe four grids. This command alsoallows the user to rotate foreground and background colors of the characters displayed on the print table and it lets the user choose which grid to display as well as the magnification. If you choose to display only one grid, the magnification may be either a factor of l or 2. When you choose to display all four grids you may use a magnification factor of 3 or 4. Once the character is shown on the print table, the user may also rotate the foreground and background colorsvia the joystick. Having viewed the results of his design work, the user may return to the editing table, clear the screen, copy any or all of the grids to another previously defined edit set or list the hexidecimal code on a printer for future reference. The user may also write the hexadecimal strings to cassette or disk and read them into the program again. There is also a Manual Mode which allows the user to enter ASCII characters into an edit set. The niftiest feature of this program is the way the joystick-cursor is used to enter data. All of the commands are activated by locating the cursor above the command desired. Simply pressing the fire button will activate the command. So much for the software; another valuable tool that comes with the On Gaming graphics editor is a manual that provides numerous tips on how to write more efficient game programs. Most involve programming tips aimed at increasing the speed of a game or reducing the amount of memory that is used. Chris Reutercrona, who created On Gaming, notes that the manual is as important as the software in this package. Although I did not try out all of the tips, most of them offer suggestions that pick up where the Extended BASIC manual leaves off. The On Gaming manual provides examples of programming with sprites, call statements and other items referred to in the Extended BASIC manual. I found the section about "sprite homing" to be of particular interest. While I regard the software part of this package to be the No. 1 reason to buy it, the manual is certainly worthwhile having. ===Ease of Use=== I found this program to be easier to use than I had expected. Frankly, I thought this was going to be a difficult program to e valuate. Not so. After a few moments of getting used to the joystick-cursor routine, I was in high gear and ready to go. The program is crash proof, as far as I could determine, and protected. The cassette version will not write or read from disk. ===Documentation=== On Gaming comes with a 52-page manual. The size of the manual is what threw me at first. Only the first 16 pages have to do with operating the program. The remainder is a guide to help the user develop his programming skills, referred to above. ===Value=== This is a great program to have if you're even slightly interested in programming graphics. It is a big time-saver. It is also one of the most elegant applications programs I have seen for the TI99/4A.  '''— JK'''