Memory: 16K
Price: £5.95

Basic utilities is the first product of a new software company, Jaysoft. It is a collection of five routines for the 16K and 48K Spectrum. The code, 3,856 bytes, stored at the top of memory is called by a RAND USR when needed, at which point you are presented with a menu. It will also work with a Microdrive attached.

The routines are REM FILL, a routine which creates a REM at line 0 of any length or adds to it if it already exists. If line 0 is not a REM, no change is made. VARDUMP lists the current state of all the variables. BLOCK DELETE deletes a specified block of lines. RENUMBER works on GO TO, GO SUB, RESTORE, LIST, RUN and LINE.

TELESCOPE can shorten a Basic program in three ways - by deleting all REM lines, substituting variables for commonly-used line numbers, and by making separate lines into multi-statement ones. Each line is stepped through and Y or N is pressed to join it on to the previous one.

The program is slightly over-priced considering the other available programs on the market but is, nevertheless, a very useful collection.