Aims and Assumptions

Abstract

When I sat down first to work my material into a book I had to make some assumptions about the sort of reader that I was writing for. The person that I had in mind when writing was not a computer expert. My target reader had finished all the material in the Sinclair manual and probably did not really understand those bits about Procrustean Assignment and Unary Functions. He or she will probably have read a book or two of games programs and perhaps will have been interested in some of the ideas presented in the pages of magazines devoted to the ZX81. My reader may have shared my frustration that these ideas, while fascinating, are given in isolation and seldom related to any real task the ZX81 may be called on to do. The person I am writing for may be a teacher like myself, hoping to use their machine for academic organisation or as an educational tool. On the other hand, I may be writing for someone interested in using the ZX81 to help run a small business or a social club. All these possible needs have been borne in mind during the writing.