IRIS: ELECTRONIC BOOKS MADE SIMPLE

Binding sheets of paper together to form books was a landmark
idea. Papyrus scrolls were suddenly obsolete. The book format made
a table of contents and index practical. Steering the reader to
another part of a book was as simple as citing a page number. Best
of all, you never had to rewind a book. This was the beginning of
random access.

Iris has taken books one step further. Instead of citing page
numbers, authors can cite topic names. Readers can select the names
directly from the screen, or from a menu. Electronic books can ask 
questions and respond to the answers. Readers can jump from one
topic to another with the flick of a key. Windows can change color
and size, and be accompanied by pleasant tones.

When you use Iris, the first thing you see is a friendly help
screen and a menu of available books. This menu works like all
Iris menus. A single sorted column with items that can be selected
with cursor keys, or by typing the first letter of the item. If
all the items cannot be shown at once, readers can quickly scroll
up and down the list.

The Iris distribution disk comes with two complete electronic (or
"virtual") books. One is a tutorial. Another is a reference work.

The tutorial and reference books cover Iris itself, including an
introduction to writing virtual books. Both are good examples of
what Iris can do with these types of books. Although a sample text
adventure was not provided, it's obvious that Iris was designed
with gaming in mind.

If you already have material stored in an ASCII text file,
converting it to a virtual book is a snap. Internally, Iris uses a
format similar to the well-known DOS batch file. The major
difference is that "unmarked" lines are displayed, while "command"
lines take special prefixes.

To get started, all Iris needs is an occasional "topic name." These
look just like a batch file "label". Just type a colon followed by
the name you want to give the following text. Topics can be any
length. Rename the file with a .PGE extension, and you're in
business. Of course, you might want to go on and take advantage of
the many special features Iris offers, but that's optional.

Note that Iris does not include an editor. To write a book, you
must use your own text editor (or ASCII-capable word processor),
and name your file with a .PGE extension. Burgeoning authors would
also want to print a copy of the IRIS-XTR book for reference.

UserWare is also building a "library" of virtual books. Your
submissions are invited, and royalties will be paid. Catalogs will
be distributed to registered users.

A registered copy of Iris sells for $8.00. An advanced version,
Prism, is $16.00. Prism adds many features that would interest
people writing books themselves.

Iris, a MS DOS program, uses 148k of free memory, and works well
with both color and monochrome monitors.

             UserWare, 4 Falcon Lane East, Fairport NY 14450-3312.




Features List:

For readers: selectable screen colors, borders, and CPU speeds,
sound switch, bookmark, topics list, view list, DOS shell.

For authors: color, sound, windows, variables, arithmetic and
logical operators, procedural commands, external programs, user
input, link topics via menus or "hotwords", (advanced version 
also includes) autoplay, topic and variable listing, command 
trace, editor support.


Capsule Description:

Iris. "Electronic book processor." Link topics. Store input. 
Merge variables. Run programs. Use color, sound, windows. 
$8 registration. 148K, monochrome or color. Disk _____.