The aim of this programme is mainly educational: its utilisation has been kept as simple as possible, and it does not require specific knowledge in demography or computer systems. Hence, while the projections done using the programme are perfectly realistic, they will not always exactly coincide with projections made by national or international specialised organisations (United Nations, World Bank, etc.) : on one hand because migration is not included, and on the other hand because it would be necessary to adapt each hypothesis to each specific context. For example, the evolution of parameters is always assumed to be linear between the starting and the final value. You can consult specialised publications for projections better adapted to each country, especially the United Nations publication, World Population Prospects, 1994. The programme PYRAMIDE.EXE can be run directly from the floppy disk, or after transferring all the files to the same directory of the hard disk. If the user wishes to modify it, by, for example, including new geographic entities on the list, the source-programme is also provided. Two features should be emphasised. The first feature is the continuous display on the screen of the age pyramid, which allows one to follow the changes in the pyramid resulting from the assumed hypotheses. For good legibility , the implementation speed can be adapted to the performance of the computer used. The second feature is the choice between two projection methods : one, classical, entails setting a goal in terms of fertility, the other, less usual, entails setting a goal for the population growth rate. We will see that the second, which is apparently more natural, leads to consequences which often are very awkward, in the form of important fluctuations of some parameters; it is an illustration of inertia and internal constraints of demographic dynamics that the programme seeks to illuminate.

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