Floppyshop
Press Release - April 1997

NEW RELEASE - DTP+ Graphics CD-ROM
Floppyshop are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of DTP+, the first of our new range of CD-ROM products for the Atari range of computers. This quality product is the culmination of several months' work and has come about as the result of a massive collaborative effort between Floppyshop, John Weller (Mr DTP himself!), countless Shareware authors and several of the leading companies and individuals operating in the Atari market. It is this combined effort which has resulted in a single CD-ROM which is undoubtedly the DTP and Graphics enthusiast's dream. Lets look at what's on offer.

SO WHAT IS IT
DTP+Graphics is a collection of fonts, clip art, DTP support programs, printer drivers, printer utilities, word processors, image processing packages, vector graphics packages, all popular non-commercial graphics packages, demos of DTP related commercial programs and more besides. It includes everything you need to enhance you existing Desktop Publishing and Computer Graphics setup, regardless of which package you use. In fact, much of the contents are generic and can be used with more than one application. In addition, there's a small section with a number of useful bits and pieces designed to enhance the use of your computer in general. Over 90% of the contents are in English and there's an easy to use catalogue which gives an overview of each and every program on the CD along with the full directory path to the relevant program/file. Finding things just couldn't be easier and everything is uncompressed and ready to run so there's no time wasted dearchiving or space occupied on your hard drive, almost everything runs direct from the CD.

FONTS
Wasn't it all the rage when Compo brought out their 500 Fonts CD-ROM? So you thought that 500 fonts for 50 pounds was a bargain? Well here's news for you, the fonts section (and it's ONLY one section) of Floppyshop's DTP+Graphics contains over 3,600 fonts for all popular Atari packages. There are 14 types of fonts with the largest collections being Calamus (almost 1200), True Type (almost 500), PostScript (over 400), GDOS (about 450), Signum (over 200) and Fontkit (over 150). Of course there's PageStream, Publishing Parner, That's Write and Degas fonts too. Yes, EVERY font in our collection to date! This includes the prestigious Oxieware and Bournemouth CFN collections (semi-professional fonts released as PD) and a PostScript version of the Bournemouth collection. These high quality fonts make up around 50% of the Calamus and PostScript collections and would cost around 80 pounds alone even at PD prices!

CLIP ART
It is said that picture paints a thousand words and there's nothing to beat a pertinent graphic to add a bit of class to an otherwise dull flyer, poster, newsletter or magazine. Well we've done it again. There's over 8,000 clips included in our Clip Art section on DTP+Graphics! We've weeded out the duplicates and categorised everything into logical sections for ease of use. As you would expect, IMG accounts for the lion's share (over 5400 items!) and has been split into 84 main subject headings and several sub-headings besides. Included here are complete collections by Stan Otterburn and John Weller (these are astounding) and others. Other bitmapped graphics include over 160 GIF images (256 colour), over 1000 PCX clips split into 24 categories and a few hundred Degas and Tiny clips. As for vector clip art, DTP+Graphics contains almost 800 clips in GEM Metafile format and over 200 Calamus CVGs.

DTP SUPPORT UTILITIES
These have mostly originated from our various DTP support disks. There's everything imaginable to enhance the use of Calamus, PageStream, Publishing Partner and Timeworks. There's also several utilities aimed at GDOS and SpeedoGDOS users as well as useful file templates for Calamus, PageStream, Publishing Partner and Atari Works. Also in this section are demo versions of the top DTP sections, including DA's Layout TC v6.1 and Calamus 96, both 'hot off the presses'.

FONT EDITORS
Includes GEMFED for designing GDOS and Degas fonts, font editors for Publishing Partner and PageStream, Fontedit - the forerunner to FaST Club's Fontkit/Fontkit Plus, specialised font designers for creating downloadable fonts for Star and HP printers, and more...

PRINTER DRIVERS
Almost 300 printer drivers for just about every imaginable printer type (including the SLM804!) and application. The majority are for First Word/Wordplus (some other applications can also use these drivers) but there's also a good selection of SpeedoGDOS drivers, most notable amongst these are 600/720 dpi drivers for the newer Epson, Hewlett Packard and Canon models. There are HP drivers for near enough every application ever written!

PRINTER UTILITIES
Printer controllers/command senders, screen dump utilities and other useful utilities for use with the Canon BJ300, NEC Pinwriters, Panasonic KX-P series, Epson LQs, Star NL series and others.

WORD PROCESSORS
Word processors, text editors, spell checkers and dictionary listings. All the popular packages are here along with demo versions of commercial ones.

GRAPHIC PROGRAMS
This section comprises of over 120 Mb of graphics related programs and associated data files. There's traditional art packages, image processors, graphic conversion utilities, image viewers, animation packages, image printing utilities, vector graphics editors, 3D packages, a massive raytracing sub-section, graphics tutorials, fractal generators (including landscape generators), stereogram creators and much more. Just about every non-commercial package worth talking about is included here. There's even a Falcon specific sub-section with around 20Mb of graphics related material for use exclusively on that machine (a sizable proportion of the software in the general graphics section is also Falcon compatible).

COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN
All the popular non-commercial CAD packages are on the CD along with demo versions of the commercial ones.

PICTURES
OK, so nobody buys a CD specifically for images but there was enough space left to include around 2,500 images in Degas, NEO, Tiny, Spectrum 512, IFF, EZA, GIF, PCS and JPEG formats. This includes a special collection of over 500 astounding JPEGs of photographs taken by professional photographer Nigel Scott.

ANIMATIONS
As with pictures you would not buy a CD specifically for animations. The space was available so why not fill it with quality! There are ninety of the best FLI animations included on DTP+Graphics. These are all 256 colour animations but can be easily viewed in any almost any resolution (including monochrome) using Brainstorm's Movie100 animation player which is of course included.

OTHER SOFTWARE
This includes useful software for any Atari. These programs are not DTP or Graphics related but are virtually indispensable once you've tried them out. There's also a small Floppyshop section with demo versions of all our commercial products as well as full versions of the DegasArt tutorial (parts 1, 2, & 3), Family Roots v1 (the forerunner to our popular genealogy program) and the registered version of Xlator, a very capable German to English translation program. Last but not least is an exclusive release of the full version of the Edith Professional text editor on DTP+Graphics. This quality product is almost impossible to obtain nowadays but it's included free with DTP+Graphics.

So How Much Does It Cost?...
Despite the length of this description, we've missed out a lot! The disk has a full 650Mb compliment of data. This is not a half filled CD! There's neither time nor space to feature everything on the CD. Even at today's bargain basement PD disk prices it would cost you around 1200 pounds to amass a collection like this! Relax, we're not going to charge a horrendously high price . If we were asking 50 pounds for the fonts alone, we think it would be worth it! Or what about 20 pounds for the Clip Art alone? No chance, this unique compilation of DTP+Graphics plus much more, costs just 35 pounds + P&P (UK 2 pounds, Europe 3 pounds, rest of world 4 pounds). Payment acceptable by UK cheque/PO or credit card. Overseas customers not paying by credit card can pay by Eurocheque, Post Giro, Canadian Postal Order, International Money Order (all in pounds Sterling please) or with a cheque drawn on a UK bank.

Special Offer
DTP+Graphics will be released on 26th April at the Birmingham Atari Show. We will have limited stock with us at both the Birmingham and London Shows (but will bring along more if pre-ordered) so please pre-order now to reserve your copy. Tell us which event you will be attending and we will take your copy with us. All orders recieved by 21st April 1997 qualify for a =A35 reduction. Those of you collecting your copy at the Atari Shows can also disregard the P&P charge. If you cannot make it to the Atari Shows, you can still take advantage of the pre-launch price (P&P WILL apply in this instance!) and your order will be sent out on or before Monday 5th May.


NEW RANGE OF CD-ROM PRODUCTS
Sprachen sie Englisch?
The Atari CD market is growing, there's no doubt about that. The only factor which is putting customers off 'taking the plunge' and buying a CD-ROM drive for their Atari is lack of software. It's the old chicken and egg scenario.

Of those CDs which are available, the vast majority are almost entirely German in their content. Whilst fully acknowledging the fact that many of the very best Atari software packages have come out of Germany, untranslated software is of little or no use to those of us who don't understand the language. This is something Floppyshop are currently addressing with their new series of English language CD-ROMs, the first of which will be released at the Birmingham and London Atari shows in April.

There is a wealth of English language software just waiting to be discovered, yet only the excellent Suzy's B's Atari Software Treasury has ever made it onto CD-ROM. We do not claim that our collections will be 100% English language, but at least 75% of the contents will be. The majority of the programs are original English language programs, some are official English versions of foreign language programs, others are amateur translations. And for those which remain in German, we have included two excellent German to English translation programs to help you along!

Can't Find It?
The biggest problem with the current range of CD releases is that you can't find anything on the disc! You simply don't know where to look or if you do find a program it's difficult figuring out whether or not it's what you really need for the job! Some have crude indexing systems, others have none at all. Doesn't it make you feel like it's all just shovel-ware. Cram as much as you can onto a CD and make a quick buck! Do the people who compile these CDs know that the programs actually do, do they care, do they own Atari computers? We do on all three counts!

Our CDs come fully catalogued with descriptions of all programs on the disk. No that's not a joke, the descriptions are taken from our regular Shareware catalogue and adapted specially for CD use. Each program is referenced by its directory path and cross-references to other related programs are to their directory paths too. If you need a program to perform a specific task, use the search facility in the catalogue or the program name and up pops the description and directory path required. It couldn't be easier.

Ready To Run...
One of the biggest criticisms of existing CD-ROMs is that a proportion (sometimes all) of the software is supplied in archived format. Yes, this does mean that you get even more data packed onto the disc, there's no denying that. The main disadvantage is that (without a proper cataloguing system), the archive names are even less meaningful than the program names. You spend hours decompressing archives in the hope of finding the program you need to do the job. It's akin to finding a needle in a haystack! Even with a proper cataloguing system you have the added problem of finding space for everything. How many of you own a 1.2 GB (or larger) hard drive? Here at Floppyshop we believe convenience to be the answer and have supplied everything uncompressed and ready to run. The majority of programs and files can be run directly from the CD time and time again, without occupying so much as 1K of space on your hard drive. OK, so some programs are picky and object to this but they are few and far between. Most modern programs run from anywhere provided all files are kept together in a common directory. You've bought your CD-ROM drive, so why pay for a huge hard drive too?

Extras
All CDs from Floppyshop will include a number of useful utilities which every Atari owner should have in his/her collection. In addition, there will be demo versions of Floppyshop's range of commercial software as well as a few commercial packages thrown in for free. For example our first release, DTP+, includes the complete DegasArt (parts 1, 2 & 3) graphics tutorial, the full Family Roots v1 and the registered version of Xlator, an excellent German to English translator program and last but certainly not least, the full version of Edith Professional, an impressive text editor/binary file editor worth 35 pounds which is exclusive, being available on no other CD.

Finally
Everyone who has ever purchased goods from Floppyshop knows that we are knowledgeable about our products and that our catalogue is second to none. Our CDs offer no less, our customers expect no less! Depending on the response we get to our first two releases, the plan is to produce about 5 or 6 CD-ROMs during 1997 with more to follow in 1998. Our current collection is large enough to sustain this and new programs continue to be added at an encouraging rate. So why not buy your Shareware compilation CDs from the experts. Anyone can botch together a CD, but only a Floppyshop CD has quality and ease of use written all over it!

We regret that constraints of time prevent us from entering into personal correspondence about the timing and contents of future releases. We will continue to make further announcements as more titles become available. Compiling these CDs is a massive task, let us get on with it and you won't be disappointed with the results.


ATARI SHOW UPDATE
FLOPPYSHOP LATEST
We are working round the clock to give our customers the best possible selection of products. It's absolutely mad here at the moment with us working on no less than five new product releases! Along with existing commercial releases and special Shareware packs (which proved very popular last time round), we are aiming to have 20 products (compared to 9 last time) available for sale (five of which will make their debuts at the Shows). Everything depends on time and it's going to be tight! Here's a brief rundown of what we can talk about, there's lots more than we're keeping under wraps until the last minute!

POSITIVE IMAGE v2
This one is a MAJOR upgrade on the current release (v1.12) and should be ready in time for Birmingham and London. If not, it will hopefully make its debut in Glasgow. This product is 'in development' so we cannot give out any details at the moment, suffice to say it's going to be BIG NEWS. Don't contact us just now for details, we're too busy getting it finished and unwilling to discuss new features until they are completed. Suffice to say, we'll issue a fresh bulletin nearer the time.

DTP+ Graphics
The first of many new CD-ROM releases from Floppyshop. As the name suggests, this is the one stop answer to all your Desktop Publishing and Graphics needs. How does 3,600 fonts in Calamus, PostScript, True Type and other formats sound? Not enough? Well, how about 8,000 pieces of Clip Art? Still not satisfied? Well there's word processors, printer utilities, printer drivers, DTP support utilities, image processing packages, vector graphics packages, near enough every monochrome and colour graphics package on the Shareware/Freeware/PD scene, graphic conversion utilities, a prestigious collection of professional 'photographs' and a whole lot more besides. See separate press release on this one very soon.

POWERUP
A brand new commercial game. Who said nobody produces Atari games any more? Power Up is a racing car game from MC Soft. The game is seen from an overhead perspective looking down on the track. Five cars participate in each race, two of which can be player controlled. Control is by keyboard or joystick and is much more responsive than similar games of this type. Power Up is unique in that it runs on any Atari computer but has the ability to utilise the blitter and DMA sound (at 25 Khz on the STE/ 50Khz on the TT and Falcon) if your hardware supports it. There's even a special fast scrolling mode for Falcon owners. Even STFM owners get digitised music! It can also output sound to Replay, Replay Professional, Playback, MV16 and Prosound Designer cartridges. There will be 12 different tracks on which to compete, each track having five different scenarios. More details on Power Up nearer the time.

FONT PACKS
Last year our Oxieware collection created a fair amount of interest amongst customers. We will be bringing it along this time too, but with the addition of the Bournemouth collections. Here's a brief summary of what's what:-

OXIEWare Fonts - A superb collection of semi-professional Calamus fonts from Sweden. They are ALL complete implementations and are of a much higher standard than the usual PD and Shareware fonts. The OxieWare collection spans 16 disks.

THE BOURNEMOUTH CFN COLLECTION - An impressive collection of over 300 fonts on 20 disks. They are the result of PostScript fonts converted by John Weller for use with Calamus. What makes these almost unique is the fact that they are supplied as complete font families (with genuine italics and bolds rather than the usual slanted and thickened versions). Where else will you find a complete family of Helvetica in 19 weights and styles? Time and effort have gone into this collection, the result being a collection of professional fonts at PD prices.

THE BOURNEMOUTH POSTSCRIPT COLLECTION - This is the colection of PostScript fonts which formed the broad basis of John Weller's Bournemouth Collection. All in all this is a very well presented collection with its main strength being the sheer number of complete font families rather than one off single fonts. Supplied on 16 disks.

CLIP ART
Our Public Domain Vector Clip Art colection in GEM format was popular last time so we will have more stock for these Shows. In addition we will have an exclusive commercial set of Vector Clip Art disks by John Weller in Calamus CVG format. These are currently being completed (the first three disks are astounding!) and we expect the set to comprise of five or six disks. More details on this new product nearer to the Shows.

OTHER PRODUCTS
We will of course have have all our commercial software, Positive Image v1.12, Family Roots 2, EZ-Art Professional, Easy Stitch and DegasArt along with a number of specially made up Shareware packs covering such a wide range of subject matter than there's guaranteed to be something for everyone. There's also another brand new wildly addictive game but we're not talking about it just yet...

WEB NEWS
Our WWW pages are currently being updated (sorry but these things get out of date so quickly!). The new site will feature all our new releases and several new services we are about to launch. Although everything is unchanged at the moment, we expect the new pages to be up late April or early May. Keep an eye on:
http://www.netkonect.net/tachyon/flopshop/

FINALLY
The above information (with regard to product features and availability) is provisional and subject to change without notice. Prices are not yet finalised but you can be sure of a bargain on the day. As more information becomes available, we will be posting updates to this bulletin. Thank you for taking the time to read this message. We look forward to seeing you soon.


Floppyshop
PO Box 273
Aberdeen
Scotland
UK. AB15 8GJ,

Tel: 01224 586208 (Intl +44 1224 312756)
email: sdelaney@steil.wintermute.co.uk