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1993-10-09
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Article 15214 (15 more) in alt.cd-rom:
Path: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet
From: Robert S. Pataki Manager of the Photo Graphics Group on DELPHI <PUGDOG@delphi.com>
Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom
Subject: Walnut Creek CDROM: Libris Britania
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 16:15:33 EST
Organization: Delphi Internet
Lines: 93
Message-ID: <931009.58533.PUGDOG@delphi.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: delphi.com
I recieved a copy of the "Libris Britannia" Shareware CD ROM,
from Walnut Creek CDROM, apparantly the US Distributor of this
English disc. The disc is well put together, and contains
about 600 MB of files. It comes with a softcovered book with a
full 'shareare catalog' style description arranged by category.
Sample topics are EDUCATION (with breakdowns by age range and
teachers tools), BUSINESS (with various sub categories),
Graphics (with clip art, raytracing, and various other
categories) HAM RADIO (several categories) and many, many more
such as Religion, Program support, Windows, Utilities,
Astrology, Desktop Publishing, Word Processing, Hobbies,
Programming, Games, Music, Special Needs, etc. Basically the
expected range of topics you'll find on a ShareWare library disc.
The separate Ham Radio topic suprised me, but not in the
context of Walnut Creek publishing the QRZ Ham Radio disc :).
The organization of the disc is cryptic. The files are coded
by the PDSL code numbers, for their cataloging system. To that
end, the front end provided is *mandatory* to use, unless you
want to try to locate the numbers from the manual. To the
plus side, the system works. It's easy, if not somewhat
limited. It allows you to select and expand one program group
at a time, which can make testing/trying several programs
quickly more of a task than it should be.
The front end gives a list of directories, and the description
of each, and allows you to select that, and recieve a line
description of each file. It would have been nice to get the
full descripton of each file, making the use of the included
reference book unnecessary. Perhaps the designers of the disc
will realize that the effort to put the index on the disc would
be more than offset by not having to print the book. While the
book is an interesting idea for shelf sales, I'm *TOTALLY*
electronic, and would like all the information available
on-line without having to seek out reference books.
To it's credit, the book provides an introduction to the disc,
and the various 'shell' and archive managers available, and
offers a few tips. But, who's going to read it?? <G>
My biggest problem with the disc is age. It's a problem that
affects all the shareware discs. The disc appears to have
been mastered in 2/93. Many of the programs date back earlier
than that. In the interim, new versions of the programs have
come out, and might be more useful.
Specifically the Health/Medical programs were somewhat dated.
Several have had two or three new releases since this disc
was printed. The Special Needs area was very small, but the
utilities there for the visually impaired are some I've come
across in the past, and believe do work. The Graphics area
which I'm much more familiar with, had many good programs and
clip art availble. While the clip-art does not go out of date,
many of the programs have been updated, and interestingly many
of the more poular ones seem absent.
The inclusion of VPIC and CSHOW in the same archive had me a
bit curious. So I looked. The ZIP actually included 3 ZIP files.
GIFDESK32, VPIC50, and CSHOW843. The most recent version we
have of CSHOW is 8.60 and I think that may be out of date,
since it's from Feb 92, though I get the mailings direct from
Bob. VPIC is up to version 6.1 or higher, depending on what
you consider an official release, and GIFDESK is up to version
4.5. This is according to our own libraries. The new versions
of all these programs provide SIGNIFICANT functionality
improvements over the previous, and are much better for the
users.
I find I agree in principle with the ASP about the damage that
old shareware can do. Programs more than 2 years old may not
work on current systems. The new systems require programs to be
well behaved, many old programs broke the rules to do 'extra'
things.
Everyone wants the bottom line, so here it is. I think for the
price this disc is a fair value at this time. An updated
version, hot off the presses, would be a very GOOD value.
This is issue 2. If the PDSL could update their archives, and
print a disc and get it out immediately, it would *VERY*
favorably compare with the the new offerings from the ASP.
My next review will be the CICA MS Windows CDROM which was also
sent by Walnut Creek. It is a collection from the CICA archives,
and as such has a range of golden oldies, and enough new material
to be of interest. Release date was Aug 93, so should be pretty
current. More later.
-r-
NOTE: I'll handle specific questions about the disc via E-mail,
and summarize the good stuff for the group.