You can't be an Amiga owner without knowing of 17-Bit. For the last few years 17-Bit have been regarded as being one of the best companies in the business when it comes down to PD distribution. As well as being able to offer a fast service, they also have a range second to none with over 4,000 disks. Now, for just slightly more than the price of a game, you can own most of them!
This is a double CD pack containing over 1,700 disks from the first 2,301 disks in the 17-Bit range (not counting the Fish disks or other such collections). The discs feature an vast assortment of software ranging from games to word processors, text editors to animations, music to disk magazines. In short, there's something on here to suit everyone!
Obviously, because many PD demos (and a few PD games for that matter) make use of their own disk format, and the fact that there is no way physically possible to squeeze 1,700MB of data onto just 2 CDs, all of the disks have been compressed and need to be unpacked onto blank disks before they can be used. Fortunately, the process is very user-friendly and only takes a couple of minutes per disk.
Not of all of the disks in the 17-Bit library are here though. There was more than enough space on the CDs for all 2,301 disks to be included, so why weren't they? Well, many of the titles have been removed that are of "dubious" origin or if they compilers, Almathera, were unsure if they were infringing any copyrights. This is all very well, but there are a large number on inconsistencies to be found. First, there isn't a single Star Trek game in sight. Now, this is understandable (if you knew Paramount's attitude towards Trek PD games) but why then have they left almost all of the animation disks by Tobias Richter on the CD, most of which are dedicated to Star Trek? Also, with my disk mag, THE FINAL FRONTIER, Issues 1 and 3 are there, but there is no sign of Issue 2 which is DIRECTLY before Issue 3 in 17-Bit's range. Confused? You will be!
Still, saying that, you are getting 1,700 disks full of PD and at the price it's an absolute steal. I know some people will complain that they can't access any of the software immediately, but this way you only select what you want leaving more space on the discs for more software. However, it's not all perfect.
What lets the pack down is the system for selecting the disks. When booted up, the CD (each booting separately) presents the user with a simple front-end listing a number of disks in numerical order in a main window on the screen with all the usual scroll bars around it to move through the titles on offer. Clicking on a title will display a short description of the disks contents in a smaller window below and if you want to de-compress it, simply click on another button and the disk will be depacked.
Unfortunately, unless you know exactly where a particular title lies within 17-Bit's range, searching for a specific disk can be like looking for a needle in a haystack! There is no search facility on offer and you have to guess based on the information that the older disks (circa 1985) can be found pre-200 and the disks released in 1992 tend to fall into the 2000+ bracket. Still it's annoying having to spend hours wading through a disk only to find that the disk you are looking for doesn't even exist on the CD!
Another problem is that the descriptions for the disks are vague to the point of being utterly useless. Many demo compilations or utility packs simply refer to the disks as "another collection of demos" or something similar. Fat lot of good that is! Even some of the more well-known disks have poor descriptions and I think that unless you are a real PD afficionado looking for that elusive disk, you'll have a tough time coming to grips with the CDs.
There's no denying that overall this twin-pack offers remarkable value for money and there is some fabulous software to be found on the CDs, but I feel that more time should have been spent on the presentation. It's still a great CD and well worth buying by ANY owner of a CD-based machine, it's just that I feel that there was an opportunity wasted to give us a really spectacular product as opposed to a really good one, hence the low mark!
