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%% Review: Meeting Pearls CD-ROM Volume 1      By:  Jason Compton      %%
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It's charming, in its own way...a group of Amiga enthusiasts get together
to fill a huge hard drive with stuff.  Amiga stuff, of course.  Neat
things, useful things, useless things...pretty much up to the discretion
of those present.  A big party of sorts.

The object: This CD-ROM.  A "sharecompilation", which is a bit of a
strange concept.  The upshot is that all of the material on the CD-ROM
is free, or at the most shareware.  As such, a minimal fee should be
charged for the CD-ROM itself.

This one comes in at US$13.  To put it into perspective, most new audio
CD releases are about US$15 or $16.  This puts MP into just about
everyone's price range.

That being established, the only question is this: is the compilation
worth it?

I feel it is.  It's no Aminet CD-ROM.  I personally feel that the
inclusion of Mosaic pages was a bit awkward, and some software doesn't
quite seem to run correctly direct from CD.  But there are pearls to
be had by everyone, and Angela Schmidt's pals have done a pretty good
job of filling a CD-ROM.

Quite a bit of recent Aminet software found its way here, so for some,
this will be sufficient.  For die-hard completists, a more cohesive
collection would be in order.  But if you want to get your feet wet
with Amiga CD-ROM, or just have a few bucks to blow and like searching
for treasure, pick up a Meeting Pearls.

Come on...I mean, fractals, fonts, and NetBSD, all on one disc?  Can't
beat that for less than $20.

Suggested price: DM 19,80/US $13

Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe
Gesellschaft fur Software mbH
D-45131 Essen  Germany