Almathera's Ten on Ten CD-ROM Pack review: ------------------------------------------ By Guy Nathan Brief overview: --------------- A compilation of 10 Amiga CD-ROM's covering several different areas. CD-ROM's included: Almathera's Comm & Networking CD(*), CDPD1, CDPD2, DEMO1, World Vista, Illustrated works of Shakespear, Pandora's CD, Team Yankee, The Almathera Photo Library CD(*), The Almathera Clipart & Fonts CD(*). This is a special, one-off pack put together by Almathera, which includes some CD's not obtainable without purchasing this pack (which are marked with an asterix in the list above). System Requirements: -------------------- Amiga with CD-ROM Drive, CDTV, or CD32. Test System: ------------ An Amiga CD32 (standard) with a SerNet link to an A4000/040. Note on Review: --------------- As with many CD-ROM's which can be bought for the Amiga today, the sheer number of programs that can be found on a single CD makes it next to impossible to do an in-depth analysis of every program found on that CD. In reviewing this CD-ROM pack I shall attempt to go in as much depth as possible, but some CD-ROMs contained within this pack have thousands of programs on it, which means some will be reviewed as an overall look at the particular CD. Review: ------- Today Amiga users are faced with a large variety of CD-ROM's for use with the Amiga. Some of them leave much to be desired, while others provide a great value packed CD. With the "Ten On Ten" CD-ROM pack, Almathera has tried to provide the user with both a cheap and value packed set of CD's, for less than a person might pay if buying these titles seperately. In the past Almathera has earned itself much appraisal for producing some of the Amiga's best CD-ROMs, as well as recently the very successful Image Processing/Paint Package, Photogenics. Prior to ordering this CD-ROM pack, it was possible to be sceptical as to what this pack offers due to it's very low price, but comming from a company with such a good reputation, my doubts were put to rest. When I received the pack through the mail, after ordering it directly from Almathera, I discovered what looked like a cheaply packaged set of 10 CD-ROMs with thin cardboard covers, but for the price I paid this did not really matter too much. The following is a look at each of the 10 CD-ROMs found in this pack. Key: ---- (*) = This CD requires CD No.1 to be booted once before this CD will boot up to workbench. 1. Almathera Comms & Networking CD This CD is the one bootable CD-ROM which comes with this pack (but is also used as a boot CD for other CD's in this pack) and will boot from any CD-ROM equiped Amiga or Amiga console. The CD contains a wealth of utilities and information to do with Communications and Networking (with an emphesis on Internet link-ups such as TCP/IP connections). For those who are after an Internet SLIP connection you will find all the software you need to get setup on this CD, including the likes of AmiTCP, ftp, telnet daemons, WWW Browsers, Grapevine IRC Client and more. Several FAQs and guides on getting on the net and how to use the AmiTCP software are also included. Basically all you could ever need for a very good SLIP set-up can be found accompanied with a fair share of documentation to help you out. Included on this CD are also many Internet related documents, product reviews, Amiga Report issues, and many other electronic documents, as well as the classic BLAZEMONGER series. For users who wish to use it to connect two Amiga's (or even an Amiga to PC) together the software has been set-up for you to use requiring the user only to double click on the appropriate icon. Along with all the communication and network software has been included a very good collection of PD software such as MUI, LhA, Multiuser, CD-ROM and SCSI Utilities, Snoopdos, KingCON and more. For the CD32 or CDTV owner there is a icon which allows you to link up your CD console to your Amiga. By double clicking on the sernet icon (presuming you booted from this CD), you are ready to transfer files between both machines (and for CD32 owners without the fear of having the machine reset when changing CDs). Almathera have gone to the trouble to make sure as much of this CD can work from the CD directly, without the need to install it to your hard drive first. This is especially great for Amiga owners who boot from this CD and rely on the programs on it (such as Dir Work 1.62). 2. CDPD 1 (*) This CD mainly is just Fish Disks 1-660 organised into drawers of 25 disks and then each disk with it's own drawer. The CD also has King Fisher search tool on it for easily searching for the file you happen to be after. The second major element of this CD is the modules which can be played using the supplied (albiet primitive) MOD Player. The CD has approximately 50 MODs or so (I haven't counted this). Besides the above the CD, contains all the basic boot-up files and Dir Work 1.62 for what ever purpose you wish to use it for. 3. CDPD 2 (*) This CD is a continuation from CDPD 1, and at the same time introduces a whole range of new programs as well. Like the previous CD it has Fred Fish disks on it (Disks 651-760 & Disks 1-100), but unlike the previous one it also has disks from other collections (AB20, Scope, JAM). The AB20 collection on this CD contains a range of both software, graphics, text, fonts, sounds, and more. These programs and data have come from the NASA AB20 Amiga Public Domain archive in the states and were previously only available via communications networks or on PC CD-ROMs. It comes in both archived (BBS Ready) and un-archived form. The Scope collection includes disks 1-220, and the Scope catalog which can be used in the Aquarium-like catalog program, NewAqua. Scope contains the same type of programs found in the Fish Disk collection, including some programs not found in the Fish Disk collection. The JAM disk collection comes from the semi-famous Just Amiga Monthly black and white Amiga Magazine. For those who have never read JAM before, it is a magazine for real serious Amiga users covering topics most Amiga magazines leave out to avoid confusing the reader. Included on the CD are JAM Disks 1-10, although rather dated now, still useful. On a different note, GTS have given Almathera their PD catalogue to include on this CD, of which is a catalogue of different Amiga Disk Magazines, PD Disks, Fred Fish disks, and more. To help you find a program you are after Almathera have included on the CD several fish disk searchers. These are Fisher, KingFisher 1.15, and yes another version of King Fisher, version 1.40 (of which all versions managed to crash on my CD32). For Amiga users who have a disk drive (ie. Amiga CD32+SX1 owners, CDTV with disk drive owners, and Amiga's equipped with CD drives), you can take advantage of Almathera's FishRod program which basically will allow easy transfer of Fish Disks and JAM Disks on the CD to a disk. This CD also contains Dir Work 1.62 and other miscellaneous items. 4. DEMO 1 (*) This CD is oriented heavily towards music, graphics, demos, as well as having a good amount of miscellaneous stuff to satisfy most people's intrests. It includes its own rather wierd and revolutionary MOD Player which has to be seen to be believed. On the MOD side it contains probably over 200 or so MODs, with a real variety of music to cover most people's tastes. The MOD Player itself is no average MOD player, it includes a constant fractal constantly colour changing animation in the very background, and a woman dancing in the front, according to the beat of the music, with a music scope in front of that. The MOD Player is very easy to use and sorts the MODs into alphabetical order. On the graphics/animation side of things there are everything from CDTV, HAM, to HAM8 animations and graphics. One of the sets of animations include most Eric Schwartz's work. Other animations include Ray traced, landscape, and looping. There are about 200 or so IFF's on the CD which are both digitized and hand drawn pictures which vary in quality (but most of them are good quality). These pictures can be viewed with either VT or Mostra, which are supplied. The CD also contains alot of clip art, sound samples, hundreds of Sonix songs and samples, postscript fonts, fonts, a version of protracker, assembly and amos source code, demo's of commercial programs and games, and finally about 50 or so games (including the likes of LLamatatron). As you can see there is almost something for everyone here. As well as all of the above, in the 'utils' drawer are included many MOD players, MOD rippers, and many other music utilities. On this CD, to be able to use the demo's on it, Almathera have made yet another CanDo program, to automate putting these demos onto disk for you. (As most of them are non-dos disks). As you can see this CD is HUGE and contains alot of things which would be of intrest to most Amiga users. I have attempted to review as much of this CD as possible, yet at the same time give you a good idea what its like. This is the type of CD you can spend hours on hours just browsing through it. 5. World Vista CD (*) When reviewing this CD it is hard not to comment on how I feel about it, as it is truly amazing. This CD is broken up into several parts, and what it basically is, is an atlas of the world which encorperates music, images, maps, speech and information on a country to bring this CD a true multimedia feeling. This CD was originally created for the CDTV back in 1991, but DO NOT let that put you off. The bookshelf menu is broken into 8 choices. They are: Maps, Facts, City Maps, Language, culture, details, flags, and topics. Selecting maps will take you to a menu where you can choose either thematic or country. Choosing Thematic allows you to choose a thematic map via it's region. Choosing country allows you to choose a country's map to view.