Review: Aminet 10 CD-ROM

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                         Review: Aminet 10 CD-ROM
                            By:  Jason Compton 
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The day WILL come when I will no longer be able to come up with a clever
way to introduce Aminet CD-ROM reviews.  Until that day, I'm going to keep
trying...

Aminet.  You know it, you love it, you can own it on CD-ROM.  Well, the
update installments every two months, plus the yearly 4-CD compilations.
By my math, there are 18 different Aminet CDs out there (10 installments
plus two annual 4-packs) these days.

And they've got that AmigaGuide browsing interface that has pretty much
become a standard.  Search, configure tools for un-LHA, view, etc.  Have a
good time.

Aminet 10's "theme" is fonts, and there are some 330 megs of font data in
various (bitmap, Adobe, CG) formats.  A bit disturbing is the fact that
230 megs on the CD are mods.  This is considerably more than the last CD
and, while mods are always nice, seeing them fill considerable bulk on an
Aminet CD-ROM (when not all are new) is a little upsetting.

As of late, Aminet CDs have begun including older versions of commercial
sofware--in effect, "coverdisking" programs.  This time around, the goodies
are PageStream 2.2SE and Typesmith 2.5SE.  In PageStream 2.2's case, "SE"
means "no manual but you can buy that for $40 and get some fonts, too."  In
Typesmith's case, "SE" means "No AREXX, help, or professional-grade output
but you can buy the full version for $50."  Let's face it, if you're going
to do some serious work with either, you'll want the manuals.  But they
make for interesting inclusions.

By percent content, games are next in line.  They're sorted into "best",
"compatible", and "other", being those games which require some effort to
get running.  And there you have it.

The other usual categories of fun stuff round out the rest of the CD, a
grand total of 636 compressed megs of data.  What can I say?  There are
other CD compilations of random and categorized files, but why not just get
it from the source?  If you're looking to dabble in print media, or
considering taking the plunge for PageStream 3.0, you may well appreciate
the added bonus.  Of course, if you have an IV to Aminet, you know
perfectly well you can just FTP to your heart's content.

Aminet CDs are running 25 DM/ US$20 these days.

Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe GmbH
Veronikastr. 33
D-45131 Essen
Germany
++49 201 788778 phone
++49 201 798447 fax
stefano@tchest.e.eunet.de

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