Subject: REVIEW: Gold Fish CD-ROM Set
From: [email-masked] (Markus Illenseer)
Date: 27 Jul 1994 23:54:50 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Gold Fish CD-ROM Set

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	The Gold Fish CD-ROM is a 2 CD Set which contains the Fred Fish
AmigaLibDisks 1 to 1000 in archived and unarchived form.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Amiga Library Services
	Address:	610 North Alma School Road, Suite 18
			Chandler, AZ  85244-3687
			USA

	Telephone:	(602) 917-0917
	FAX:		(602) 917-0917

In Germany, the CD may be purchased from:

		Stefan Ossowski Schatztruhe
		Gesellschaft für Software mbH
		Veronikastraße 33
		45131 Essen
		Germany

		Telephone:	+49 201 78 87 78
		Fax:		+49 201 79 84 47

	and

		GTI Home Computer Centre
		Zimmermuehlenweg 73
		61440 Oberursel
		Germany

		Telephone:	+49 6171 8 59 34
		Fax:		+49 6171 83 02
		BTX:		*GTI#

	Other dealers will follow.

LIST PRICE

	Suggested retail price is $24.95 (US), or approximately DM 39,90.
Street price varies in a wide range, so please compare.  Amiga Library
Services offers the CD for $19.95 by direct sale.  In Germany the price is
higher due to import tax and shipping fees.

	All mentioned prices are for the complete CD set containing two CDs,
although the CDs are packaged in one single (special) jewel box.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Any Amiga equipped with a CD-ROM drive.  This includes the
		A570, A1270, CDTV, CD32 or any supported third party CD-ROM
		drive.

		512KB of RAM required.  At least 2 MB RAM is recommended,
		though 5-8 MB is more comfortable.

		A hard drive is required if you plan to copy or install
		some of the software packages on your Amiga.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher required.
		Works fine with AmigaDOS version 2.
		AmigaDOS version 3 is highly recommended.

		A CD-ROM filesystem is required such as AsimCDFS, AmiCDROM,
		Babel CDFS, Xetec CDFS, etc.  The Commodore CDFS, supplied
		with AmigaDOS 3.1, is known to have some bugs with the
		tested CD, but it is suitable to get most of the stuff on the
		disc.  AmiCDROM is on the CD itself.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 3000, 2 MB Chip RAM, 12 MB Fast RAM
	Several hard drives.
	Apple CD300 (same as Sony CDU-8003A) CD-ROM drive.
	AmiCDROM Version 1.10.

REVIEW

	As a general overview, I would like to explain the why, what and
wherefrom of this CD-ROM.  I then will review the installation and the
compilation of the CD.

	Throughout this review, when the word 'disk' is used, I mean a
floppy disk from the Fred Fish library (the AmigaLibDisks).  The word
'disc' is used to mean a CD-ROM.  Please don't be confused. :-)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

	The long awaited Golden Fish is here.  It is the assemblage of 8
years of tremendous work of thousands of authors, artists, magicians, gurus
and, last but not least, Fred Fish.  Here is a little history about how
this disc came to be.

	Since the the Amiga's introduction in late 1985, in the days of
net.micro.amiga (Usenet's dawn), when the real Gurus attempted to discover a
wonderful machine, Fred Fish assembled freely available and distributable
stuff and made it available through a floppy disk-based distribution for
Amiga-freaks all over the world.

	The success of his series is without compare.  Fred gathered huge
amounts of Amiga 'stuff' by fishing around networks himself, or by having
authors submit their material directly.  No other disk series has ever had
similar luck and acceptance over the years - although the number of direct
subscribers was never high enough to make it reasonable to continue the
series....

	In 1993, Fred announced that the number of direct subscribers to the
floppy distribution was not large enough to continue the distribution.  The
number of subscribers increased from 41 to 75 after a call for subscribers
in mid-1993, but that was still far fewer than the 150 required subscribers
which would be essential to survive.

	As a solution, Fred finally decided to go one step further,
switching from floppy disks to modern mass media:  CD-ROM.  This was an
eventful step with many risks but also many advantages.  The 'Fresh Fish CD'
was born.  Its success allowed Fred to stop the floppy disk distribution.
The response was rather good.  It is too much work for the small company to
continue both floppy disk based and CD based distribution.  There are some
other volunteers to continue the floppy disk based distribution (i.e.,
Amazing Computers in the US or SAAR-AG in Germany).

	To give the end users a bit of time, he continued his normal
AmigaLibDisk floppy series up to number 1000.  This was achieved in December
1993.  Since then, Fred has distributed his material on CD-ROM only.

GOLD FISH

	The Gold Fish CD-ROM (from now on called GF) is a 2-disc set that
contains all of the original AmigaLibDisk series (except for disk 0, which
was eaten by Fred's dog :-)).  Not a single file is missing, except for some
copyrighted material he had to delete, making this disc set a wonderful
treasure to keep you busy for days.

	Every floppy disk is made available on the CD in both archived form
(lha archives), and unarchived form (normal directory structure of the
disks).  The first CD contains disks 1-1000 in archived form, and disk 1-249
in unarchived form.  Disk two contains disks 250-1000 in unarchived form.
This makes 650MB for each CD - the maximum a CD can contain.

	The first CD contains the archived floppy disks in a BBS directory
for direct use in a BBS (Bulletin Board System) or on an anonymous FTP site
on the Internet.  This directory contains a subdirectory for each disk.  In
these thousands of subdirectories are archives for each software package.
There are no archives for the entire disks.  A program called 'PufferFish'
creates redistributable - original - Fred Fish floppy disks out of these
archives.

	GF comes in a nice, slimline jewel box that holds two CDs in the
space of an ordinary, single-CD jewelbox, for convenient storage.

	GF was mastered in the ISO 9660 Mode 2 format (hence no crippled,
MS-DOS format filenames).  I couldn't locate any directory-level deeper than
4 or 5; hence, the CD is ISO-compliant and will work with almost every ISO
filesystem.

	During the making of a CD, due to a missing 'feature' of the
ISO-9660 filesystem, which is used on every good CD-ROM, the original Amiga
protection bits are gone (e.g., Script, Archive, Execute, and also
filenotes). This makes it impossible to start shell-scripts directly off the
CD if they make use of the S-Bit (Script).  Fortunately, there are not that
many tools on GF depending on this.  The only (supplied) way to restore a
file's original protection bits is by extracting it from its corresponding
lha archives in the BBS directory.

	(A technical note:  it *is* possible to store the missing flags and
filenotes.  ISO-9660 and the Rockridge Extension do support this, but both
the ISO image (during creation of the CD) and the CD-ROM filesystem have to
support that extension.

INSTALLATION

	There is no installation required.  A simple 'setup' script expands
search paths to LIBS: and C: on the CD for supplied libraries and commonly
used tools like 'MuchMore'.

USAGE

	What to do with such immense source of programs, goodies, tools,
pictures, sounds, and texts?

	Indeed, the purpose of an archive CD is limited.  It can be seen a
large and useful backup medium, or as useless, hopelessly outdated trashcan.
Your mileage may vary.

	One could just browse through the entire disc -- a man-life of work
(mythical man month :-)) and get lost in the depths of icons, directories and
documentation.

	One could search for specific stuff.  For that purpose, four
methods are provided.

	The first is the file "FileList", which is found on the first CD.
This file is probably the fastest and most useful way to find distributions.
It covers only the BBS part of the (first) CD.

	Second are the two "CRCList" files on both CDs. These files contain
the entire file tree of the CDs (that is, the full name of every file) with
CRC (Checksum) information. This method is best for finding single files.
It covers all material on both CDs.

	For these first two methods, a tool like 'grep', 'c:search' or an
editor with a search function is required.

	The third method is AKwic, a simple GUI using its own database,
searching for normal strings in filenames.  Quite fast and reasonable.  I
like that it displays all found matches and then asks you for a further
choice rather than showing you only the first match and then asking you to
search for the next match.  It covers only the BBS part of the (first) CD.

	The last tool is KingFisher.  This program is a big one.  The entire
library has been catalogued, classified and merged together in this database
program.  KingFisher is complex and demands a bit of knowledge about how a
database (like Lotus, Excel or somesuch) works and how to find specific
stuff.  KingFisher allows you to search for a wild range of keywords such as
'name', 'graphics', 'author' and more.  This enables you to find related or
similar programs,.  Unfortunately KingFisher is a bit a too large of a
program to be used every now and then.  Covers only the BBS part of the
(first) CD.

	It is quite annoying that both AKwic and KingFisher don't cover the
unarchived material of GF.

	The unarchived part of the GF contains most of the stuff assembled
in the way the original floppy disks contained the packages.  This is even
the way the authors or submitters send the material to Fred or elsewhere.
Unfortunately not all the packages are really unarchived.  Mostly, source
code hasn't been unarchived and left assembled archived.  This sure saves
rare disk space, as is - funny enough - required for GF for not being a 3 CD
set.  GF is *full*:  not a single megabyte more is available.  The argument
is left to the user.  Note that the original file and directory structure of
the floppy disks has not been changed in any way.  Not a single icon has been
altered.

	GF contains often used programs like Installer, MuchMore, AmigaGuide
and more, so that you can use most of the installed software packages
directly off the CD.  Most of the packages though are intended to be
installed on a hard drive, as they are either complex packages which quickly
alter files and need a writable medium, or are simple tools required at
startup time.  Games, hacks and texts can be left on the CD of course.  You
name it.

	I can't review the material on the CD - it's hopeless.  Let's just
say that there's too much stuff on it. :-)

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	I hate being forced to swap the two CD's every now and then, but
that is a feature of GF - too much material to be assembled on one CD.  And
then again, what is swapping of two CD's compared to playing "disk jockey for
thousands of floppy disks?

	Also, I really hate the text viewer 'MuchMore' used all over.  And
there is almost no way around this, as most (all?) entries of it ask for a
':C/muchmore' rather than to use 'muchmore' and leave the rest to the file
search path of AmigaDOS.  Then I could rename my lovable 'More' to
'MuchMore' and use that one.  There are even other possibilities, quite
fancy, but these would require a complete rework of the CD, which is not the
goal of GF.

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  The problem that Markus mentions can be solved.
	If you are running AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher, check out the program
	ToolAlias on Aminet.  ToolAlias is a commodity that substitutes one
	tool for another without actually changing the icon.  For example,
	you can specify that whenever someone clicks on an icon with the
	tool ":C/muchmore", the program "sys:utilities/more" is automatically
	used instead.  I have been using the program for a year and have
	found it to be quite stable.  - Dan]

	I don't claim to be a Workbench user -- I barely use it -- but I
don't like the look of GF on the Workbench.  Sometimes the windows open at
random positions.  Some icons look fancy, shiny or are unusable.  But I must
acknowledge that this is the way the material was submitted by the authors
and it never was an intention of Fred to change any material.  So I must
blame the authors.  *BLAME* :-)

	I like the general compilation.  I started - years ago - with Fred
Fish Disk #75, and never really had a chance to look at earlier material.
Also, over the years, I lost track of sometimes quickly updated disks, hence
GF offers me a chance to keep up.  There is quite a lot of material I've
never seen before, although I had the possibility to grab them every day via
BBS or ftp.  But I simply didn't know about them... who can read all those
'Contents' files?

	What a pity that some of the material can be found updated
every 20 disks.  But that was important at the time Fred distributed
his floppy disks on a monthly base.  I can't blame him for submitting
an entirely complete archive.

	Shortly after GF was pressed, it was discovered that some files on
the discs were copyrighted or contained viruses.  (Strangely enough, they
have been on the floppy disks for years!)  These files have now been deleted
and a new pressing of GF has been issued.  (The first pressing is completely
sold out.)  Upgrade from first pressing to second is possible for a small
fee.  Write to Fred or Amiga Library Services for more information.  Some
other changes have also been involved, such as a bug-fixed KingFisher.  If
you have the first pressing, the virus-containing files won't affect your
Amiga unless you happen to execute them.

	You can also write to Udo Schuermann for a new version of KingFisher
with new features.  Most probably also with updated Databases.

	A probable disease is that the CD contains outdated material.  This
is life.  Everything changes.  Some of the material is timeless and can't be
found elsewhere, some stuff has never been updated since, whereas other
stuff is updated so often that the most recent version does not appear on
GF.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	There is only one product which contains lot of Fred Fish Disks,
this was the (nowadays) way overpriced CD from Almathera, which contains the
disks 1-750 in unarchived form.  Unfortunately, I can't compare GF with this
CD because I don't own it and never had a chance to borrow it.  I don't know
if there is a database tool for quick access of material.

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  There have been several other Fish Disk CD-ROM's
	in existence.  Hypermedia produced 7 versions of their "Fred Fish
	Collection" CD-ROM, Asimware Innovations produced "FishMarket",
	Xetec produced two "Fish and More" discs, and possibly there have
	been others.  - Dan]

	The Fresh Fish CD's also contain some of the last disk based
material, but I don't think I should compare that with this entire
archive.

	Similar to the GF is the 'Frozen Fish' CD from Fred Fish.  This
is a single CD based archive CD, which contains disk 1-1000 in archived
form.

	Last minute:  Fred also informed me, that he intends to release a
special PC/BBS form of the Frozen Fish with disk #1-1000 as 1000 individual
lha archives, one archive per floppy disk.

	The only other floppy disk based series, which made its way to a CD
I know of, are the German AMOK and SAAR series.  They made a CD containing
about 730 disks in unarchived form.  Fortunately enough it seems that this
CD is not a subset of any of Fred's material, but a completely own archive.
This CD is intended for German users, as many of the texts and programs
haven't been translated into English.

	As the last several hundreds Fred Fish AmigaLibDisks were sometimes
a subset of material found on the Aminet ftp sites, I should compare GF with
the existing Aminet CDs, but I think this would turn into some sort of
religious war. :-)

CONCLUSIONS

	The GF is a must for every Amiga User.  Either for personal use, for
shared use with friends, to be made available on BBS or via FTP - this
archive is what you need.  It is also a nice family album of the world-wide
Amiga community.

	For a future release of GF (it is not required, and I think will
never be done), I would like to see a KingFisher which is far more easy to
use.  Also it should cover _all_ supplied material.

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Kingfisher is continually being updated, and an
	official release is scheduled soon.  The program does not need to be
	physically on the CD-ROM:  you can install it on your hard drive.
	- Dan]

	GF is a reliable product, which is quite usable.  I rate it 4 out
of 5 stars.

	The last star can be achieved if the CD becomes cheaper - but this
is up to you. Support the makers of Amiga specific CDs and make it possible
to issue large amounts of CDs.  The higher the amount, the lower the price!

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	This review represents my honest opinion.  Your mileage may vary --
tell me about it!

	Copyright 1994 Markus Illenseer.  All rights reserved.

	You can contact the author at:

		Markus Illenseer
		Kurt Schumacherstr. 16
		33613 Bielefeld
		GERMANY
		Voice: ++49 (0)521 103995

		[email-masked]

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