Path: menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us (Vitas Povilaitis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: VGA Spectrum CDROM disc Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia Date: 13 Feb 1993 20:47:40 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 177 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1ljmpcINNkjl@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us (Vitas Povilaitis) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: CD-ROM, graphics, sound, commercial PRODUCT NAME VGA Spectrum CDROM disc BRIEF DESCRIPTION A CD-ROM disc of sound and graphics. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: S & S Enterprises Address: P. O. Box 552 Lemont, IL 60439 Telephone: (800) ROM-DISC [766-3472] LIST PRICE Unknown SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS You'll need a CD-ROM drive and CD-ROM filesystem software. COPY PROTECTION None MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2000 running OS 2.04. GVP G-Force 40: 40 MHz 68EC030/SCSI II/12 MB RAM 15 MB total RAM Toshiba CD-ROM drive Xetec CD-ROM filesystem software Since the disc is standard ISO 9660 format, it should be readable on any CD-ROM drive under any OS revision. I have not tested this disc on a CDTV. REVIEW Because it's so hard to find CD-ROM discs for the Amiga, I think more people should review discs from other platforms to see if they are usable with the Amiga. I'm writing this review in the hopes of encouraging you to do the same. The disc has been produced with the IBM PC user in mind. All the supplied support software is for MS/DOS. Consequently, the disc is mastered in ISO 9660 Level 1, which means that filenames are limited to MS-DOS length (8 characters plus 3-character suffix). However, the filenames are generally meaningful. The disc contains about 586 MB of graphics and sound files. The root directory contains the following sub-directories: ANIMATE FLI Uncompressed .fli files. I don't know how to run these on the Amiga. GL Uncompressed .gl files. There is at least one grasp animation player for the Amiga PLYR ZIP'ed MS-DOS animation players ZIP MS-DOS self-extracting archives CLIPART MS-DOS self-extracting archives DEMO Contains ZIP'ed demos for MS-DOS. UNZIP Various sub-directories containing uncompressed programs and data. Very little of the data is usable by the Amiga. GAMES Contains ZIP'ed games for MS-DOS. UNZIP Various sub-directories containing uncompressed programs and data. Very little of the data is usable by the Amiga GIF Contains eight sub-directories of a variety of unsorted GIF files of varying quality, and a SWIMSUIT sub-directory. MAC Contains two sub-directories of a variety of unsorted MacPaint files. PKWARE MS-DOS ZIP package SOUND CMF? Four uncompressed CMF directories. I don't know how to handle these on the Amiga. CMS1 One uncompressed CMS directory. I don't know how to handle these on the Amiga. ROL? Five uncompressed ROL directory. I don't know how to handle these on the Amiga. SBI1 One uncompressed SBI directory. I don't know how to handle these on the Amiga. TRKBLAST Uncompressed MOD directory. Use a MOD player like EdPlayer. VOC1 Uncompressed VOC directory. Use a sample player like OPlay [OmniPlay]. ZIP EXE files; probably self-extracting MS-DOS files. TEXT Some text about the CD-ROM UTILITY EXE files; probably self-extracting MS-DOS files This files are of various quality and much like files you'd find on a BBS. The graphics files can be viewed on Amigas by many different programs, such as ADPro. The audio files can be played by many different sample players, such as OPlay. DOCUMENTATION The disc comes with no instructions. LIKES AND DISLIKES Its too bad that there are MS-DOS self-extracting archives on this disc; it makes the data unportable, and unusable on the Amiga without a PC emulator. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: The self-extracting archives can be extracted on the Amiga using UnZip 5.0. - Dan] The files are of various quality like the ones you'd find on a BBS: not the greatest, but nice to have around. BUGS None. CONCLUSIONS This is a collection of various files like you'd find on a BBS. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Vitas Povilaitis. All rights reserved. -- -Vitas P.- 22 Wolcott Avenue, Rochester, NY 14606 UUCP: moscom.com!grace!vitas Internet: vitas%grace@moscom.com or vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us Graceful Boot BBS: (716) 426-4779 --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu