08/1997
Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: ferksy@pegasus.dvz.fh-aachen.de (Christian Gottschling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Meeting Pearls CD-ROM, Volume III Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Date: 28 Nov 1995 20:08:00 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 162 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <49fq70$c8p@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: ferksy@pegasus.dvz.fh-aachen.de (Christian Gottschling) NNTP-Posting-Host: astro.cs.umass.edu Keywords: CD-ROM, freeware, shareware Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME Meeting Pearls CD-ROM, Volume III BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is volume 3 of Germany`s most popular Amiga CD-ROM. It is a collection of installed software, enriched with lots of search facilities. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Compilation Licence: Angela Schmidt, Neu-Ulm, Germany Distributors: Name: Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe GmbH Address: Veronikastrasse 33 45131 Essen Germany Phone: +49-201-788778 Fax: +49-201-798447 EMail: stefano@tchest.e.eunet.de Name: GTI GmbH Address: Zimmersm|hlenweg 73 61440 Oberursel Germany ...and many other Amiga-related vendors. LIST PRICE Suggested retail price is DM 14,95, US$12, #8,85, vS 119,- sFr 14,95. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A Amiga-computer equipped with a CD-ROM drive. 512KB RAM is required. 2MB RAM (or more) are recommended. SOFTWARE A CD-ROM filesystem with RockRidge extensions is recommended. COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000, 2 MB Chip RAM, 12 MB Fast RAM Apple CD300 CD-ROM drive several hard drives AmigaDOS 3.1 AmiCDROM 1.15 INSTALLATION The installation uses the standard Installer, which is easy to use and highly configurable. During the installation, you can restore the original AmigaDOS file permissions of the files on the CD-ROM. You can configure your favorite viewers/players instead of the standard viewers. If this is not enough for you, you can use CD-Write (a special version is included) to "overwrite" configuration files or tooltypes on the CD-ROM. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: For people who are not familiar with CD-Write, it is a software product that simulates the ability to write to a CD-ROM, invisibly using a section of your hard drive. It does not actually write to the CD-ROM disc -- that is impossible. - Dan] CONTENTS The CD-ROM includes 650MB of software. It is a collection of many programs, already installed to run directly from the CD. You get various facilities to browse through this software collection. On the one hand, there is an AmigaGuide-style search interface. On the other hand, the program "FindPearls" can be used to find software on the CD. But FindPearls is not only a search tool for software hunting; it gives you the opportunity to start the desired program, to start a filebrowser by pointing on its directory, and so on. You want to search more? Then use "FindText." This tool allows you to search through ALL documents on this CD with amazing speed. But what's about the software on the CD itself? There are various kinds of software with lots of topics. Apart from the texts already mentioned, there is a large collection of FAQs (60MB) and other texts. Lots of these texts are available in HTML format, too. Very interesting (for German users) is a collection of laws in AmigaGuide format. PasTeX 1.4, the TeX package for the Amiga, previously unpublished on a CD-ROM, fills up 96 MB. You can use it (as all the other software on this CD) directly from the CD. The hard disk installation won't work, but you can correct this easily by using CD-Write. Programmers get a lot of stuff in the drawers "debug" and "dev," and not only tools -- a complete compiler for Amiga E is also included. Do you ever want to know what patches are applied to your OS? Now use the "kiskometer". This shows every call of SetFunction(). Build your personal charts of "patchers"! If you are interested in movies, the "InternetMovieDatabase" gives you information about films, actors, stories etc. This is an Internet-based project with over 57000 films and 470000 links. I think, almost every little actor is included in this database. Want information about Franz Rampelmann (German actor)? Here you get it. If you want to do networking, there are several programs in the drawers "tcp" and "comm." AMosaic is included in version 2. But as mentioned before, you can use CD-Write to prevent it from crashing by raising the stack in its tooltypes to 35000. A full-working demo version of the TCP/IP stack AmiTCP4.0 is included. That's not all: there is much more software. To mention it all, I'd have to write a _very_ long text full of honors. COMPARISON TO OTHER PRODUCTS It is not very easy to compare this CD with others. In contrast to the Aminet CDs, the MeetingPearls isn't a simple backup of an Internet archive, enriched with a simple search-tool. COPYRIGHT NOTICE All typos made in this review are mine. All mine! ;-) This review represents my personal point of view. (Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any comments about my review.) If you would like to re-publish this review in any way, the author requests at least a copy of the used media. Copyright 1995 Christian Gottschling. All rights reserved. Christian Gottschling Alte Reichsstra_e 74 52428 J|lich Germany ferksy@pegasus.dvz.fh-aachen.de --- Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews