** 1 page review / 815 words **

** FASTCDS.GIF here **

FaST Club CD#1

Mark Wherry looks at the FasT Club's flagship CD-ROM...

This CD-ROM is equipped with a full copy of Gemulator 98 v4.8, the 
commercial Atari emulator (v4.6 scored 88% in AC#5) and includes a 
detailed printed manual. All you need to supply is a copy of TOS 
which you can extract from your real Atari machine using the 
supplied utility.

A full copy of Imagecopy 2 is also included which takes care of 
image handling. There's not much to say about this excellent 
graphics utility which hasn't been said before and although the 
current version is currently at v4.1 this version serves as a good 
introduction to the product.

Apart from the commercial software the biggest attraction is the 
inclusion of the majority of FaST Club's PD library - 500Mb of one 
of the highest quality and best organised libraries ever 
collected. The only downside is, like the original disks, 
everything is archived which precludes browsing.

CD#1 is aimed squarely at Atari enthusiasts switching to the PC 
platform and with the titles individually totalling in excess of 
œ650 this first FaST Club release stands on its own - and stands 
extremely tall.

** boxout **
Second Opinion 
FaST Club CD#1/CD#3: Matt Burton activates his laser vision...

This CD-ROM contains the entire FaST Club PD library and a copy of 
Gemulator '98 which suggests it's aimed at semi-retired Atarians 
who have moved over to a PC.

The contents are broken down into directories and catalogued in 
HTML and three column MS Word format (Boo!). The MS Word document 
is identical to the printed catalogue which available separately 
if you feel the urge.

Unfortunately there are not many programs on the Atari platform 
that can import MS Word documents so you're left struggling with 
the HTML version [Ed: The FaST Club have since added an ASCII 
version].

I'll forgive them because the PD library without Gemulator and 
Imagecopy 2 is available as CD #3 for a lot less money which is 
quite nice when you think about it for long enough.

CD#1/CD#3 includes a good mix of software and it's all in English 
- at least I haven't been able to find any foreign programs yet! 
This is just as well because my D in GCSE German isn't quite up to 
the task and translation programs don't always do a brilliant job.

The files are compressed which isn't such a drag if you use the 
catalogue because you always know what files you are looking for 
and the de-compression software is provided.

The content includes some recent material along with classics and 
a significant proportion of ropey and old programs including an 
excellent collection of seedy text adventures including "On The 
Pull" and "Snatch and Crunch" which provide a good laugh on a 
rainy day. There's also an enormous quantity of colour and mono 
clip art which I'm sure DTPers will find useful.

The attraction of CD-ROM collections like this one is value for 
money on a cost-per-file basis. Using this criteria the FaST 
CD#1/CD#3 is a valuable asset to have around.

** Italics **
Matt Burton
** /Italics **
** /boxout **

Fast club CD#2

This collection includes Imagecopy 4.1 bundled with Textstyle, 
along with Imagecopy 2, a collection of fonts in various formats 
and a huge GIF compilation - I almost felt guilty paying just 
œ9.99 for this at ACC'98!

The major thorn in the side of this CD-ROM is that although files 
are grouped together you need the printed catalogue - or one of 
the catalogues from CD#1/CD#3. Despite Imagecopy's excellent image 
cataloguing features, I still feel a decent catalogue of the 
images and maybe the fonts is needed.

The clipart section contains something for every occasion, it's 
just finding it that's the problem! There is a section of web 
graphics which contains loads of buttons and stuff like that - 
more than enough to knock up a home page.

Imagecopy hardly needs introduction as THE Atari image converter. 
In most cases you won't need any other software to view, convert 
and print images. I can confidently say it's worth buying this 
CD-ROM for Imagecopy 4 alone - I just wish it supported 
progressive JPEGs [Ed: The current Imagecopy public beta release 
(v4.2b1 Plus) does).
Textstyle is also a useful program which is great for creating 
headings which can be loaded into Papyrus, used in ST-Guide 
hypertexts and so on.

** Italics **
Matt Burton
** /Italics **

** product boxout **
FaST Club CDs

Publisher:
FaST Club, PO Box 101, Nottingham, NG2 7NN
Telephone: +44 (0)115-945-5250
Fax: +44 (0)115-914-0545
Email: stclub@cix.co.uk
http://www.cix.co.uk/~stclub/

Cost:
Printed Catalogue: œ2.95
CD#1: RRP œ39.95
CD#2: RRP œ29.95
CD#3: RRP œ19.95

Ratings:
Matt Burton: CD#1 90%
Mark Wherry: CD#1 96%
Matt Burton: CD#2 70%
** /product boxout **

** Images **
** FCCD2_1.IMG
** FCCD2_3.IMG
** TS5.IMG