@1 #### #### #### #### # # # # # # # # # ## ## # # # #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### # #### # # #### # # @2 STEVE BYE <=-----------------=> @3 If you harken back to the good old days of issue 2 you may recall my mutterings in the News section about the Amos C.D. Well after a lot of dithering I finally went out and bought a Zappo CD ROM, mainly so I could make use of the Amos CD and all the other tremdous PD compliations out there. Before I go head on into reviewing the Amos CD I would like to tell you a little story, (c) Max B. When I bought my A1200, I got it from Curry's on credit, I thought the extra two year on site warranty for £100 was a good deal. As it turned out, it was. When my 1200 was Just over one year old the internal drive went loopy, it got fixed. Two months later the keyboard started acting up, new keyboard fitted, no probs. Now the power supply keeps cutting out! I think I will have had my £100 quids worth. I reckon the manufacturers somehow get their equipment to self destruct after the one year guaruntee has run out! Anyway long before all this happened I decided to purchase a hard drive for my A1200 I didn't want a self-fit internal as it would invalidate my warranty with Curry's, at the time I couldn't spare the Amiga to be sent off for fitting so I decided on the Overdrive external PCMIA jobbet. Wow what a fantastic drive, 250 Megs and greased lightning. Have you sussed what I am getting at yet? So, I now need a C.D ROM. As I said last issue I had decided to wait for the trap-door version from Commodore, I soon realized this piece of hardware could be "vapourware" or at the very least unlikely to emerge this side of christmas. So my alternative was the Zappo from Archos, the same peeps who make the Overdrive Hard drive I had hanging out my PCMIA port. Now you know what I am getting at, yes? I bought the Zappo in October knowing full well that I couln't run the CD and my HD in unision, a bind but worth it. So that is why I have to boot my CD software from floppy. It also means anything I want copied from a CD onto my HD has to first be copied to floppy, I then have to dismantle the CD ROM and set up the HD. Bloody hell! what a pain the butt! I don't know if it's feasible to have two periph's in the PCMIA at once, but if it is ARCHOS should seriously consider knocking out an adaptor so we can run their HD with thier CD ROM. @3 One other thing, I bought my Zappo from the First Computer Centre in Leeds by credit card, the salesman promised me they had the new V9.0 software for the Zappo as V8.0 was well and truly bugged, so bad was it that a lot of retailers sent back the Zappos to Archos thinking the hardware was at fault. When I received the CD, you guessed it, the GIT was LYING. I bloody hate that, sales-people, ohhh it makes me want to stamp my tiny feet. To cut a very long story short I got the update off off a FRIEND (cheers Mal) I still hassled First Computer Centre and I still have not received the update. So, as far as I am concerned, they are the LAST COMPUTER CENTRE ON EARTH I would buy anything from again. I was impressed by the speed of the service though. Right to finish up this article, which may turn out to be an occasional column, I will, at last, review the Amos CD.@1 THE OFFICIAL AMOS PD LIBRARY CD =============================== Weird Science £19.99 (Shop around and get it for about £17 or less) After a few hours of browsing through the contents of the CD I was a bit taken aback by the amount of disks that were "Removed" I counted at least 40 disks missing, this isn't the current Amos PD's fault, the disks were removed by the infamous Sandra Sharkey who originally started the Amos PDL. Still, I feel my CD is 40 odd disks short! but there is so much on this CD does it really matter? If you are looking for good source code you can forget the first 400 disks as they are mainly music/samples/graphics and ancient (ie. Crap) source. But the remaining 200 or so disks really make up for with oddles of cool source, ranging from crap, jerky scroll routines to excellent full blown utilities and games. If you are stuck on a certain programming task then 99% of the time there will be a routine you can inspect that will help you. In all there are over 1600 source code files on the CD alone. All the disks have been put in their own drawer for easy selection, and there are drawers that replicate parts of the CD, like all the source from all the disks in one place, which I thought was great at first until I realized a lot of the routines had their external files, missing and so were unusable rendering the idea virtually usless, maybe it was to help fill the CD? I don't think so, I reckon it was well intentioned. There are a lot of graphics on here too, that can be very useful to non-artists, the same goes for the ABK mods and samples, C-Text fonts, and about 100 sprite banks. The CD also includes Totally Amos 1-6, a nice touch, but why not 1-14 or more? You also get SID a file manipulator, similar to Filemaster but really crap! I hate this piece of junk, everyone has been saying how good it is for years, when we all know it's about as friendly as Saddam Hussain. Opps, probably upset a few of the old guard there! I know, I'm just a lamer. Use Filemaster. Other items on the CD are Workbenches 1.3/2.0 and 3.0 as well as Sernet and Parnet (no grumbles there dudes) The Amos CD works fine on CDTV, CD32 and my Zappo perfectly. @4 To sum up then: We should be happy and grateful this CD exists. Although it has a few shortcomings I can't see how any serious Amos user could sleep at night knowing what they are missing. Roll on Amos CD 2. @1 AZ Rating #190%@1 =============== @5 Next issue I may review my Crappo, sorry, Zappo CD ROM and possibly the Aminet CD which has an Amos section. @3 Steve bye (Don't ya just luv dem shiny disks!)