Subject: Review: Time in a bottle CD collection.
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From: Phoenyx <quazar@dcnet2000.com>
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Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 20:42:33 -0500
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First, this is an unsolicited review. It and I am in no way related to
the distributors. Any opinions herein are entirely my own and shall not
reflect upon any other person or association. This text is (C) copyright
03-SEP-2000 Mike Thomas aka Phoenyx. You are free to redistribute by any
means necessary as long as this copyright is retained and credit given
for it's contents.


     --=={ Time in a Bottle. An Apple II CD collection }==--

When I first saw the message concerning the soon to be released CD set, I
was very excited. Having missed out on most of the online activity in the
Apple II world, I knew I had lost the chance at a plethora of interesting
and useful information. I immediately went to the online order site and
purchased a set, in spite of the fact that I could put the $50 to better
use. I waited in anticipation as the weekend dragged by, looking forward
to this treasure trove of unknown information. Finally, it arrived in the
mail on Tuesday morning. After all the wait and eager anticipation, was I
disappointed?

Actually, I was, just a bit at first. When I inserted the first CD and
browsed the first few directories I noticed that many of the files were
message groups. Having missed out on these early unions of Apple II users,
I had no idea what to expect in this area. Many of them were simple 'Hi,
how are you' sort of messages with very little useful content. I was also
disappointed a bit later on when I discovered some of the files were
damaged and could not be opened. On top of that, some of the files were
also duplicated elsewhere in the collection. Considering the cost and how
much $50 dollars means to my family, you should be able to understand my
disappointment.

Considering the size of this collection and the time frame it covered,
some duplication should be expected I guess. However, I also expected the
editors to put some effort in eliminating or at least reducing this
duplication and corrupted files. At least in a few of the more obvious
cases.

Not one to be daunted, I continued to peruse the files and even stopping a
while to read some of the more interesting messages. My disappointment
began to disappear when I started coming across messages which fit my own
interests, primarily programming, hardware info and utilities.

I decided to stop reading for a while and check out some more of the CD's
contents before I got too engrossed in the messages. I hadn't even
realized how much time had elapsed just in reading them, but it turns out
I had spent a couple of hours and still had many more to go. The wealth of
information in this set is beginning to become apparent. I began to feel
more at ease and decided to finish my initial, superficial investigation
before passing judgment.

Well, let me just say this. My initial reaction to the set was definitely
way off base. Even now, I am finding programs and info which are worth
more than the cost of the CD's. The combined worth is rather difficult to
calculate since each user must decide which of these files are useful to
them. For myself, I have already found things that I would have loved to
use way back when. I have always been a bit disappointed at being unable
to participate in the early A2 online groups. I now have some idea of the
things I missed out on. Sure, I managed to get by back then, since I had
no knowledge of what was going on. Living in the boonies helped to shield
me from being disappointed by not seeing what I was missing. I guess that
sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

The set is nicely arranged in the order I assume the Genie system used. It
is fairly easy to find your way around, even for folks like me who have
never seen the original storage system. I would like to mention, I am
set up with Balloon which is a big asset when browsing through archive
sets like this. It would certainly be much more difficult if I had to
open every file with GS Shrinkit. I managed to get lucky and found the
Balloon archiver on a diskazine in a collection of disks I picked up
somewhere. I don't know where it is available on the net, or even if it 
is legally available at all. Also, my Focus drive has been very helpful. 
I had already partitioned it to just a few P8 partitions and one large 
HFS one which I am using to unpack files for inspection. If you don't have
these capabilities, don't be too disappointed just use whatever means you
can to access those babies. Of course, it could be in the CD set and I
haven't run across it yet.

At this point I am still perusing the file libraries on the second disk
and enjoying every moment. I have not had a chance to return to the
message areas yet. In fact, I haven't gone back and checked many of the
other directories of the first CD. Yes, I'm sure there will be more of
those simplistic messages. Having been a sysop of my own BBS, I know this
is normal for almost any group of people with little in common except
the topic of whatever message base they happen to be in. At this point
I will not be disappointed no matter what I find. The software on the
second CD has more than made up for the cost, even for a poor old country
bumpkin' like myself.

So guys and gals, do yourself a favor and point your browser the the URL
in the original message and get your own. Even those with out a CD on
their Apple II can still benefit as long as they have some method of
reading a CD in HFS format. AFAIK, this is no problem for Linux or Beos
users and I have heard of a utility for Windows users also. Of course all
you Mac owners are probably smiling about now since you know you will
have no trouble at all reading the CD's. That's ok, I'm doing just fine on
my GS and I can still use my Linux box if necessary. Plus, I figure it
might be one more reason for those Windows users to jump on the Linux or
Beos band wagon. Who knows, all some of them need is just a little push.

For those who missed the original message, here's the order URL again.

http://order.kagi.com/?2ZM

BTW, thanks guys. This has been one of the most useful things I have
purchased for my II's in a long time.

-- 

Thank you for your time and interest. I hope it was helpful
or at least interesting.

Phoenyx,

Apple2 user since March 1984

Links to Phoenyx's pages:
preferred..... http://zip.to/Phoenyx_A2
alternate..... http://www.tinyangeldesigns.com/Apple2